Tag: FL-13

Back in August, we crunched the voter registration numbers in nine key Florida congressional districts, and found Democrats making big gains in all of them.

The Florida Division of Elections has just posted new numbers for each congressional district, and a quick glance confirms that the trend is continuing big time. Statewide, Democrats have added an additional 200,000 registered voters to their advantage over the GOP since July. But let’s take a look at the same nine districts that we looked at in August.

In the 2006 column, we have the GOP’s voter registration advantage in each district as of October 10th, 2006. In the next column, we have the numbers as of July 28 of this year, followed by the most recent numbers (October 8).  Take a peek:

Wow — for the first time, Democrats now have a partisan advantage in the 8th District, where Democrat Alan Grayson is taking on GOP crumb-bum Ric Keller. Keller is locked in the fight of his political life, and these numbers prove it.

While two of these districts are pretty much off the map in terms of realistic Democratic pick-up opportunities (the 9th CD and the open seat dud in the 15th), the other huge shift can be seen in South Florida, where Democrats are waging tough fights against the Diaz-Balart brothers (the 21st and 25th CDs) and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen in the 18th District. For years, these districts were seen as Republican strongholds, but now, Democrats have chipped away significantly at the GOP’s edge.

Democrats have even made up a lot of ground in the 16th District; it’s just too bad that disgraced Rep. Tim Mahoney has squandered it all.

Full raw numbers for all of these districts are available below the fold.

October 8, 2008:

July 28, 2008:

October 10, 2006:

SurveyUSA (9/30-10/1, likely voters, no trendlines):

Christine Jennings (D): 33

Vern Buchanan (R-inc): 49

Jan Schneider (I): 9

Don Baldauf (I): 3

Undecided: 6

(MoE: ±4.1%)

Polling has been all over the place in FL-13 just in the past month. First good old Vern released an internal that had him up 18. Then Jennings responded with her own showing her back just four. Research 2000 neatly split the difference, calling it a twelve-point race. Neither the R2K nor Jennings polls, though, included Democrat-turned-crybaby Jan Schneider, a three-time loser who seems to be digging her loser’s share directly out of Jennings’s hide.

Vern also poaches Dems directly. He scores a strong 76-11 among members of his own party, while Jennings takes just 62-19 from Dems. And he cleans up with indies, 43-25. Jennings has an extremely tough row to hoe in this district.

The one thing that stands out is at this point old hat for SUSA: voters 18 to 34 are Vern’s best demographic, favoring him by a 57-31 split. I know the preference for Republicans among young voters in SUSA polls has struck SSPers of all stripes as odd if not completely off-base. But perhaps SUSA sees something the rest of us haven’t.

A little history lesson may be in order here. I’ve been reading Rick Perlstein’s utterly awesome Nixonland, which I can’t recommend highly enough. He recounts that when the franchise was extended to 18-to-21-year-olds before the 1972 election, Democrats were convinced that this would be of huge benefit to them. After all, young people had been on the vanguard of the civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements and surely despised Tricky Dick. Yet Nixon managed to split the youth vote en route to a massive landslide.

Now obviously, the differences between 2008 and 1972 are too many to count, not least that many Democrats back then completely misunderstood Nixon’s appeal. But either SUSA has made a huge mistake with its likely voter screen, or they’ve correctly identified trends among younger voters this year that most other pollsters have missed. We’ll see.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (9/23-25, likely voters):

Christine Jennings (D): 31

Vern Buchanan (R-inc): 43

Other: 6

Undecided: 20

(MoE: ±5%)

43% is a weak place to be for any incumbent, and just take a look an Vern’s fave/unfave rating: 37-42. Not good. On the other hand, Christine Jenning’s favorables aren’t exactly hot either: 32-38. You never like to see a challenger with a net negative favorable rating.

A recent Feldman Group poll showed Jennings trailing by four points, with Buchanan at the 44% mark. Popping open the hood, R2K shows that McCain is leading Obama by 51-38 in the district. Considering that Bush beat Kerry by 12% here in 2004, we’re not seeing any evidence of a blue shift in this district based on this poll.

SSP currently rates this race as Likely Republican.

The Feldman Group for Christine Jennings (9/22-23, likely voters):

Christine Jennings (D): 40

Vern Buchanan (R-inc): 44

Undecided: 16

(MoE: ±4.9%)

The last time we saw poll numbers from this race, Buchanan posted an 18-point lead (48-30) in his own internal poll. The Feldman group has a dramatically different result, and also finds that the many, many lawsuits being filed against Buchanan or his business are beginning to take a toll on the incumbent: 78% of voters say they have “heard something” about Buchanan recently, and of those voters, 43% said it made them feel less favorably towards the incumbent, while only 23% say it made them feel more favorable. Additionally, only 39% say that Buchanan deserves re-election.

If this snapshot is accurate, Jennings has a fighting chance to pull off an upset here. I’d like to see it confirmed by another poll, but I’ll take the good news for now.

The full polling memo is available below the fold.

EMILY’s List gets creative against Vern Buchanan:

Update: Episode II is available here.

Lot’s of internal polls to digest in recent days. Let’s kill ’em all in one post.

FL-13:

Public Opinion Strategies for the NRCC (8/23-24, likely voters, July in parens and 3/5-6 in brackets):

Christine Jennings (D): 30 (30) [37]

Vern Buchanan (R-inc): 48 (44) [53]

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Woof. That’s not a spread that I like to see, but at least Buchanan is under 50%. After being hit by a new lawsuit every week for the past month and a half (or so) on allegations of consumer fraud and illegal campaign fundraising, Buchanan’s camp released this poll to ensure folks that everything is hunky-dory. We haven’t seen numbers from this race from any other source than Buchanan’s campaign, so I’m inclined to believe these ballpark figures. However, with so many legal headaches, I wouldn’t say that Buchanan is out of the woods yet.

FL-21:

Hill Research Associates for Lincoln Diaz-Balart (6/19-22, likely voters):

Raul Martinez (D): 36

Lincoln Diaz-Balart (R-inc): 48

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Diaz-Balart pumped out this somewhat moldy poll in an attempt to refute a recent SUSA poll showing Martinez leading D-B the Lesser by two. Given that a Bendixen poll of this race from June showed Martinez trailing only by four points, I’m inclined to believe that the numbers are much tighter than Diaz-Balart’s cherry-picked poll suggests.

IL-18:

Public Opinion Strategies for Aaron Schock (8/18-20, likely voters):

Colleen Callahan (D): 27

Aaron Schock (R): 56

Sheldon Schafer (G): 2

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Ugh. Crazy Aaron Schock doesn’t deserve this.

PA-10:

Momentum Analysis for Christopher Carney (8/19-21, likely voters):

Christopher Carney (D-inc): 54

Chris Hackett (R-inc): 27

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Yeah, I dunno, dudes. SurveyUSA also recently tested this R+8 district, and found Carney only holding a 49-45 lead. I’m a little more inclined to believe that this race is closer to SUSA’s estimate than Carney’s poll, but I still feel pretty good about his chances.

With congressional primaries in Alaska and Florida on August 26th, tonight was the deadline for candidates to file their pre-primary fundraising reports with the FEC. I’ve rounded up the numbers of interest, covering the period of July 1st through August 6th, in the chart below. All figures are in thousands.

Christine Jennings has yet to file her report, but once she does, it will be available here.

The Florida Division of Elections has released their latest tallies of voter registration by congressional district (as of 7/28), and Democrats are posting some big gains since 2006 in targeted races this fall.

Let’s take a look at the numbers in the chart below. In the 2006 column, we have the GOP’s voter registration advantage in each district as of October 10th, 2006. In the next column, we have the most recent spread, followed by the net change. In the last column, we’ve ranked the districts according to the percentage change in the GOP-Dem spread. Take a peek:

The ground is shifting quickly in the Orlando-based 8th District, where GOP Rep. Ric Keller could be facing a real battle to hang onto his seat. The next biggest shift is in South Florida, where Democrats have posted huge registration gains in recent months, and where Democrats Annette Taddeo, Raul Martinez, and Joe Garcia are giving Republican Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and the Diaz-Balart brothers the fight of their lives.

The biggest black eye for Florida Democrats continues to be the open seat of FL-15, where despite having cut into the GOP’s voter registration advantage by over 9000 votes, Democrats were not able to find a top-tier candidate for the race. Democrats held retiring Rep. Dave Weldon to a 56-44 margin with an unknown candidate in 2006, but it appears that our candidate this year won’t be much stronger: both Democrats in the race have raised under $40K each.

Still, there’s a lot of good news here, and we should see some exciting races in Florida this fall.

(Proudly cross-posted at Clintonistas for Obama)

Hello. I’m atdleft, someone you may know from Clintonistas for Obama or MyDD or The Liberal OC. I’m new to Swing State Project, so please don’t get too rough on me.

I just want to let you know that when we’re not obsessing over all things Presidential, my friends & I are looking for good Congressional candidates to support. We already have some idea of who looks good to us, but I’d like to hear from all of you on which candidates we should help out. Whild I’d love to be of use to everyone, I at least want to make sure I’m doing something for Democrats that: (a) can win & (b) will stick to good progressive values once elected.

Because I’m in the area and I’m already familiar with her, I’m all for Debbie Cook. She’s running against an extreme right-wing wacko incumbent, and she’s the first Democratic challenger since Loretta Sanchez (in 1996) who has a real chance of winning an Orange County, CA, House seat. I’m already doing whatever I can to help her win, and I encourage everyone else in the LA/OC area to do the same.

But what about everyone else living in other parts of the country? I feel terrible leaving them all out in the cold. That’s why I’m here today asking for suggestions.

So who should we love? Which candidates deserve our attention? Is Dina Titus the one who can finally upset Jon Porter in NV-03? Can Charlie Brown blow away GOP carpetbagger Tom McClintock in CA-04? Is the second time the charm for Darcy Burner (WA-08) & Christine Jennings (FL-13)? And can Jeff Merkley (OR-Sen), Tom Udall (NM-Sen), & Jeanne Shaheen (NH-Sen) help us expand our Senate majority?

So who should we love? Tell me now. If you make a good case, you might see big chances with this ActBlue page & some diaries from me promoting your favorite candidate(s). 😉

Earlier this summer, we wrote about GOP Rep. Vern Buchanan getting hit with a consumer fraud lawsuit by ex-employees of his various auto dealerships in Florida. Things have gotten even more interesting in recent days, as two ex-employees behind the lawsuit are detailing additional allegations that they faced pressure to donate to Buchanan’s congressional campaign in 2006, and were offered cash gifts and other favors as inducements:

Bell, the former finance director at Venice Nissan Dodge, said the day he made a $1,000 donation to the Buchanan campaign, he was given $1,000 in cash from his boss at the auto dealership.

Bell gave the Herald-Tribune bank records, which included copies of a canceled check dated Sept. 17, 2005, to the Buchanan campaign for $1,000 and a cash deposit made to his account the same day for $960. He said he took the rest as spending money.

“I was told I was going to be reimbursed,” Bell said. “I either had to do this, or I was told I wouldn’t be considered a team player. I took it as a threat. There was no gray area.”

This sort of thing is, of course, very illegal:

Federal election law prohibits “using coercion, such as the threat of a detrimental job action, the threat of any other financial reprisal, or the threat of force, to urge any individual to make a contribution or engage in fundraising activities on behalf of a candidate or political committee.”

The law also prohibits a candidate’s giving cash or other reimbursements to a donor in exchange for a contribution.

There’s more:

Kezer, the former finance director at another Buchanan dealership, Sarasota Ford, wrote a $2,000 check to the Buchanan campaign after he said he was told it was important to support the candidate. In exchange for the donation, Kezer said, Buchanan personally promised him a week at Buchanan’s Vail, Colo., resort home. Buchanan sold the home last month for $6.5 million.

“He put his arm around me and promised I could use his house in Vail if I donated,” Kezer said.

Kezer, 50, said he never went to Buchanan’s Colorado home because he feared it was a violation.

Buchanan’s camp is pushing back aggressively against the chargest, but it’s unclear what, if anything, will come of all this. One thing is certain: this isn’t exactly the kind of press that Buchanan wants to have as he heads into the final months of his first re-election campaign.

SSP currently rates this race as Likely Republican.