The swing state project’s “plf515” has crunched the numbers. Bottom line: If Castle gets a decent challenger he is in deep shit.
Finally, let’s put it all into one model. This model worked somewhat better, and identified 20 hyper-vulnerable Republicans.
AL03 AZ01 CT04 DEAL FL10 KY05 MI07 NM01 NV03 NY13 NY23 PA03 PA15 WA08 NJ02
PA06 IA04 MI04 MI06 OH06Who are the most vulnerable, according to the combined model:
Rick Renzi (AZ-01) is the most vulnerable, (snip)Michael Castle (DE-AL). Delaware gave Kerry 53% and Gore 55%. It has a reasonably large Black population (18.9%), and a moderate median income ($47,000).
That’s why, as I’ve mentioned previously, Castle will be running as an ersatz Democrat this time. He will have no Republican talking points. He will have no Republican agenda. The word Republican will never escape from his mouth and the word Republican will never appear on a Castle sign or mail piece. He will say “I am proud to be a Republican.” on the campaign trail exactly the same number of times that he will say “I am a proud to be a fucking ass-wipe.”
In other words the Republican party will be leaderless and that will make it an interesting race with a number of interesting implications for the down ticket races, which I will be blogging more about later.