Despite the fact that Democrat Larry Grant was outspent by more than a 2-to-1 margin when expenditures by candidates and party committees are included in a district, Idaho 1, that leans significantly towards the Republicans (PVI R+19), Grant only narrowly lost to Republican Bill Sali, 50 percent to 45 percent. In a rematch race this cycle between the freshman Sali and Grant, the political prognosticators seem to be uninterested, with neither The Rothenberg Political Report nor The Cook Political Report (.pdf) rating the contest as either competitive or potentially competitive. But new polling out of the Grant campaign may have the campaign watchers thinking twice. Aaron Blake has the details for The Hill.

Rep. Bill Sali's (R) approval rating is below 30 percent, and his disapproval mark is 46 percent, according to a poll released Monday by one of his opponents, 2006 Democratic nominee Larry Grant.

The poll showed just 29 percent of respondents approved of Sali. Grant was close behind at 28 percent but had a much lower unfavorable rating of 13 percent.

There's no doubt that this is a difficult district for the Democrats to win. The fact that Grant was not able to win this seat even in the Democratic landslide of 2006 is a testament to this fact.

But, amazingly, for as good as 2006 was for Democrats, 2008 could actually be better. Both Democratic polling and non-partisan polling indicate that the electorate is still significantly more disposed to vote Democratic than Republican in Congressional races this cycle. What's more, Democratic party committees have nearly twice the cash-on-hand as do GOP committees, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has close to 10 times the cash-on-hand that the National Republican Congressional Committee now holds, indicating that the Democrats could have significantly more room to help a Larry Grant than Republicans could to help a Bill Sali.

So given this potential environment, the fact that Sali is so remarkably unpopular -- which is unsurprising due to his extremely far right stances which even put him outside of the mainstream of this conservative district -- Grant really may have a shot at winning.

Earlier, I attended the The Future Leaders Panel at YearlyKos, which featured the following brave '06 congressional challengers going for another round next year: Charlie Brown (CA-04), Darcy Burner (WA-08), Larry Grant (ID-01), Eric Massa (NY-29), Scott Kleeb (NE-03), Dan Seals (IL-10), and Gary Trauner (WY-AL.)

As many electoral successes as we had in red and purple districts last year, these panelists represented some of the more heartbreaking close calls. In fact there was a running joke that it was the losers' panel, but as one of the panelists said, "We are redefining the word loser. I am a proud loser." Charlie Brown put it well when he turned the joke on its head and said proudly, "The reason we're winners is that most of us got more votes than any Democrat ever had before in our districts." But the most poignant reason the loser moniker doesn't fit is that these challengers, despite falling short in votes in their districts, undeniably contributed to our winning the majority last year. They forced the Republicans to spend precious time and money in these districts, which they'd taken for granted just a cycle before, and that was time and money that couldn't be spent defending other districts. In other words, sitting on that stage was the 50-state strategy incarnate.

Another interesting thread that ran through the discussion was just how much has changed in 2 years. Scott Kleeb said he "literally knocked on the DCCC's door" last year and told them he was running in NE-03. "And they said, that's nice." Now they're all getting offers of support whereas last year they couldn't get past the receptionist. Sure, it's a function of their having proved themselves viable last year, but in addition, there is a greater openness to grassrots and netroots candidates on the part of the DC establishment. All of the challengers on that stage gave credit to the netroots for not only providing the support when no one else would, but also for challenging the DCCC to pay attention to these races. And they urged us to continue to do so.

More from the convention later...

Nationally, many pundits and bloggers didn't take Nevada's 2nd district too seriously in 2006. It was too safe a Republican district to be even slightly competitive, so the argument went.

Well, we all know that Dean Heller in the end won his election against Democrat Jill Derby. Against expectations though, his result wasn't very convincing. The man who was elected Secretary of State of Nevada three times, barely won more than 50% of the vote in a district that doesn't include Democratic Las Vegas. So today, I ventured out in search of Republicans who won their districts in 2006 and did worse than him. Turns out that there weren't that many.

Yep here we go again. With the dust not yet settled on the last challenge in FL-13 (Good luck Christine) we take a look forward to 2008.

Wander below the fold for the good oil.

I recall reading that Newt Gingrich advised Republican candidates who lost House races by less than 10% to run again in the next election; some of the infamous Class of '94 freshmen who rode the Republican wave into the House had run close races in '92, and some of '94's losers won seats in '96.  I think this is one Gingrich idea we need to adopt -- and further, we need to push the DCCC to adopt it as well.

What I would ideally like to see is a petition with a huge number of signatures delivered to the new DCCC chair on his or her first day on the job.  I think Moveon.org would be the ideal forum for collecting signatures -- on-line petition drives are a large part of what they do, and their mailing list can generate literally millions of signatures in a matter of days.

If anyone on MyDD has contacts in the management of Moveon.org, I would greatly appreciate your help in bringing this to their attention; I intend to submit it via their feedback form after incorporating any comments or suggestions from the MyDD community which seem useful.  I'd especially appreciate any information on who the new DCCC chair is likely to be, what the selection process is, and when we'll know for certain.

(petition text below the fold)

In 2004 some of the greatest signs of life in the Democratic Party came out of the Mountain West. This year, it appears this trend is spreading, with Democrats having a potential to pick up as many as twelve U.S. House seats (AZ-01, AZ-05, AZ-08, CO-04, CO-05, CO-07, ID-01, MT-AL, NM-01, NV-02, NV-03, and WY-AL), three Senate seats (AZ, MT and NV), and two governorships (CO and ID). Among these states, Idaho, which George W. Bush carried with over 68 percent of the vote in 2004, stands out in particular, especially given the latest Mason-Dixon polling out of the state.

In the governor's race, Republican U.S. Rep. Butch Otter leads Democratic newspaper owner Jerry Brady by a single percentage point. Republican state Rep. Bill Sali has a 2 percentage point lead over Democratic businessman Larry Grant for the congressional seat that runs from West Boise north to Canada. In the race to oversee public schools, Democrat Jana Jones leads Republican Tom Luna by 3 percentage points.

[...]

Twenty-seven percent of voters say they have an unfavorable opinion of Otter; Brady's negative figure is 14 percent. Luna is viewed unfavorably by 22 percent, while only 6 percent see Jones that way. Twenty-six percent say they have an unfavorable opinion of Risch; LaRocco's figure is 16 percent.

Worst of all is Sali, who famously has been called an "absolute idiot" by Idaho House Speaker Bruce Newcomb, whose words star in Grant TV spots. Sali's unfavorable rating is 33 percent, the same proportion who see him favorably. Grant's ratio is very positive, with 34 percent viewing him favorably and 13 percent unfavorably. With voters hungry for change, those perceptions of the standard-bearers of the party in power are damaging.

Democrats also appear to have momentum. A Brady poll in July showed him trailing Otter by 19 points. Now, they're even. Jones trailed Luna 41-28 in July, and Grant has reversed early numbers showing him well behind.

I'm not going to pretend that I was prescient and saw these races, and specifically the governor's race, as being this competitive at this stage in the game. I'm also not going to get my hopes up too high in the assumption that this polling indicates that the Democrats are within a couple points of winning rather than within a couple points of catching their Republican adversaries with a significant portion of the electorate still undecided. In 2004, for example, I truly believed that Democrat Brad Carson had a great chance in the Oklahoma Senate race, with polling showing him either up by a couple points or down by a couple points but in the low 40s, only to see Republican Tom Coburn virtually walk to a 53 percent to 41 percent victory.

Nonetheless, the political climate in the country -- and even in Idaho -- is decidedly different than it was in 2004, and the late-breaking trends are not moving towards the GOP like they were just two years ago. That could change, particularly as a result of the politically-motivated decision to announce the verdict in the Saddam Hussein trial a week from today. But even keeping that in account, I'm significantly less pessimistic about Democrats' chances in states like Idaho than I was just weeks ago. And if this movement keeps up, folks inside the beltway will be shocked to see races  break towards the Democrats that they never even thought possible.

Taking a look through the independent expenditure forms filed with the FEC today, a couple of investments by the National Republican Congressional Committee stand out: Over $135,000 for ads and phone banks opposing Larry Grant, the Democratic candidate for Idaho's 1st district, which is an open seat; and more than $70,000 for ads opposing Tom Hayhurst, the Democratic nominee in the heretofore overlooked Indiana 3. The latter, in particular, which puts the NRCC's total commitment to a district George W. Bush carried with 68 percent of the vote in 2004 at just shy of $100,000, provides yet more proof that there are a number of Republican incumbents with soft enough support even in GOP-heavy districts that they are in danger of losing.

Yet even as House Republicans show signs of real weakness by dumping tens of thousands of dollars into the fourth most competitive GOP-held House seat in Indiana (however flush with cash the NRCC is, they're not going to spend that type of money if they don't think they need to), the DCCC is still shying away from expanding the field races it is contesting. Again, looking through the independent expenditure reports, only a few expenditures -- a $125,000 ad buy targeting GOP Congresswoman Cathy McMorris in Eastern Washington and $135,000 targeting Melissa Hart in Pennsylvania 4, for instance -- stand out as being ambitious, with the bulk of the committee's investments going to districts that have already been on the radar for weeks or months.

Republicans clearly understand that modest ad buys in districts that haven't seen a lot of -- or any -- national money to this point can make a large impact in campaigns, perhaps making the difference between a narrow miss and a surprise upset. Will the DCCC learn this same lesson? Time is quickly running out...

Update [2006-10-25 0:11:22 by Jonathan Singer]: To clarify, the DCCC is making new investments in a number of races, including California 11 (Pombo), Pennsylvania 4 (Hart) and Minnesota 1 (Gutknecht). They should be applauded for this. But given the fact that the NRCC is shifting funds to districts President Bush carried by more than a 2 to 1 margin just two years ago, it still puzzles me why the DCCC is not following suit by going into quirky races, perhaps ones in which the Republicans are on their heels. Or perhaps, even better yet, the DCCC could blaze some trails by going into districts where the NRCC hasn't yet dropped a dime, putting Republicans even more on the defensive.

Blue Catapult PAC has made Larry Grant's quest for Congress in Idaho's 1st congressional districts its 10th race in which it is supporting a Democrtaic Challenger.

Normally Idaho would not be a state friendly to Democratic candidates, but Larry Grant is different. Not only is he well-qualified, reasonable and thoughtful on the issues, his opponent, Club for Growth (should be called "The Club for Debt") backed candidate Bill Sali is so reviled by even elected officials of his own Republican Party, that "Republicans for Grant" has become a major element of the campaign.

The Republican Party has spent tens of thousands of dollars in a district that normally they would leave alone as a certain Republican seat. But Larry Grant's rising campaign and the Republican Party nominating an extremist has changed the equation, making Larry a great choice for Blue Catapult's 10th adoption.