Talk Elections

http://www.aberdeennews.com/news/survey-south-dakota-pressler-gaining-on-rounds/article_2aa002bd-260b-596f-b2bb-518a59269ce0.html

I will now accept my accolades

SUSA is single-handedly saving Democratic hopes for the Senate!

Excellent news! I would be furious if it were Weiland pulling up.

So much for Pressler being likely to fade. Nice try, PPP.

Weiland needs to drop out and endorse Pressler (yes, I know he'd still be on the ballot). He has no shot. Only Pressler does.

Weiland is only doing 4 points worse than Pressler. And has an actual campaign apparatus behind him.

Dems should try the Kansas strategy here and get Weiland to drop out

Yup, I've thought this for quite a long time now. Putting this race on the board would substantially boost Democrats' odds of retaining the Senate.

Just a side note, aside from FitzGerald, is Rounds the biggest flop of the election cycle? He's definitely worse than Braley at this point. He might even be worse than Roberts.

Wow. Three-way race.

I know Pressler is a former Republican but might he actually be to the left of Weiland? I read that he enthusiastically endorsed Obama twice.

Yes, it's definitely a different situation than Kansas. That being said, If Weiland drops out and endorses Pressler, essentially all of his support will go exclusively to Pressler. If, on the other hand, Pressler drops out and endorses Weiland, it's not clear that the same holds. I imagine at least a chunk of Pressler's support would probably go to Rounds. What does the data show about where Pressler's support is coming from?

"Were Weiland to drop out of the race, 71 percent of his voters say they would back Pressler compared to only 9 percent for Rounds. That would give Pressler 54 percent of the vote compared to 39 percent for Rounds. As things stand, though, Rounds could be elected with less then 40 percent of the vote, the poll shows." Weiland needs to drop out right now if he cares who wins the Senate.

Weiland is a bigger risk, but if Weiland were to win, he would actually try to hold the seat. Pressler has pledged he would only take the seat for the one term.

Weiland doesn't have to drop out now. There's four weeks left. Let's see if the $1 million Democratic outside groups are about to spend here moves his numbers. He's only polling slightly below Pressler. It's too late to get off the ballot anyway.

Holy sh[inks]. I hope the national party operators are burning up Daschle's/Weiland's phone lines right now.


Hopefully that $1 million is used to beat up on Rounds and not Pressler...

http://www.argusleader.com/story/news/politics/2014/10/04/independent-pressler-faces-opposition-parties/16749013/

It looks like both parties are planning to bury Pressler :(

Weiland can win this if both parties are going hard after Pressler.

Damn, that sucks. It will be really lame if this golden opportunity is blown.

Probably too good to be true.

I love how people take a single poll to mean that Rounds is no longer heavily favored, remember he still has a massive financial advantage

and Pressler has the least money and yet it's been Pressler, not Rounds, that has surged.

Because that massive financial advantage has been doing him so much good, am I right? He started out ahead 20 points.

I know he's making this closer than it needs to be but to believe that Rounds has less than a 90% chance of pulling this out is delusional

Noone posted the actual numbers yet:

Mike Rounds (R): 35%
Larry Pressler (I): 32%
Rick Weiland (D): 28%
Gordon Howie (Far Right): 3%
Undecided: 2%

That's the lowest undecided number I've seen in any Senate contest or any poll of any race from any state so far this season I think! Only one in 50 voters haven't made up their mind, really??!

Wow, Rounds really effed this up.

I'm telling you guys, Independents in Red States is going to be a revolution if the DSCC backs it going forward.

But will Republicans try the same in Blue States?

Republicans could never convince the too-conservative Republican nominee to dropout.

Perhaps a top-two primary state like CA or WA where the choice would be made for them?

What a coincidence because Weiland isn't dropping out either.

I would actually be most interested in this as a way around gerrymandered districts.  Quietly Dem-backed Indies could be a real threat in all those R+5-8 seats around the country.  And Republicans could have some success backing Indies in VRA districts.

Yep. I can't say how many articles from LA conservative local outlets insisting that Maness drop out.

Yes (because nobody is asking), which is why Rounds will ultimately win here.

Semi-successful here.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_House_of_Representatives_elections_in_California,_2012#District_33

Successful in these two (if we consider Lieberman the "Republican," even though he didn't caucus with them).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_City_mayoral_election,_2009
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Senate_election_in_Connecticut,_2006

Lieberman doesn't count, he only ran as an independent because he lost the primary, he had no intention of ever caucusing with the republicans. Yes, in '06,'08,'10 there was POLITICO-style hype about him caucusing with the republicans, but it was never taken with great seriousness.

The CT Republican Party actually asked Bush not to endorse their "official" candidate, so it's not dissimilar from the AK/KS/ND races this year.

I'm guessing a lot of Pressler's support comes from older conservatives who remember his first stint in the Senate fondly?

It's probably in Democrat's best interest not to go after Pressler too hard. Weiland could theoretically win with about 35% of the vote if Pressler gets above 30%.

Rounds will lose.

Democrats (or Dem-leaning Indies) are surging accross the board !

(Well, this is normal for the first 3 weeks of October in which Dems. always poll strongly and then the Republicans catch up in the week before the election).

None of those are the same. The first is the top 2 system in a liberal area. Bloomberg was the incumbent and first elected as a Republican. Lieberman was an incumbent Democrat who lost a primary.

If both SUSA and PPP (both quality pollsters) show a strong Pressler-surge, I guess the YouGov poll has been outed as a complete joke.

Weiland should go negative on Rounds so that either he or Pressler wins.

:o

weiland really needs to drop out. pressler would be an excellent senator.

Honestly both Weiland and Pressler are running as populists to some extent. I'd be happy with either of them in the Senate.

If Pressler is elected, there honestly doesn't seem like there'd be much of a difference of voting record between Tim Johnson and Pressler, and Johnson was a fantastic senator from the view of the Democrats coming from a state that generally gives a 15-20% margin of victory to Republican candidates.

Isn't Pressler a former Republican that would be way likelier to caucus with the Republicans than Orman ? I think 538 believes so, at least. I agree that, from a Dem POV, a Pressler win is better than a Rounds win, but 35-32-28 is a point when you still give it all the shots you have and not just say "it's over, I'll just go and let the other guy win this".

Dedpite conservative leanings, King praised him during his tenure as Senate GOPer. They will decide control. But hopefully, we will have enough of our own seats to guare.tee a majority with a Grimes and Begich victory.s

Democrats are going down this rabbit hole: DSCC dropping $1M here. (http://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2014-10-08/exclusive-senate-democrats-flooding-south-dakota-airwaves)

Thank goodness. Nuke Mike Rounds, run a couple of positive ads for Weiland, and let the chips fall where they may.

Source?

http://www.argusleader.com/story/davidmontgomery/2014/10/08/senate-blood-in-water/16933251/ (http://www.argusleader.com/story/davidmontgomery/2014/10/08/senate-blood-in-water/16933251/)

If Weiland could be persuaded to drop out, he would've been persuaded not to run when Herseth-Sandlin was still considering running.  I imagine that (although the state is rarely able to resist the chance to vote against him and/or the candidates he endorses :P ) Daschle is more or less the closest thing to the boss of South Dakota Democratic Party and certainly the only person who would have any chance of convincing Weiland to drop out.  At the very least, he holds has an enormous amount of influence over the state party and has already made it clear when the DSCC was trying to recruit Herseth-Sandlin that he'd rather the party nominate his protege and go on to lose the race in a landslide then nominate a stronger Democratic candidate who could actually win (even if it cost Democrats control of the Senate).  If that was how Daschle acted when Weiland was being pressured to defer to a much more electable Democrat, I can't imagine he'd pressure Weiland to drop out and endorse an Independent who used to be a Republican Senator and had a long-running feud with Daschle's political mentor. 

TL;DR version: Daschle's the only one who could get Weiland to drop out and if he was willing to help torpedo the DSCC's efforts to recruit Herseth-Sandlin when Weiland was trailing by like 20%, there's no way he'll make Weiland drop out and endorse Pressler when Weiland is trailing about 7%.  If anything, he'll urge Weiland to stay in the race.

It would be absurd for the candidate who has real money and runs a real campaign to drop out in favor of someone who has neither.

That makes Weiland look even worse :P  What does it say about Weiland if he has "real money" and is running a "real campaign" (I'm pretty sure Pressler is too, but whatever) and yet people are still flocking to the person who, according to you, has neither.  It sounds to me like Weiland has every advantage over Pressler and yet he's such a weak candidate that all he's managing to do is potentially play spoiler for what would otherwise be a safe Democratic hold in everything but name.  On the other hand, if Pressler has surged into second place and is only down by about 3% with a little over three weeks left until the election despite having almost no money and little in the way of campaign infrastructure, imagine how much more he'd be able to do if he had the money and infrastructure that Weiland seems to have squandered :P 

More importantly, the SurveyUSA poll showed that a Weiland-Rounds head-to-head leaving both candidates tied with 47% while Pressler led 54-39% when he was placed in a head-to-head with Rounds.  Clearly Pressler is the stronger candidate and has a far better chance of winning than Weiland does in the race as it stands right now.  If Pressler drops out, it becomes a tossup in a state where a majority of the undecideds will probably back the Republican.  If Weiland drops out, it becomes a safe Democratic hold in everything but name (and we get a Senator from South Dakota who is more liberal than most of the Senate Democratic caucus).  This isn't complicated :P

Pressler lists DC as his main residence.  (http://www.politico.com/story/2014/10/larry-pressler-dc-resident-111775.html?hp=f2)

wow I've been living next door to him this whole time and never knew

This is a really difficult situation. It will be horrible for Democrats to see Rounds win with something like 35%. Even if Pressler could drop out, Weiland would probably struggle to win a head-to-head with Rounds.

Pressler as the Independent clearly has more crossover appeal, and in theory should be able to win a straight fight with Rounds. But he has no money, has been running a weird campaign, and promising to be "Obama's friend" is probably the kiss of death for his campaign.

Weiland is clearly not dropping out, and Democratic groups are getting more strongly behind him. I just can't see how Weiland or Pressler can get the upper hand here. Rounds can coast to an unimpressive minority win. A missed opportunity.

Thanks! :)

Though behind the scenes I'd imagine things are not so set in stone.

Pressler now has a residency problem. Weiland isn't budging, my friend.

Yeah, I read that after posting. If I had to bet I'd say this probably goes to a three way race till the end, but a lot depends on the next week or so. If either challenger pulls ahead there's going to be even more pressure for the lagging one to drop out. It's just not set in stone yet, and as someone noted there are a ton of calls coming from every direction now.

I'd get on board.

When it comes to dropping out, it doesn't help the Dems that Weiland is true believer and as someone that is actually running as an unabashed liberal, I don't think he's particularly fond of the idea of stepping aside for a former Republican Senator. True, Pressler is now definitely more moderate and he likes Obama but I don't think that's enough for Weiland.

Only the Republican Party can blow such a big lead in such a Conservative state.