Dreaming About The Senate

• Share

(2 of 3)

What makes Democrats sound so giddy? Bush's sinking approval ratings and the poll numbers showing that voters, by 49% to 37% in a TIME poll in early June, say they plan to vote for a Democrat rather than a Republican in congressional elections. Democrats also see two favorable omens in the special-election victories for two House seats, one in South Dakota on June 1 and one four months ago in Kentucky.

If the Democrats pull off a coup, it won't entirely be because of a change in the political climate. Corzine maneuvered early in three states--Colorado, Oklahoma and South Carolina--to winnow the field of Democratic candidates to the strongest in order to avoid costly primary battles. In Colorado, for example, he privately urged Democratic Congressman Mark Udall and multimillionaire software entrepreneur Rutt Bridges not to run so that the party's better vote getter, attorney general Ken Salazar, a white-haired Hispanic whose family has lived in the state for generations, would have an easier time in the primary. Salazar still faces a nagging challenge from high school principal Mike Miles, but it's nothing compared with the looming battle on the Republican side, pitting conservative former Congressman Bob Schaffer against beer magnate Peter Coors. The latest Republican poll in April showed Salazar well ahead of both Schaffer and Coors.

Democrats in Washington had been paying little attention to Alaska, a state some 3,000 miles from the nation's capital that Bush carried by 31 points in 2000 and that hasn't elected a Democratic Senator in 30 years. But after being elected Governor in 2002, G.O.P. Senator Frank Murkowski appointed his daughter Lisa, 45, a state legislator, to serve out the remaining two years of his Senate term. That sparked a political firestorm. Jerry Sousa, a guide in the tiny village of Talkeetna, summed up the view of many Alaskans: the daughter "seems like she's nice, personable and is doing a great job as Senator. But the way she was appointed was fairly despicable." Meanwhile, the Democrats' candidate, former two-term Governor Tony Knowles, a lanky onetime oil roughneck, is the state's most popular Democrat. He pushes jobs and more benefits for the state's high concentration of veterans but distances himself from John Kerry's opposition to drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, which most Alaskans support. A poll in May by an Anchorage television station showed Knowles 5 points ahead of Murkowski.

South Carolina is one of the most Republican states in the Union. But G.O.P. Representative Jim DeMint had to fight his way through a six-candidate primary and then a runoff last Tuesday to win his party's nomination for the Senate, while Democrats united early behind Inez Tenenbaum, the state education superintendent. A moderate who has won two statewide elections, Tenenbaum hopes to form a winning coalition of blacks and white-female swing voters. "We are reaching out across party lines and bringing people in," Tenenbaum tells TIME.