The Senate Races and the Environment

In a series of posts, I surveyed the key Senate races — meaning those that didn’t seem to be “locks” for either candidate. (i didn’t include the McCaskill-Akin race, which McCaskill won.) The candidates differed greatly in their positions on the environment and on energy policy. Here is a quick summary of what was at stake on those issues  in each of these seven key elections and how they came out:

State	Democratic Candidate	Republican Candidate	Comments
Connecticut	Chris Murphy. Murphy has served on the House Energy and Commerce Committee and has a 100% rating from the League of Conservation Voters.	Linda McMahon. McMahon stresses her anti-regulatory agenda and is enthusiastic about fossil fuels.	A key race environmentally.   Murphy could be a leader on environmental issues.
Indiana	Joe Donnelly. Supportive of fossil fuels but also emphasizes renewables.	Richard Mourdock. Says climate change is a hoax.  Speaks of “jackboot” of regulation.	Somewhat conservative democrat versus tea party candidate.
Massachusetts	Liz Warren.  Emphasizes support for renewable energy.	Scott Brown. Flipped to anti-environmental positions when he got to D.C.	Candidates mirror environmental positions of their national parties.
Montana AP has called this for Tester, who claims victory.	Jon Tester. Tester has a 87% LCV rating.	Denny Rehberg has a 6% lifetime rating from the League of Conservation Voters (quite a bit lower than Paul Ryan’s).	An especially stark contrast in environmental views.
NevadaOutcome still unclear but some media have called it for Heller.	Shelley Berkley.  Berkley focuses heavily on the issues most relevant to Nevada — renewable energy and public lands.	Dean Heller. 14% rating from League of Conservation Voters.	An unusual race: Heller doesn’t mention Romney’s main talking points on energy, while Berkley focuses exclusively on issues with strong state relevance.
Virginia	Tim Kaine.  Strong environmental advocate.	George Allen.  Strongly anti-regulatory.	Largely mirrors national party positions, except that Kaine seems to have especially warm feelings toward the state’s landscape.
Wisconsin	Tammy Baldwin. Supports cap-and-trade and other environmental measures.	Tommy Thompson. Central theme is “drill, baby, drill.”  Hasn’t mentioned climate change in five years.	Baldwin champions environmental protection.

About these ads