Will Republicans be Kicking Themselves November 8th?

Election Day is tomorrow and most political pundits agree that the Democrats will regain control of the House for the first time since 1994. What many did not foresee but what is now a very real possibility is the potential for the Democrats to also regain control of the Senate. Right now this chance still remains remote, but if it is a very good day for Dems, the possibility exists. Currently, there are really only two currently held Democratic seats at risk of being lost, Maryland and New Jersey. However, seats in Arizona, Missouri, Montana, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Tennessee, and Virginia are all currently held by the GOP and are all currently in play. If Democrats hold onto the seats in Maryland and New Jersey (which seems likely), they will need to pick up six of these eight red seats. If I were a betting man, I would predict that Dems only get four of these seats, leaving the Senate in GOP control 51-49.

But if on Wednesday morning it happens that Democrats have picked up the necessary seats to gain control of the Senate, Republicans may be kicking themselves, and it will not be over these aforementioned races. George Bush, Karl Rove, Ken Mehlman, and Elizabeth Dole will be wondering why they did not field a strong candidate for the senate race in Connecticut. Joe Lieberman looks as though he will pull out a close victory over upstart challenger Ned Lamont, though no one should count Mr. Lamont out until the votes are counted. However, if Lieberman wins, he will do so with a large percentage of Republican votes. In fact, if Republicans in Connecticut stay home in large enough numbers, Ned Lamont will pull out a win. This fact has not been lost on the Republican campaign strategists who have refused to endorse their candidate, Alan Schlesinger, who will struggle himself to get to 5%. The thinking goes thus. This is a difficult year for the three GOP House incumbents, all in tight races, and with a governor’s race that is not competitive, Republicans voters in Connecticut, like those nationally, are depressed about their party and may stay home in droves, which means a loss of three seats in the House just in Connecticut. However, Republicans may be inspired to come out to vote for Good Ole Joe, and while in the polls, vote for the familiar incumbents Nancy Johnson, Chris Shays, and Rob Simmons.

These three are facing tough challengers in Chris Murphy, Diane Farrell, and Joe Courtney, respectively, and may lose anyhow. But if the Dems take the Senate, Republicans may be asking themselves why they did not recruit a strong candidate to run against Joe Lieberman. This strategy is not without precedent in Connecticut. In 1970, Rev. Joe Duffey challenged, as an anti-war candidate, the incumbent Democratic Senator Thomas Dodd (father of current senior Connecticut Senator Chris Dodd). Duffey won the primary and Dodd subsequently ran as an independent in the general. The Republicans that year nominated Lowell Weicker who was a moderate representative in the House from Fairfield County. In the three-way race that year, the Republican, Lowell Weiker capitalized on the division among the Democrats to capture the seat that he held on to for three terms until he himself was unseated by one Joe Lieberman in 1988 (Weicker has come out in support of Lamont this year). Given this precedent, the GOP would have been smart to encourage a Republican like Chris Shays to run for Senate. How ironic would it be if Shays loses his House seat in a year that he could have possibly won his state’s senate race.