2010 Arkansas Senate - Boozman vs. Lincoln

10/7/10 -- The polls have started to tick up slightly for Lincoln, but it is nowhere near enough for her to win. While she's no longer looking like she will break the record for lowest re-elect in history, she's still in the neighborhood of a bottom ten performance.

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Senator Blanche Lincoln’s career started out promising enough.  The one-time congressional receptionist ran a successful primary campaign against her former boss in 1992 and then cruised through the November general election with a 40-point win. After taking a two-year hiatus from Congress to give birth to her twins, she again won a Senate seat by a large margin in 1998.

But things began to get shaky for Lincoln after that. Her voting record was moderate, with a liberal tinge, and in 2004 she won by only a 56-44 margin against an opponent who spent about $100,000.

Then Obama was elected, and the Democrats surged (eventually) to a 60-seat majority. The administration needed every vote it could possibly get, and Lincoln voted a fairly liberal line, angering Arkansas conservatives. On the other hand, whenever she deviated from the administration, she often had the power to kill the initiative in question (for example, the public option). This earned her the enmity of the left.

Thus, Lincoln found herself faced with a strong primary challenge from the left as well as a strong general election challenge from the right. She narrowly survived the primary from Lieutenant Governor Bill Halter but is a much longer shot against Congressman John Boozman (the younger brother of the Republican Lincoln defeated in 1998). Only six incumbent senators have seen their re-elects drop below 40 percent of the two-party vote since we began directly electing senators. Given the polling we’ve seen recently, Lincoln stands a good chance of becoming number seven. She might even become the recordholder if she falls below 35 percent (set in 1932 by Sen. Wesley L. Jones of Washington). You never want to bet against an incumbent, but it is hard to see how Lincoln pulls this one out.