More than any other region of the country, the Midwest could make the difference between Democrats keeping control of the U.S. Senate or Republicans taking it back in the November elections.
In Minnesota, Missouri, Iowa and South Dakota, four Democratic senators are the most tantalizing targets for the Republican Party, both because of the incumbents’ narrow election margins at home and in some cases their liberal voting records in the Senate.
“That whole area, that’s where the action is,” said Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee. “It’s the future of the majority party in the Senate–the hot zone.”
The stakes are unusually high. As in the House, control of the Senate brings with it the ability to set the legislative agenda and either support, reshape or repudiate the president’s proposals. But senators also have the power to confirm judicial nominees and Cabinet appointments, as well as sign off on treaties and declare war.
The Democratic incumbents facing politically savvy, well-financed Republican candidates include Paul Wellstone of Minnesota.
In a cramped hotel room on the banks of the Mississippi River, his challenger, Republican Norm Coleman, touts his record as the former mayor of this once downtrodden city. He boasts of riding on Air Force One with President Bush. And he tears into Wellstone, who is running for his third term.
“Fiery rhetoric and passionate idealism are admirable only if they accomplish something,” Coleman argues without naming his opponent. “Protests don’t provide for paychecks, they don’t build new highways, they don’t ensure our kids a better education.”
Matthew Dowd, the president’s pollster at the Republican National Committee, believes the GOP has an opening with Midwestern voters who have become somewhat more conservative and feel less at home in the Democratic Party.
Hitching on to Bush
A prime example, he said, is Minnesota. In the 2000 election, Bush lost to Al Gore there by less than 3 percentage points without spending much time or money in the state.
“People like Bush and want to help him,” Dowd said. “It’s sort of the Monday Night Football crowd. Guys go hunting and fishing on the weekend, have kids, are middle class. I think they sort of feel alienated by the Democratic Party.”
Hyman Berman, a history professor at the University of Minnesota, agreed that the state is drifting from its liberal heritage.
“There’s no question that there’s been a move to the right of the Minnesota electorate since the heydays of Humphrey and Mondale,” Berman said, referring to former liberal Democrats and Vice Presidents Hubert Humphrey and Walter Mondale.
But Democrats say it is a mistake to confuse presidential politics with statewide political races.
“Voters tend to be somewhat conservative culturally, but they respond well to a populist economic message,” said Jim Jordan, executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. “That’s why intelligent, effective Democrats have continued to prosper there.”
Jordan also argues that the 2000 election results undermine the Republican case against Democratic incumbents.
Even as Bush racked up Midwestern wins on the road to the White House, Democrats ousted Republican Senate incumbents in Minnesota, Michigan and Missouri.
They also captured the open Nebraska seat to help bring their numbers in the Senate up to 50. The switch of Sen. James Jeffords of Vermont from Republican to an independent last June gave the Democrats a voting majority.
`They can go either way’
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“What you’re really seeing is that these Midwest states are independent swing states,” said Mark Mellman, pollster for the Democratic Senate committee. “They can go either way depending upon the candidate.”
Because they are swing states, the Senate races are expected to be competitive–and expensive.
Illinois is the only exception to the spate of tight Midwestern races. Officials in both parties expect Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin to be easily re-elected. His main challenge will be to avoid confusion over the similarity of his last name to that of his opponent, state Rep. James Durkin.
One of the most competitive races will take place in Missouri, where Sen. Jean Carnahan, a Democrat, will face former Rep. Jim Talent, who lost the state governor’s race in 2000 but is emphasizing his experience in Congress.
Carnahan was appointed to the Senate after her husband, Mel, was killed in a plane crash but eked out a victory over then-Sen. John Ashcroft anyway.
During her time in the Senate, Carnahan has focused on job creation and aid for the unemployed, particularly after the Sept. 11 attacks rocked the economy.
South Dakota proxy fight
In South Dakota, Sen. Tim Johnson is being challenged by GOP Rep. John Thune in what is widely considered to be a proxy fight between the president and Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.).
The White House handpicked Thune for the race, noting that he has won statewide election to his House seat every two years since 1996. South Dakota has only one House representative. By comparison, Johnson has not had a statewide race since he was first elected to the Senate six years ago.
Johnson, a member of the Appropriations Committee who is heavily involved in agricultural issues, tends to take a low profile in the Senate, sticking to matters of concern to South Dakota.
Complicating his re-election bid, Republican registration exceeds the Democrats’ by 46,600 voters. Since 1996, Republicans have gained 4,700 voters and Democrats have lost 2,300.
In Iowa, Sen. Tom Harkin is running for a fourth term against Republican Rep. Greg Ganske, a plastic surgeon who frequently bucked his party’s leadership in the House to champion legislation allowing patients to sue their health insurance company or health maintenance organization.
But the populist Harkin is better positioned than the other Democratic incumbents. He was just named chairman of the powerful Agriculture Committee last year, a plum for his state’s farm economy.
And Ganske, who must first win the Republican primary, may not get as much help from the White House as the other GOP challengers. He is a close ally of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), who frequently is at odds with Bush.
Polls close in Minnesota
In Minnesota, the Senate race already has gotten into gear, and the candidates are nearly even in the polls.
Coleman has launched a slew of attacks against Wellstone, criticizing him for breaking a pledge not to serve more than two terms and contending he is remote and unavailable to voters and, most insistently, that he is ineffective.
“If people want a critic, vote for Paul Wellstone,” he tells a Minnesota Chamber of Commerce audience. “If you want someone to get something done, vote for me.”
Wellstone, a former political science professor and grass-roots activist, has run uphill races before.
In 1990, he was the only challenger to beat a Senate incumbent. He ousted Republican Rudy Boschwitz by 2 percent of the vote and then beat him again six years later by 9 points.
During his 12 years in the Senate, he has pressed for universal medical insurance, more federal spending for education, a higher minimum wage, assistance for veterans and counseling for children in families where there is domestic violence.
He also successfully led the fight against legislation backed by banks and credit card companies that would have made it harder for people to discharge their debts by filing for bankruptcy.
When Congress returns from its spring recess, he and Sen. Pete Domenici (R-N.M.) plan to resurrect their push to require health insurance plans to cover patients’ mental illnesses.
As he travels the state during a break from Washington, Wellstone said he is not concerned that Coleman is trying to portray him as a do-nothing senator. “I’m delighted he’s doing it because I don’t think it will work,” he said.
Wellstone said people in the education community know what he’s done for them, and so do the farmers, veterans and other groups he has worked with throughout the state.
He won’t discuss his opponent, but he acknowledges that the race will be close with the state divided “even-steven” between the parties.
“The only thing I’m talking about is people’s lives and issues,” he said. “I’m not going to talk about him. It’s not about us, it’s about people in the state. If you think that’s a script, I’m sorry.”