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WASHINGTON – Oh, how the tables have turned.
Nervous Democrats are on defense and emboldened Republicans sense opportunity heading into 2010 and the midterm elections. It was just three years ago that the GOP lost the House and Senate as well as governors’ races in a cross-country Democratic wave.
Republicans hope to pick up seats by harnessing the sour public mood toward incumbents and voter wariness over President Obama’s policies. A look at the landscape:
There are 58 Democrats, two independents who vote with them and 40 Republicans. At least 36 seats are up.
Democratic leader Harry Reid is woefully unpopular in Nevada. Six Republicans are competing for the chance to topple him.
The GOP is going after three Democratic-held seats filled with appointees after Obama chose sitting senators for his administration. Democrats want to pick up seats left open by retiring GOP senators in Florida, Kentucky, Missouri, New Hampshire, and Ohio. They also are seeking to overtake scandal-scarred Republican Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana and are eyeing GOP Sen. Richard Burr in North Carolina, where Obama won last fall.
Democrats control it 258-177.
The party in power typically loses seats in a midterm year; Democrats lost 54 seats – and the House – in 1994. Even Democrats expect to see double-digit losses next year. Republicans would need to pick up 41 to regain control.
Far more Democratic seats are vulnerable than Republican ones. About two dozen Democratic districts are especially ripe for a switch, compared with about a dozen GOP districts.
Republicans are targeting a slew of freshmen House Democrats elected on Obama’s coattails in moderate-to-conservative districts that McCain captured last fall and in places where the victories were achieved largely because of record-breaking turnout of blacks and youth with Obama on the ballot. The GOP also is going after Democrats in traditional swing-voting seats.
So far, House Democrats have money on their side, with $44 million raised through September compared with $27 million for Republicans.
Voters will choose 37 governors. Many Republicans view winning these races as the best way to rebuild the party because those elected to statehouses in 2010 will redraw congressional and legislative districts for the next decade.
Democrats have a 26-24 majority of governor’s posts, now that they lost Virginia and New Jersey to Republicans.
Both Republicans and Democrats expect the GOP will pick up Democratic-held seats in at least two states McCain won last fall – Tennessee and Kansas.
Elsewhere, Republicans are looking to overtake Democratic governors in Colorado, Iowa, Massachusetts and Ohio. Incumbents in New York and Illinois are on the radar. The GOP has on its priority list open Democratic-held seats in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. Attention is also on Oklahoma, Oregon, Maine and New Mexico.
