« TX-22: Tom DeLay Perp Walk | Main | Reform Ohio Now Tug of War Drawing to a Close »
Sunday, October 23, 2005
Weekly Open Thread: What Races Are You Interested In?
Posted by Bob BrighamLast week's response was great. So take a minute and tell us what is going on electorally in your neck of the woods. Which candidates are making moves? What do you think of the prospects? Any inspiration out there?
If you work on a campaign, take a moment and give us an update.
Which races are on your mind?
Posted at 12:56 PM in Open Threads | Technorati
Trackback Pings
TrackBack URL for this entry:
http://www.swingstateproject.com/mt/mt-track-ssp.cgi/1863
Comments
Oregon Democrats need to win 4 seats in the state House of Representatives in order to gain a majority (3 to tie). 2006 is a great opportunity, and there are at least 4 legitimate targeted races.
I recently took a job as campaign manager for one of those targeted races. My candidate, Jean Cowan, is running in District 10 on the central Oregon coast. The district has a slight Democratic lean, and is strongly pro-choice. More importantly, though, she ran in 2004 and fell only 400 votes short, despite just getting in the race at the filing deadline.
Democrats hold every statewide elected office, and only 2 of the 7 people we send to DC are Republicans. When we take control of the state House--to match our majority in the state Senate--it will be time for an era of progressive public policy in Oregon.
Posted by: Patton ![[TypeKey Profile Page]](http://www.swingstateproject.com/nav-commenters.gif)
at October 23, 2005 01:28 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
With all of our excitement about our prospects of winning back the majority with a strong offense, I think we also need to be mindful that a majority is unlikely to be attained without a good defense. There are a handful of House seats that are gonna be challenging to keep in our column. Here are my top three:
IL-08...I had no idea this district went for Bush by double digits. I'm pretty sure Gore narrowly won IL-08 in 2000, so I'm suspecting the boundaries were redrawn in 2002 to take in more of Lake and McHenry County and less of Cook County. With that in mind, Melissa Bean won't have the luxury of running against crusty, out-to-touch Phil Crane this time. Angering the base by voting for CAFTA doesn't seem likely to help her cause. I suspect the blue tide will have to be a tsumani to keep Bean in Washington if she has a halfway competent opponent.
GA-08.....Two-term incumbent Democrat Jim Marshall of central Georgia got hit with a one-two punch. First, the Democrat-friendly district lines drawn up by our old friend Roy Barnes back when Georgia was blue (seems like a lifetime ago)were just ruled unconstitutional and were redrawn. Secondly, popular former Congressman Mac Collins (R) who vacated his seat to make an ill-fated Senate seat is now planning to run again in a district decidedly less blue than the one where Jim Marshall was twice victorious. If we're gonna reclaim the House, we need to hang on to seats like this...and in this case it won't be easy.
LA-03....Democrat Charlie Melancon won his special election for this southern Louisiana Senate seat by 50.2%. I think he's generally pretty conservative, but was one of our best fighters against CAFTA. His district doesn't entail much of metropolitan New Orleans, but there was still a pretty sizeable chunk of the district's populated that vacated after Katrina...and I tend to believe the evacuees are demographically more likely to be part of Melancon's 50.2%. An already vulnerable seat has probably become more vulnerable.
And from a more broad perspective of playing defense, I just read an article in Rolling Stone about DCCC Chairman Rahm Emanuel that scared the bejesus out of me. With as much hay as the GOP has made selling the public the idea that Howard Dean is a psychotic loose cannon, I can't even imagine what they'll be able to do with a guy like Emanuel who has sent a dead fish in the mail to one of his political opponents and publicly stabbed a steak knife into a table pronouncing Clinton's critics, one by one, as "Dead! Dead!" after Clinton's election victory. If it looks like the Democrats are making some serious headway towards a sweeping electoral tide next year, expect the GOP to make it a referendum against Emanuel and the possibility of him being in a position of leadership in a Democratic House. I hope the Dems are prepared to respond to that when the situation arises.
Posted by: Mark at October 23, 2005 01:49 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
I like Jeff Latas. He's deciding to run for AZ-08. He had an incredible story on DailyKos about his son, a soldier in Iraq, whose health deteriorated as his leukemia returned. Now his gloves are off, and he wants to run for the seat. I would like to know more about AZ-08: the incumbent, the demographics, the politics. I think this could be yet another compelling campaign for the Democrats in 2006.
Posted by: HellofaSandwich at October 23, 2005 02:35 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
Virginia, Virginia, Virginia.
Folks, lets focus on 2005 first. New Mason-Dixon poll has Kilgore(R)/Kaine(R) 44% to 42% still within MOE of +/- 4%. This race is too close to call 2 weeks before the Nov 8 election.
We need people on the ground, making phone calls, going door to door. It's all a matter of getting-out-the-vote. Hey if you live in Virginia, or surrounding states, volunteer efforts the weekend before the election will be the deciding factor. Drive down, join, get involved especially that weekend.
We can pull off a victory for Democrat Tim Kaine as the next governor. GOTV, GOTV, GOTV. 2 weeks to go, SSP, please keep highlighting this race.
Posted by: purpleday at October 23, 2005 03:01 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
MD-Senate: Lt. Gov. Michael Steele will announce that he is running for U.S. Senate on Tuesday. The MD-GOP is making a huge deal about the whole thing. Apparently people will be bused in from all over the state to attend the event. There will be free food and live music. The first non-partisan poll since July will be released Monday. Hopefully the news is bad for Steele, which will put a damper on his announcement speech and tour.
MD-Governor: Doug Duncan announced his bid for Governor this week. He came out firing at both Mayor Martin O'Malley (his primary oppenent) and Governor Ehrlich. He also released his first TV spot.
http://www.thinkbiggermaryland.com/video.htm
Posted by: nickshepDEM at October 23, 2005 05:45 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
There are some important and probably hotly contested races in Pennsylvania for 2006. The most high profile of which is of course the presumptive Democractic candidate Bob Casey Jr. taking down Rick Santorum. There are some House races of great importance as well though. The one that I feel most strongly about is in 3rd CD of Pennsylvania. There incumbent Republican Phil English is breaking his pledge to serve no more than 6 terms and is again running for re-election. His opponent will be Democrat Steven Porter, who, as a virutal unknown, garnered 40% of the vote in 2004. He is running again in 2006 and has big plans for taking down Phil English.
Posted by: JDF at October 23, 2005 06:51 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
CT-02. We are one of the bluest Congressional Districts in the country with a Republican congressman (Rob Simmons). In 06 we are really determinated to turn this district blue. With Joe Courtney we have a good candidate who is liked by the regular dems, the moveon people, and the DFA people. He has raised significant money already. We are all determined that he will beat Simmons in 06. CT-02 is not a wealthy district, however (it's the poorer part of CT), and we'll need some outside money to help us. The Republican, Rob Simmons, has taken Tom Delay money and has publicly refused to return it. We need help from the blogging community to be financially competetive. Thanks for reading this! You can contribute via Act Blue (money goes to whoever the Dem candidate is to run against Simmons) at: http://2cd.lonseidman.com/?q=node/127
Posted by: MVD at October 23, 2005 07:22 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
Quick question. Does anyone know when the next round of Zogby Interactive poll numbers for the Governor and Senate races comes out? I'm eager to see the new numbers his less-than-trustworthy interactive polling data shows for the gubernatorial and Senate races.
Posted by: Mark at October 23, 2005 07:31 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
I'm not working for anyone right now but I may have some news in a few weeks.
Posted by: Daniel at October 23, 2005 08:49 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
Mark brings up an interesting race: Illinois' 8th Congressional District. Normally any Democrat will be better than a Republican. Even if they both trend corporate and Right, at least the Democrat will vote as a Democrat to organize the House. In the case of Melissa Bean voting with the Democrats in organizing is ALMOST the ONLY votes she's been with us on. She is one of a small handful of Democrats who DeLay can almost always count on when it comes to important substantive issues. Whichever Republican wins the GOP endorsement, it's not going to be an improvement. For me a race like this, though, just means one thing: putting limited energy and money behind truly progressive candidates in other districts and ignoring this one. If Bean loses I'll be happy. If she wins, it's one more vote the Democrats need for organization. I wonder how many good progressives will get nothing so Rahm Emanuel can shovel money into this race though.
Posted by: DownWithTyranny at October 23, 2005 09:34 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
Hellofasandwich makes a hellofapoint (sorry it's late, huge US Foreign Policy midterm tomorrow).
Anyway, before we can make 2006 happen, we NEED to make 2005 happen. There are two huge gubernatorial campaigns in Virginia and New Jersey that the Democrats need to win to continue to build momentum.
While the Virginia gubernatorial campaign is huge, being a "red state" with a democratic governor, New Jersey is huge for just the opposite reason. A blue state with a republican governor coming on strong and pulling out the hard-core attack ads, financed by his personal fortune (not saying corzine does not also utilize his personal fortune in his campaign, just emphasizing what we are up against).
Polls are putting what was once a double digit lead to 4-9%. The implications of winning the governorship in NJ are huge in Dem's attempt to win back the senate. If corzine wins, he appoints a senator to fill out the rest of his term and gain an automatic pseudo incumbency advantage in 2006.
People in the tri-state area, bloomberg won't get beat so get over to New Jersey and help a great candidate.
Posted by: Ferris at October 23, 2005 10:28 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
Massachusetts Democratic Gubanatorial Primary.
It's a fight between Tom Reilly the boring Attorney General (Who seems be pandering to the Catholic and conservative voters by allowing an anti Gay Marriage inititive on the ballot in clear violation of the Massachusetts constitiution as far as I can tell.) and Deval Patrick who is Bill Clinton's former assistant attorney general for civil rights, corporate executive and a man who worked his way up from some of Chicago's worst black ghettos to be able to go to Harvard College and Law School and refuses to allow his campaign to be buttonholed by any silly labels and is basing his issue choices off of speaking with voters and doesn't owe anyone anything which allows him to call a spade a spade and talk about the need for an enlightened government which is willing to give its citizens universal health care, invest in public education from Preschool to Graduate school. The best place to see the difference is in their convention speeches this past spring.
http://www.tomreilly.org/index.html?option=com_content&task=view&id=21&Itemid=26
http://www.devalpatrick.com/video.cfm
So netroots come through for the cannidate who understands framing, has a vision that can attract all different kinds of voters and is willing to fight for what progressives have always belived in, moving forward.
Posted by: allknowlegeisone at October 24, 2005 12:40 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
I worked with Tim Walz over this past summer and will resume a position with the campaign after this school year is done.
Walz, a retired Command Sgt. Major in the Army National Guard has not been listed with any of the fighting Dems. He served in support of the War on Terror and just retired this past spring. He is a true populist on economic issues and a common sense leader on most everything. It is an uphill battle in Minnesota's 1st Congressional District against Gil Gutknecht who is entrenched like a tick. But Walz is the candidate to do it! Swingstate Project, you guys need to talk this guy up!
www.timwalz.org
Posted by: DFLer22 at October 24, 2005 12:51 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
Living in Indiana, locally I'm interested in two or three excellent House pick-up opportunities here in the Hoosier state. I think our best two shots are in the 8th and 9th districts, which comprise basically the SW and SE halves of the state. At the state level, southern Indiana historically has been a real battlefield (the 8th district has the nickname "The Bloody 8th" for it's history close, hard-fought elections). It's a socially conservative region, but with a real populist strain to it -- and a progressive economic message can certainly resonate. Democrats were really hurt here in '04, both with the weakness of the Kerry Campaign in the area, and also Democratic Governor Joe Kernan running behind where Democrats historically have in the area.
In the 8th, our resident nut-job Congressman John Hostettler (a dumb piece of driftwood that washed up in the '94 landslide and unfortunately has stuck around) has survived a series of close elections. We seem to have a solid candidate in Vandurburgh County (Evansville) Sheriff Brad Ellsworth. Hostettler will heavily win the rural parts of the district, while the city of Terre Haute is pretty Democratic, especially at the state level. Evansville will be the key to winning this election -- and it is a swing area that the last couple of Hostettler challengers haven't nearly as well in as they should. A word to the wise, however -- don't underestimate Hostettler -- he's been out-raised before, acted like an absolute idiot before, and has always won. Yes, I think we've got our best shot to oust him this time, but it won't be easy.
In the 9th, made up of largely rural and small-town SE Indiana, former Congressman Baron Hill is re-matched against Mike Sodrel, who narrowly defeated him in '04. The district was re-drawn to include both more conservative GOP areas, but also the Democratic college town of Bloomington. Sodrel was the ONLY GOP candidate last year who won election with less than 50% of the vote, and Baron Hill is a tireless campaigner. This should be one of the most hard-fought congressional elections in the country.
To be honest, I'm less optimistic about the 2nd District, where Joe Donnelly is taking on couple-term incumbent Chris Chocola. This South Bend-based district is very competitive, but Chocola (for some reason) seems to have really dug in there. I'm not at all giving up on it, but I think the two southern districts are more winnable.
Finally, given that I live in Indianapolis, I am always concerned about protecting Congresswoman Julia Carson. She is a true unreconstructed liberal, who has survived by winning around 55% or so of the vote several times, in races that were supposed to be closer. Indianapolis and Marion County (where the entire district is located) is trending more and more blue, as it did narrowly go for Kerry and Gore. While I'm not terribly worried about Julia yet, I'll certainly be involving myself in her campaign next year.
Posted by: IndianaProgressive at October 24, 2005 09:03 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
The big candidate I am looking at right now is Steve Young in Califronia's 48th. Its a winnable election, with two conservative candidates on the ballot. Also, being a special elction the turnout will probably be low, meaning that the few diehard Republicans that go out will be split. All we need to do is mobilize the Democratic base in the district and pick up this seat.
Posted by: chautcountydem at October 24, 2005 06:50 PM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment
Heath Shuler in NC's 11th is taking on uber-corrupt wing nut Charles Taylor and Lt. Col. Tim Dunn in NC's 8th is taking on CAFTA flip-flopping wing nut Robin Hayes. If Democrats have any hope of retaking the House in 06 these are two of the races we gotta win.
Posted by: realvalues at October 25, 2005 07:17 AM | Permalink | Edit Comment | Delete Comment