|
In Florida, the conventional wisdom was that Governor Charlie Crist would be the next Republican Senator from Florida. Then crazed teabagger Marco Rubio stepped in, and Charlie doesn't have the Republican nomination this year. He still looks quite likely to end up as the next Senator from Florida, but only after a massively public, ugly departure from the Florida Republican Party and a hard turn to the left. He might still go back to caucus with Republicans, but even if he does he still has a lot more freedom to buck their leadership than he would have as a regular Republican Senator. I think he's more likely to caucus with Democrats in exchange for a couple of plum committee assignments, myself.
In Kentucky, Republican Secretary of State Tray Grayson was easily dominating in the polls against either Democratic candidate, Lieutenant Governor Mongiardo or Attorney General Conway. Not-actually-board-certified ophthalmologist Rand Paul had a small lead against Mongiardo and a toss-up against Conway. Thanks to an excellent campaign by Conway and Rand Paul being able to tap his daddy's donor base, there's now an excellent chance of picking up a Senate seat in Kentucky, as Paul continues showing off his wacky ideas.
In Colorado, establishment pick Jane Norton has tanked heavily against Tea Party favorite Ken Buck since May, and Buck looks like the current odds-on favorite to win the nomination to challenge appointed Democratic Senator Michael Bennet. Prior polling showed both Buck and Norton in similar positions vis-a-vis Bennet, but with Buck's emergence as Republican leading candidate, various positions from Buck have come to light, such as wanting to eliminate Social Security and the Department of Eduction, and wanting to deny 14th Amendment rights to American-born citizens whose parents crossed the border illegally.
In Utah, long-time incumbent Republican Senator Bob Bennett was ousted before even reaching the primary, blocked from ballot access by a hyperconservative movement at his party's nominating convention, and Tea Party favorite Mike Lee won the resultant primary. Sadly, this is Utah and being a far-right extremist to the point of insanity is not likely to prevent him from winning the seat in November. In any case, it represents another instance of the Republican establishment pick being ousted by the angry far right.
In Pennsylvania, the Tea Party writing on the wall was so clear so far in advance, Republican Senator Arlen Specter didn't bother waiting for the primary; he jumped ship to join with Democrats over a year in advance in a futile attempt to save his political career. Though Toomey held a lead for much of that year while Sestak and Specter battled it out for the Democratic nomination, that lead vanished once Democrats consolidated behind Sestak after the primary, and Pennsylvania has gone from a Republican lean to a toss-up, with the state's Democratic tilt and powerful urban machines giving Sestak a strong edge at the end.
And here we have New Hampshire. Long-time Republican bastion in New England, as recently as 2002 having elected Republican supermajorities to both houses of the legislature, plus a Republican governor and a unanimously Republican Executive Council, famed for its libertarian streak, and home of some of the angriest Republicans around (having so recently held total power, they're madder than anyone at having been so decisively rejected ever since then).
The establishment pick? Why, that'd be Kelly Ayotte, twice appointed Attorney General by the state's highly popular Democratic Governor John Lynch, once completed a term in office, once baldly lied to his face about her political ambitions. She's never run a race in her life, leaving her easily controlled by angry once-relevant Republican party chair Papa Sununu and dependent on central support. Her quit-upon job as AG generically plays well with voters, with several high-profile right-wing stunts intended to bolster her primary prospects. She doesn't have any well-known embarrassing public positions to recant (or, for quite a long time, any publicly-admitted positions on anything at all).
And Papa Sununu thought he'd picked a perfect blank slate to put up for office to avenge his son's humiliatingly thorough political destruction at the hands of Senator Jeanne Shaheen and the New Hampshire Democratic Party. But then something funny happened - well, funny in most years. The far right of the Republican Party decided to stage a revolt against their leadership. Three separate candidates claiming the mantle of True Conservatism showed up - Binnie, Bender, and Lamontagne. Of the three, Binnie is the one who may already have taken the lead from her.
Bender has one hilariously awful political ad set to air this weekend. It hits the Tea Party themes of insanity and hating the government, but doesn't do much to differentiate himself from the other far-right candidates in the race (other than showing what low production values he'll put his name on). Ovide Lamontagne ran 14 years ago and lost massively, will not self-fund, and his long-term political connections play against him among the Tea Party set.
Bill Binnie, meanwhile, is self-funding and with that advantage has a half-million dollar cash advantage over Kelly Ayotte (and has plenty of his own cash to add that that amount as needed). He is far from without controversy of his own, including both his business career and his past political donations, and his social-conservative credentials are extremely low, but his anti-government economic views appear to be the driving factor behind his candidacy. More importantly, though, is his momentum. In April, he polled twenty-four points behind Kelly Ayotte. In May, he polled nine points behind. Ayotte's campaign presence has been virtually invisible, while Binnie signs are at least present on roadsides already. On the grounds that he's been actively campaigning while Ayotte hides, Tea Party candidates are hammering establishment Republicans this year, and he picked up 15 points between April and May, until polling tells me otherwise I'll say that Binnie may in fact very well have overtaken her for the lead. We don't know otherwise and he has those signs in his favor.
Possibly more importantly, Kelly Ayotte's primary political support has come directly from Washington D.C. and the Republican leadership there, with Papa Sununu greasing the way for her. Binnie's self-funding ability has allowed him to campaign without that connection, and at least in Republican primaries this year, D.C. Insider has been a dangerous label to have.
Does any of this mean that Binnie has in fact taken the lead? No. He's clearly a much easier opponent for Congressman Paul Hodes, and some of Binnie's positions would actually represent welcome changes from loyal party followed Judd Gregg even if the worst were to happen. But he's leading in the money race (even if he's providing it himself) on the Republican side, he was within single digits in May without any refutation offered by the Ayotte campaign, and he's had over a month to continue making his move.
In short, Tea Party candidates may have done more to improve Democratic fortunes across the country than any other single factor, and Republicans have shown that they are rabidly inclined to keep leaping off that cliff in pursuit of far-right extremists. Kelly Ayotte not only should not be considered inevitable in September, she may not even be leading right now. Without public polling data to show anybody anything, she should be at best considered an embattled establishment pick facing off against yet another poorly-thought-out Tea Party darling. With any luck, Binnie's unconventional positions will take out Ayotte and proceed to doom him in the general election shortly afterward.
And no Democrat in New Hampshire ought to be talking about Embattled Republican Establishment Pick Kelly Ayotte without bringing up her primary troubles, let alone ceding her unsubstantiated continued status as front-runner. She might very well be New Hampshire's Jane Norton very soon.
|
