Down Ticket in the 2010 Elections

A good sign that a party is headed for an electoral wipe-out? The absence of candidates down toward the bottom of the ticket, which leaves uncontested elections for minor offices.

Comes now, however, the news from South Dakota that the Democrats have decided not to field a candidate to oppose John Thune in the U.S. Senate race.

Scott Heidepriem (State Senate minority leader and Democratic candidate for governor) explains, “We just concluded that John Thune is an extremely popular senator who is going to win another term in the Senate.” Skipping the Senate race “will allow us to divert resources . . . to races we can actually win.”

Lack of down-ticket candidates is usually the signal that a party is heading toward defeat, but what does lack of a U.S. Senate candidate mean? Awful hard, isn’t it, to call a Senate race “down-ticket” in a midterm election?