Obama makes last push for Democrats

October 26, 2010 at 12:00a.m.

Associated Press

WOONSOCKET, R.I.

President Barack Obama plunged into a final week of midterm election campaigning Monday, his party’s prognosis darkened by a feeble economy and his itinerary stitched together to minimize losses to resurgent Republicans.

Nor was his greeting likely to lift his spirits in Rhode Island where Obama has pointedly declined to endorse his party’s candidate for governor.

Obama can “take his endorsement and shove it,” declared Democrat Frank Caprio, battling Republican-turned-independent Lincoln Chafee in a gubernatorial race rated tight in the polls. Chafee endorsed the president during the 2008 campaign for the White House.

Eight days before the election, the principal uncertainty concerned the size and scope of anticipated Democratic losses in the House, the Senate, governor’s races and state legislatures.

An Associated Press-GfK Poll showed that perhaps one-third of all voters have yet to settle on their choices. But that wasn’t encouraging for Democrats, either. Some 45 percent of them prefer the Republican candidate for the House, and 38 percent like the Democrat.

The president boarded Air Force One as official figures showed more than 5.7 million ballots already have been cast in the 25 states where early voting is permitted or where absentees have been counted, underscoring the importance of get-out-the-vote programs that now begin long before Election Day.

Democrats have invested heavily in such efforts and are counting on them to help tip close races their way in states such as Nevada, where Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid faces tea party-backed challenger Sharron Angle. Republicans are counting on campaign enthusiasm — polls agree their voters are more eager to cast ballots than Democrats — as well as their own get-out-the-vote efforts.

Even Democrats concede Republicans are poised for significant gains in Congress, and GOP officials are particularly optimistic about their chances for taking control of the House.

Based on opinion polls and the private assessments of strategists in both parties, it appears Republicans have effectively secured about two dozen of the 40 seats they need to win control of the House.

That leaves dozens of seats where races are competitive in the House and a half-dozen or so in the Senate. Republicans also look for statehouse gains.