Terry's Elections Guide and Predictions: Kentucky
KY-02 (Republican-held)
Ron Lewis (R) 53 - Mike Weaver (D) 46
I would love to see Weaver win here, but I don't see it happening. Lewis, while certainly a knee-jerk conservative, hasn't been directly tied to any of the BS coming out of Washington these days. Col. Mike Weaver has a strong resume and has made inroads in the district thanks to his opposition to the Iraq War, but I fear his campaign inexperience and the Republican tilt of the district make the hill too steep to climb this time around.
KY-03 (Republican-held)
John Yarmuth (D) 52 - Anne Northup (R) 47
OK, I'm a little biased here because I was press secretary for the last guy who ran against Northup, and also I hate her guts. She was first elected to this Louisville district in 1996, and she's held off tough incumbents ever since. Her strongest victory, by far, was against Tony Miller in 2004 (yes, I bear some responsibility here), scaring off several potential challengers for 2006. John Yarmuth, founder and columnist for Louisville's alt-weekly LEO, was a vigorous supporter of ours last time around, and evidently thinking he could do a better job, decided to go out front as the candidate this time. And he was right! Yarmuth is the first candidate to have held significant leads over Northup in multiple polls (especially this close to the election), he has the Louisville Democratic base energized, and he has done a marvelous job of staying strong against Northup's relentless attacks. I have to hand it to Northup; besides being one of the most prolific fundraisers in Congress, she has a remarkable talent for making even the dumbest of campaign attacks come across as both important and lethal, while making seemingly contradictory attacks from year to year that Democrats can never seem to pin down. Yarmuth has stayed tough despite the attacks ("I'll stand by my columns if she'll stand by her votes"), and although some observers say Yarmuth would be dead in the water in any other kind of political environment, I think here the candidate deserves the credit. One final note: Louisville is often considered a Democratic-leaning district. It's true that voter registration tilts that way, but that's also true of Mississippi. Louisville is actually a fairly accurate microcosm of the country's voting habits, with the wealthy Republican East End, the liberal Democratic downtown, the heavily African-American West Louisville, and the socially conservative but recently Democratic South End. The keys here are tamping down Republican support in West Louisville (where Northup has become very popular for a Republican, frankly by buying off several local church leaders) and winning back the economically liberal South End. Yarmuth's campaign claims they've identified 14 kinds of Democrat, and if they're not just blowing smoke here they might really be onto something. I like John Yarmuth a lot as a person and as a candidate, and if I could choose one Democratic pickup this year, it would probably be here.
KY-04 (Republican-held)
Geoff Davis (R) 52 - Ken Lucas (D) 48
Ken Lucas is a conservative Democrat who held this conservative seat for three terms after Jim Bunning left to run for Senate. Honoring his term-limits pledge, he stepped down in 2004 as Geoff Davis, his 2002 opponent, beat George Clooney's dad (seriously) to put this seat in Republican hands. Lucas apparently thinks Davis is either a moron, a terrible congressman, or both, because he's coming out of retirement to take him on. Early polls showed Lucas with a big lead that subsequently narrowed, and the most recent polling suggests Davis is starting to pull away. This would be a tough loss.