The Good News and the Bad News of Senator Dodd’s Retirement
The Good:
With AG Blumenthal in, this seat is definitely safer for Democrats. Public Policy Polling had a poll in the field this week and the results are quite good for Blumenthal:
When Chris Dodd retired last night his seat went from one of the most vulnerable to one of the safest for Senate Democrats. Attorney General Richard Blumenthal leads all three of the Republicans in the race by at least 30 points in polling we conducted Monday and Tuesday night before Dodd’s announcement.
Blumenthal is unusually popular, especially in hyper partisan times when voters like few politicians. 59% have a favorable opinion of him to just 19% who see him negatively. It’s no surprise that he’s liked by 71% of Democrats and 60% of independents, but even Republicans view him favorably by a 37/35 margin. It doesn’t take a lot of hands to count the number of Democratic politicians with positive numbers among GOP voters these days.
Blumenthal leads Rob Simmons 59-28, Linda McMahon 60-28, and Peter Schiff 63-23. It would take an epic collapse for him not to be Connecticut’s next Senator.
Blumenthal also has polls for favorability 59/19 and includes a plurality of Republicans in the state.
Congressman Chris Murphy (CT-5) also was polling ahead of all repub candidates by 7 – 16 points, which seems to mean that Dodd was the issue, not anti-Dem sentiments especially.
The Bad:
1. Senator Tim Johnson (SD) becomes chair of the Banking Committee. Senator Johnson really loves banks.
2. Blumenthal was widely expected to be the Lieberman-killer in 2012. Now who’s up?
Tags: 2010 Election
Don’t worry, I’m sure there’s a line around the block of Dems who would like to go after Lieberman.
Can I admit to being a wee bit disappointed that Ned Lamont won’t run for the seat? How awesome would it be for Ned Lamont and Joe Lieberman to be colleagues?
I would also like to add – damn PPP was fast with that poll. Were they polling before the announcement?
Apparently PPP had one of their polls up asking people to choose where to poll next and CT had won a week or so back. Apparently, since some devotee of Ron Paul is running, a bunch of the PaulBots freeped the thing. So PPP was in the field Monday and Tuesday with their CT poll.
And I guess Lamont is nowhere near this thing. PPP didn’t even poll his name.
But I think that if I were Ned Lamont I would start running for Lieberman’s seat now.
The Conservatrolls will love this one — there’s already talk of Dodd heading to an administration job, maybe Treasury.
http://thinkprogress.org/2010/01/06/dodd-treasury/
Lamont is running for the open governor seat.
Ah, that is a nice development.
The irony of Dodd’s retirement is that there IS no downside to it. What was expected to be a heavily-contested race that was leaning R is now a safe D seat.
The only possible downside would be if Blumenthal is a Stealth Lieberman. And Dodd was hardly the Middle Class’ Best Friend, what with shilling for those Conn. insurance companies.
I know that the political meme of the day is “Dems in Disarray”, but any careful analysis of THIS race would make today’s developments a net plus for the D’s. Dorgan was trailing handily in the polls to the Governor, and the Ritter seat in Colorado is a toss-up at worst.
But a competitive Senate race is now off the table and firmly in D hands. I’m happy with that.
Given Tim Johnson’s health problems, he may pass on chairing the Banking Committee. Next in line after him is Jack Reed, a much better possibility.
If Tom Carper was on his death bed and was next in line for the Chair of the Banking Committee, do you think he would think of his health and pass it by?
Neither would Johnson. Although I do think that Reed would be the better on the issues.
I’ve heard some of the Dems in Crisis narrative on NPR today and it really is crazy. The only news that is very tough is Dorgan’s retirement, but CT is fine and GOP retirements have left a competitive field in 4 or 5 states, so it is hard to see crisis yet. Plus today has a story of the RNC having real money issues right now in the cycle……
And then there’s N. Dakota…..
Really though, I am glad Dodd has made a gracious, smooth exit. None of this clawing, and mud-slinging, fiction/fact finding till the bitter end. Good for him.
Ed Schultz from The Ed Show is seriously considering running for the ND seat (he was talking about it on his show yesterday afternoon on XM).
Dodd to Treasury! They are kidding us right. I am certainly far from righty, but I would object to Mr. Bank of America and his sweetheart deal getting anywhere near Treasury. Want more Foxes inside the henhouse? Want to stop big banks in their tracks? Go to MoveYourMoney.info. This is exactly how the middle class can bring down big bankers, stop their outrageous fee scams and help your local community. By putting you money into our local Community Banks they would be reinvesting in OUR communities. Sounds like a great idea to me.
MJ: Ed Schultz is NOT considering a run, as HE stated on his show last night.
The Dems in crisis narratives is overblown. More Republicans in both the House and Senate have announced retirements, and they have a smaller caucus.
Will Carper suffer any blow-back for cosponsoring an ammendment with Dodd that cut $4.5 Million from Aviation Security to give money to firefighters for more tech toys?