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Lamont is going to lose. There is no such thing as momentum or trend lines among the independents and Republicans. Unless Schlesinger more than triples his support into the mid-teens, the logical percentages among each group simply don't add up in Lamont's favor.
Democrats are leaving Lieberman. The unions that backed Lieberman up to the primary have gone "neutral" publicly, but the word is that they're telling their people to vote Lamont. Reid and Clinton haven't merely sent their better campaign staff to Connecticut. Don't underestimate the effects of three House campaigns in a state of five House districts, either, of which Democrats expect to take at least two. As for Lieberman, the kinds of scurrilous aggressiveness and faux outrage with which he now attempts to obscure a mediocre or poor record just don't play well with New Englanders. He's losing the battle with his own record. Lamont just keeps him fighting it, and he desperately keeps on trying to twist out of it. The impression I get is that CT Republicans are thinking long and hard about going back to supporting Schlessinger, who is wrongheaded and something of a bore, but he has dignity and is no opportunist.
Next door, in Rhode Island, crossover-voting Democrats and Democratic-leaning Indies have left Chafee almost entirely. Who is substantially more palatable. Chafee got 54% while Gore got 58% iirc. Chafee is now at 42 or 43%- Bush's vote in 2004. There's no reason in sight for those who give up support for him to return.
Carter has no chance in Nevada. In fact, Ensign will be hell for us to defeat in any of the coming cycles. That doesn't seem to be understood outside of this state. You can't just look at Ensign as a mediocrity and Nevada as trending blue and therefore assign Ensign as vulnerable.
He's very capable and smart. His problem is that he's a hardliner in a bad year for hardliners.
Ensign held the Nevada-1 congressional seat in Las Vegas from '94 to '98. It is an overwhelmingly Democratic district now held by Shelly Berkley. The only way a Democrat wins statewide in Nevada is to win huge in Clark County (Las Vegas) then minimize losses in the remainder of the state. More than half the votes in the state come from Clark County. Since Ensign is known in that district and his base is Las Vegas from his years as a veterinarian here, he destroys the typical blueprint for Democratic victory. It can't happen for Carter and won't happen in '12 or '18 unless we have an extraordinary candidate. The only chance this cycle was mayor Oscar Goodman but I doubt he could have defeated Ensign.
If you look nationally, the pattern to Chafee and soon Lieberman support is in evidence all over. Moderates were a soft sell for hardline Republicans in '00, '02, and '04. This year there's sales resistance that becomes mostly rejection. After reading your post (and writing a post in reply, but getting a hardware crash) I went back to my data and maps. This near-hostility between moderates and hardline Republicans begins along the northern border of the Lower 48, more strongly to the east, during the late spring, and it has moved south and net west. The Republicans that being hit by it are hardliners and their enablers- e.g. Santorum, the Indiana House threesome, rightly or wrongly Chafee- and those beating it are those without significant opponents and/or a reputation for moderacy or cooperation with Democrats (e.g. Snowe, Lugar, maybe Shays).
I've looked at the picture and this split has gone as far south as hitting Pombo (down 42-46) and Doolittle in northern Cal, the Heller/Derby race (45/37 according to Rasmussen iirc; Gibbons used to clear 70%) and Sali/Grant House race near your locale, the Braley run in eastern Iowa and Jim Leach falling under 50% in southern Iowa (47/33 vs Loebsack in a local poll). It seems to be hitting Jim Talent this week, maybe (down to 42% according to Rasmussen). I'm not up on numbers or events in the Colorado Seventh, but John Salazar is running in the clear on the West Slope and so is Jim Matheson in eastern Utah, and to the east of Denver there are the post-Hefley Republican problems in the Colorado Fourth, with Dennis Moore safe further along the line in eastern Kansas. In the East the line of moderate disagreement with hardline R's to the point of tipping races seems to be going through Tennessee and Virginia or North Carolina, e.g the Taylor-Shuler race.
South of this hypothetical line at present are the contests in Southern Cal and Las Vegas, Arizona, New Mexico, and Texas eastward to South Carolina and Florida. I suppose Hawai'i too. Democrats are behind in the great majority of them- more than enough Democrats and leaners in these states and districts are still willing to crossover vote for the likes of Linda Lingle, Brian Bilbray, Duncan Hunter, Ensign, Porter, Gibbons, Kyl, Renzi, Heather Wilson, Henry Bonilla, and so on all the way to Clay Shaw's and Mark Foley's districts in Florida. There are a few exceptions- incumbents or well-knowns Napolitano, maybe Giffords, Chet Edwards and Jim Marshall get moderate votes in bulk.
I'm watching for the moderate/R hardliner breakup to proceed farther south, but it could be a while. I expect, but I'm not sure, that it will reach LV and LA/San Diego and the southern border to El Paso or further east before Election Day. (I'm less confident about Florida, and it won't be enough to change important races anywhere else in the Deep South this year in any case.) The race of the kind in the Southwest that seems diagnostic and best covered is the Madrid-Wilson contest. Wilson has survived the last three elections on an infamous amount of crossover votes in Albuquerque- and she hopes to succeed Pete Domenici in the Senate on strength of further ones in '08.
Well, that's too much detail, really. But I think this phenomenon is real and feel fairly sure some of the Nevada contests are going to be a lot better for Democrats shortly before Election Day than they are now.
Also, in the governors race we are undeniably the underdog, although Titus has a chance. I would peg her down by 4-6 points. There hasn't been a recent poll other than Zogby interactive, which had Titus ahead a couple of weeks ago then flipped to Gibbons' favor. Previous polls had Gibbons ahead of Titus, normally high single digits. Gibbons has significantly more money than Titus and I'm afraid that has become a big factor in this race. Immediately after the August 15 primary he went on the air with several commericals listing areas in which Titus supposedly voted to raise taxes. At the end of the commercial she is called Dina Taxes and that has become a part of the local vocabulary. I've heard it many times around town when her name is mentioned. Someone will say, "Dina Titus? Oh, you mean Dina Taxes." She has yet to go on the air to respond.
I didn't even bother to read the Zogby results b/c of the 'method'. SUSA and Rasmussen and such are far more reliable and accurate, sadly enough. As for vocal vehemence by hardline Pubbies, locally (i.e. Boston) I'm hearing a lot nastier parroted hate radio excoriations of Democrats and ragings at John Kerry and Ted Kennedy from them than I did in 2004. Those aren't exactly the noises of impending victory or confidence in their Cause.
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