Playing Field Improves For GOP, Though Existential Primary Fights Loom

NY Times:

Republicans are luring new candidates into House and Senate races, and the number of seats up for grabs in November appears to be growing, setting up a midterm election likely to be harder fought than anyone anticipated before the party’s big victory in Massachusetts last week.

Republicans still face many obstacles, not least a number of potentially divisive primaries in coming months that will highlight the deep ideological rifts within the party. But in the days since Republicans claimed the Senate seat that Edward M. Kennedy had held for decades, upending assumptions in both parties about the political landscape for 2010, they have seen not just a jolt of energy and optimism but also more concrete opportunities to take on Democrats.

Just since Tuesday, half a dozen Republicans have expressed interest in challenging Democrats in House races in New York, Pennsylvania and potentially Massachusetts, party officials said.

“I think it was inspiring and gave voice to a lot of people,” said Mike Fitzpatrick, a former one-term Republican congressman from the Philadelphia suburbs who announced on Saturday that he would try to reclaim his old seat from Representative Patrick J. Murphy, a Democrat ...

Stuart Rothenberg, a political analyst who follows Congressional races, said a report he will release Monday will count 58 Democratic House seats in play, up from 47 in December. The number of Republican seats in play has held at 14 in that period, he said. And Democrats expect more of their incumbents to retire, which could put additional seats at risk.

Democratic officials said Sunday night that Representative Marion Berry of Arkansas was expected to announce plans to retire Monday, making him the first to quit since the Massachusetts election and opening up another competitive race.

Republicans need a net gain of 40 seats to regain control of the House. That still seems unlikely, though hardly impossible.

Mr. Rothenberg lists seven Democratic Senate seats and four Republican seats in play; that number will not change on Monday, though Mr. Rothenberg recently rated Republicans as likely to take over Mrs. Lincoln’s seat in Arkansas.

“The Republicans are expanding the playing field, no doubt about that,” Mr. Rothenberg said, describing it as a continuing Democratic deterioration that began late last summer.

But the outlook for November remains hard to discern for several reasons. The Supreme Court decision last week overturning limits on corporate money in campaigns could alter races in ways difficult to predict, though the conventional wisdom is that Republicans will benefit most.

President Obama and the Democrats are reorganizing to blunt any advantage Republicans might have gained from the burst of angry populism that seems to be coursing through both parties.

The White House has not given up on passing a health care bill, and there is still time for the economy to improve in a way that could benefit the president and his party. And while Republicans are benefiting now from a wave of optimism, they also face a thicket of primary fights, starting in Illinois on Feb. 2, which could weaken their nominees.

Democrats have not been spared primary battling. Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania, who switched to the Democratic Party from the Republican last year, faces a primary challenge on the left from Representative Joe Sestak. The party also faces competitive Senate primaries in Colorado, Illinois, Kentucky, North Carolina and Ohio, reflecting, among other issues, strains between liberals and centrists.

But the deeper intramural divisions are within the Republican Party, a sign of the intensity and unpredictability of the grass-roots conservative movement.

Across the country, Republican candidates are running as outsiders with the backing of conservative Tea Party groups, challenging Republicans identified with the party establishment. Several analysts said the victory in the Massachusetts Senate race of Scott Brown, a Republican who ran with Tea Party support, could encourage more challenges and drive incumbents further right.

Senator John McCain of Arizona, the 2008 Republican presidential nominee, is facing a primary challenge from former Representative J. D. Hayworth, who is seeking to exploit longstanding unease among conservatives toward Mr. McCain.

Highly contested and potentially divisive Senate primaries are also shaping up in California, Colorado, Florida, Kentucky, Nevada and New Hampshire.

The Illinois primary next week is one example where a Senate candidate favored by the Republican establishment, Representative Mark Steven Kirk, has to deal with the complications of a challenge from the right. Mr. Kirk has veered right on issues like climate change, after originally voting for a Democratic bill on the subject in the House.

In Kentucky, Trey Grayson, the secretary of state, faces a stiff challenge from Dr. Rand Paul, a Tea Party candidate and a son of Representative Ron Paul of Texas, a Republican presidential candidate in 2008. If Mr. Paul wins — and early polling suggests he could — a Democrat would be favored to win the seat, now held by Jim Bunning, a Republican who is not seeking re-election.

The debate over whether the party needs to embrace conservative roots or broaden its appeal will continue this week in Honolulu, where the Republican National Committee is girding to address a so-called purity resolution introduced by conservative leaders. The resolution requires Republican candidates to support at least 8 of 10 conservative positions — on issues including abortion, same-sex marriage and immigration — or be cut off from party financing and support.

Party officials said they were hopeful that they could head off the resolution, though probably not without a contentious debate.

Republicans said that the glut of candidates was evidence of the party’s robustness, and that primaries were as likely to be helpful as damaging to the party’s hopes in November.

“There’s a ton of primaries on the Republican side,” said Curt Anderson, a senior adviser to Michael Steele, the chairman of the Republican National Committee. “I have always been of the camp that that’s a healthy thing. I know Democrats say: ‘They are divided. They have primaries.’ I’m like, throw me in the briar patch — we have people who want to run for office.”

Democrats have seized on this as evidence of the obstacles Republicans face. Representative Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, said that by his count, Republicans face robust primaries in at least 55 districts. “The dynamic is to drive the winner way to the right,” Mr. Van Hollen said, “which does risk losing the moderate and independent vote.”

Charlie Cook, an analyst of Congressional races, said these contested primaries could prove to be a plus for Republicans, in the form of increased contributions, volunteers and votes. But, Mr. Cook said, “If it helps eccentric candidates who are not electable in a general election get the nomination, that’s a problem, or if Tea Party candidates lose primaries and Tea Party supporters stay home, that’s a problem.”