Hillary's Reverse Coattails

Jim Geraghty has posted an excellent column about the potential effect of Hillary Clinton as nominee on Democratic hopes of holding onto seats in southern and swing states. It's well worth a read. Geraghty finds that if you're a Red State Democrat, you're probably backing someone else for the Democratic nomination:

The argument that rural America has driven Democrats' recent gains, and that risking their advantage there may cost them control of the House, carries some weight, according to results of a survey by the Center for Rural Strategies. According to their June poll of 804 rural likely voters, these voters currently deliver a narrow plurality to a generic Democratic candidate for president, 46 percent to 43 percent. (For comparison, in 2004, President Bush won the rural vote in 2004 by 19 points.) At the congressional level, voters prefer Democrats 46-percent to 44-percent.

But the poll also found that rural voters remain more conservative than the nation as a whole, and it is accurate to say that Hillary Clinton is about as popular as illegal immigrants among these voters. When asked to rate their warm or cool feelings towards figures on a "thermometer" from 0 to 100, the "warm" (positive) rating for all three top Democrats was in the low thirties, but the "cool" (negative) rating for Obama was 34, for Edwards was 36, and for Hillary Clinton was 52. The only comparable cool ratings were given to George W. Bush (44) and illegal immigrants (55).

After the 2006 elections, Charlie Cook prepared a list of Members of the House he regarded as potentially vulnerable in 2008. That list includes 25 Democrats who are heavily exposed--they represent districts that generally favor Republicans by a wide margin. Many of those seats are in states where the Democratic nominee is likely to do poorly in 2008. For comparison, there are just 2 Republicans in strong Democratic seats--a byproduct of their stunning losses last year.

There seems to be a widespread opinion among election analysts that the GOP will do poorly next year. But next year is far away, and while Democrats appear likely to have the financial advantage, they have relatively few targets. In a favorable political environment, Republicans could wind up doing much better than is currently expected.