For decades, Arkansas remained one of the most staunchly Democratic states in the country at every level but presidential elections: the party currently controls both Senate seats, 3 of the 4 House seats, all statewide offices and supra-majorities in both chambers of the state legislature. Since Reconstruction, the GOP has only one a single Senate race and has held the governorship for 17 years.
After 2010, the landscape could be very different. Republicans are now very well positioned to pick-up Blanche Lincoln’s Senate seat and at least one House seat, Rep. Vic Snyder’s AR-02. While the GOP also has hopes of contesting AR-1 and AR-4 (only the Governor’s Mansion remains off limits), the 62-year old congressman just announced he would not seek re-election, handing the DCCC yet another tough open seat to defend.
AR-2 becomes the ninth open seat opportunities for Republicans, but it might very well be the clearest sign yet that 2010 will be a banner year for the GOP: Snyder becomes the first congressman to explicitly link his retirement to his fear of a tough re-election race. But at the start of the cycle who could possibly have expected Snyder would have to spend a single minute worrying about securing another term, let alone become so vulnerable as to choose an early exit?
And yet there he was today, trailing his top-tier Republican opponent by a truly stunning margin in a SUSA poll. How could we have expected that a 7-term incumbent who didn’t even face any opponent in 2008 would trail his challenger 56% to 39%? (There’s justifiable criticism aimed at this survey, which was commissioned by Firedoglake in an attempt to scare Democratic congressmen into opposing the health-care bill, but most of those concerns are directed at the survey’s second part.) It’s obviously impossible to know just what motivated Snyder’s decision, nor whether he was already leaning towards retirement before SUSA’s poll came out; all we can say is that he announced he would not seek re-election just hours after word spread that he was trailing by 17% in a new survey.
If every Democrat that is struggling in a 2010 poll were to retire, where would that leave the party? The NRCC might not have a Tim Griffin in every district, but if Snyder is trailing by 17%, what must the situation be for all the junior Democrats who represent as tough if not tougher districts?
Just like with Bill Ritter and Chris Dodd’s retirements, Snyder’s can be considered good news for Democrats - but only if we forget about how the political landscape looked just 8 months ago. The SUSA poll shows Snyder was so vulnerable that his party might very well be better off without him on the ballot: it is tough to envision any incumbent trailing by 17% eleven months before the election coming back to win it. This is all the more so the case because Democrats have a strong bench in the district, which should allow them to field a solid candidate without the baggage of incumbency. (More on this below.)
On the other hand, AR-2 was nowhere on our radar screen at the start of 2009 - and it should never have gotten there. Even when Griffin announced his candidacy in September, he looked to be coming to the race with too much baggage (see below) to guarantee he’d be able to mount that formidable a campaign against Snyder. And as recently a November, PPP had Snyder edging Griffin 44% to 43%. While that suggested he’d be in a lot of trouble, it is obviously an incomparable result to SUSA’s.
My point: AR-2 was already highly vulnerable prior to Snyder’s retirement, so today’s development isn’t in itself a bad news for his party. But it is the undeniable confirmation that the landscape has deteriorated to a stunning extent for Democrats, leaving them bracing for tougher losses than were imaginable just this fall.
It becomes all the harder for Democrats to take the sting out of Snyder’s retirement when we consider that he was closer to the party’s mainstream than other lawmakers who represent marginal districts. He is not a member of the Blue Dog Coalition; he voted for the health-care bill, against the Federal Marriage Amendment, the ban on partial-abortion, the bankruptcy bill and even the Iraq War. Even if Democrats hold the district, odds are the new congressman will be to Snyder’s right. (Update, with an endearing fact about Snyder: He never raised any money during off-years, which probably makes him unique.)
So what is the situation in AR-2 going forward? Like much of the South, the district has been trending more Republican. In 2000, it voted for George W. Bush by just 1%; three years later, it went for Bush by 3%; in 2008, McCain prevailed by 10%. In short: Voters are increasingly willing to abandon their ancestral allegiance to the Democratic party, which gives Republicans an obviously great shot at a pick-up.
Yet, Democrats can undeniably defend this district. Arkansans have clearly not given up all attachment to the party, which has a lot of well-known and established options to choose from - one of the benefits of the unshakable dominance the party has mentioned at the local level. Their best bet is Lieutenant Governor Brian Halter, who lives in the district; he was last seen mulling a primary run to Blanche Lincoln. The district is less conservative than the state-at-large, so Halter would be going to a more friendly district; he is prominent enough that voters could feel they are voting for a Democrat they can trust, and he would not be encumbered by a tenure in unpopular Washington.
Other potential Democratic candidates include state Sen. Shane Broadway, state Speaker Robbie Wills, Little Rock Mayor Mark Stodola and state Senate President Bob Johnson, who considered challenging Lincoln from the right. In short, the DCCC doesn’t have to worry about AR-2 going the same way as KS-3 or TN-6, where they are still struggling to find a candidate.
Griffin should remain the presumptive GOP nominee. Yet, it’s important to note that he comes witha glaring weakness: he is intimately connected to the U.S. Attorney firing scandal. Here’s what I wrote about him back when he entered the race: “A former aide to Karl Rove, he was appointed U.S. Attorney to replace one of those Bush dismissed in 2006. Griffin was not just a side player in the controversy. His appointment was central to the scandal; it infuriated Democrats, helped them paint the Justice Department as driven by politics, led to a congressional probe - a series of events that forced Griffin to resign from his position in May 2007, just 6 months after being appointed.” (More here.) With Snyder running for re-election, this race would have been a referendum on the incumbent and on Democrats’ record in Washington; but an open seat contest could make it easier for Democrats to turn the spotlight on Griffin.
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On the other hand, it appears the DCCC will avoid an open seat in MI-2 MI-1, where Rep. Stupak was considering running for Governor in a district that twice voted for George W. Bush. He strongly indicated today that he was more than likely to run for re-election instead. There’s no indication for now that the GOP will try to target him, so MI-2 MI-1 is one seat that should be safe for Democrats. This should also relieve Michigan liberals, as the last thing they presumably wanted was to have as their standard-bearer one of their ultimate villains of 2009.
But if Democrats care for more bad news, they can look over at Massachussetts. Martha Coakley now trails her own internal polls (!), while a GOP internal poll has Scott Brown leading by a stunning 15%. More on the special election tomorrow.
