Kagen Among Top Vulnerable Dems
Written by Daniel on May 2, 2007 – 2:20 pm - Welcome, if you're new here, you may want to subscribe to our RSS feed or subscribe to our email newsletter. Thanks for visiting!
Today from Robert Novak’s Evans-Novak Political Report:
Having passed the first quarter of the 2008 cycle, House Democrats are extremely optimistic about their chances of holding the House majority. Buoyed by their lead in the congressional generic ballot — which has widened since November’s election — they also claim that their polls in the 50 most competitive congressional districts could bring them a nine- to 11-seat gain in 2008. Such a gain would be an unprecedented second surge by the party following its 30-seat gain last November.
This may seem too optimistic, given the number of shaky seats they will be defending — particularly those in the chart below. Democrats’ success in the last election would suggest that they are clinging to more competitive ground this time than they were in 2006. Although they did manage to seize some House seats they will be able to keep, they also won some seats solely because of GOP corruption. These are the most likely to return to the Republican column in 2008.
He then lists 13 seats as “Democratic Seats Likely to be Targeted.” Kagen’s margin of victory makes him one of the six must vulnerable of those 13. Good golly.
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Posted in Johnson/Barca Redux |
May 2nd, 2007 at 7:12 pm
If I recall correctly, Bob Novak also listed the Wisconsin 8th as a district “Democrats think they can win, but can’t” a few weeks before the 2006 mid-term election. He was wrong then, and hopefully he’s wrong now.
May 2nd, 2007 at 7:32 pm
If I recall… Novak was saying that the Democrats have a chance of winning the 8th District, and they did. Comments like that were immediately dismissed… even by our favorite bloggers here.
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:16 pm
too bad for you guys that most are projecting that the Democrats will add to their majority in the 2008 elections.
Having an out going President with a 28% approval rating ( or worse by then) and a likely Democratic take over of the White House does not bold well for your chances of picking up the 8th. Unless Tommy is the GOP nominee and that just isnt happening.
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:30 pm
Matt,
Novak was the first one to have WI-08 in the Lean-Democratic Category in 2006.
Kagen’s put the target on himself. Not some grand Rovian plot like Kagen’s psyche thinks it is.
May 2nd, 2007 at 9:36 pm
Ryan, welcome back
No need to rain on our parade so soon. Let’s see what the Democrats do to themselves before the election. As Fred Thompson says:
May 2nd, 2007 at 9:47 pm
Ryan… I don’t know what poll you’re reading from…. I see it at 35% and the approval rating for the US Congress is about the same! So what is your point? Not sure if you know you’re history, but Ronald Reagan… the guy that had a landslide in 1984… had a lower approval rating than Jimmy Carter did 18 months before election. Approval ratings are pretty meaningless.
If Republicans run on ideas– actual leadership on immigration reform, real ideas on energy, lower taxes, and victory on the War on Terror things will be much different in 2008. People don’t like it when people come out and say the United States of America is defeated (like the Democrats are doing)… They don’t like it when thousands protest to demand rights when they just walked over the border. People want leadership… they want victory… they want to be #1.
I love this video because of this very point.
May 3rd, 2007 at 1:29 am
Kevin,
An October 18th, 2006 post from Daniel talked about Novak moving the WI-8 into his “leaning Republican” column. Did he change that prediction in the days leading up to the election? He might have, and I probably just missed it.
May 3rd, 2007 at 5:38 am
Yeah, that was after the first debate where Kagen was abysmal. Team Gard never capitalized like many thought they were going to.
Rosner was a good guy, just lousy Campaign Manager.
May 3rd, 2007 at 10:54 pm
Kevin - granted, Brandon is a good friend of mine, but I think it’s wrong to assign the loss to the campaign manager here. The ground game went well; I think we lost it on the air war, particularly the way the Profits over Patients was run at the end. In a razor-thin election, one bad ad ill-timed at the end could have been the difference between victory and defeat.
May 4th, 2007 at 7:49 am
It was bad strategy. Gard ran like he was an incumbent member of Congress and played into Kagen’s message of being an outsider.
May 4th, 2007 at 9:28 am
Kagen still has time to talk his way out of his seat. One could put together a book on the asinine things he has said.