As you all know, the Rochester area will home to two or three very competitive Congressional races in November (I say two or three because at this point it is not clear that Republicans will make a serious run at NY-25, which would leave 26 and 29 as the competitive races). Two interesting articles appeared over the past few days about the overall state of play for Republicans and Democrats in November’s elections. First, here’s the redoubtable Charlie Cook

• Voters are clearly still very upset with Republicans and don’t seem to have finished venting their spleens. In a May 13-15 national survey of 1,014 likely voters by Democratic pollster Stan Greenberg for the Democracy Corps, Democrats held a 14-point (54 percent to 40 percent) lead on the generic congressional ballot test. When told the likely nominees in a given district, voters still gave Democrats a 10-point advantage, 52 percent to 42 percent. These results are consistent with those from other national polls.

• Antipathy toward Bush has not abated. Indeed, in both this Democracy Corps survey and a recent National Public Radio poll conducted by Greenberg and Republican pollster Glen Bolger, the president’s “strong disapproval” rating exceeded 50 percent, a jaw-dropping level of animosity.

• Although Congress has a terrible job-approval rating, this election isn’t about it, at least so far.

[...]

In short, Republicans might get walloped again in November. The indications that they will are getting stronger and stronger. And the arguments that they won’t are getting weaker and weaker.

Then there’s interesting piece on the idea of McCain as Republican savior that appeared in the Politico. The piece posits the theory (which I believe) that McCain is likely to do better than the generic ballot suggests (polls consistently show McCain running just behind Obama and Hillary even though the in generic Democrat vs. Republican poll, Democrats lead by about 15 points), but that none of this will rub off on Congressional Republicans:

The McCain brand simply did not deliver in Illinois, so the other candidates took note. They sidestepped the maverick, but that didn’t work either. And while dissing McCain might have been the best political option, the pivot to attack Obama also failed. If railing against Obama doesn’t work against down-ballot Democrats in conservative swaths of Mississippi, where exactly is it supposed to work?

[...]

If McCain can’t help them, however, Republicans have little reason to stick by him in a year when the national issues favor Democrats.

Dropping the national GOP brand — current and would-be presidents included — is in the individual self-interest of many Republican candidates. Yet if they ditch Bush and McCain, voters will see Republican leaders rejecting both the failed past and supposed future of their own party. If a few Republican losses stir a bunch of Republican quitters, the GOP may look even more pathetic, potentially hindering McCain.

I find this last point quite intriguing. Will Randy Kuhl and the Republicans in NY-26 and NY-29 stand by their man when nights are cold and lonely?