The Democrats spent almost $12 million yesterday on ad buys. After adding that sum to money already spent by both parties (and their surrogates), these are the top races ordered by total money spent to date:
PA-06 Gerlach/Murphy
PA-07 Weldon/Sestak
PA-08 Fitzpatrick/Murphy
IN-08 Hostettler/Ellsworth
CT-05 Johnson/Murphy
OH-18 Padgett/Space
NM-01 Wilson/Madrid
FL-22 Shaw/Klein
OH-15 Pryce/Kilroy
IL-06 Roskam/Duckworth
KY-04 Davis/Lucas
IN-09 Sodrel/Hill
CT-02 Simmons/Courtney
IA-01 Whalen/Braley
NY-24 Meier/Arcuri
WA-08 Reichert/Burner
VA-02 Drake/Kellam
MN-06 Bachmann/Wetterling
PA-10 Sherwood/Carney
IN-02 Chocola/Donnelly
AZ-05 Hayworth/Mitchell
There are three seats that may be considered "lost" already, TX-22 - DeLay, FL-16 Foley and AZ-08 Tancretin, leaving the Democrats looking for twelve seats. The Democrats spent 80% of their money on the races shown bold. The Soros/Emily's Lister's will pick up the slack in NM-01, OH-15 and VA-02.
Right now I rate, CT-05, OH-18, KY-04, VA-02, OH-15 and AZ-05 as Republican holds, leaving sixteen seats from this list in contention (in my world). My reasoning involves incumbency, turnout and plurality margins that I would be happy to explain if anyone in the entire world cared.
All the Democrats have to do is bat .750 for the rest of the season and they clinch the title.
2 comments:
rick—
I wouldn't rate any of the in-play Ohio, Pennsylvania and even Connecticut seats as a hold right now and that Davis-Lucas contest in Kentucky is too reminiscent of the Harman-Kuykendall race in 2000 (Harman won by less than 2%) for me to try to call it.
Good work. Last night, too, though I heard part of a debate between Burns and Tester awhile back and I'll be surprised if Tester doesn't win.
Best.
Loner,
Thanks. I had to pull that piece because I picked up the Dem spending about 2 minutes after posting. Wrt CT-05, OH-15, OH-18 and KY-4 - all but KY-4 were bettr than 60% R in '04 and KY-04 had a substantially better increase in R votes (37K) than D votes between '02 and '04. Davis also has a good money cushion.
I think that Tester is a much better candidate than Burns but MT has a real taste for pork and Tester would be a junior even if the Dems take the Senate. It's a shame that Burns didn't take the hint and even if he wins he may wind up spending more time with the DoJ than he might wish.
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