Related Content

Election Preview

• Video: Inside the Election Preview
• Twenty Questions, So Many Possible Answers
• Time to Play House (PDF)
• A Year When Everybody’s Vulnerable
• Roll Call Casualty List
• The Big Picture (PDF)

Regional Breakdowns

• New England
• Mid-Atlantic
• South
• Midwest
• Plains
• Southwest
• West

Print

E-Mail

Reprints

Text Size

Latest News

• Lincoln’s Saturday Timing Puzzles Colleagues
• Senate Democrats Score Major Victory
• Republicans Continue to Challenge Health Bill
• Greg Ball Drops Out of New York Race
• Democrats Line Up 60 Votes to Start Debate

While some political observers thought Rehberg could be vulnerable this cycle, he’s getting an easy ride to re-election.

Utah

House

3rd district
Open seat: Chris Cannon lost the GOP primary
Outlook: Safe Republican

After stunning the Utah political establishment by nearly knocking off Cannon at May’s Republican state convention, former gubernatorial aide Jason Chaffetz finished the job in June, beating the Congressman by 20 points in the Republican primary.

Cannon had teetered on the brink of political extinction in the past, winning competitive GOP primaries in 2004 and 2006 after barely surviving challenges at his state party conventions. But Chaffetz, the former chief of staff to Gov. Jon Huntsman Jr. (R), ran a strong anti-Washington, D.C., grass-roots campaign that proved very effective.

Chaffetz now appears to be a shoo-in to come to Capitol Hill for the 111th Congress. He faces a general election campaign against college professor Bennion Spencer (D), but Utah’s 3rd district, in the central part of the state, is overwhelmingly Republican.

An early September poll showed Chaffetz at 60 percent while Spencer took a meager 18 percent.

Wyoming

Senate

Regular election
Incumbent: Mike Enzi (R)
2nd term (73 percent)
Outlook: Safe Republican

Enzi faces college professor Chris Rothfuss (D) on Nov. 4. He should roll to another easy victory and a third term. Gov. Dave Freudenthal could have made this seat competitive, but he declined to run when asked to by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Special election
Incumbent: John Barrasso (R) was appointed on June 22, 2007
Outlook: Safe Republican

Barrasso was appointed to replace Sen. Craig Thomas (R), who died in early June 2007 after having easily won re-election the previous November.

Though potentially a target because of the often-quirky nature of special elections, Barrasso should be fine this November against attorney Nick Carter (D). A Barrasso victory would entitle him to finish out the remainder of the six-year term Thomas won in 2006.

Barrasso, a state Senator before being appointed to the Senate by Gov. Dave Freudenthal, was already known statewide because of his work around the state as an orthopedic surgeon. He has taken easily to his new job, working on issues important to his state on the legislative side and raising a healthy amount of money on the political side.

Additionally, he is running in a solidly conservative state and should be further buoyed by the fact that it is a presidential year. Freudenthal is probably the only Wyoming Democrat who could have made this race competitive this year, but he declined to run, showing no interest in serving on Capitol Hill.

House

At-large
Incumbent: Barbara Cubin (R) is retiring
Outlook: Likely Republican

Former two-term state Treasurer Cynthia Lummis (R) might not raise more money than Internet entrepreneur Gary Trauner (D). And her campaign might not be as crisp.

But in a Republican state and in a presidential year, the well-known GOP politician is better-positioned for victory.

Trauner nearly knocked off Cubin in 2006, capitalizing on the Congresswoman’s unpopularity at home and the GOP’s political problems in that election. This time around, he is better-known and more accepted by the electorate as one of them — Trauner is a New York native.

But Lummis carries none of Cubin’s baggage, and the expanded universe of voters who show up for presidential elections but not for midterms should play in her favor.

Additionally, Trauner is not running as a conservative Democrat in the vein of popular Gov. Dave Freudenthal (D), and he is therefore likely to fail to engender the same kind of appeal among Republican and conservative independent voters.