Halter's challenge energizes Lincoln's Senate reelection campaign

Earlier polls notwithstanding, it has always been my sense that the predictions of her demise, at least in the Democratic primary, were premature.

From The Washington Post:

When Arkansas Lt. Gov. Bill Halter announced on March 1 that he would enter the Democratic primary against Sen. Blanche Lincoln, many political observers viewed it as the beginning of the end for the incumbent.

Instead, the announcement may have marked the start of her political comeback.

Before Halter's candidacy, which had been discussed for months in Democratic political circles in the state, Lincoln's reelection campaign seemed moribund. She had come under withering criticism from both the right and the left for her role (or lack thereof) in the health-care debate, and her campaign seemed to reflect that stuck-in-neutral mentality.

A recent Research 2000 survey sponsored by the liberal Daily Kos blog (its founder, Markos Moulitsas, is a Halter supporter), showed Lincoln leading Halter by 45 percent to 33 percent, a margin virtually unchanged from a poll done for the blog three weeks earlier.

Three days after Halter made it official, however, Lincoln launched television ads touting her Senate seniority (she is the first Arkansan to chair the Agriculture Committee) and casting herself as an independent. One ad included a defiant message for the left, which had begun pouring money into Halter's campaign: "I don't answer to my party," she said. "I answer to Arkansas."

Suddenly, Lincoln was relevant again. And, polling suggests that despite Halter's eye-popping fundraising and a slew of national labor groups spending money to bash her, Lincoln is holding steady in advance of the May 18 primary.