Altmire would have to be a pretty awful politician not to be able to win in a district that even Michael Dukakis carried by 52%-47%.
Are the Dukakis numbers on the current boundaries?
Yeah, that would be my question, too.
BTW, MN-01 is more marginal than PA-04, and I would definitely have Walz as safer than Altmire, also because Altmire is much more likely to face a strong candidate. The GOP bench here sucks, they have plenty of potential candidates, but none are likely to appeal district-wide since they're all mostly extreme incompetents (Mark Kennedy-esque) and/or wingnuts. And no one is able to break Walz's big margins in Blue Earth/Nicollet and Freeborn/Mower counties.
Altmire would have to be a pretty awful politician not to be able to win in a district that even Michael Dukakis carried by 52%-47%.
I wouldn't put too much stock in the fact that it went for Dukakis. After all, Swann carried this district against Rendell last year.
Casey carried it by about 18 points over Santorum though.
Ok, which just proves that it is a very unique district.
Quite frankly, Altmire is going to get creamed when Hart comes back in 08. The only way he has a chance is if Swann decides to run against Hart in the primary. He is someone who only won because of the bad GOP climate and he will get ejected in no time flat. The only reason he won was because no one took him seriously and Hart didn't even start a camapign until October, by which time, the momentum was soundly against her. Reminds me of when the Patriots beat the Steelers in the 2001 AFC Championship game... the main reason we lost is because we assumed we had already won.
I don't know why you think that. That district is a swing district with a very large Dem registration advantage. Any Republican would have to pick up about 16% of the districts Democrats to win the district and hold on to all of the moderate Republicans and that is nearly impossible as a non-incumbent.
He thinks that because Hart is very personally popular there. She had that race won but she let that get to her head. Hart picking up the 16% of the district's Dems isn't a big deal because they like her to begin with.
It also helped we ran a conservative Democrat who fits the district rather than a Rendell type. You can make the Swann argument, but that's also Steeler Country.
Poll
