Tag: Martin Griffin

• CO-Sen: Former state Sen. Tom Wiens made it official; he’s entering the Republican field in the Senate race. With former Lt. Governor Jane Norton wearing the mantle of establishment anointment in this race, Wien’s entry may actually help Norton, by taking non-Norton votes away from conservative Weld County DA Ken Buck. Wiens is a wealthy rancher prepared to put up to half a million of his own dollars into the race.

• FL-Sen: If anyone has to sweating the movement conservatives’ takedown of the pre-selected moderate establishment candidate in NY-23, it’s gotta be Charlie Crist. Here’s one more thing for him to worry about: his job approval according to a new St. Petersburg Times poll is only 42/55. They don’t have him in as dire straits against Marco Rubio in the GOP primary as a number of other pollsters, though — Crist leads Rubio 50-28 — but the ultimate indignity is on the question of whether respondents would choose Crist or Jeb Bush to lead Florida right now, 47% opt for Bush (with 41 for Crist). On the Dem side, Rep. Kendrick Meek leads newly-announced former Miami mayor Maurice Ferre 26-6.

• IL-Sen, IL-07: There a lots of interesting plot lines forming as today is the filing deadline in Illinois. But the big one is: what the hell is up with Patrick Hughes? The real estate developer was considered to be the right-wingers’ go-to guy to against alleged moderate Rep. Mark Kirk in the GOP primary, but now rumors are swirling that he doesn’t have the signatures to qualify. There also seem to be some major ball-droppings for progressives: there’s nobody challenging Rep. Dan Lipinski in the primary in IL-03, and there’s nobody, period, to go up against GOP Rep. Peter Roskam in the R+0 IL-06. In the 7th, where it’s unclear whether Rep. Danny Davis will be coming back or not (he’s filed for his seat, but also for Cook County Board President), he’s facing primary competition from only one elected official: state Sen. Rickey Hendon (Cook Co. Deputy Recorder of Deeds Darlena Williams-Burnett is also a big name, but I don’t think deputy recorder is an elected position). Hendon says he’ll bail out and run for Lt. Governor if Davis sticks around.

Meanwhile, on the Senate front, state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias is touting his own internal poll from GQR giving him a 3-point edge on Rep. Mark Kirk in a general election, 46-43. The same poll finds less-known Democrat former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman trailing Kirk 48-39.

• IN-Sen: Research 2000 (on behalf of the Progressive Change Campaign Committee, rather than Kos) found last week that Blanche Lincoln was in serious trouble electorally and that her troubles would mount if she opposed health care reform. They also looked at Evan Bayh, and they found that, a) he’s not in trouble (62/30 approvals, although no head-to-head test against his erstwhile opponent, state Sen. Marlin Stutzman), and b) a majority wouldn’t be moved one way or the other by his health care actions.

• MA-Sen: The start of debates haven’t done much to reshape things in the Democratic primary in the special election in the Bay State. AG Martha Coakley holds a 25-point lead over Rep. Michael Capuano, according to an R2K poll commissioned by local blog Blue Mass Group. Coakley is at 42 and Capuano at 16, with Stephen Pagliuca at 15 and Alan Khazei at 5. Only 52% of Coakley’s voters are firm about it, though, but that’s not much different from any of the other candidates.

• FL-Gov: That aforementioned St. Petersburg Times poll also looked at the governor’s race, and they gave Democratic CFO Alex Sink her first lead in a while; she’s up a single point on GOP AG Bill McCollum, 38-37. More trouble for McCollum: state Senator Paula Dockery, as threatened, now appears to be jumping into the Republican primary, which had been painstakingly cleared for him.

• MN-Gov: If a candidate falls in the Minnesota gubernatorial Republican field, does it make a sound? State Rep. Paul Kohls dropped out, having not gotten much traction according to recent straw polls. That leaves approximately eleventy-seven zillion Republicans left in the hunt.

• VA-Gov: He’s dead, Jim. Four more polls on VA-Gov are out:

YouGov (pdf): McDonnell 53, Deeds 40

Mason-Dixon: McDonnell 53, Deeds 41

PPP (pdf): McDonnell 56, Deeds 42

SurveyUSA: McDonnell 58, Deeds 40

• MI-07: Unseated wingnut Tim Walberg — who’d like to get his job back from freshman Dem Mark Schauer — has some company in the GOP primary next year: attorney and Iraq vet Brian Rooney (the brother of Florida Rep. Tom Rooney) is getting in the race. It’s not clear whether Rooney is any more moderate than Walberg, though; he’s an attorney for the right-wing Thomas More Law Center, the theocons’ answer to the ACLU.

• NY-23: A few more odds and ends in the 23rd. One more key Republican endorser working for Doug Hoffman now is Rudy Giuliani (like George Pataki, not the likeliest fellow you’d expect to see make common cause with the Conservative Party — with neither of them having ruled out 2010 runs, they seem to want to be in good graces with the national GOP, who are all-in for Hoffman now). Rudy’s crack team of robots is making calls on his behalf. Another possible useful endorsement: Watertown’s mayor Jeff Graham is now backing Hoffman. Former candidate Dede Scozzafava, on the other hand, is now cutting robocalls on Democrat Bill Owens’ behalf. Finally, here’s an ill omen on the motivation front: sparse turnout was reported for Joe Biden‘s appearance on behalf of Owens.

• PA-06: One more Republican is getting in the field in the open seat race in the 6th: Howard Cohen, a consultant who is the former Revenue Secretary from the Dick Thornburgh administration decades ago. He’ll face a financial gap against pharma exec Steven Welch, and a name rec gap against state Rep. Curt Schroder, though.

• AL-AG: One incumbent who looks badly endangered going into 2010 is Alabama’s Republican Attorney General, Troy King. Having buddied up with the state’s trial lawyers (thus angering the local business establishment) and also pissed off many local DAs by interfering in their cases, King has lost most establishment support in the upcoming GOP primary against Luther Strange. Two of Strange’s biggest backers are both of the state’s Senators, Jeff Sessions and Richard Shelby.

• ME-Init: Two more polls on Maine’s Question 1 (where “yes” is a vote to overturn the state’s gay marriage law), both pointing to an excruciatingly close vote. PPP (taken over the weekend) sees it passing 51-47, while Research 2000 (taken last week) gives a tiny edge to “no,” 47-48. (R2K also confirms that Olympia Snowe’s numbers are way off; the once bulletproof Snowe now has approvals of 50/44.)

• NYC: Three more polls all show Michael Bloomberg with an easy path to a third term, beating Democratic comptroller William Thompson. Bloomberg leads 50-38 according to Quinnipiac, 53-42 according to SurveyUSA, and 53-38 according to Marist (pdf).

• Mayors: There are fresh polls in a few other mayoral races. In St. Petersburg, Florida, one of the most hotly contended races around, Bill Foster leads Kathleen Ford 48-44 according to SurveyUSA. (Foster leads among both blacks and conservatives.) The racially polarized race in Charlotte gives a small edge to the conservative white candidate, Andy Lassiter, who leads 50-46 over Anthony Foxx. And in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, all we know is that someone with a difficult-to-spell last name will be mayor. Matt Czajkowski leads Mark Kleinschmidt 45-44. (Czajkowski seems to be the conservative and Kleinschmidt the liberal.)

• State legislatures: In case there wasn’t enough to focus on tomorrow, Josh Goodman points to five legislative special elections tomorrow. The big one is Michigan‘s 19th Senate district, which was vacated by Democratic Rep. Mark Schauer. Republican former state Rep. Mike Nofs may have an edge for the pickup against Democratic state Rep. Martin Griffin, at least based on fundraising. There are also Dem-held seats up in Alabama’s 65th House district, Missouri’s 73rd House district, and Washington’s 16th House district (the reddest Dem-held seat in Washington), and a GOP-held seat in South Carolina’s 48th House district. (UPDATE: TheUnknown285 points us to a whopping seven legislative seats up from grabs in Georgia, too, in his diary.)

• NRCC: Pete Sessions Deathwatch, Vol. 1? This seems odd, given that he’s had some pretty good success on the recruiting front, but apparently the behind-closed-doors potshots are hitting NRCC head Sessions just as heavily as they did Tom Cole last cycle. The complaints aren’t about recruiting, though, but rather about fundraising, where the NRCC is still lagging the DCCC despite the superficial conventional wisdom that Republicans come into 2010 with momentum, and about not keeping enough of a lid on all those nagging intraparty skirmishes that somehow only the blogosphere ever seems to notice.

• Polling: Mark Blumenthal has a thought-provoking piece on polling the cap-and-trade issue. The key problem: no one knows exactly what it is (reminiscent of polling the public option question, too).

• Voting: States are still trying to figure out what to do about the new federal law intended to make sure that military ballots from overseas get counted. At least a dozen states are now actively considering moving their September primaries up in the calendar to comply (including Minnesota, Vermont, Delaware, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin).

In a widely (and rightfully) praised diary profiling the 2010 state Senate elections in Michigan, SSPer Menhen provided a good overview of what we can expect in my home state next year. I don’t have much, if anything, to add to most of what he wrote, but I would like to give everyone a somewhat closer look at one race in particular. This is arguably one of the three most important races of 2009, ranking alongside VA-Gov and NJ-Gov, and could be a better bellwether for 2010 than either of those races.

I am talking, of course, about the special election in Michigan’s 19th Senate District.

(Interactive Map)

MI SD-19 is the race that the DLCC specifically singled out from Menhen’s diary as one that they “will watch very closely.” And in the world of media narratives and post-election spin, a Republican victory might mean bad news for John Cherry, good news for Mitt Romney, a repudiation of Granholm and Obama, and, of course, great news for John McCain.

But that’s getting way too speculative, and as SSP election prediction contests have shown, I’m absolutely awful at that. Instead, let’s focus on what we know about MI SD-19.

Before I continue, I should make a note about the maps that I’m using. One of my hobbies this summer has been getting myself acquainted with Google Earth, yet another step in Google’s plan for global domination through amazingly useful tools. All of the maps used in this diary were generated with Google Earth from cartographic boundary files provided by the U.S. Census Bureau. What’s more, every map is clickable, taking you to a page I’ve set up that will allow you to interact with the map. I think that tools like this could add a lot to blogging and political analysis, especially for those of us who can’t afford to create our own electoral scoreboard, but are still interested in some sort of visual representation of election data.

Also, before we get too far, I’ll add that I do not live in the district, nor do I have any special knowledge, and honestly, I haven’t been following state politics as closely as I used to. In other words, any opinions or analysis expressed here might be completely wrong. But at least I’ve got maps.

This is what Menhen had to say about SD-19 in his diary:

District 19 VACANT (D)  Calhoun County (Battle Creek) and most of Jackson County

This is the Senate seat that Mark Schauer left vacant when he moved up to Congress last year.  It is usually a swing district, although President Obama won it with votes to spare.  Because this seat is vacant, there will be a special election to fill it later this year.  The Primary will be August 4th and the General on November 9th.

The Democratic candidates are State Rep. Martin Griffin of Jackson, and Sharon Reiner, who ran for congress in 2006 and 2008, narrowly losing to Tim Walberg and then losing badly in the primary to Mark Schauer.  Griffin is backed by the State Democratic Party and should win the Primary.  The Republican candidates are State Rep. Mike Nofs of Battle Creek and Sandstone Township Supervisor C. James Wellman.  Nofs, who is a moderate and popular in the Battle Creek area, should win the primary.  

The fact that 1. Nofs is very moderate 2. He’s very well known and liked in the Battle Creek area and 3. This will be a low turnout special election makes this a tough race for us.  Both parties with certainly spend a lot of money here.  Martin Griffin is from the Jackson area, which is an advantage, as Mark Schauer lost Jackson County in 2002 when he first ran for the State Senate.  If we lose this race it will make it that much more difficult to retake the Senate, so in some ways, whether or not Democrats can gain the trifecta and control redistricting depends on this race.

Presidential Results: 52.7 – 45.6 Obama

Candidates:  

Martin Griffin (D) State Rep. (2006-  )

Sharon Reiner (D)

Mike Nofs (R) State Rep. (2002-2008)

C. James Wellman (R) Sandstone Township Board Memeber

Rating: Tossup

For the purposes of this diary, we’re going to assume that both Griffin and Nofs win their respective primaries on August 4th. That’s the most likely result, though if we’re lucky we could see some wingnut action on the Republican side, and if we’re unlucky we could see another Sharon Renier surprise performance on the Democratic side.

A brief introduction to the candidates:

Mike Nofs (R-Battle Creek) – Website

Nofs is, basically, our worst nightmare for a special election like this. He’s moderate– or, he is at least very good at projecting that image. Thanks to six years in the state House, 10 years on the Calhoun County Board of Commissioners, and a couple of decades at the Battle Creek state police post, Nofs is really popular in the generally Democratic-leaning city of Battle Creek. The importance of this will become clear soon.

Nofs was term-limited out of the Michigan House of Representatives in 2008. He represented HD-62, now held by Kate Segal (D).

(Interactive Map)

Martin “Marty” Griffin (D-Jackson) – Website

To begin with, let me say that I’m extraordinarily happy to see that Griffin actually has a website. The last I had seen, Griffin was “not sure” if he’d put one up. In other words, don’t expect him to come to the Netroots looking for support.

Griffin served as mayor of Jackson for 11 years. In 2004 he very narrowly lost a race for the state House, only to win the rematch in 2006 and win reelection in 2008. As Menhen noted, Griffin’s base is in Jackson County, where Democrats have previously been weak. It’s worth noting that the city of Jackson claims to be the birthplace of the Republican Party. It’s previously been a pretty solidly Republican seat.

Griffin currently represents HD-64, of which all but Summit Township lies in SD-19.

(Interactive Map)

So we have two state Representatives, each representing hostile territory and yet popular enough to win reelection. Thus far, it sounds like a pretty even match-up.

What kind of a district is SD-19?

Or, perhaps the better way of phrasing it: What does it take for a Democrat to win in SD-19?

As Menhen noted, President Obama did carry the district in 2008, 52.7 to 45.6. Here’s how he did it:

(Interactive Map)

(All election data, except where otherwise cited, was obtained via the Michigan Secretary of State’s Election Precinct Results Search tool.)

Notice that there’s an awful lot of red and only a few patches of blue, yet Obama still won. Most of the townships in the map just don’t have many people in them, meaning that big victories in the small cities of Battle Creek and Jackson (and, to a lesser extent, the other cities) are enough to put a Democrat over the top.

Just to demonstrate, I’ve adjusted the opacity on that map to show how the population is distributed.

(Interactive Map)

Now, that’s not an especially fair map, but I think it makes the point. Battle Creek made up about 20 percent of the voters in the district in 2008 (23,394 votes out of 116,135 total), while many of the rural townships of the district made up only one or two percent. That’s not to say that rural areas don’t matter. Winning big in the rural areas (especially in Jackson County) and keeping the cities close is how to win, if you’re a Republican. Rural votes are just as good as urban ones. But the cities (and Battle Creek in particular) are the foundation of Democratic victories.

That can be seen in then state Rep., later state Sen., and now U.S. Rep. Mark Schauer’s SD-19 victory in 2002:

(Interactive Map)

Results:

County	Mortimer (R)	Schauer (D)
Calhoun	15,673	24,514	40,187
Jackson	16,608	15,159	31,767
Totals	32,281	39,673	71,954
Percentage	44.86	55.14	100

Schauer won SD-19 even more convincingly in 2006– 61-39— but as I remember it (and I don’t live in the district), it wasn’t heavily contested. I think 2002 is better for the current situation.

As Menhen noted, Schauer lost Jackson County, but he made up for it by winning most of Calhoun County, and most of all, by winning Battle Creek convincingly, 66-34.

So that’s the route that other Democrats have taken to win SD-19. Will it work for Marty Griffin?

Let’s look at the electoral histories of HD-62 and HD-64.

First, Griffin in HD-64:

2004

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Results:

Baxter (R)	Griffin (D)	Ross (Write-In)
18,787	18,429	498	37,714
49.81	48.87	1.32

2006

(Interactive Map)

Results:

Baxter (R)	Griffin (D)
14,178	15,703	29,881
47.45	52.55

2006

(Interactive Map)

Results:

Prebble (R)	Griffin (D)
14,454	24,260	38,714
37.34	62.66

It took Griffin two tries to get into the state House, but once he got there, the Republicans weren’t able to field a decent candidate against him. Leland Prebble was not especially strong competition.

Griffin’s first two campaigns, though, are the cause of more worry. Rick Baxter, Griffin’s 2004 and 2006 opponent, isn’t a Mike Nofs-like moderate. He’s a rabid, incredibly frightening far-right lunatic, and an ally and former staffer of ex-U.S. Rep. Tim Walberg, whose “worst day” of his single term in the legislature was the day they raised the minimum wage. And all the same, Baxter made the race close. That speaks less about Griffin and Baxter and more about just how conservative much of the district is.

The city of Jackson contains about a third of the voters in HD-64 and about 11 percent of the voters in SD-19. I think Griffin can probably still count on that base, but if a guy like Rick Baxter could win the rest of the district, Mike Nofs certainly has that potential.

Can Griffin carry Battle Creek and make some inroads in Calhoun County? Can he follow the same winning path as Obama and Schauer?

Against Mike Nofs, that’s going to be tough. Let’s look at Nofs’ electoral history in HD-62:

2002

(Interactive Map)

Results:

Nofs (R)	Dearing (D)
13,619	11,986	25,605
53.19	46.81

2004

(Interactive Map)

Results:

Nofs (R)	Haley (D)
20,935	18,289	39,224
53.37	46.63

2004

(Interactive Map)

Results:

Nofs (R)	Haley (D)
15,639	13,533	29,172
53.61	46.39

So that’s that. Nofs was elected to three full terms (the maximum allowed under Michigan’s term limit laws), and while he never ran away with it, each time he held even or improved, and each time, he improved his margin in Battle Creek. It’s not that Nofs had to win the city, it’s that he had to make it close enough that his natural advantage in all of the little small villages and towns in the rest of the county carried him over the top. And, of course, the fact that he won Battle Creek in 2004 and 2006 (a strong year for Democrats) was just icing on the cake.

What now?

This leaves us with a frustrating situation. We’ve got the candidate who, on paper, seems like he’d be perfect. His base of support is right in the heart of the Republican part of the district, and he has a history with the voters there.

The problem is, that’s what the other side did, too, and their guy has a history with the bigger city, the one that we generally rely on. It’d be like if our presidential nominee were from Texas, but the Republicans nominated a long-time politician from California. (I feel like that would make for a great seventh season of some sort of television show…)

But all is far from lost. Let’s look at the Obama and Schauer maps again:

(Interactive Map)

(Interactive Map)

There’s a fair amount of territory there that’s not currently represented by either Griffin or was never represented by Nofs. They don’t necessarily have a lot of people, but some of them– especially the townships adjacent to Battle Creek– have a fair number of voters who aren’t nearly as conservative as their neighbors further from the city. The city of Marshall, too, offers Griffin a chance to pick up some more votes.

That’s not going to be easy against Nofs, whose roots in Calhoun County span many decades. Even so, I think it’s possible. It’s also something Griffin might be able to get some help with, as the voters in Calhoun County think Mark Schauer walks on water and recently elected state Rep. Kate Segal (D) 62-38. Democratic state Rep. Mike Simpson also represents the parts of Jackson County that Griffin doesn’t represent, so some good, old-fashioned Democratic teamwork might make this happen.

And in a low-turnout special election, moving your base will be essential. If the GOP base isn’t thrilled with Nofs, that will hopefully give our side a little bit of breathing room. It’s nothing to count on, but it is something.

Possibly connecting to that, there’s also a Libertarian candidate in the race– Greg Merle. From his campaign website:

Man made Global Warming is a complete hoax , can not be proven and is just simply another government scheme to raise taxes on businesses and individuals. […] Our problem is that these enviro nut jobs won’t even debate us on the issue. Their only goal is to loot the American public while at the same time giving China and India a pass.

[…]

Strong supporter of the Fair Tax and eliminating the IRS .

We need to finish up in Iraq and get out post haste, ditto Japan, Germany, South Korea, Kuwait etc. Our Armed Forces have done their job. Besides, those nations hate us anyway. Let’s give these America hating college professors as well as the UN something to really complain about when we pack up and go home.

The Free Market will solve our economic problems if we could only get government out of the way, let leaders lead and creators create.

Hopefully this guy makes enough noise to win over some of those Walberg/Baxter voters who aren’t comfortable with Nofs. Again, it’s nothing to count on, but it’s still something. (You should really read the rest of his issue positions, they’re wonderful. I especially like the link on his Second Amendment plank.)

And on top of all of that, Michigan really does seem to be trending more Democratic in the last few years. Nofs didn’t have to face reelection in 2008, but I’d be willing to bet the Obama coattails would have brought whomever his challenger would have been the 2,000 votes they’d need to overtake him. If Michigan really is becoming more Democratic, Nofs might not have as easy a time as he’s had before.

What will this election tell us?

To be absolutely honest, I don’t think this will tell us much of anything. If it’s a close race and we win, it tells us that Griffin was a good candidate and picking someone from the Jackson County side of the district was a smart move. If it’s a close race and Nofs wins, it means that Nofs was a really good candidate and had a history with the Battle Creek voters. It’s all stuff we already knew, and anything more will just be spin.

We only learn something if it’s a blowout either way, and I’ll be surprised if it is. That said, if Nofs wins with 60 percent or more, I’m going to start to get really nervous about 2010 in Michigan.

Of course, if you’re so inclined, it might be worth sending a few dollars toward Griffin’s campaign anyway.