Wyoming House Race Potpourri

Two fresh items out of the Wyoming House race today. First, Governor Dave Freudenthal, who we were critical of last week, is finally formally endorsing Gary Trauner. With just 13 days left until the election, this cannot hurt Trauner given Freudenthal's wide popularity in the state, but Democrats in Wyoming and elsewhere have to wonder: what the heck took so long, Gov. Dave?

Second, I stand corrected. A few days ago, I hypothesized that the reason the DCCC had not spent any money in the WY-AL race up to this point was perhaps because Trauner had told them to stay out. The Democrat has been running a very positive campaign -- resulting in very high favorability ratings for a Democrat in Wyoming -- and may have told national Democrats to stay away with the highly negative stuff. It seemed strange that Trauner, who was one of the first ten entries on the original DCCC "red to blue" list had not yet received any national aid.

Well, I was wrong, which can often happen around these parts. The DCCC has just jumped into Wyoming with its first tv spot against Republican nominee Cynthia Lummis. For those interested, the commercial's script is below

ANNCR: "Cynthia Lummis. She has some strange ideas for your future. Lummis wants to raise the retirement age for seniors, making it harder to get your benefits. And she wants to raise the income tax on millions of families, when we can least afford it. Lummis even wanted to increase gas taxes here, in Wyoming. Cynthia Lummis. Don't send her to Washington, or she'll become a part of your future. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is responsible for the content of this advertising."

I am not sure about the size of the buy, but given the cheapness of many of the tv markets which touch Wyoming (though, the markets in Colorado and Utah which go into Wyoming may be more expensive), I am sure it will blanket the state. It took a little than I would figured to weigh in here -- indeed, this has been closer for much longer tha ID-01, for example -- but I am confident the Trauner campaign feels better late than never. As we have noted, in three polls over the last week, Trauner has been at 44 percent in each of them. Lummis was at 43 percent in two of them, and 50 percent in the last one, from Survey-USA, which had more GOP voters in its sample than other two. As I have said, I would be very surprised if the NRCC spent any money here. Then again, they have dropped around $250,000 to save Bill Sali, though he is a sitting congressman.

The big two questions remaining in this race are: (1) will Trauner be able to grab a good number of the sizable group of Republicans who are undecided about this race; and (2) can Trauner get close to the 71 percent of indies he got in 2006 with his opponent much stronger with this group than the retiring incumbent?