I’m currently catching up on the insanity in Delaware, where it seems enough crazy broke out over the last couple of weeks to entertain folks on both coasts nearly 24/7 on Twitter.
But, there’s this bit of interesting news from one of my favorite local political news sites:
That means some Democratic-held seats have become more competitive, most notably Patrick Murphy’s 8th District, which now sits at No. 4 on the rankings. Republican challenger Mike Fitzpatrick’s strong fundraising, an anti-Democratic climate and polling data we’ve seen all contributed to this change. Political forecasters increasingly see the Bucks County race as a battleground. No race has become more competitive since we inaugurated the Power Rankings—it’s moved from No. 10 all the way to No. 4.
This fascinates me, and likely will until the morning after election day. Talking to people on the ground, there’s not much enthusiasm for Fitzpatrick – the GOP candidate looking to reclaim the seat he lost in 2006. However, there is quite a bit of enthusiasm for voting out Patrick Murphy – the Democratic incumbent who ran as a Blue Dog and has voted fairly far left.
Of course, nothing we see here in Pennsylvania compares to the level of political engagement we saw out in Hawaii. Their primary isn’t until next weekend, and yet we saw sign wavers every single time we got in the car (with some exceptions when we were driving late at night). There are signs in lawns and banners hanging off the sides of a huge number of homes. We found it was even common for businesses to get in on the political game by showing their support for various candidates. It’s very clear that the Djou special election win has energized the GOP there, and they are out in full force showing their support for their candidates. On the Democratic side, Mufi Hannemann, the primary challenger to former Congressman Neil Abercrombie for the Governor’s office, appears to have quite the enthusiasm advantage. His volunteers were out everywhere. We never saw any Abercrombie supporters (at least in person – beyond a sign in the yard) until our next to last day. Even then, it was one group doing one sign waving event.