With a couple exceptions here and there

by Clifford F. Thies

With less than two weeks to go, the true battleground states of this year’s election are being revealed. Last week, the national organizations left the Florida Senate race. This week, they are leaving the Missouri Senate race. They are shifting resources such as ad buys to remaining battlegrounds. Let’s take a quick look at the top-of-the-ticket contests:

In New England: Kelly Ayotte has now pulled out to a commanding lead in New Hampshire’s Senate race and Linda McMahon remains in contention in Connecticut’s Senate race. And, five of the six Governor contests are going down to the wire (all but New Hampshire).

In the Mid-Atlantic: The Pennsylvania Senate race has tightened up and the Delaware Senate race has not. For Governor, the Republican is slightly ahead in Pennsylvania and slightly behind in Maryland.

In the South: It’s all Republican, except for Governor in Arkansas, with the qualification that the leads are small for Rand Paul and John Rease in the Kentucky and West Virginia Senate races and Rick Scott in the Florida Governor race.

In the Mid-west: Indiana, Ohio, Michigan and Wisconsin are all looking Republican, although we do not expect Senator Feingold to give up easily. Illinois appears to be breaking Republican; but, there are still a lot of undecideds. Minnesota is close and susceptible to last-minute shifts by voters continuing to indicate that their first choice is a third-party candidate who is now sure to lose.

In the Rocky Mountain states: It’s all Republican, except for Governor of Colorado. Even so, third-party candidate Tom Tancredo can be elected if half of those still indicating a preference for the disgraced nominee of the Republican Party shift to him. Sharon Angle and Ken Buck have small leads in the Colorado and Nevada Senate races. Susanna Martinez now has a significant lead in the New Mexico Governor race.

In the Pacific region: Almost every race is a toss-up. Dino Rossi in the Washington Senate race, and Duke Aiona and Chris Dudley in the Hawaii and Oregon Governor races are neck-and-neck with their Democratic rivals. In California, Carly Fiorina and Meg Whitman are only slightly behind in the Senate and Governor races. In Alaska, Joe Miller and Lisa Murkowski have turned the general election into Round II of the Republican primary.

To comment briefly on House and state legislative races: Things are looking very good for the Republicans all across the country. There will be many “surprises” on election day, even in places like Massachusetts and New York where the Republican Party has fallen on hard times in recent years. Republicans will continue to consolidate their position in the rural districts, revive in the suburban districts, emerge as competitive with Hispanic and Asian voters and breakthrough with African-American voters. The Gender Gap is now history. We continue to anticipate a net pick up of 60 to 80 seats in the House and, to put a number to it, 400 seats in state legislatures.

In many states, early voting is underway and it is clear that, where they don’t have to wait, Republicans aren’t waiting for election day to cast their ballot. Democrats, on the other hand, are just hoping that they can hold on to the Senate and that – for the first time in history – socialism will work so that the economy will recover in time for the 2012 election.

Editor's Note - I will be in southern New Hampshire today campaigning for the GOP ticket.