Today was a bad day to be an incumbent or an “establishment” candidate. The bad news started yesterday, when the New York Times revealed that Senate candidate Richard Blumenthal (D-Connecticut) fabricated his Vietman experience in speeches with voters (in fact, he received multiple deferments). Suddenly an open seat race thought to be safe for the Democrats seemed to be more competitive, although it’s worth noting that polling taken before the misstatements were revealed showed Blumenthal’s numbers had declined to 52%. After the bombshell, Blumenthal’s poll leads tightened further: against three possible GOP opponents, his poll numbers ranged from 48-45% to 53-37%.
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