Missouri Senate Race
Not only does state auditor Claire McCaskill's ahead-in-the-polls challenge to lackluster GOP one-term incumbent Jim Talent represent one of the most promising chances for the Democrats to pick up a Senate seat, but the contest promises an early test of an emerging issue. Missouri has become the "Show Me the Stem-Cell Research" state with an amendment to its Constitution on the November ballot that would encourage these cutting-edge medical inquiries. Not surprisingly, Talent, whose political base lies with rural social conservatives, strongly opposes the amendment, while McCaskill supports it.
Montana Senate Race
This campaign is potentially "Lucy in the Big Sky with Diamonds" for Democrats. Start with three-term GOP incumbent Conrad Burns -- the largest Senate recipient of campaign cash from guilty-pleading lobbyist Jack Abramoff and his cronies -- whose job performance is given a thumbs down by 60 percent of the voters in one poll. Throw in an aggressive Democratic challenger, state Senate president Jon Tester, who was strongly backed by Netroots activists as he romped home in last month's Democratic primary. Tester is a Democrat willing to move to his right as well as his left -- joining Burns in lambasting amnesty for illegal aliens in their opening-gun debate.
New Mexico House Race
See adjoining story for more on the struggle between four-term GOP incumbent Heather Wilson and challenger Patricia Madrid, the state attorney general, that has the potential of turning into a referendum on the Iraq war.
Ohio Valley House Races
The route from Columbus, Ohio, to Louisville, Ky., is a southwesterly 200-mile slash that cuts through Cincinnati. Each of these cities is represented by a vulnerable House Republican (Deborah Pryce in Columbus, Steve Chabot in Cincinnati, and Anne Northup in Louisville) and in each of these urban districts John Kerry ran roughly even with Bush in 2004. If the Democrats are going to pick up the 15 seats needed to elect Nancy Pelosi as speaker, these are the districts that the out-of-power party must win for the overall arithmetic to work out. But Northup and Chabot, in particular, are skilled campaigners who know what it takes to hang on in difficult years. Continuing to drive southwest from Louisville brings you immediately into Kentucky's small-town 2nd District where GOP incumbent Ron Lewis -- a Baptist minister and fallen-away term-limits advocate who floated in on the Newt Gingrich tide in 1994 -- is suddenly facing a strong challenge from state Rep. Mike Weaver.
Ohio Gubernatorial Race
There are those on the West Coast fascinated by the political saga of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Easterners intrigued by the indomitable march of Wall Street-slaying New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer toward the governor's mansion, but the statehouse race that combines drama with just a whiff of vengeance is in the political crucible of Ohio. Militantly conservative Ken Blackwell, the aggressively partisan secretary of state who worked overtime to disenfranchise Democratic voters during the 2004 presidential race, is now running hard to become the nation's first African-American Republican governor in modern times. This time around Blackwell is up to his old electoral tricks issuing a recent ruling banning voter-registration groups from submitting new-voter forms in bulk. Democrat Ted Strickland, a five-term congressman, leads in the polls, but Blackwell cannot be counted out until the last vote is tallied by ... er ... Blackwell's office.
Pennsylvania House Race
Call it "The Revenge of the Blue States." Congressional Quarterly identifies 10 Republican-held seats in play in just two states: New York and Pennsylvania. Throw in the three at-risk GOP incumbents in Connecticut plus vulnerable Republican congressmen in New Jersey and New Hampshire -- and, in theory, the Democrats could assemble a House majority based just on turnovers in the Northeast. Which brings us to Curt Weldon, the hawkish 10-term Republican, obsessed with finding Iraq's elusive weapons of mass destruction, who is an odd match with the affluent Philadelphia suburbs (Delaware County) he represents. As Ken Mehlman, the Republican national chairman, put it in an interview last week, "What has always been a conundrum for guys like me who are running presidential campaigns is that we don't win in the Philly suburbs in recent elections, yet they vote Republican for Congress and they vote Republican in local legislative elections." Weldon's reelection fight against Joe Sestak -- a retired admiral who raised more money in the second quarter than the incumbent -- will be a prime test of these vestigial GOP suburban loyalties.
Rhode Island Senate Primary
What do you call a pro-choice, pro-environment Republican senator who voted against the Iraq war and opposed the Bush tax cuts? An endangered anachronism. Lincoln Chafee, who inherited the seat after his father (John Chafee) died in 1999, is among the last true Republican moderates in big-time national politics. Small wonder that Chafee is facing a spirited conservative challenge in the Sept. 12 GOP primary from Cranston Mayor Steve Laffey. What gives this contest a crazy-quilt flavor is that the national Republican establishment, from Mehlman on down, is enthusiastically backing Chafee in the primary. The reason: Chafee, if renominated, has an even chance of holding the seat for the Republicans against Sheldon Whitehouse, while right-winger Laffey would be whomped in a state where no Republican presidential candidate has cracked 40 percent of the vote since Ronald Reagan in 1984.
Virginia Senate Race
While other 2008 presidential contenders are on the ballot this fall (Hillary Clinton in New York and Bill Richardson making an easy bid for a second term as New Mexico's governor), Republican George Allen is the only White House dreamer nervously watching his home-state poll numbers. "I believe if George Bush were popular, they would pick George Allen in 2008 because he is George Bush Redux," said Sen. Chuck Schumer at a Wednesday breakfast sponsored by the American Prospect. But Schumer, who heads the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, added, "I'm very glad we're giving George Allen a very nice run for his money in Virginia." The Democratic runner and Netroots favorite is James Webb, once Ronald Reagan's secretary of the Navy, who bolted the GOP in opposition to the Iraq war. Webb is underfunded and still a work in progress as a campaigner (especially compared to the affable Allen), but Virginia, though a traditional conservative bastion, is rapidly transforming itself into a swing state because of a Democratic and demographic surge in the Washington suburbs.
About the writer
Walter Shapiro is Salon's Washington bureau chief. A complete listing of his articles is here.
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