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**SNIP** Midterm elections are often a reflection of the approval rating of the incumbent president and now President Obama stands at 42.8%. And elections in the 6th year of a PresidentÂ’s term are usually not good for the incumbentÂ’s party. To make things even worse for Democrats, the issues of a weak economy and Obamacare make November look bleak for Harry Reid and his Senate Democratic cohorts. â—¾Alaska, Mark Begich â—¾Arkansas, Mark Pryor â—¾Louisiana, Mary Landrieu â—¾Michigan, Open Seat (liberal Democrat Carl Levin retiring) â—¾Montana, John Walsh â—¾North Carolina, Kay Hagan â—¾South Dakota, being vacated by retiring Democrat Tim Johnson...

Democrat Mary Landrieu's quest for a fourth Senate term will turn on whether she can attract just enough support from independents and Republicans to win in this increasingly conservative state.

Democrat Mary Landrieu’s quest for a fourth Senate term will turn on whether she can attract just enough support from independents and Republicans to win in this increasingly conservative state. The daughter and sister of New Orleans mayors, that’s been Landrieu’s re-election strategy since 2002, when her donors included a Baton Rouge physician named Bill Cassidy—now her Republican challenger in this year’s midterm elections. Replicating that winning formula could depend on what matters more to voters: Landrieu’s growing ability to help Louisiana’s oil and gas industry through her recent promotion to chairwoman of the Senate Energy and National Resources Committee...

Billionaire environmentalist Tom Steyer has threatened to launch a political assault on Republicans as well as Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, a Democrat friendly to the oil and gas industry who is gearing up for a tough re-election campaign. Steyer, a Democrat worth about $1.5 billion, leads a political organization called NextGen Climate Action. With Steyer’s funding, the group has launched a media campaign against the Keystone XL pipeline. Soon, that campaign may narrow its focus on Landrieu to criticize her for supporting the pipeline. Steyer’s super PAC, in its own words online, is dedicated to “supporting candidates … that will...

WASHINGTON -- Long-shot Republican Senatorial candidate Rob Maness says he would not vote to re-elect Mitch McConnell as Senate Republican leader if he wins and McConnell survives a tough re-election challenge. "Sen. McConnell is a failed leader and it's time for a new perspective and for new leadership," Maness said Monday. "The time has come to stop routinely returning senators to leadership positions. We need a leader in the Senate who will stand up to President (Barack) Obama and Sen. (Mary) Landrieu and their harmful policies." If Democrats continue as the majority party in the Senate after the 2014 elections,...

Hopes that "Duck Dynasty" fans may have had in seeing the show head to Washington have been dashed after Alan Robertson said that his father Phil Robertson had no interest in running for Senate. After a poll released earlier this week suggested that the Duck Commander founder could be a formidable competitor against current Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.), his son quickly shot down any speculation that his father, 67, would be willing to run. "While Phil is humbled and honored that so many fellow Louisianans have confidence in him, he has no interest in running for public office," Alan told...

Incumbent Democrat Mary Landrieu runs slightly behind Republican challenger Bill Cassidy in Rasmussen Reports’ first look at the 2014 U.S. Senate race in Louisiana. A new statewide telephone survey of Likely Louisiana Voters finds Cassidy, a U.S. congressman, with 44% support to Landrieu’s 40%. Five percent (5%) like some other candidate in the race, while 11% are undecided. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

The latest Rasmussen poll on the race for the embattled Louisiana Democrat’s Senate seat shows Landrieu continuing to lose ground to her Republican challengers, and as David Gregory and Chuck Todd both observed on Morning Joe on Friday, things just aren’t looking very good for her.CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO Without the president on the ballot, I have to say, I don’t know if the numbers work for her any more, work for any Democrat anymore. This is a unique — she has not had to run with this few registered Democrats in a nonpresidential year, it’s going to...

In the upcoming U.S. Senate campaign, Democrat incumbent Mary Landrieu is facing the most difficult campaign of her career. This November, Landrieu will have to face an electorate concerned about a weak economy and upset about the Affordable Care Act. In 2010, Landrieu cast a key vote allowing the healthcare legislation to pass without any Republican support. Louisiana voters have not forgotten about that Senate vote and with a disastrous launch of the Obamacare website, it is not likely they will forget anytime soon.

Democrats and Republicans are amassing enormous war chests for a midterm battle that will decide who controls the Senate for the remainder of President Obama’s term. Republicans need a net gain of six seats to reclaim the Senate majority, and are gunning for Democratic incumbents in conservative-leaning states like Arkansas, Alaska, North Carolina, West Virginia and Louisiana. Democrats are mostly playing defense, but see a few opportunities to peel away seats from the GOP column. Here are the five Senate races to watch in 2014. KENTUCKY The reelection bid of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is the marquee race...

When the Obama administration declared Healthcare.gov "fixed" earlier this month, the announcement spawned a flurry of media reports about Congressional Democrats' fears being allayed by the news. As an aside, the website's technical troubles are hardly a thing of the past, for reasons we'll discuss below -- but the front end experience has been substantially improved. Ron Fournier wondered just how long jittery Democrats would be appeased. The detente appears to have lasted less than one week: Senate Democrats facing tough reelections say President Obama has not done enough to fix the botched rollout of his healthcare law and are...

Later this week, Southern Media & Opinion Research is expected to release the first independent poll assessing the matchup between Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu and Republican opponents in next year’s Senate race in Louisiana. For Landrieu, the poll will illuminate whether her Obamacare strategy is working, or whether the health care law is going to define her race and hurt her prospects. While the poll will be conducted by the independent organization, GOP businessman Lane Grigsby is funding the survey, according to sources in the Landrieu campaign. “Up until now the issue was manageable for her,” said Louisiana political analyst...

As Democrats on Capitol Hill are growing increasingly angry with the White House over problems with Obamacare — and increasingly uneasy about their individual fortunes heading into 2014 — Colorado Sen. Mark Udall Wednesday became the latest Democratic lawmaker to introduce legislation to change the beleaguered Affordable Care Act... With support building for a plan introduced by Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-Louisiana, that would allow people mislead by the president”s promise to keep their plans to actually do so indefinitely, Udall has come up with a scaled down version that would allow policyholders to keep their current plans, being cancelled under...

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) on Thursday will convene a special meeting of the Senate Democratic caucus and senior White Officials to discuss the troubled rollout of ObamaCare. Reid on Wednesday told reporters he would not answer questions about the hundreds of thousands of insurance policy cancellations or other issues until he has further discussions with the White House. The Senate leader said President Obama called him Tuesday evening to discuss healthcare and other issues. Several Democrats have signed onto a proposal sponsored by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) that would force insurance companies to let people keep their health...

November 13, 2013, 02:39 pm House Dems about to 'go crazy' By Mike Lillis and Justin Sink House Democrats on Wednesday expressed increasing frustration at the Obama administration’s inability to improve the rollout of ObamaCare. Democrats said they’re worried about "being dragged into this non-stop cycle" of bad news about the ObamaCare rollout, rather than celebrating the successes of the law they helped to pass, a Democratic aide said. "They're voicing those frustrations with the administration," the aide said following a Democratic Caucus meeting where administration officials got an earful from exasperated lawmakers. ADVERTISEMENT With the House vote just two...

It’s not just red-state Democrats who are panicking. Then again, Merkley’s not a typical blue-state Democrat. He won his Senate race in Oregon by fewer than four points in 2008, a year in which Hopenchange fever boosted Dems nationally. Not only won’t he have that working for him next year, he’ll have the albatross of Obama’s biggest “achievement” hanging around his neck. Time for him to do what little he can to shed it by joining Landrieu’s bill.Last night a source told Greg Sargent that House Democrats were being whipped by the leadership to oppose Fred Upton’s bill, replete with...

Republicans are walking into a trap and they don’t even realize it. They are about to consider, in the House of Representatives, legislation by Congressman Upton that would allow people to keep their insurance plans. There’s a problem though. It is widely acknowledged that Congressman Upton’s legislation is more messaging than substance. His legislation does not have anything in it that can force insurance companies, in the topsy-turvy world of Obamacare, to keep insurance plans going. But there is a plan than does. Senator Mary Landrieu has written legislation in the United States Senate that the Democrats love. It mandates...

Sen. Dianne Feinstein on Tuesday joined the ranks of worried Democrats demanding that President Obama allow people to keep their current insurance policies. Feinstein’s move is bad news for an administration desperate for good news following the roll-out debacle of the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance exchange on Oct. 1, which has been plagued by technical problems. In addition to the website snarl, thousands of individual policies have been cancelled by insurance companies to meet minimum coverage standards under Obama’s signature health care law. Feinstein said a “simple fix” would make good on Obama’s promise during the debate over the...

Bill Clinton's comments may have been the tipping point. Yesterday, the former president told an interviewer that the White House should keep its promise and honor its commitment on Obama's infamous "keep your plan" pledge. And if there's one person on planet earth whose reputation for honoring both the truth and personal commitments is -- ahem -- unimpeachable, it's him. Snark aside, Clinton's remarks were hugely impactful; not because he was expressing his own personal opinion, but because in doing so, he was extending a tacit permission slip to fellow Democrats. Message: It's okay to abandon Obama by starting to...

It’s not just red-state Democrats who want to take aggressive steps to mend controversial provisions in Obamacare. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Tuesday that she will co-sponsor a bill by Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) to require insurance companies to continue offering their existing health care plans — a way to make good on President Barack Obama’s promise that consumers can keep their current coverage if they like it.