The departures of Dems from Congress is picking up speed.
Massachusetts Rep. Bill Delahunt is scheduled to announce Friday he will not seek re-election to Congress, the Boston Globe reported. For the seven-term Democrat it marks the end of a nearly 40-year career in elected office. His departure also gives Republicans hope of capturing the seat, which stretches from Cape Cod to the South Shore.
New York's 29th district was always going to be a competitive race in November, but freshman Rep. Eric Massa's surprising decision not to seek re-election has transformed what was going to be a straightforward race into an open-seat free-for-all.
And one Republican member, scheduled to leave this week, has decided to stay for the vote.
Rep. Nathan Deal (R-Ga.) will not be leaving Congress on Monday, as he announced earlier this week, but will instead stay through the upcoming House vote on a health care overhaul. "Just two days after I announced my intentions to leave Congress, the majority party stepped up the schedule for the proposed health care bill," Deal said in a statement Thursday afternoon. "Having been deeply involved in all health care legislation for the past decade, I knew it was important to stay and vote down this bill."
When it comes to support for the health care bill, Nate Silver reports nothing much has changed since the early November vote.
On November 8th, when the House narrowly voted to approve the Democrats' health care bill, voters opposed the measure by about a 49-42 margin, according to the Pollster.com trendline. Right now, the numbers are -- well, almost exactly the same: 50.2-42.5 against if you want to be precise.
This is not to suggest that a House member who voted for health care in November wouldn't have some reasons to oppose the bill now. For one thing, the Democrats' position in the generic ballot has declined somewhat (although President Obama's approval rating really hasn't). For another, we're now a few months closer to the midterms.
If you're looking for change in morale, Silver notes, you'll find it -- caused by the series of retirements and, of course, the Scott Brown victory.
