Charles Schumer

DENVER -- U.S. Senate candidate and Oregon House Speaker Jeff Merkley appeared earlier today in a press conference with U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) and other Democrats running tight races for current Republican Senate seats.

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) said Wednesday that U.S. Sen. Gordon Smith (R-Pendleton) was trying to change who he is by running ads talking about all the work he had accomplished in tandem with Democratic Sens. Barack Obama and John Kerry.

"Gordon Smith is one of the least popular Republican incumbents," Schumer said. "And he is trying to change who he. He runs more commercials with Barack Obama and John Kerry than he does with George W. Bush and John McCain."

Oregon House Speaker and U.S. Senate candidate Jeff Merkley (D-Portland) will be addressing the Democratic National Convention, according to the convention’s organizers.

Jeff Merkley may have won a 45%-41% victory in yesterday’s Democratic primary, but it’s rare for a challenger who barely ekes out a primary win to oust incumbent United States Senators in the general election.  Of the twenty challengers to unseat incumbents in U.S. Senate races since 1996, only one did so after winning a primary by a narrower margin than Merkley did.  That was in 1996, when Peter Fitzgerald won a 52%-48% victory over Loleta Didrickson in the Illinois GOP primary, and then went on to defeat incumbent Carol Mosely-Braun. 

The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee was really banking on a Jeff Merkley win last night. It had already commissioned a poll before the primary election, pitting the DSCC's handpicked candidate against the incumbent, Republican Sen. Gordon Smith.

The primary did go Sen. Chuck Schumer's way, with Merkley beating Steve Novick, and the poll of 800 likely voters taken by the Feldman Group was distributed to the media today.

The poll pitted Merkley in a match-up against Smith. While Smith lead, 45 to 42 percent, it was within the poll's 3.5 percent margin of error. The poll also found Smith's job approval rating to be at 29 percent.

Shortly after his victory over Steve Novick in the U.S. Senate race's Democratic primary, Jeff Merkley got some words of encouragement from Sen. Charles Schumer, the chair of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

After acknowledging that voters chose from "an impressive field of candidates," Schumer's statement looks toward the general election campaign against incumbent Sen. Gordon Smith:

"Gordon Smith made clear that he was afraid to run against Jeff Merkley when he launched negative attack ads against him before the primary was even finished. But voters rejected Smith's false attacks today and chose a nominee who has the courage and integrity to take on the special interests and bring change to Washington. Jeff Merkley can win in November, and I hope the party will now unite behind his candidacy."

Rock-the-Boat professor Paul Wellstone wasn't the choice of the Democratic establishment when he won in Minnesota in 1990.: University of Minnesota Photo

Despite an enormously favorable political climate for Democrats over the past couple of years, and the increasingly realistic specter of a Hillary presidency that's got many Republicans beginning to shiver with early waves of panic, the Democratic establishment, particularly in DC, still seems apprehensive about backing candidates who are more apt to venture outside the mainstream.

Democratic Senate candidate Steve Novick, a political novice, is perfectly happy being seen as the "outsider" candidate, taking on the establishment that thus far, has mostly lined up behind his opponent, House Speaker Jeff Merkley. Both candidates hope to unseat Republican Gordon Smith next year, who's facing arguably dicey reelection prospects.

"Steve has not been a traditional politician, this is his first run for elected office, and it's clear that voters are dissatisfied with politics as usual, and they elected Democrats to change the direction of the country, but they haven't seen the results they had hoped for," said Jake Weigler, Novick's spokesman.