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state. We just don't have these opportunities that often."
• South Dakota is one of three states where a Democratic senator is retiring in a state Obama lost last November; the others are Montana and West Virginia. There also are Democratic retirements in the swing-voting states of Iowa and Michigan, which Obama won.
• Republicans also are aiming at four Democratic incumbents in states Republican Mitt Romney won: Mark Begich of Alaska, Kay Hagan of North Carolina, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana and Mark Pryor of Arkansas. Georgia, which went for Romney by 8 percentage points over Obama, has one of two GOP seats opened by retirements; the other is in Nebraska, a virtual lock for Republicans.
• Democrats say they can challenge Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky, but they haven't yet recruited a top-tier candidate even though the Republican is unpopular at home.
• At the National Republican Senatorial Committee, spokesman Brad Dayspring mocked Democrats for failing at a strategy he says was clear: Get conservative Democrats in Republican-leaning states. But Justin Barasky, spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, dismissed the notion of an internal Democratic struggle or recruiting woes, and pointed to divisive primaries shaping up for Republicans in several states.
• Clearly, Democrats are left with a tricky balance as they look for candidates with this criteria: Satisfy core Democratic voters, ensure successful fundraising and reach independents who voted for Romney and, before him, John McCain and George W. Bush.
• Some Democrats thought Barrow and Herseth-Sandlin satisfied those standards.
• Barrow is the Deep South's last white Democrat in the House, and he's beaten well-financed GOP nominees in a House district drawn to ensure his defeat. He's a gun owner who voted against the 2010 health care overhaul and voted to hold Obama's attorney general, Eric Holder, in contempt of Congress. He supported the so-called fiscal cliff deal between Obama and congressional Republicans, and successfully wooed thousands of Romney supporters in his last campaign.
• But the way Barrow keeps his job could explain why he abandoned the possibility of a promotion.
• "His profile is more appropriate to his congressional district than to a statewide run, particularly for metro Atlanta, where most of the votes are in the progressive base," said state Sen. Vincent Fort, a Democrat from the city.
• Some Democrats had feared that Barrow would have drawn a primary opponent, and both national and state Democrats concede that the party's best chance for a Georgia upset is to avoid a divisive primary, while leaving a crowded GOP field to

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