Handicapping of 2010 race continues; Silver favors Chandler as Dem candidate

By Trey Pollard, PolitickerKY.com Reporter

More national analysts are turning their attention to speculation about the next batch of U.S. Senate races, with Nate Silver of the Democratic-leaning electoral projections site FiveThirtyEight.com ranking U.S. Sen. Jim Bunning's (R-Southgate) seat as the fifth most likely to change parties. Projections from Congressional Quarterly also assert the 2010 race will be more competitive than recent election results in the state indicate.

Silver speculates that Democrats have an average of a 35 percent chance of taking Bunning's seat, considering four possible scenarios.

The analyst argues Democratic odds of winning would be higher with U.S. Rep. Ben Chandler (D-Versailles) as the Democratic candidate, giving Chandler a fifty percent chance at a win against either Bunning or a "generic Republican" candidate.

A "generic Democrat" would fare better against Bunning than a "generic Republican," according to Silver, giving a run against Bunning a thirty percent shot at success compared to a 25 percent chance against the generic option.

Other rumored candidates such as Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo (D-Hazard), Attorney General Jack Conway (D-Louisville) and state Auditor Crit Luallen (D-Frankfort) were not included in Silver's analysis.

Silver adds that - given President-elect Barack Obama's sizeable loss in Kentucky - Bunning may be able to gain traction in the race by campaigning against Obama in two years.

"This is one state that moved away from Democrats in 2008 (although they retain a party identification advantage) and one state in which campaigning against Obama might pay dividends," writes Silver. "Bunning's goal, in other words, is to turn this into a referendum on the President rather than a referendum on himself."

Listed in order of how likely the seats are to change party control, Bunning's seat was placed behind Republican-held open seat contests in Florida and Kansas as well as Arlen Specter (R-Penn) and George Voinovich's (R-Ohio) re-election bids.

In its analysis of the 2010 races, CQ Politics says Republican Presidential nominee John McCain's (R-Ariz) win over Obama in the Commonwealth does not mean the 2010 race is a lock, pointing to Gov. Steve Beshear's (D-Lexington) 2007 win and U.S. Sen. Mitch McConnell's (R-Louisville) hotly contested re-election effort this year.

CQ named Conway and Mongiardo as potential challengers to Bunning while also mentioning Darlene Fitzgerald Price, the only Democrat who has officially filed papers to challenge Bunning thus far.

Trey Pollard is a PolitickerKY.com Reporter and can be reached via email at noreply@politicker.com.

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