Mark Hemingway
Washington Examiner
3/23/2010
Over at Real Clear Politics, Sean Trende takes a look at the electoral landscape for gubernatorial elections in the Midwest and sees the potential for the GOP to make some significant redistricting gains in Congress:
The biggest state-level prizes in the 2010 midterm elections will be a string of governor’s races in the industrial midwest: Minnesota, Wisconsin, Michigan, Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania. The victor guarantees themselves at least a seat at the redistricting table in 2010 in states that are almost all at risk of losing one or two seats. This could ultimately result in a 10-15 seat swing of house seats, depending on which party comes out on top.
Veteran Michigan pollster MRG shows that the GOP could be in the driver’s seat in one of the more Democratic states of the bunch. In the GOP primary, Congressman Pete Hoekstra, Attorney General Mike Cox and businessman Rick Snyder are all bunched around 20% of the vote; two other candidates receive 10% and 1% of the vote, respectively. The Democrats all have very low name recognition; “undecided” is the big winner over House Speaker Andy Dillon (21%), Lansing Mayor Verg Bernero (9%) and Alma Smith (6%).
Trende only looks at the polling for Michigan, but note that Rasmussen has the GOP candidates in Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania leading. Only the Republican gubernatorial candidate in Minnesota is trailing, but only by three points and still within the poll’s margin of error.
