As the Pennsylvania Senate race tightens, so does the race in Washington. McClatchy reports:
With two weeks to go, the Washington state U.S. Senate race is a virtual dead heat, with Democratic Sen. Patty Murray holding a 1-point lead, 48-47 percent, over Republican challenger Dino Rossi among likely voters, according to a McClatchy-Marist poll released Tuesday.
The outcome could determine whether Republicans pick up the 10 seats they need to regain control of the Senate.
"This is indeed a cliffhanger, any way you carve up the numbers," said Lee Miringoff, the director of the Marist Institute for Public Opinion in Poughkeepsie, N.Y., which conducted the survey. "The road to a Republican majority in the Senate could go through Washington state."
While the race is close, Murray is getting awfully close to 50% in the RCP average of polls. She has a 2.2% lead over Rossi (49% to 46.8%). But the AP dropped a story on Monday that can only hurt Murray. Because of the national health care law, the aerospace company Boeing, one of the largest employers in Washington state, "is asking some 90,000 nonunion workers to pay significantly more for their health plan next year." Yesterday, the Rossi campaign released a new ad, which quoted Murray on Obamacare: "Not only did I read the bill, but I helped to write it."
Washington state senator Patty Murray wasn't shy about her support for Obamacare during a recent debate with Republican Dino Rossi. He tries to use Murray's words against her in a new ad:
A Washington state Senate race poll conducted after Tuesday's primary shows that Republican nominee Dino Rossi has jumped out to a 7-point lead over incumbent Democrat Patty Murray. According to the SurveyUSA poll, Rossi leads Murray 52 percent to 47 percent. This is a significant change from three polls conducted in the past month, which showed Murray ahead by anywhere from 2 to 4 points.
But just as things are looking up for Rossi, his GOP primary opponent Clint Didier, a former pro-football player who had the backing of Sarah Palin, is refusing to endorse Rossi unless Rossi signs anti-tax, anti-spending, and pro-life pledges.
"If it's not me," Didier said on a radio program on May 28, "whoever it is, I'll get behind them. I'll work as hard for them as I did for me." But sometime since then Didier changed his mind. "I want to endorse Dino – I really do," Didier said at a press conference Friday, according to a transcript of prepared remarks. "I want to beat Patty Murray. I really want that." But Didier said he could only endorse Rossi upon three conditions.
In Washington state's open "jungle primary," the top two vote getters of either party advance to the general election. In the Senate primary, with 60 percent of precincts reporting, incumbent Democrat Patty Murray has 46 percent of the vote. This is pretty bad news for the Democrats. Sean Trende at Real Clear Politics explains why:
Dino Rossi is the 10th man. Republicans need to pick up 10 Democratic seats in the midterm election to take control of the Senate. And they probably can’t do it without Rossi, a top-tier challenger in Washington to three-term Democrat Patty Murray. If he wins, Republicans have a realistic chance of gaining a Senate majority.
Dino Rossi, the Washington real-estate developer and former state senator who lost the controversial 2004 governor's race to Christine Gregoire by 133 votes, announced today he wants to take on Patty Murray for a spot in the U.S. Senate.
Dino Rossi will in fact make a bid for Senate, several media outletsare reporting. Rossi has long been rumored to be considering a run and will reportedly make his intentions known publicly as soon as Wednesday.
The GOP still stands a good chance of picking up perhaps 7 or more Senate seats in November, but Democrats caught a break last week when Tommy Thompson decided not to challenge Russ Feingold in Wisconsin and George Pataki announced he wouldn't run against Kirsten Gillibrand in New York.
