Congressman Bud Cramer (D-AL) announced this evening that he won't be seeking another term:
This was a difficult decision, but after 28 years of public service it is time for me to step aside, spend more time with my family and begin another chapter in my life,” he said. “I believe that this is a good time for me to step aside and transition to new leadership.
Cramer's seat is probably a Democratic hold, with likely candidates on our side including Public Service Commissioner Susan Parker and State Senator Parker Griffith (D-Huntsville). On the Republican side, the bench is rather weak and the only name that comes to mind is State Senator Arthur Orr (R-Decatur). Within the district, Orr is the only Republican state senator and there are but a handful of Republicans who hold state house seats. So while the seat has a PVI of R+6.5, this district is solidly Democratic on the state and local level.
… but I’m told she’s probably a long shot as far as interest is concerned. She’d be an excellent candidate and I sincerely hope my sources are wrong about her lack of interest. She already has the name recognition and she’s a great campaigner who can raise a lot of money. A real progressive, too.
But I wouldnt say its a gimme for the Republicans. There is certainly a very large disconnect in the south between voting Democrat on the state/local level and voting Democrat at the federal level. I would say this would be a pick-up for Republicans since they are still in the process of picking up seats in the old Democratic-South that still has some lingering incumbents. But it’s important to note that this CD has a PVI of only R+6.5. I say only because mosts CD’s in the Deep South have a much more favorable PVI to Republicans.
Recruiting will be the crucial aspect to this race and since it sounds like they have a weak bench and we have a very strong one, we have the upper-hand.
so, I hope some strong Democrat runs and wins!
If it’s 6.5 for the GOP, it’s a near-certain GOP pickup. Cramer’s seat is a majority-white Deep South federal seat, and those seats almost all go GOP unless there is a large university town or some other base of liberal white support.
Not all GOP 6.5 seats are the same; the ones in the Deep South are safe GOP strongholds much more than anywhere else because the GOP vote is inelastic; a majority will vote for the bad guys virtually no matter what.
Mark my word, unless the Dems scrounge and dig up a personally super-popular candidate, we will lose this seat. I won’t be shocked if it’s the only Dem-held seat we lose, but lose it we will.
I’m no fancy-pants (no suspenders either), big city Democratic consultant, but I think we can hold this seat. The Republicans haven’t challenged Cramer in a long time, and that will hurt their chances. The Republicans haven’t organized. I’m not sure why I still see “Democrat certain to lose” comments here at SSP, especially after the 2006 victory. Lots of certain losers won in 2006.
seems like our strongest canidate but it looks as if Cramer will try to push his chief of staff Carter Wells onto the voters. That might scare off Parker which would be too bad because I think she’d be a much better canidate and representative.
This will be a tough seat to hold (I have a friend who lives in the district, so I know a good amount about it), but we can hold it if we rn the right type of candidate. While we would all like a ultra-progressive candidate to win, that is not realistic given the district’s current makeup. That being said, I think Susan Parker is a candidate capable of winning and she is a reasonably progressive. If she passes on the race, we probably will need a candidate conservative on social issues to win this seat.
Check Doc’s Political Parlor: a good base of info on Alabama politics.
http://politicalparlor.net/
The site does list one Democratic State Senator likely to run for this seat as a Republican (Tom Butler), who’s apparently one of the “dissident” Democrats of the State Senate. Don’t know how much of a player he’d be in the overall congressional district.
There are 46 Democratic held seats with a Republican PVI with 19 of them from the south. Democrats in the south hold a lot of seats with similar or worse PVIs including:
Gene Taylor, MS R+17
Charlie Melancon, LA R+5
Jim Marshall, GA R+8
Ric Boucher, VA R+9
John Spratt, SC R+6
Heath Shuler, NC R+7
Ben Chandler, KY R+7
Allan Mollohan, WV R+6
Chet Edwards, TX R+18
Nick Lampson R+15
Lincoln Davis and Bart Gordon of TN are both R+4 and win easily.
Melancon, Shuler, Chandler, and Lampson all won their seats recently so their victories are not based on a carryover effect from past voting. PVIs are based on the national ticket and in the south local Democrats run much stronger.
Anyhow, please tell us the names of some of the GOP elected officials in this region who might jump in.
just writing the South off, immediately. It’s white, it’s conservative, Democrats only hold the seats because of incumbency. For one, R + 6.5 isn’t that bad, two that’s based on what Kerry and Gore got, and they did atrociously because of Social issues. In 2004, Charlie Melancon beat a strong Republican to represent a mostly white, rural district in Louisiana, with no University. It gave Bush 57% of the vote that year, but, was like this district, entirely Democratic on a state level. In 2002, State Sen. Lincoln Davis picked up a strongly conservative,rural, 90% white district in Middle Tennesse, right above this district. It was a Republican, but the district was Democratic on a state level, therefore Republicans had a subpar candidate, and he won, despite it being a district Bush got more than 57% of the vote in. That same year, another open Republican seat, this time in Georgia, in a district that was overwhelmingly white, no university, Jim Marshall picked up an open seat against a strong Republican candidate. 2006, in an overwhelmingly white district with no liberal oasis, Heath Shuler ousted a 7 term incumbent easily. In 2000, State Sen. Mike Ross easily ousted a 4 term Republican incumbent in Arkansas. The district was 75+ percent white, no university, and primarily rural, and had voted Republican on a national level. But, it was Democratic on a state and local level. In 2004 Chet Edwards was stuck in a radically new district, over 60% of it was new territory, and what’s more it was extremely Republican. He struck up the campaign, in a district with two college’s noted for their conservativeness, in a district mostly rural and exurban, and he won, in a white district, a practically new district for him. A district that gave Bush 69% of the vote. In 2002, Rodney Alexander picked up LA-05, a 78% white district that gave Bush 62% of the vote, a rural district with only one signifcant college, and over a strong Republican candidate, (though he did later turn around and stab Democrats in the back).
The point is the examples are endless. All are in similar districts. Besides, Huntsville is the major population center of this district, which is actually 50/50 urban/suburban and rural. Huntsville on a state federal and local level votes for Democrats, on account of the Space Center there and the dependacy on federal money. It’s a poor rural district, but still one of the most Democratic in Alabama.
the filing deadline is in April. So it’ll be a quick time for both sides to try recruiting.