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Analysts see another close race in 11th District

Political watchers from Washington to Harrisburg widely considered Congressman Paul Kanjorski (D-11) to be the most vulnerable Democrat in Congress last year, but that didn’t stop Kanjorski from beating every prediction and slipping past Hazleton Mayor Lou Barletta by three points.

It’s far too early to make such a blanket “most vulnerable” statement this year. But with Barletta jumping into the race against Kanjorski for the third time this decade, analysts are looking forward to another close race in a state already playing host to some of the country’s most competitive contests in the country. Barletta’s latest bid comes a year after Kanjorski was nudged to reelection, in part, by a massive turnout for Barack Obama and the worst political climate for Republicans in decades. To say the climate next year will be different is an understatement—and it’s hard to argue it won’t be a more challenging one for Democrats.

“This is far more about Kanjorski than it is about Barletta,” said G. Terry Madonna, a pollster and political scientist at Franklin & Marshall College. “That’s typically the way races against incumbents are. I’m not prepared to say Kanjorski is the underdog, but this should turn out to be a competitive race.

“What we don’t know is to what degree Kanjorski has tried to inoculate himself against some of the problems he had in 2008,” Madonna added, “or whether he’s run the string out and voters just want change.”

Incumbents who have stayed in office as long as Kanjorski inevitably run up against some level of voter-fatigue, regardless of party and perhaps even performance in office. And while Barletta will no doubt seek to frame the election as a referendum on Kanjorski and congressional Democrats in Washington, he could find himself confronting a different kind of voter fatigue. After seeing him lose at the polls twice, it remains to be seen if voters—including Republican primary voters who will decide whether he or Chris Paige moves on—will take Barletta as seriously as they did last year.

“There is often a shadow here—you lose a couple of times and people start to question if you’re the right candidate to do the unseating,” said Chris Borick, a pollster and political scientist at Muhlenberg College. “He keeps a lot of the things that were good about him before … but he also carries some baggage with him.”

Madonna said pinpointing that point of diminishing returns—or no returns—is difficult to do.

“There are cases where persistence pays off and there are cases where the voters simply look at a candidacy and don’t take it as seriously as the would the first time the person ran,” he said.

If there’s one thing political watchers agree upon, it’s that Barletta’s political ambition keep pulling him to look higher.

He’s a known political entitiy who clearly is not going to be content staying in Hazleton,” Borick said. “Mayor of Hazleton doesn’t seem like its his end destination in his ambitions.”

December 10, 2009 at 7:30 am

--Dan Hirschhorn

Tags: Chris Paige, Lou Barletta, PA-11, Paul Kanjorski

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