Thread: Congress: Dems face uphill battle to retain Senate

Congress: Dems face uphill battle to retain Senate

By Columbus Dispatch (OH) July 29, 2013 6:47 am

(File Photo)

WASHINGTON -- To hold the Senate next year, Democrats need a bit of luck and a lot of help from Republican primary voters.

Although 33 Senate seats and all 435 House seats will be contested next year, only a handful of those races will be competitive because many take place in states or districts won last year by Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney.

In addition, Democrats must overcome historical tradition that an incumbent president's party loses seats in the off-year elections during his sixth year in office.

And finally, President Barack Obama's popularity with voters remains problematic. The economy has grown at a mild rate while a fresh spate of polls shows that Obama's signature legislative achievement -- the 2010 health-care law -- is toxic with Republican voters.

Yet Republicans squandered those same advantages during the past two elections when their favored candidates in Nevada, Delaware, Indiana, Colorado and Missouri were plowed under by tea party candidates. The primary winners proved to be either too conservative or politically clumsy to win the general election.

If Republican primary voters next year reject establishment candidates for archconservatives in Georgia, Montana and Alaska, and the economy continues to rebound, then once again a chance for the Republicans to control the Senate for the first time since 2006 will elude their grasp.

"There is nothing more important than everybody working putting the economy back on track and putting people back to work," said Mary Anne Marsh, a Democratic consultant in Boston. "If the White House and Democrats can stick to that message and run the kind of grass-roots campaigns they have done since 2008, and the Republicans have self-inflicted wounds by nominating far-right candidates, then I like the Dem chances a lot."

To Republicans, that type of talk is wishful thinking. They point out that the retirement of Democrats Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, Max Baucus of Montana and Tim Johnson of South Dakota have made those states prime targets for Republicans.

They note that when former Democratic Gov. Brian Schweitzer of Montana opted not to run for the Senate, he deprived the Democrats of their strongest statewide candidate.

In a memo distributed to reporters, Rob Collins, executive director of the National Republican Senatorial Committee wrote that "Montana now joins West Virginia and South Dakota as the third red state where Democrats have not only failed to land their top candidates, but to recruit a candidate capable of winning a general election matchup."

In the House, most analysts believe that less than two dozen seats across the country will be competitive.

"There is no visible path for the Democrats reclaiming the House at this point," said David Wasserman, a congressional analysts for the nonpartisan Cook Political Report in Washington.

Even though Ohio does not have a U.S. Senate race next year, the election's outcome will be crucial to the future of Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio. Portman, whose ability to raise campaign cash is legendary, is the chief fundraiser for the NRSC.

"We are in a situation where, over the last few elections, the Democrats have out-fundraised and outspent Republicans by 15 to 20 percent," Portman said. "So we are hoping to be able to close that gap and have adequate resources available for our good candidates."

Senate Democrats currently control 53 seats.

Independents Bernie Sanders of Vermont and Angus King of Maine caucus with the Democrats.

To maintain their grip on the Senate, Democratic incumbents Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Mark Begich of Alaska must win in states won by Romney. By contrast, the most endangered Republican -- Mitch McConnell -- seeks re-election in Kentucky, a state Romney overwhelmingly won.

Brook Hougesen, a spokeswoman for the NRSC, said that Democrats "are stuck defending extremely unpopular incumbents in North Carolina, Louisiana, Arkansas and Alaska. By midfall, Democrats will be defending 15 to seven seats and are already behind the eight ball in four of them."

Control of the Senate could depend on whether Hagan can prevail in North Carolina, which Obama carried in 2008 but Romney won by two points last year. In the reckoning of political strategists, North Carolina has become a "purple" state rather than being solidly "red" Republican.

But Hagan has raised more than $4 million while Republicans have yet to rally behind a candidate.

"The bottom line is, while the Republicans have failed to expand the map in any blue or purple state, the Democrats have candidates in almost every state who have managed to avoid primaries and will have more money," said Justin Barasky, a spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

In the House, Boehner's aides say he is working overtime to maintain his grasp of the speaker's office. Just this year, Boehner has held more than 100 events in 16 states helping House Republicans raise $30 million for next year's contests.

Because Republicans across the country have carved out so many reliable GOP congressional districts, Wasserman said the "only seriously in-danger Republican in the entire House" is Rep. Gary Miller of California.

In Ohio, Wasserman said the only competitive House race involves freshman Republican David Joyce of Russell Township. But Wasserman said Ohio Republicans have drawn the congressional districts with such care that it will be difficult for Boehner to lose one of his GOP colleagues.

"Ohio can easily elect 12 Republicans and four Democrats because the Democrats are so concentrated near Columbus and Cleveland," Wasserman said. "Ohio is a microcosm of the House Democrats' problems."
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FLORIDA - PRIMARY RUBIO OR I AM VOTING FOR A DEMOCRAT FOR THE FIRST TIME IN TOO MANY YEARS TO MENTION

AND this is why the White house and Eric Holder are chosing to ignore the SCOTUS decision on voting rights.

WHITE HOUSE, HOLDER PROMISE TO FIGHT SCOTUS ON VOTING RIGHTS



by WILLIAM BIGELOW
30 Jul 2013

Civil rights activists meeting with Barack Obama and Eric Holder at the White House on Monday emerged delighted with promises made to them to counter the action of the Supreme Court in June striking down the coverage formula in Section 4 of the Voting Rights Act. The ruling decided which states had to obtain clearance from the DOJ or a Washington D.C. federal court before they made any changes to voting procedures.

MSNBC host Al Sharpton stated, "We were assured by the president and the attorney general they will aggressively fight to protect the right of all Americans to vote." He added that there was a "wound in the Voting Rights Act — but it is far from dead."

Laura Murphy of the ACLU said the White House had committed "to use all available resources to protect the crown jewel of the civil rights movement." The activists plan to lead registration and mobilization drives to counter voter ID laws.

Marc Morial, president of the National Urban League, said:

Keep a close eye on action at the state-legislative level. These state legislatures, in the last 24-36 months, there have been a long list of bills introduced in states across the nation — particularly in the South but not exclusively in the South — that fall into the category of voter suppression.
National Council of La Raza President Janet Murguía and new Labor Secretary Thomas Perez also attended the meeting, as well as Florida state Rep. Alan William, who blustered:

One thing that’s not lost upon many of us down there, post the Shelby decision but also post the Zimmerman verdict, we know that next year would have been the first year that Trayvon Martin would have had an opportunity to vote. And we know that it’s very sacred, and it’s not lost on us. We want to make sure that everyone has that opportunity.
Holder plans to take advantage of provisions in the Voting Rights Act left intact by SCOTUS to reimpose pre-clearance before the states can act unilaterally.

White House spokesman Josh Earnest said:

We should be able to build bipartisan consensus about the need to protect those important rights. The President is certainly interested in working with Democrats and Republicans to protect those rights. And that’s something that Republicans have supported in the past, and I don’t see why they wouldn’t support those kinds of measures in the future.

The White House, Holder, and the activists are ignoring one thing: the American public. A June 25 McClatchy/Marist poll found that 84% of registered voters felt it was a good thing if election laws were changed to require voters to show identification in order to vote. 99% of GOP voters, 87% of independents, and 72% of Democrats agreed with that sentiment. Most significantly, the percentage of non-whites who approved of voter ID was even higher than whites; 83% of non-whites favored it and 82% of whites.

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Governm...-Voting-Rights