Himes Prepares for Primary
Jim Himes sent out an email to supporters today preparing them for the upcoming primary:
Two weeks from today, Democrats in Connecticut’s Fourth District will go to the polls and decide who gets to take on Chris Shays in November.
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According to new numbers released last week, 3.2 new Democrats registered to vote for every 1 new Republican in our district last year, and Democrats widened their registration advantage here by almost 8,000 voters. Chris Shays’ margin of victory in 2006? 6,645.Because of your hard work and support, I feel more confident than ever that we will be able close that gap on election day. But in order to even get to November, we have a primary we need to win first on August 12th.
This is going to be an low-turnout election - and it’s just 14 days away. I’m counting on every supporter of our campaign to help us spread the word and get out the vote.
Himes is right that this is going to be a low-turnout election, so marshaling support now is crucial if he wants to win big. The danger is that everyone is expecting an easy blowout for Himes, so anything less than that will be a surprise. However, I expect that he’ll be able win convincingly without too much effort, especially given Ms. Whitnum’s embarrassing debate performance yesterday.
Once the primary is over and done with, Himes will have plenty of money to take on Chris Shays. CQ Politics puts him at #1 on the list of best-funded challengers (a list which, interestingly, is almost entirely Democrats this year), and Swing State Project has him high on their cash power index of challengers, which measures cash-on-hand competitiveness. David Cappiello also makes that list.