GOP gloom lightens for 2010

It’s still an uphill fight, but Senate Republicans are finding the playing field has become just a little less tilted in the run-up to 2010 midterm elections.

The political circus engulfing beleaguered Illinois Sen. Roland W. Burris and the shaky prospects of appointee Democrats in Colorado and New York have given the minority Republicans the opportunity to go on the offense for a change after two election cycles in which the party was consistently on its back foot and lost more than a dozen seats.

Though Republicans face a difficult landscape in the early handicapping, “Democrats aren’t without worries, too,” says political handicapper Charlie Cook.

In 2008, no Senate Democratic incumbent on the ballot faced a serious challenge, according to the Cook Political Report. Already for 2010, Mr. Burris is rated as a “tossup” for re-election and the race of new Colorado Sen. Michael Bennet, a relatively unknown schools chief tapped to succeed new Interior Secretary Ken Salazar, is rated as “leans Democratic.”

Democrats counter that the shift shouldn’t be overstated.

For the third cycle in a row, more Republican-held Senate seats (19) will be on the ballot in 2010 than Democratic-held ones (17), although the imbalance is far smaller than in either 2006 or 2008.

Four Republican incumbents #8212; Sens. Christopher S. Bond of Missouri, George V. Voinovich of Ohio, Mel Martinez of Florida and Sam Brownback of Kansas — already have announced they will not run again in 2010. Sen. Judd Gregg, New Hampshire Republican, told reporters last week he is “probably not” running in 2010, and Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison, Texas Republican, is widely expected to resign her seat soon to run for governor.

In addition, Democrats believe Republican Sens. Richard M. Burr of North Carolina and Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania are vulnerable in states carried by President Obama, while 77-year-old Kentucky Sen. Jim Bunning has raised very little money and could face a tight fight.

By contrast, not a single Democratic Senate incumbent is expected to retire in 2010.

“I think even a cursory look at the map shows you that the fear has got to be on the other side,” New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez said last week at his first press briefing as head of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Nevertheless, Republicans still contend that the unrelieved gloom of 2006 and 2008 shows signs of lightening a little.

Former Virginia Sen. George Allen, who headed the Republican senatorial campaign in 2004 that produced a net gain of four Senate seats for the party, praised National Republican Senatorial Campaign head Sen. John Cornyn’s early efforts to recruit candidates and raise cash ahead of the 2010 races.

“A lot is still in play,” Mr. Allen said in an interview. “You always look first to defending what you have, and that will be tougher for John than it was in 2004.”

Mr. Allen recalled that two of his biggest victories in 2004 came in states where the Republican candidate emerged only late in the cycle: in Florida, where Mr. Martinez defeated Democrat Betty Castor, and in South Dakota, where John Thune ousted Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle.

Then, too, Democrats have been hurting themselves in states where it once was thought they were a lock.

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