We learned, over the course of the year, that five incumbent Dem senators were not running for re-election. It appeared, instantly, that these were prime pick-up opportunities for the GOP.
But the party fielded excellent candidates and ran extremely competitive campaigns. Of the five, as recently as this morning, it seemed like Dems had a realistic shot of winning at least three. Now, we’ll be lucky to get one.
* Georgia — The toughest of the five for Dems. Isakson won easily.
* South Carolina — Tenenbaum put up a great fight in a GOP stronghold and came up short.
* North Carolina — Bowles led for the better part of the year, right up until Burr shifted into Jesse Helms, went negative, and pulled ahead. With 81% of the precincts reporting, Bowles is down 53-46.
* Louisiana — An inexplicable system allowed a strong GOP Rep. to face four Dems at the same time, which naturally divided the party’s support. Dems had to hope that Vitter failed to reach 50%, so we could force him into a run-off. With 97% of the precincts reporting, Vitter has 52%.
* Florida — Castor and Martinez have been trading leads as the vote totals came in, and anything can still happen in the race.
Making matters worse, a surprise vulnerable southern GOP incumbent, Jim Bunning in Kentucky, became a possible pickup, only to see our man come up short. Barely.
If Graham, Breaux, and Hollings hadn’t retired, we’d be looking at a far different dynamic.