Fillibuster Watch: October 25

October 25, 2008

Mac Zilber

There has been little movement in senate races over the past week. The only change I am going to make on the list is to move Al Franken’s race in Minnesota from “Tossup” to “Leans Democratic,” as he has taken a pretty consistent lead.

“Gimme States” - Colorado, New Mexico, New Hampshire, Virginia
“Leaners” - North Carolina, Minnesota, Oregon
“Tossups” - Alaska
“Leans Republican” - Georgia, Mississippi, Kentucky

The only notable news out of these senate races in the past week is that John McCain has pulled resources out of Colorado, New Hampshire and Minnesota, which makes those states significantly more likely for the Democrats to win. Also of note is that the news came out that North Carolina Democratic candidate Kay Hagan’s husband goes to a country club that was segregated until 1995. Kay Hagan is getting about 90% of the North Carolina black vote, so if she loses some of that due to this story, that could significantly hurt her, as North Carolina has a large number of black voters. In Mississippi, the Republican candidate, Roger Wicker, is running advertisements charging that the Democratic candidate, Ronnie Musgrove, is not supporting Barack Obama enough. If Musgrove doesn’t come out and support Obama, he may lose some of the black vote (Mississippi has more black voters than any state), but if he does come out and support Obama, he may lose some political moderates. Finally, speaking of supporting Obama, Barack Obama endorsed Jeff Merkley, the Democratic senate candidate in Oregon, in a new ad that began airing a couple of days ago. This is a big blow to Republican candidate Gordon Smith, the most liberal Republican in the senate, who had been trying to tie himself to Obama the entire campaign.

Overall, not much is moving in the senate, and I think that the Democrats look likely to end up with 57-58 seats after election day.

Questions or Comments? I answer all emails I receive at themuse [at] albanyhighcougar [dot] com.

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