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SUNUNU: THIS CYCLE'S SANTORUM.
If you, rightly, count Sen. Joe Lieberman as a half-Republican, there are only 5.5 Republican members of Congress left among the 34 who represent the six New England states: Maine's two female senators; New Hampshire's two male senators; the sole GOP House member who survived 2006, Connecticut Rep. Chris Shays; and you know who.
As Rothenberg Report's Nathan Gonzales points out, one of the four senators looks all but doomed: NH's John Sununu. As Gonzales points out, there is an eerie similarity to the poll tracking for the Sununu-Jeanne Shaheen matchup and last cycle's Pennsylvania race between another Republican who found himself increasingly out of step with the political-partisan preferences of the state he represented: Pennsylvania's Rick Santorum. "Through this point last cycle, two-dozen polls showed exactly the same thing; Santorum trailed Casey by an average of 11 points and the incumbent failed to top 43 percent in the ballot test," notes Gonzales. "Indications are that Sununu will suffer the same fate as Santorum."
The clearing out of moderate Republicans from the Rust Belt is strikingly similar to what Republicans did to moderate Democrats in the South. But with two key differences: It took longer for Democrats to get around to blueing the Northeast and Midwest, a project they could have commenced much sooner; but, second, now that that this conversion is underway it is moving along quite speedily.
--Tom Schaller
COMMENTS (3)
Lieberman as half Dem? Um, don't think so. Same on foreign policy and energy policy as McCain, and already playing the Wright card against Obama. Note, he's not only having a private belief, he's publically advocating for a McCain presidency.
Posted by: DBH | June 27, 2008 11:08 AM
I'm not sure it "took longer" - the rise of Democratic control in the northeast is, after all, a direct response to what happened in the South, since it has everything to do with the ideological shifts within the GOP that pushed more moderate Republican voters into feeling that the party no longer represented them. New Hampshire held out longer, I think because the change is demographic: as Massachusetts natives take over the Southern part of the state, the balance has all but completely tipped; that's less true of Maine, partly because it's not a Mass bedroom community, and partly because it is in many ways quite unto itself and less connected to its region than almost any contiguous US state. Which is why I think Collins and Snowe have far more survivability than the rest of the Northeast Republicans. But the shift to Dems, at least in the northeast, has taken ess than a generation... indeed, it's been about 10 years, 15 years tops, given where things started. Considering that the South took close to 25 to shift, I think "longer" is highly debatable.
Posted by: weboy | June 27, 2008 3:50 PM
Like weboy, I also don't see that the Dems have moved more slowly in bluing the Northeast and Midwest than the GOP did in redding the South.
The latter was a 40-year project, beginning with Goldwater's 1964 run, and Strom's party switch that same year, and ending with the GOP's winning a batch of Southern Senate seats in 2004 that the Dems had long held.
Given the inroads that the GOP was making into the Rust Belt during the 'Reagan Democrat' years, it's hard to date the beginning of the Dem resurgence in the Northeast and Midwest to any earlier than 1986, and I'd argue that, given 1994, even that's way too early a date.
At any rate, the change throughout the two regions is in the right direction. Even Indiana, the most conservative state in either region, is looking downright purple these days.
Posted by: low-tech cyclist | June 27, 2008 5:06 PM