Nation’s Most One-Sided Senate Race

One-sided Senate races generally feature incumbents, but this year, remarkably, the nation’s most one-sided contest appears to be in North Dakota, where the Republicans are poised for a pick-up. In the race for the seat now held by Democrat Byron Dorgan, Republican Governor John Hoeven leads Democrat Tracy Potter by an astonishing 73%-19%.
This illustrates, I think, a significant point: when things are generally going well, voters in states like the Dakotas are tempted to vote for the candidate who can best bring home the bacon from faraway Washington, D.C. Tom Daschle was, of course, the master of that strategy. But every now and then, the times, and the voters, get serious. When that happens, people vote on principle–conservative principle. That is what is happening in the Dakotas and a number of other states this year.
UPDATE: A reader from South Dakota sends in this correction:

The most one-sided Senate race in the country this year could be in the other Dakota, where the Dems could not find one person willing to run…so John Thune has no opponent….

But wait! Where’s the anti-incumbent mood the media keep telling us about?

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