An e-mail blast to contributors for EMILY's List today should give some assistance to Christine Jennings, who is in a toss-up race for Congress in Sarasota against Republican Vern Buchanan. In the solicitation, headed "Late Breaking News: 5 New House Races We Can Win," the Democratic pro-choice, pro-women's group asks members to help out Jennings:
Jennings is just the kind of Democratic candidate who can win in this Republican-leaning district, but she needs to raise $720,000 over the final three weeks to compete with Buchanan, who has contributed $3.6 million of his own money to his campaign — making him the biggest self-funding candidate running for Congress this year!
This race, for the seat once held by Katherine Harris, moved to the toss up column in national analysts' tout sheets after the Mark Foley affair. It had been leaning Republican before that.
This article appears in Oct 11-17, 2006.