2010 Missouri Senate - Blunt vs. Carnahan

10/30/10 -- This race is pretty close to over.  Carnahan has actually lost some ground over October, and it is hard to see how she pulls this one out now.

10/7/10 -- For a while there, it looked like Carnahan was turning this into a close race.  But Blunt seems to have, erm, blunted her momentum, and has been above 50 percent in every poll taken since mid-August.  Carnahan has to make up a point roughly every third day between now and Election Day, which isn't impossible, but isn't easy.

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Missouri politics are dominated by four competing geographic divisions. The Democratic base is in central Kansas City and St. Louis, while the Republicans run strong in the rural southwest, which has long been Republican. The third division is found in the Republican-tilting suburbs, while the fourth division is basically the rest of the state, which is essentially a salient of the south jutting into the heart of the state. Democrats’ successes are normally dictated by how well they run in these latter areas.

The fourth division historically voted Democrat, and kept the state in the Democratic column. But in the 1970s, three Republicans remade the states’ map: John Danforth, John Ashcroft and Kit Bond. Bond broke a 32-year Democratic stranglehold on the Governor’s mansion in 1972, lost in 1976, and was re-elected in 1980. In 1986 he won a Senate seat and, after four terms, called it a career.

The election to replace Bond will pit Republican Congressman Roy Blunt against Democratic Secretary of State Robin Carnahan. Both candidates have problems. Although Blunt has a lengthy career in Missouri state politics, he is now a creature of D.C. running in what looks like a change election, and he shares a name with an unsuccessful governor – his son – who retired rather than run for re-election in 2008. He’s running against a bearer of one of the most famous family names in Missouri. Carnahan is the sister of a congressman, daughter of a governor and senator, and granddaughter of another congressman.

Carnahan’s problem is the state’s demographics. In the 1990s, her father pulled together a coalition of suburbanites and rural voters to win handily statewide; Bill Clinton’s wins had a similar flavor. Claire McCaskill pulled together a modified version in 2006; she was able to hold her own in the rural areas but was not able to break through. As a result, her win was narrow. In 2008, Obama was not able to break through at all in rural areas, and was unable to carry the state despite a strong turnout effort in the cities. He remains deeply unpopular in the state.

If Carnahan can sell herself to rural voters and win over suburbanites, she can win this race. But so far, there hasn’t been much of an indication that she can do this. Carnahan will have a tough time pulling together a winning coalition here.