Democ­ra­cy Corps just released a major study of 49 House dis­tricts cur­rent­ly held by Repub­li­cans. The Ryun-Boy­da race is not yet in the top 49 races, but poll­ster Stan Green­berg and strate­gist James Carville are think­ing that Democ­rats need to chal­lenge more than just those 49. Stan Green­berg says that “there’ve got to be seats beyond these 49,” most of which are in a band from Con­necti­cut to Indi­ana. The Demo­c­ra­t­ic chal­lenger has a 2 point advan­tage over the incum­bent in the bot­tom tier of races, the ones that the poll­sters con­sid­ered a stretch originally.

Espe­cial­ly inter­est­ing is the com­par­i­son between what the poll found about pub­lic atti­tudes in dis­tricts like the Kansas 2 com­pared to excerpts from Dick Cheney’s speech in sup­port of Jim Ryun:

“One of the most impor­tant issues on Nov. 7 is tax­es — and when Amer­i­cans go to the polls, they’re going to have the clear­est pos­si­ble choice,” Cheney said in Kansas. “If the Democ­rats take con­trol, Amer­i­can fam­i­lies could face an immense tax increase, and the econ­o­my would sus­tain a major hit.”

In Repub­li­can-held dis­tricts, Democ­rats are more trust­ed on tax­es, and vot­ers in those dis­tricts con­sid­er tax­es less impor­tant than (in order of impor­tance): Iraq, jobs/economy, ter­ror­ism, Medicare/Social Secu­ri­ty, or health insur­ance. And 54% of vot­ers in these Repub­li­can dis­tricts are more wor­ried that Repub­li­cans will retain con­trol of Con­gress and do noth­ing about health care and gas prices than they are about Democ­rats win­ning and rais­ing taxes.

“The key ques­tion before the vot­ers on Nov. 7 is whether or not this nation is seri­ous about fight­ing the glob­al war on ter­ror,” Cheney said.

Indeed. And in Repub­li­can-held dis­tricts, Democ­rats are trust­ed more on Iraq, 45% to 39%.

“Time and time again, we’re see­ing exam­ples of Demo­c­ra­t­ic Par­ty lead­ers appar­ent­ly hav­ing lost their per­spec­tive con­cern­ing the nature of the ene­my we face, he told his supporters.

In Repub­li­can-held dis­tricts, vot­ers are more inclined to think “The Iraq war has made us LESS secure.” Only 42% think it’s made us more secure. Fifty-six per­cent think we are los­ing ground in Iraq. A plu­ral­i­ty of vot­ers in these dis­tricts think the North Kore­an nuclear test indi­cates that “Bush and the Repub­li­cans in Con­gress have focused too much on Iraq and too lit­tle on more seri­ous and last­ing secu­ri­ty chal­lenges.” These vot­ers are divid­ed over whether troop lev­els in Iraq should be drawn down.

In describ­ing the results, Stan Green­berg said that he has to keep remind­ing him­self that these are Repub­li­can dis­tricts. It rep­re­sents a “melt­down in sup­port,” and Carville claims he has­n’t seen any­thing like this in his time in pol­i­tics, not even ’94. Accord­ing to Green­berg “there is now a new play­ing field.” 

But Cheney does­n’t see that. So he’s out try­ing to play on the old field, shoring up sup­port among his par­ti­sans while the peo­ple who decide elec­tions are see­ing things in new ways.

The release of a book show­ing that “Pres­i­dent Bush’s top polit­i­cal advi­sors pri­vate­ly ridiculed evan­gel­i­cal sup­port­ers as ‘nuts’ and ‘goofy’ while embrac­ing them in pub­lic and using their votes to help win elec­tions” won’t help either. 

Help Boy­da over­come the $200,000 Dick Cheney raised for Jim Ryun. Turn Kansas blue.