The national environment is not too friendly to Democrats this year. While this is not a groundbreaking revelation, it is worth keeping in mind as you take a bird’s eye look at the congressional race in Idaho’s 1st district. There, in one of the nation’s most conservative districts, a Democrat may survive this election cycle, abut it will not be easy.
Democratic Rep. Walter Minnick was elected to Congress from Idaho’s 1st in 2008 with just over 50 percent of the vote. He narrowly defeated his unpopular Republican opponent, Rep. Bill Sali, who had only served a single term in the House. Sali had succeeded former Representative turned Idaho governor, C.L. “Butch” Otter. Sali was unpopular among Idaho Republicans and in 2008 became the first Republican Representative from Idaho to lose a reelection bid in 56 years.
Idaho’s 1st district is a majority urban district, despite its size and location in the Northern Rockies. The district includes Boise and Lewiston and runs from the Canadian Border in the North down to Nevada.
Minnick knows he represents a right-leaning district (with a PVI of R+18) that voted for McCain by 60 percent in 2008, and he has voted that way in Washington. Minnick voted against both versions of the health care reform bill, “cap-and-trade,” and any bill that had received the sobriquet “stimulus.” Those votes have not gone unrecognized.
Minnick was named a “guardian of small business” by National Federation of Independent Businesses – an organization that traditionally endorses conservative candidates. Minnick was endorsed by both Chamber of Commerce and Tea Party Express – the only Democrat to receive that conservative PAC’s support. Minnick has, however, repudiated that endorsement.
In a year when Democrats are defending 115 seats (according to the Cook Report), Rep. Walt Minnick is waving off conservative endorsements. But even with all this conservative support, Minnick still has an opponent and, as Republicans learned in 2006 and 2008, it is difficult to win any election by trying to be more like the other guy than the other guy. The other guy is usually better at it.
Minnick’s opponent is Raul Labrador, a state Representative and lawyer with a Hispanic background and a barely detectable accent. Labrador beat his NRCC-recruited opponent, Vaughn Ward, handily in primary. The only independent polling in the field is from Mason-Dixon, conducted September 13-15, which shows Minnick leading Labrador by ten points. Furthermore, Minnick receives the support of 26 percent of Republicans and has an overall 54/16 favorability rating.
Minnick went up on the air in August and this race went from issues-oriented to cutthroat quickly. Minnick first came out with a positive, biographical spot. He quickly went negative against Labrador with two ads that feature Minnick supporters questioning Labrador’s business as an immigration lawyer here and here. In one, retired U.S. Marshall Mike Johnson highlights Labrador’s website, which offers support and advice for aliens trying to get citizenship. In another ad, grainy audio of Labrador saying that he makes “good money” from the business of helping aliens achieve citizenship is presented in an persuasive and damning way.
Labrador’s campaign has come out with some effective parries to both attacks. The first, that Labrador is himself Hispanic, an immigration lawyer and he had even facilitated the adoption process of Minnick’s foreign-born child. The second, and slightly less effective, parry is the invocation of spokesman Mike Johnson’s decision making skills when he commanded operations at the failed standoff on Ruby Ridge in 1992. As far as negative positioning goes, these ads are not well founded. The Idaho Statesman fact checked Minnick’s ad and found Labrador’s statements in their full context to be exonerating.
Labrador released an internal poll last week showed him down by six percentage points, 37 to 31. A July poll by Labrador’s camp shows him down by ten percentage points, 37 to 27. Labrador has been highlighting the trend. Minnick’s camp has not yet responded by releasing one of their internal polls. This could be a plea for fundraising from the Labrador campaign. Labrador has only $69,000 cash on hand, although he says he raised more than a quarter million dollars in the last quarter. Minnick has raised more than $1.8 million and has $1.14 cash on hand.
While Minnick’s voting record in congress has been one of the most conservative among Congressional Democrats, there are still votes that Labrador can run against – perhaps the most damaging is Minnick’s vote for Majority Leader and House Speaker, Democratic Rep. Nancy Pelosi. Minnick has attempted damage control saying that he had contemplated voting “present” on the matter but it would have “compromised his effectiveness” in congress. There are no independent poll numbers to confirm what Idahoans think of Rep. Pelosi, but if it is anything like the rest of red-state America, it will not be good.
This race could do with more polling firms operating in the field; to date, the only independent firms that have surveyed this race are Rasmussen Reports and Mason-Dixon – there has been no new data since the second week in September. Labrador is a relative unknown and Minnick has been actively trying to bring his opponents negatives up recently, with some evidence that the effort may have backfired. Furthermore, as voters in this district contemplate voting for a Democrat while at the same time opposing a Democratic majority, some of those 26 percent of Republicans may “come home” to Labrador. If there has been movement in this race, it will likely be toward Labrador. With only ten points separating the two candidates, this could be a closer race than was initially thought.
Noah Rothman is the online editor at C&E. Email him at nrothman@campaignsandelections.com