Offering frequent news and analysis from the majestic Evergreen State and beyond, The Cascadia Advocate is the Northwest Progressive Institute's unconventional perspective on world, national, and local politics.

Saturday, February 26, 2005

Gearing Up for Cantwell 2006

It's early, but Maria Cantwell is already gearing up for her reelection campaign, and NPI is completely behind her.

No clear candidate has emerged for the GOP as a challenger for Cantwell, but possible contenders might be Chris Vance, the current party chair, or - George Nethercutt. The interesting thing about Nethercutt is that he gave up his safe seat in Spokane to run against Patty Murray, who was a two-term incumbent whose prospects for reelection were pretty good.

Perhaps Nethercutt's campaign against Murray was intended to be a precursor to a run against Cantwell - because Cantwell is much more vulnerable as a candidate. Still, Cantwell's prospects for reelection right now are pretty sound, considering we don't know who her challenger is yet.

Markos (of Daily Kos) has his own outlook, which I've copied in below. He predicts Cantwell will retain her seat. I agree, since we don't know who Cantwell's challenger(s) is or are yet.

Washington (Likely Dem retention)
Maria Cantwell is a freshman Senator, and will be targeted accordingly by the GOP. Sore loser Rossi is bandied about as a possible challenger, but Cantwell would be a far more competent opponent than now-governor Christine Gregoire.

Washington State is not friendly territory for Republicans.
Maria Cantwell can't afford to wait. She needs to pay off her debt from the last campaign and aggressively raise money for her next campaign - and she has to get moving.

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