Kucinich Looks Safe in Re-Election Fight

Posted by Chris Bowers, Open Left at 1:13 PM on February 27, 2008.

At some point it is probably a good idea for the blogosphere to become involved in a primary challenge against a member of the progressive caucus.

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I am relieved to report that Kucinich appears safe for re-election in OH-10, according to a new survey from Public Policy Polling:

Kucinich does though appear safe to ward off the challenge he is facing from four challengers in the Democratic primary. Kucinich is currently at 55%, followed by Cleveland City Councilman Joe Cimperman at 29%. The other three candidates register at 5% or lower.(...)

While self identified Democrats intend to reelect Kucinich by a wide margin (59-26), Republicans and independents who are planning to vote in the Democratic primary are not as enamored with him. He trails Cimperman 45-34 with independent voters and has just a 45-35 advantage with Republican voters.

PPP surveyed 470 likely Democratic primary voters on February 25th. The survey's margin of errors is +/-4.7%. Other factors, such as refusal to be interviewed and weighting, may introduce additional error that is more difficult to quantify.

Defeating an incumbent in a primary is just about the most difficult electoral challenge someone can undertake. Kucinich put himself in a potentially vulnerable position by spending so much time running for President, and by using his national small donor base to focus almost entirely on his Presidential campaign. If he was defeated, it would have damaged much of the momentum progressives earned from the Donna Edwards victory, but that does not appear to be a big worry now.

While this wasn't the campaign to become involved with, given the corporate and Republican money Cimperman was raising against Kucinich, at some point it is probably a good idea for the blogosphere to become involved in a primary challenge against a member of the progressive caucus. So far, from what I can tell, the Edwards victory is having much more of an impact on the Congressional Black Caucus than it is on the wider House caucus. It might be necessary to defeat a member from every caucus, such as Ed Fallon defeating Blue Dog Leonard Boswell, in order for these primary challenges to create the desired behavioral change among congressional Democrats. And every caucus means Blue Dogs, New Dems, Progressives, the CBC, and the Hispanic caucus.

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Tagged as: kucinich, democrats, donna edwards, ohio

Chris Bowers was a full-time editor at MyDD from May 2004 until June 2007. Some of his projects have included the creation of the Liberal Blog Advertising Network, the first scientifically random poll of progressive netroots activists, the Use It Or Lose It campaign, the nation's most accurate forecast of Democratic house pickups in 2006, and the 2006 Googlebomb the Elections campaign.