When former Democratic Attorney General Heidi Heitkamp announced in early November that she would run for the Senate seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Sen. Kent Conrad, we moved the race from Likely Republican to Lean Republican.
Some Democratic strategists took issue with the rating, arguing that it belonged in the Toss Up column. As we wrote on November 8, none of the available evidence suggested a Toss Up rating was appropriate. That said, we wrote that there was a great deal of potential for the race to end up as among the most competitive of the cycle. As part of the case for Heitkamp’s candidacy, Democrats released a poll that had been taken in August which showed presumptive GOP nominee At-Large U.S. Rep. Rick Berg with a slim advantage over a generic Democratic candidate. The Garin-Hart-Yang poll for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (August 14-16 of 614 registered voters) gave Berg a 44- percent to 40-percent lead over an unnamed Democrat.
That survey was not enough to convince us that Democrats had an even-money shot at winning this race
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