The second congressional district of the State of Washington has been held by a Democrat since 2001. It has not been on anyone's radar as a battleground. Larry Sabato does not even include the district in his Crystal Ball rankings, which means that he does not believe that it is in play. In the REal Clear Politics rankings, it has been listed as likely Democrat. Now, however, a poll has been released showing that in the first three days of September, at least, the Republican candidate is 4% ahead of the Democrat incumbent. The numbers are 50% to 46% which is terrible news for the Democrats.
Obviously, the results of one district are not dispositive of the outcome of the entire national election, but this poll is earth shaking nonetheless. this is a destrict which ought to be securely Democratic. It is not an open seat. It is in a blue state. It has a history of voting for Democrats. In short, it is the type of seat on which the Democrats can normally count.
The problem that results like this present for the Democrats is enormous. Just yesterday, the NY Times ran an article about the "firewall" that the Democrats were going to construct to protect their majority in the House. Washington's second district is not part of that calculus. Indeed, if seats like this one are in play, the resources of the national Democratic party will be spread so thin that they will cease to be effective. There are at least 90 and maybe as high as 120 other seats now held by Democrats that have generally been rated as less secure for the Democrats than this one. If those rankings are even close to being correct, we could be seeing the possibility of the pickup of 100 seats by the Republicans, a change never before reached in modern times.
It is a tough time to be a Democrat. Of course, given that the Democrats have just spent two years making it a tough time to be an American, I have no sympathy for them at all.
No comments:
Post a Comment