The conventional wisdom WAS that Republicans would make great gains in this fall’s election. That perspective took a blow on Tuesday, May 18th when Democrat Mark Critz defeated Tea-Party supported favorite Republican Tim Burns by eight points in the PA-12 Special Election.
Now we find that South Carolina Republican Senator Jim DeMint, who had been considered so likely to win re-election in November that the race does not even appear on wiki’s April 27 chart of major Senate polling for 2010, is leading Democratic challenger Vic Rawl by seven points.
Pollster SCIndex reports;
According to our May 18th telephone survey DeMint’s job approval and re-elect numbers are well below the marks of a strong incumbent. Only 53% of all voters currently approve of his job performance while only 48% of all voters are likely to support his re-election. In a head to head question with Democratic challenger Vic Rawl, DeMint gets 50% of the vote to Rawl’s 43%. It is important to note that Rawl has never run for statewide office and has not aired any TV ads during this primary season.
Keep in mind that DeMint won his first term in 2004 by ten points, and South Carolina voted for McCain over Obama in 2008 by 54 to 45. Now we hear that DeMint is only seven points ahead of a candidate that "has never run for state statewide office and has not aired any TV ads during this primary season." AND only 48% of voters support DeMint’s re-election.
Rawl appears to be a very strong candidate, but Democrats may now want to attract a well-known top-tier candidate for the race, and we can imagine what that will do to DeMint’s numbers.
With Republicans now having to play defense in Senate races in Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kentucky, Louisiana, Missouri, North Carolina, New Hampshire, and now South Carolina (total of 10 states), the 2010 Election is shaping up to mirror the 1934 Election, two years after FDR won the White House because of the Republican-created Great Depression, and Democrats went on to win 10 Senate seats and 9 House seats. American voters don’t tend to reward a Party for destroying their economy. That’s a lesson Republicans seem destined to learn big-time this November.
Crossposted at MyDD.