Talk Elections

http://www.staradvertiser.com/news/breaking/131499778.html

Former Gov. Linda Lingle is expected to announce as soon as Tuesday that she will run in the Republican primary for U.S. Senate, sources say.

Lingle is scheduled to speak at a noon luncheon of the Sales and Marketing Executives International at the Pacific Club. The topic is how decisions made in Washington, D.C., can affect local businesses and the community.

U.S. Rep. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, and former U.S. Rep. Ed Case are the Democratic contenders to replace U.S. Sen. Daniel Akaka, D-Hawaii, who is not seeking another term next year.

This race will still be noncompetitive unless Schatz pulls off a miracle and wins the Democratic nom.

I honestly don't think that she'd make this any more competitive than any of the other Republicans out there. Anyone who thinks Lingle would win this under normal circumstances is probably thinking about first term Lingle who had approval ratings in the upper 70's, not second term Lingle who left office with approvals in the low 40's.

It should be more competitive with her in it than it would be if it were some no-name Republican, of course. But nowhere near as close as it would have to be to win, probably.

I'll probably refer to her as "Zero-Chance-Linda" from now on.

Likely D -> Tossup

jk

Still Likely D.

Good for Hawaii. It deserves an interesting Senate race, for once.

Hey, at least she'll make the Dems spend more (maybe not much but still something) than they planned.

Its more likely she'll make her party waste money there. The DSCC would be very dumb to pour money into a race which they have a 99.9% chance of winning.

Uh, the NRSC has a ton of real pickup opportunities. They aren't going to waste money in Hawaii.

Not really sure why she's bothering. I mean, kudos to her for providing something arguably more substantial than token opposition, but there's still no realistic chance of her winning. If I was Lingle I'd just go into lobbying or whatever it is ex-politicians do with their time.

Perhaps they offered her something behind closed doors in exchange for running.  Or maybe she is just being a good soldier and taking one for the team.  I would agree that Lingle has a snowball in Hawaii chance of winning.

For the GOP this is a positive development, even though a loss is a virtual certainty.  As a former governor, Lingle will be able to fundraise fine on her own.  And symbolically, the Hawaii GOP is not embarrassing itself by putting up a non-entity U.S. Senate candidate.  Which is more than the WA GOP can say, lol.

Endorsed :D

Solid Democrat

PPP tweet:

"Linda Lingle will be the most overrated Senate recruit of the cycle. Polling has consistently found Hawaii voters don't like her anymore."

Completely agree. Good luck running against Obama's coattails...this is Hawaii people, let's get real...

You mean the same NRSC that spent millions of dollars attacking the only viable candidate in California last year for supposedly being insufficiently pro-Israel, then dumped millions of dollars better spent elsewhere into California attempting to prove themselves right?

We had limited opportunities in 2010. 2012 is a totally different story, dude. We had to compete in places where, even in a 2010 environment, we weren't likely to win. That won't be the case next year.

I think the best news out of this is that Hawaii Republicans have a chance of gaining some seats back in the state legislature with her at the top of the ticket. If a no name was the nominee, Democrats would have an excellent chance of controlling 100% of the State Senate seats (The Republican caucus is at a rump of 1 senator now). That's not good for democracy.

Agree. But Lingle's victory itself doesn't looks too likely to me. If only anainst Ed Case, who is hated by many Democrats...

Perhaps he will ruin another election for Democrats there. Although I don't think he has the guts to run as a write-in if he loses the primary.

Impossible, because Hawaii has a ban on write-in voting.  This was challenged in federal court.  In 1992, the Supreme Court upheld Hawaii's law 6-3.  Lingle will only be facing a single Democratic opponent in 2012 which is one of several reasons why I am 99% sure she will be defeated.

http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19920608&slug=1496138 (http://community.seattletimes.nwsource.com/archive/?date=19920608&slug=1496138)

That said, the Democratic candidate (hopefully Hirono) cannot afford to run a sleepwalk campaign against the former governor of the state.  But I think Hawaii Dems recognize that and will respond appropriately.

Can't blame the Republicans for trying to expand the board.

This race kind of reminds me of MS '08 with Musgrove.

Let's say hypothetically Obama's margin goes down a little bit from 08 because of the economy to a high 60 win in Hawaii. Would Lingle even be able to win enough cross-over supporters to win?

Well Baumgartner is a million times better than Dino Rossi, so it's at least a slight step up for them.

BTW, PPP will poll Hawaii this weekend together with Ohio.

No.  Let's say Obama wins the state 68-32.  That would mean Lingle would need to run 18-19 points better than the GOP Presidential candidate.  Given the more partisan nature of a Senate race and the fact Lingle left office with approvals in the low 40s, that seems virtually impossible.  It's only been 1.5 years since her governorship ended and I don't think that is enough time for negative perceptions to have eased.  After Hanabusa unseated Djou in a GOP wave year when Obama wasn't even on the ticket, there is nothing to suggest such a monumental upset is brewing.  Maybe if the Dems nominate an extremely weak candidate, but I can't see that happening either.

Also to say that Baumgartner is "a million times" better than Rossi is a huge stretch, but I don't want to derail the subject of this thread.

My predictions:

D: Hirono 58%
R: Lingle  40%

D: Case 50%
R: Lingle 48%

I think both will lead Lingle by 10-15%.

Dont forget that it was the first time Hawaii ever sent an incumbent congressman packing

This is kinda off topic, but perhaps the more important question than Lingle's candidacy is -- who will win the Democratic Primary?  I hope Hirono wins.  She has the advantage of being a sitting Congresscritter and Inouye, Akaka and the rest of the Establishment in Hawaii is lining up behind her.  I think she is favored, but I suspect Case still has a solid shot.

Hirono wins that primary. Inouye runs the party and he's not alone in being extremely pissed about Case's Akaka challenge 5 years ago. Doubt Case wins the primary, though Lingle should hope he does. The whole thing is a 2002 rerun, but most likely with a very different GE result.

Did anyone realize that this is virtually the same set of candidates as the election for Governor in 2002? It's a sequel 10 years later... although circumstances are quite different, I wonder if the results will actually be that different.

At least it looks very likely that we will get another female senator!

I just said that in the post above yours.

Just looked it up, how did Case get 45% against Akaka ???

I have relatives in Hawaii and heard that by 2006, Akaka was starting to get rather doddering in his old age.  The buzz around that fact continued at a somewhat low level until Case broke the whole thing open by declaring against Akaka and making insinuations that Akaka was past his prime.  Some folks agreed, but the Democratic establishment was furious.  I did not watch the campaign closely, but from what I heard Akaka at times looked muddled and confused, playing into Case's attacks.  

I've already seen two instances of the MSM spooging themselves over Linda Lingle, falsely claiming her to be popular when she's not anymore. This is going to be a long campaign season.

The mainland MSM is frequently clueless when it comes to Hawaii politics, though whether they are truly clueless or disingenuously trying to create a story in this case is unknown.

I also wanted to add a bit of a disclaimer on my post about Akaka.  While there were suggestions in 2006 that he was getting senile, I personally don't know if this was the case.  I don't live in the state and don't feel in a good position to make that assessment.  Case tried to capitalize politically on those rumors and earned a lot of ill will as a result.

Obama being at the top of the ticket is a massive problem for Lingle, but her own record is almost as big of a problem.  She oversaw the utter boondoggle known as the Superferry, her handling of the state's budget cuts infuriated the powerful unions and left the public particularly dissatisfied over cuts to education and her close association with and campaigning for Sarah Palin angered many.  I think those items are the primary reasons for the large drop-off in her job approval during her second term. 

On a personal level, I lost all respect for Lingle after she vetoed Hawaii's civil unions bill.

Agreed.

I'm not sure why Cook automatically jumped the gun and made the race a Toss Up. Perhaps he has some internal polling that we don't know about.

He has no internal polling....like everyone else: buying into the conventional wisdom and slurping up the hype...

It probably has something to do with PPP showing Hirono only 5 points ahead of Case in the primary, who loses to Lingle by 2.  And even Hirino only leads Lingle by 6.

Contrary to popular belief, time out of office can heal popularity wounds - and has here.  Lingle is above water.

The comment you are replying to came out before the poll did.