The race to fill Republican Butch Otter’s open seat in Idaho’s first district was one of my favorite stories to write about last year. In what is now a campfire legend, Bill “Brain Fade” Sali rode a wave of bad press for his asinine antics and bad reputation in the Idaho state legislature to a spectacularly dismal 49-46 victory over Democrat Larry Grant last November. (And when Bush carries your district with 68% of the vote, no self-respecting Republican candidate has any business performing that badly.)
However, aside from being the handmaiden of his campaign benefactors, the economic regressives at the Club For Growth, Sali has kept a mostly low profile in the House this year. So one might expect that Sali’s high negatives have softened over the past eight months, right? Well, maybe not, if you believe the latest polling.
Via The Hill and New West comes news of a new poll conducted by Greg Smith and Associates showing Sali with some serious baggage (“voters”, July 11-13):
Bill Sali (R-inc.)
Favorable: 29
Unfavorable: 46
No Opinion: 13
Unaware: 12
MoE: ±5.3%
Just dismal. And how does Larry Grant fare, the rematch candidate who commissioned the poll?
Larry Grant (D)
Favorable: 28
Unfavorable: 13
No Opinion: 29
Unaware: 30
MoE: ±5.3%
So, despite losing a close race and feeling the full fury of the National Republican Congressional Committee and the Club For Growth (who spent $483,000 and $441,000 smearing Grant’s name, respectively, in the closing weeks of the campaign), Grant walks away with only a 13% disapproval rating, while 59% of the district’s voters either do not recognize his name or have no opinion of him either way. Losing a House race, it would seem, does not earn one a great deal of meaningful name recognition.
While Sali has not shaken off his negatives, it is difficult not to mention that this district had little problem re-electing the late Congresswoman Helen Chenoweth despite her own psychedelically nutty reputation. It seems that Sali still has yet to endear himself in the same way, though.
PS: You might remember the Boise-based Smith & Associates firm as the curators of a startling poll last fall showing Sali’s support evaporating while the rest of his Republican colleagues were in solid shape.
idaho might elect a new dem conrgessman AND senator in 08. we almost won wyoming, if gov freudenthal runs for the new senate race we could win that, colorado, arizona, nevada if gov gibbons stays as unpopular as he is now, with the exception of Romney land (I mean Utah) we might start making gains in the west other than the coast! this is really exciting stuff.
AZ-05 had more to do with the GOP opponent than anything else. I’ll give you the other one.
As for the “next few decades”, I think the liberal blogosphere has a real problem of short-sightedness. 2006 was a banner year for the Democrats; 2008 is shaping up to be similar, though it may not be as strong depending on who the nominee is. After that, the political environment will be so fundamentally different, I don’t know how you guys can honestly think that things will continue down the same path.
Its the same thing when there were posts on MyDD about possibly reaching 60 or 67 Senate seats by 2010. 2010, of course, will be the midterms for the next President. If that President is a Democrat, all of recent history (with the exception of 2002, thanks to 9/11) suggests that the party in the White House will lose seats in Congress.
The Democratic Party has made a lot of gains in the last three years, but those numbers have been from independents and soft Republicans who cannot in good conscience support President Bush. And while it is a stretch to make Bush a political issue in 2008, as he’s leaving office, its a downright impossibility to do the same in 2010 and beyond. Without running against Bush, the national political environment that the Democrats have absolutely relied on to win will be different. Will it continue to benefit Democrats? Maybe, but there’s no way to say for sure. The Republican Revolution lasted for 12 years, but I imagine there were Republicans in 1995 who were saying the same thing, that “in the next few decades, a lot more states will be turning red”.
Despite Warner’s favorability, he wouldn’t neccesarily defeat Tom Davis, and he sure as hell wouldn’t do so easily.
Look at the only time Mark Warner won statewide: he outspent his opponent 2:1, and won unusually large amounts in rural Virginia while keeping a lock on Northern Virginia. He was also running after the disastrous term of Jim Gilmore.
In a potential VA SEN match-up, Warner wouldn’t be able to outspend Davis as easily. Since it would be a federal race, Warner would have to take a position on issues that would distance himself from voters he won in 2001. And Tom Davis, who currently has a good approval rating himself, would cut into his support in Northern Virginia.
I’m not saying Warner would lose, but by no means would it be a guaranteed pick-up.
Plus there’s always the chance that Mark Warner passes on the race.
the two seats we picked up in arizona. as for the west, while i don’t believe it’ll suddenly turn overnight, i think the states west of, and including, the line that goes down from north dakota to texas, are going to be a lot bluer over the next few decades.
As someone who was born in Idaho and spent the first 25 of my 29 years there, I can tell you this: Bill Sali will keep getting reelected as long as he has a pulse and can survive primary challenges. I’ll be dipped in shit and rolled in oats (Idaho saying) if the Democrats ever win the governorship or a U.S. Senate seat or a congressional seat from that state in my lifetime. It’s just too Republican of a state, and it’s getting more conservative. All (well, most) of the people moving into the state, are escaping liberal enclaves and bringing their conservative ideologies with them. Translation: Republicans will rule the state for many years to come. Here’s an ironclad law of Idaho politics: the Democrats always seem to do better in midterm elections, when there is not a Republican pres. candidate on the ballot. Then they lose all the gains they made in the next election when the “peripheral” voters show up to vote, and vote Republican up and down the ticket. The Democratic party is so demoralized in that state, with few to no resources and support it can give any of its candidates. While Larry Grant might have come close to winning, the simple fact is, he was not a quality challenger. A quality challenger is one who is usually a former officeholder, has party experience, and can raise $$$ like hell. Larry Grant, while maybe a good lawyer for Micron, was none of these, and will likewise lose in 2008. Don’t get me wrong–I’d love for him to win, but the days where the Democrats could eek out a victory here and there in Idaho are long gone.
If you remember in 1984, Democrat Richard Stallings won ID-02 even as Reagan was getting about 75% in the district. Everyone said that he would be defeated in ’86, but he held on and did so until he retired in 1992.
Stallings BARELY won in 1984. That was also more than twenty years ago. Demographics have changed since then. Read: more Republicans moving into the state. If you want an indication of how dead the Dem. party is Idaho, just go to the Sec. of State’s webpage and look at the number of uncontested state legislative seats in the 2006 election, and then look at how many county-wide elected Dems there are in the ENTIRE state. Sure, Ada county is pretty Democratic, as well as Blaine county, and a couple around Lewiston and Pocatello, but there are no Democratic-officeholders anywhere else in the state–an indication of party health.