The talk among the Minnesota GOP seems to be that Mark Kennedy would make a great candidate to run against Mark Dayton in the 2006 Senate race.
I don't get it. Kennedy seems like he would be the kind of candidate who might do very well among members of his own party, but fail to win. Do the Republicans really want to repeat the "success" that was nominating Rod Grams to be their Senate candidate?
Kennedy represents the most conservative district in the state, letting the Presidential vote be the index of conservatism. In that district he managed to underperform Bush by 6% in the number of votes and 3% in the two party share of the vote.
Kennedy was the only one of Minnesota's Congressional delegation to do worse than his party's presidential candidate. While Patty Wetterling was a well-known person who ran a well-funded race, she also (1) was a first time Congressional candidate, and (2) held nearly identical positions as Kerry.
That she held Kennedy to well under the votes achieved by the Presidential candidate who lost, does not suggest Kennedy is well positioned to make a run for statewide office. Dayton and the DFL would have substantially more to fear from Pawlenty, Gutknecht or Ramstad. The latter two Representatives have shown an ability to win votes from people voting for Democratic candidates for other positions on the ballot.
Indeed, if you look back at Kennedy's "giant slaying" win in 2000, he managed this seemingly impressive trick in what was then the second most conservative district in the state.
This is not to say that Kennedy is some sort of hapless loser the DFL can write off and not worry about at all, but he might be their best hope since the Republicans clearly have candidates with greater appeal outside the Republican primary process.
| Presidential vote | Congressional vote | ||||||||
| Congressional District | Bush | Kerry | Bush share | Kerry share | GOP | DFL | GOP share | DFL share | Representative > President |
| 1 | 171951 | 159778 | 0.518 | 0.482 | 193132 | 114659 | 0.627 | 0.373 | Yes |
| 2 | 203538 | 169704 | 0.545 | 0.455 | 206313 | 147527 | 0.583 | 0.417 | Yes |
| 3 | 190338 | 179486 | 0.515 | 0.485 | 231865 | 126669 | 0.647 | 0.353 | Yes |
| 4 | 123313 | 205467 | 0.375 | 0.625 | 105467 | 182387 | 0.366 | 0.634 | Yes |
| 5 | 92695 | 236923 | 0.281 | 0.719 | 76493 | 218016 | 0.260 | 0.740 | Yes |
| 6 | 216134 | 161601 | 0.572 | 0.428 | 203669 | 173309 | 0.540 | 0.460 | No |
| 7 | 180743 | 140332 | 0.563 | 0.437 | 106349 | 207628 | 0.339 | 0.661 | Yes |
| 8 | 167193 | 190964 | 0.467 | 0.533 | 112546 | 228231 | 0.330 | 0.670 | Yes |