Specter Switches Sides!

Senator Arlen Specter (PA), has switched parties, announcing that he is now a Democrat.  This rocks the political world.  With Al Franken likely to be seated in June, the Democrats would have 60 seats in the Senate.  Landing right after the 100 day mark in the Obama presidency, it has an additional punch.

I expected Specter to do something dramatic in the next six months given the perilous state of the polling in the Republican primary, which he was losing by more than 20 points to conservative Pat Toomey.  I thought he might try to run as an independent, but I imagine his own polling showed that to be a losing strategy.  I was surprised that he moved now, but thinking about it, it made sense to move before he was clearly going to lose.  And a number of Democrats were already lining up for the race, and if they gained momentum, Specter might have even lost the Democratic primary.  Now he enters as the favorite, with the President’s backing.

Some of the background of this story was covered in my