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I think Stephanie Herseth Sandlin’s finished

By: Neil Stevens (Diary)  |  August 6th, 2010 at 02:00 PM  | 

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Sandlin Noem

From Unlikely Voter: At-Large House races may get a disproportionate amount of attention and polling, but it is what it is. So Stephanie Herseth Sandlin’s polling troubles get the whole country’s attention, while a House incumbent in some other state might barely draw notice.

And the South Dakota At-Large Representative is having serious problems. I just don’t see how she can win this.

Start with the poll itself. Republican Kristi Noem now leads 51-42 in this poll (MoE 4.5). Having a challenger over 50 makes things so difficult for an incumbent. Sandlin hasn’t hit 50 this year.

But also take into account the greater situation, and it gets worse. Noem is running alone for Congress this year, as Republican incumbent Senator John Thune is unopposed. Sandlin has to find a way to get Democrats to the polls when the Senate race is already lost.

The race for Governor is virtually lost for the Democrats as well, when, Rasmussen has Scott Heidepreim down 17 to Republican Dennis Daugaard in the race to replace Mike Rounds.

So I don’t see how Sandlin is going to mount a comeback in a state where Republicans are all but certain to sweep the other important races.

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COMMENTS

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  • sacody

    What is great about this poll is that it comes on the heels of weeks of nonstop ads from the SHS campaign and a statewide mailer. Basically, all the money SHS has blown in the last several weeks on her ad buy has only kept Kristi from running away with the election.

  • Tbone

    you know the Democrats are way screwed all over the Country.

  • sacody

    how old I will be before we elect a Democrat during my lifetime for the governorship. It hasn’t happened, yet. And, it may not happen for some time. Heidepreim is simply a terrible candidate and has an awful campaign to boot. He will say and do anything to get attention like nominate a Republican running mate (and, not realize that this is a violation of state balloting law), have a campaign press conference in Iowa, and run as an ultra-conservative on a fiscally-liberal record. SHS can only hope Heidi stays within 20 points to keep him from dragging her into the 30s.

  • azaeroprof

    I visited the Herseth-Sandlin campaign web site. The word ‘Democrat’ is nearly completely absent from the site. I found it in only 2 places, one at the very end of her bio referring to her father having been the Democrat nominee for governor, and the other in the title of a linked news story.

    By contrast, Kristi Noem’s bio on her web site starts out as: “Kristi Noem, Republican,…”

    You know it’s going to be a good November when the Dems won’t even admit to being Dems.

  • rdelbov

    came out of nearly nowhere to win the primary. She has a positive one on one effort–she will be a great congresswoman–perhaps a US senator one day

  • sacody

    Neil, you cannot do much better than these at-large seats for Congress when looking at how strong the wave is going to be this fall. SHS is personally still popular among a good number of voters. If there wasn’t such high levels of disproval with Congress and the Administration right now, SHS would be cruising to reelection. This just proves a point that a large number of Democrats that tried their best to run away from the Obama/Reid/Pelosi Agenda will not be able to save themselves regardless of what they do. South Dakota is a perfect case study for this. In addition, if SHS is in trouble, I almost have to feel sorry for those individuals that actually embraced some of the Agenda from this last session. They will be dropping like flies this November.

  • Wubbies World

    … and the Missouri return on Prop C is the harbinger of Stephenie’s fate. That vote was 71% against Obamacare, where in S Dakota it was polling 80% against.

    She was hoping the vote against would insulate her from a negative backlash, but all the other factors combined with her refusal to participate in a repeal is what has done her in.

    I had directly emailed Herseth and asked if she was going to sign the discharge petition for real of Obamacare. I specifically addressed it in context of her vote against it. Her reply was a “talk around that said “NO” on repeal, but she supports modifications to “Fix” the bill.

    The more time passes, the worse it is getting for her. She is already running nice cuddly ads about working for South Dakota and voting against health care reform, and her opponent has not started running ads yet, and she is still falling behind. That should say something.

  • jomo2009

    the Democrats (in South Dakota and elsewhere) are going to get a beatin’ their mamas forgot to give em.

  • Coop

    … than her Dem buddy to her north, Earl Pomeroy. The Pubbie Berg has been near or above 50% in several polls (all by Rasmussen). But to me, more importantly, Hoeven is running away with the ND Senate race, and they don’t have a governor’s race this year. That makes Pomeroy’s job that much more difficult.