arkansas

Former U.S. Attorney Conner Eldridge announced on Sept. 9 he will seek the Arkansas Democratic Senate nomination and the right to challenge incumbent Republican Sen. John Boozman in 2016.  

Writing in the Arkansas Times before Eldridge entered the race, veteran political journalist Max Brantley observed  the Democrat would be “a sparkling candidate in a long tradition of young, ambitious, smart lawyers — [Dale] Bumpers, [David] Pryor, [Jim Guy] Tucker, [Bill] Clinton, [Vic] Snyder.”  

Illinois Republican Mark S. Kirk is the most vulnerable senator in the country up for re-election this cycle. He kicked off his campaign in May with his first television ad, nearly a year and a half from Election Day, and it was promptly treated like a game-changer by some reporters. Of course it’s healthy to digest that kind of analysis with a healthy bite of skepticism.  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPUoJ70cM4E  

You could feel it from Day One of this cycle. Senate Democratic strategists knew they were smarter than their Republican adversaries. They’d out-think them and out-work them.  

Incumbent Democratic senators who run good campaigns rarely lose, I was reminded. Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, who had been appointed to his seat, won a tough race in 2010. So did Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada. And Missouri Sen. Claire McCaskill did the same in 2012.  

A month ago, I wrote about “6 Races Both Parties View Completely Differently .” These were a half-dozen contests where strategists generally disagreed on the shape and trajectory of the race.  

Instead of averaging out the differing opinions and declaring the races too close to call, it was more likely that one party would be very right and the other very wrong. Now, with results in hand, we can see who had the better analysis. Unfortunately, the parties split the races on Election Night.  

Here is an emerging surprise of the midterm elections: Republican candidates are more popular than Democratic candidates in top Senate contests.  

It’s no secret the path to victory for Democrats in the Senate was to demonize GOP candidates in the eyes of voters who are dissatisfied with President Barack Obama. For much of the cycle, Democrats were banking on their incumbents’ personal popularity and connection to each of their states being enough to carry them to victory.  

With just hours before Election Day, the only question is how good of a night it will be for Republicans.  

In the Senate, the following states have been updated: Colorado, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky and West Virginia .  

The most vulnerable senators who face the voters in less than two weeks run the gamut from multimillionaires to one of the poorest on Capitol Hill, based on Roll Call's Wealth of Congress ranking of the minimum net worth of every single lawmaker.  

Two senators in tough spots on Nov. 4 are members of the 50 Richest  list. One of the vulnerable senators has a negative minimum net worth.  

Republicans have the wind at their backs this year. But not every GOP nominee is taking advantage of that dynamic. As usual, some candidates are under-performing, proving once again that candidates and the campaigns they choose to run actually matter.  

That should come as no surprise to anyone who watched Republican Senate nominees Todd Akin of Missouri and Richard Mourdock of Indiana implode in 2012 or Delaware Republican Christine O’Donnell and Colorado Republican Ken Buck lose in 2010.  

While national polls show a stable landscape, polls in individual races continue to show some movement. That movement leads us to make a number of changes to our Rothenberg Political Report/Roll Call ratings .  

Most of the House changes benefit the GOP, while the Senate and governor changes are far more mixed.  

I have been thinking for months about how politics has changed over the past decade, but those changes struck home in a very obvious way while I was reading a recent Washington Post article written by the very able Philip Rucker.  

“Senator’s parents hit trail to preserve Ark. dynasty" was a front page piece that noted the efforts of former governor and former senator David Pryor and his wife, Barbara, to help their son, Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor, win re-election next month.