As expected, Democrat Senator Breaux of Louisiana announced that he will not seek re-election in ’04. He is the fifth southern Democrat to leave his seat open, the others being Zell Miller of Georgia, Ernest Hollings of South Carolina, John Edwards of North Carolina and Bob Graham of Florida.

Republicans are likely to sweep the south, picking up all five seats.

Not only that, but Democrats will be forced to expend resources in the south trying to retain some control, which could lead to the loss of other tight races like Illinois and Oklahoma — both of which are currently Republican but vulnerable to Democrat challengers due to the seats being left open.

Meanwhile, John Thune has announced that will not run for the South Dakata seat left open by the conviction and impending resignation of Rep. Bill Janklow. This can only mean one thing — he is going to go head-to-head against Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle.

If so, expect massive amounts of money to pour into the state to support those two campaigns. Attempting to unseat an incumbent is hard enough; taking on the Senate Minority Leader is going to be very tough. But people still have a bad taste from the Thune/Johnson race of ’02 in which Johnson won by a mere 524 votes amid allegations of massive voter fraud on Indian reservations. Bush won the state by 60%.