nothin Murphy’s To Lose | New Haven Independent

Murphy’s To Lose

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Prognosticator Paul.

Jason The Greek,” one of Connecticut’s most incisive in-the-trenches numbers-crunchers on behalf of Democratic campaign, handicaps the already busy 2012 campaign to replace retiring U.S. Sen. Joe Lieberman. Already in the race: Republicans Linda McMahon and Chris Shays and Democrats Chris Murphy, Susan Bysiewicz, and William Tong.

I feel like the guy ruining the end of a movie people haven’t seen yet but I think that we basically already know how the 2012 Connecticut Senate race will end, particularly if the Democrats nominate their frontrunner.

With Linda McMahon’s announcement that she will seek the Republican nomination, it’s time to end the race, at least as a matter of analysis, before it starts.

It seems likely at this stage that Chris Murphy will be the Democratic candidate. I have great respect for both of his Democratic opponents. Yet Murphy starts off with: a front-running poll status; a money lead; the advantage of being the Congressman from 20 percent of the state (although to be fair, probably more like 16 percent of the primary voters); and institutional support from the top, including all four Congressional colleagues’ endorsements. That all adds up to his likely, if not inevitable, nomination.

If Congressman Murphy gets the nomination, it becomes nearly impossible to stop him for a very simple reason. He will to be able to secure at least a tie in his home district, which is absolutely essential for Republican victory in a statewide race, particularly in a presidential year.

My guess, backed up by polling, is that Chris Shays is the Republicans’ strongest candidate. Even Shays will find it very hard to win. Here’s what likely would be Shays’ best-case scenario: Shays ties with Murphy in the 5th and battles him to a draw in the 2nd. Shays also reaches a draw with Murphy in the 3rd and the 1st, excluding New Haven and Hartford proper. (Republican gubernatorial candidate Thomas Foley came close to that in 2010 but couldn’t quite pull it off.) Shays then wins his old district, the 4th, by 2½ times his 2004 performance. On top of that, the overall voter turnout in New Haven and Hartford is at 2004 levels and not at 2008’s much higher Democratic turnout.

Even if Shays manages to accomplish all that, Murphy would still win by about 5,000 votes.

In reality every one of those benchmarkers will be hard for Shays to achieve. It will be hard to tie in Murphy’s home district or in the 2nd Congressional district, which won’t go gaga for a Republican from Fairfield County against a non-Fairfield County Democrat. In a presidential year with higher voter turnout (although it’s not clear how much higher), it will be tough for Shays to exceed Foley’s performance in the 3rd and the 1st. Similarly, Shays would find it hard to turn a roughly 12,000 vote-deficit against Himes in 2008 into a 35,000-vote victory in 2012 on the hope that none of the Obama increase in votes in New Haven or Hartford will occur in 2012.

If you had to bet, you would take Murphy exceeding all of these markers and fairly easily. That Murphy can win while not exceeding any of them shows just how difficult it is for a Republican to win a Senate race in Connecticut.

This should not be a shock. In 2010, Linda McMahon, with pretty much limitless money, lost by more than 135,000 votes and was unable to win a single Congressional district. She or Shays would meet a similar fate. The math suggests incredibly strongly that Chris Murphy will be our next senator.

Sorry for ruining it for all of you.

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