Get to know your DEM Senators

As a follow-up to my previous post; Get to know your GOP Senators, I wanted to provide the same information on the Democratic Senators. So I gathered the data on all 56 known Democratic Senators in 2009, plus the 2 Independents that caucus with the Democrats, minus Obama and Biden, and left the remaining 2 races outstanding.

This first image shows all 58 DEM and Ind. Senators listed alphabetically by state. I've added data on their last election, margin of victory, the winner of that state in the 2008 Presidential election, the Presidential margin of victory in 2008, their next election, the year they were elected/appointed, the number of years in the Senate, and their American Conservative Union (ACU) Rating. http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgh6x7fv_104fxd8t6qs

Second, I wanted to understand who some of the future leaders are going to be. I applied the same filtering as my GOP analysis; by those who had an ACU rating less than 10%, been in the Senate for 8 years or more. That generated the following 9 names. This is a scientific approach and does not include personality and leadership traits.

Assuming Clinton gets pulled for SECSTATE, there are a couple of others who stick out. The CA twins, Dick Durbin, and Chuck Schumer have all exerted themselves as sponsors of key legislation, leadership on key committees, and leadership roles behind the scenes. All 9 are in heavy Democratic states so they face little threat of running a liberal agenda. Chuck Schumer would be my one-to-watch. He chaired the re-election committee this year and is an assertive voice. He hasn't had a job outside of politics since starting as a NY Assemblyman at the age of 23. He's got a tenacious attitude and represents Democratic positions reasonably well on the TV chat shows. http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgh6x7fv_106f6brd4gz

Finally look ahead to 2010 for opportunities it appears that Republicans will be on the defensive again. Salazar (CO) had the narrowest margin of victory in his 2004 win over Coors, but CO is becoming a strong Democratic state. Feingold (WI) who won by 11%, but would be a tough win. Lincoln (AR) presents a good opportunity in a state trending GOP, but sadly the Arkansas Republican party failed put up a challenger to Pryor (AR) this year when he seemed like a logical target. Many of the others are stalwarts who've won sizable victories in their past elections. Dodd (CT) has low approval ratings since the financial crisis, but would likely be replaced by a Democrat or would run as an independent like Joe Lieberman. Barack's vacant seat in IL will be up in 2010, but would be a difficult state to find a good GOP candidate. Maybe Dennis Hastert!
http://docs.google.com/Doc?id=dgh6x7fv_108g327htgp

Still to come is a comparison of the two party's Senate representatives in which I will highlight:

• Polarization DEM vs. GOP
• Senators elected in "enemy" states
• Which party is really a regional party?

Signing off...JCB

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