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Four Things to Know About Delaware

An awful lot of ink has been spilled on Christine O'Donnell's monumental upset of moderate Republican Mike Castle in the Delaware primary on Tuesday. Far too much, in fact. So let's cut to the chase. There are really only four things you need to know:

1. Yes, that is almost certainly the end of GOP prospects for this Senate seat.

If anything, the PPP (D) poll showing O'Donnell trailing New Castle County Executive Chris Coons by 16 points was only surprising because the lead was so small. After the divisive primary battle, the revelations about O'Donnell, and her lack of ideological synchronization with the state, one would expect Chris Coons to be able to climb above 50 percent in a state where 62 percent of the voters voted for President Obama in 2008.

Regardless, it is still difficult to imagine that this is Coons' high point. Some conservatives have emphasized that there were 57,000 voters in the Republican primary, far more than expected. This is true. But the 2008 Democratic primary for Governor drew 73,000 voters, and Joe Biden drew 257,539 votes in his 2008 victory over O'Donnell. Tom Carper got 170,567 in 2006. In other words, even if O'Donnell gets all of the Castle primary voters (a dubious proposition at best), she still has an awful lot of Independents to convince.

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2. This doesn't hurt the GOP's chances of the taking the Senate all that much.

The idea that the GOP just frittered away its chance at a majority is at the very least problematic. Yes, their hill got steeper. But remember, RealClearPolitics rated this race as "Leans Republican" even when it looked like Castle would win. Castle is a Delaware institution, and he was polling below 50 percent against Coons. He wasn't likely to lose, but neither was this seat the "gimme" for Republicans that many described.

Moreover, the GOP still has enough seats to play with to win control this cycle. It will be very difficult to sweep WA, WI, NV and CA (or bring WV and/or CT into the fold), but it isn't impossible. And I'm not sure it is that much more difficult than winning three of the four. These races are not completely independent of each other - many of the same factors that make victory possible in Washington will make victory possible in Wisconsin. In other words, the odds of the GOP winning all four of those states aren't that much different than winning three of them.

3. Still, the GOP will regret not having Castle's vote someday.

But the real concern for the GOP, at least in the short run, isn't 51 seats. In the Senate, unlike the House, the difference between 50 and 51 seats isn't all that great. It isn't insubstantial, either (witness Harry Reid attaching the DREAM Act to a recent defense appropriations bill). But the GOP will still have more than enough opportunity to gum up the works for the Obama Administration's agenda at 50 seats.

The real goal for the GOP is the Presidency and 60 seats in 2012. And that is where this gets tricky. In 2012, there will be eight Democrats running for re-election in states that George W. Bush carried, and another four in states George W. Bush came close to carrying. The sixty seat majority is certainly do-able in 2012, but the Republicans will need every seat to make this happen. If the Republicans really want to repeal, say, the Democrats' health care bill, they will almost certainly need sixty votes to do so. (Emphasis added)

Continues @ RCP
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Sean is a respectable analyst.  Yes, he leans towards GOP in his analysis even if he may not realize it.. and we take that into consideration in reading his articles.  So, it is quite interesting to read this article from him.



-- Edited by Sanders on Thursday 16th of September 2010 09:43:28 PM