Sen. John Hoeven (R-N.D.) and Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.)
Not many party strategists were talking last night, but come January 2011, that’s who many expect to be filling the Senate seats of, respectively, Byron Dorgan and Chris Dodd.
Hoeven, the phenomenally popular governor of North Dakota since 2000, was already leagues ahead of Dorgan in polls that assumed the senator would run for re-election. Democrats, taken by surprise, don’t have a deep bench in the state. NRSC and RNC comments on the Dorgan retirement were joyful–it “
