April 5 Election Results Thread #2

10:13pm: Thread trois.

10:10pm: A few more votes from Madison have trickled in, bringing KloJo back into the lead. However, the swing is still only 2.84%, less than what we need.

10:01pm: At the halfway mark now, and Prosser is now underperforming by about 3.5%. That number needs to clear 5% for KloJo to win.  The Milwaukee burbs, however, are still the laggards here, at 23% reporting.  However, the number of votes in Waukesha seems a little out of wack, as taking them at face value suggest that turnout is 8 times higher today than in the primary.

9:56pm: With 65% reporting for Milwaukee County Exec, Chris Abele is leading 61-39.  I think we can chalk this one up for Team Blue.

9:48pm: With 42% reporting now, Prosser’s assembled a 52-48 lead, or 19,000 votes.  “Outstate” – if there is one – is reporting and not being the friendliest to KloJo. Potential areas of improvement include the college towns in La Crosse/Eau Claire/Stevens Point and Madison. Despite their repugnant redness, the Milwaukee burbs are swinging 8.36% towards KloJo – more than what’s needed.

9:39pm: Back to Chicago for a second, a few incumbents lost tonight: Bernie Stone and John Rice for sure, and possibly Fredrenna Lyle in the 6th.  The Republicans might be going 0-for-50, with both would be GOPers losing, by 260 votes in the 41st and by 31 votes in the 45th. [And Sharon Denise Dixon in the 24th. No love for Rhymefest though, who loses to incumbent Wilie Cochran.]

9:29pm: Things continue to move slightly in KloJo’s favor, with Prosser doing 3.2% worse than before.  Hopefully, the trend continues.  Prosser is underperforming in all areas except Dane County – which is explained by the fact that Madison has yet to report.

9:22pm: Prosser’s doing 2.4% worse than in the primary. However, the MKE suburbs’s are only 8%…which leaves plenty of room for him to pad his lead, sadly.

9:17pm: Chris Abele continues to crush for MKE County Exec, now 61-39 with 28% in.



It’s a progressive party.

Results:

Wisconsin: AP | Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Chicago: AP

SC: SC SEC

Nevada: Clark County

April 5 Election Results Thread #1

9:15pm: Follow the party here.

9:10pm: More of Milwaukee’s reported now, which is enough improvement such that Prosser’s now 1.5% below his primary performance.  KloJo will still need more to win this though.

9:06pm: According to Journal-Sentinel, Chris Abele now has a 60-40 lead over Jeff Stone with 10% reporting. Hopefully, this means we can expect some swings towards KloJo in Milwaukee County.

9:01pm: More results now – 12% in. Prosser’s underperforming everywhere…except Milwaukee County, Dane County, and the not contiguous “College Towns”, comprised of Eau Claire, La Crosse, and Portage counties.  Hopefully, this will change.

8:56pm: Clarendon County has reported in South Carolina, and the Dem is now leading 52-47.

8:45pm: More of Wisconsin in now, and Prosser is now slightly underperforming (-0.23%). KloJo has a 202-vote lead, but the disgustingly Republican Milwaukee burbs haven’t reported just yet. (Keep in mind, Waukesha + Ozaukee + Washington gave Bush a larger margin than Milwaukee gave Kerry).

8:40pm: With our first Milwaukee County precincts, Jeff Stone is up by 1%. Prosser at par with his primary performance now (+0.06%).

8:34pm: Kenosha County is going 64-36 for Prosser, but it’s also quite heavily polarized. With the last dump, Prosser is doing 1% better than in the primary, about 6% over what he needs overall.

8:30pm: 2.5% reporting now, with Prosser doing about 2% better than in the primary (assuming uniform counties). It’s still early – this is plenty likely to change.  We need Prosser to do about 5% worse for KloJo to win.

8:19pm: Ten precincts in now (does this mean I have to stop using just my fingers to count?). Prosser’s doing about 5% better than he did in the primary, but turnout in Dane County is 2x.

8:13pm: Hey, one precinct in Dane County (Madison)!  Kloppenburg’s at 60%.  Turnout in this one precinct is 2.5x what the average Dane County precinct was in the primary. (The flipside is that Prosser is doing 8.6% better in this one precinct than he did throughout Dane County in the first round.)

8:02pm: In South Carolina, heavily Dem HD-64 currently has a Republican lead of 5 votes, but only one of two counties has reported. (And I’m guessing not the Dem one, either.)

7:51pm: Checking out these Chicago results real quick – Rahm’s picks aren’t doing too well in the 24th and 25th wards.  Crusty old jackass Bernard Stone is losing quite handily in the 50th, and Che “Rhymefest” Smith (co-writer of Kanye West’s “Jesus Walks”) is holding incumbent Willie Cochran to 53% in the 20th.

Once again, Central Time shall prevail!


And so it is, 15 minutes to takeoff.

On the docket:

  • The marquee event, the Wisconsin Supreme Court race between the conservative-leaning incumbent David Prosser and Dem-leaning JoAnne Kloppenburg.

  • Milwaukee County Executive, which Scott Walker kindly left open between Walker crony Jeff Stone and  Dem Chris Abele.

  • The first test of Mayor Emanuel’s clout, with numerous City Council runoffs in Chicago, which Rahm hasn’t been shy to wade in.

  • Various local offices throughout Las Vegas and Clark County.

Results:

Wisconsin: AP | Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel

Chicago: AP

SC: SC SEC

Nevada: Clark County

April 5 Election Night Predictions Thread

There are several elections around the country tonight. The main event, of course, is the Supreme Court race in Wisconsin, pitting incumbent David Prosser against JoAnne Kloppenburg. Also in the Badger State, Democrat Chris Abele faces off against Republican Jeff Stone for Milwaukee County Executive. Polls close at 9pm Eastern / 8pm Central. AP results will be here.

Elsewhere, there’s the first round of the Las Vegas mayoral election tonight, and there are a bunch of city council runoffs in Chicago (the first real test of Rahm Emanuel’s power). And there’s also a special election for South Carolina’s vacant 64th state House district.

So, toss in your predictions in comments. Also, if you know of any good local websites reporting results for these races, please share those as well.

UPDATE: I also added a poll on the Supreme Court race.

By what margin will Bob Shamansky win?

View Results

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SSP Daily Digest: 4/4

Senate:

CT-Sen: Former SoS Susan Bysiewicz said that she raised over half a mil in Q1. She also continued a theme of attacking Chris Murphy as some kind of skeezy Washington insider, saying “I’m sure the corporate PACs and DC lobbyists are lining up to support other candidates.” Murphy is the only other announced candidate.

FL-Sen: Adam Smith of the St. Petersburg Times tweeted last Wednesday he expects George LeMieux (R) to announce “next week”… which means this week.

IN-Sen: Rep. Dan Burton, one of the most disliked Republicans in the state of Indiana, channels his inner Tobias Fünke (the man inside him?) and says, “I’m supporting Dick – there’s two Dicks in the race.” That’d be Richard “Dick” Lugar and Richard “Dick” Mourdock. Oh Burton, you blowhard!

KY-Sen: I can’t really believe Rand Paul is serious about a presidential bid, but then again, I thought the same thing about Michele Bachmann and was clearly wrong about that. Still, I’m mostly amused by the fact that he met with Iowa Republicans (including Gov. Terry Branstad) in Des Moines this past weekend. Rand might be trying to set himself up for a run in 2016… or he could also be doing a good job of inviting a primary challenge if he seeks re-election.

MA-Sen: Teabaggers being pissed at Scott Brown are nothing new – though I do find their naivety endearing. (What did they think they were going to get?) What’s sad is that one of their self-anointed leaders, some guy named Judson Phillips, can only muster up this in response to Brown’s latest outrage (calling to reduce budget cuts): “Perhaps the Massachusetts Tea Party will step up with someone to challenge him in 2012.” A resounding call to arms this ain’t.

ME-Sen: Freshman Sen. Pat Toomey says he won’t endorse Olympia Snowe in her bid for re-election. Toomey, don’t forget, has some residual teabagger cred, given that he was president of the Club for Growth.

MO-Sen: Citizens United (yes, that Citizens United) just gave GOP Rep. Todd Akin $10K in the hopes of luring him into the Senate race. I was wrong about Trent Franks, but I really do feel like Akin will get in here.

MT-Sen: Republicans think they get lots of mileage out of attacking “welfare,” but Denny Rehberg took this trope several steps further, declaring that Pell Grants are “turning out to be the welfare of the 21st century.”

NV-Sen: Rep. Shelley Berkley says she’s heartened by the internal poll numbers she put out last week (42-38 over Republican Dean Heller), she still hasn’t made up her mind, though now says she’ll decide “fairly soon,” whatever that means.

NY-Sen: Kirsten Gillibrand set a personal record with her 1Q fundraising, taking in over $3 million.

Gubernatorial:

KY-Gov: Despite opposing the expansion of gambling in the state – a very big and very contentious issue – State Senate President (and GOP gubernatorial nominee) David Williams lost over $36,000 in casinos from 1999 to 2002, according to court documents related to his divorce.

MO-Gov: Did GOP Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder just neutralize the whole “Air Claire” business? It turns out that Kinder, widely expected to run for governor, has spent an average of two months a year staying at St. Louis luxury hotels, all at taxpayer expense, including trips for society balls and baseball games.. You really need to read the whole piece to get the full flavor of Kinder’s abuse of his office. Kinder also told a reporter for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch “I’m not talking to you,” then hung up the phone. This story’s going to get worse, not better.

UT-Gov, UT-Sen: As we’ve noted previously, the teabaggers are gunning for Gov. Gary Herbert, thanks to his support for immigration bills that are insufficiently punitive, in their view. Now the name of another potential primary challenger has surfaced: state Rep. Stephen Sandstrom. The linked article also says that David Kirkham, a key teabagger who helped oust Bob Bennett last year, is suggesting that Herbert, rather than Orrin Hatch, may be his compatriots’ number one target this cycle. Hatch previously refused to take a position on his home state’s legislation, but let’s see if he turns on Herbert in the hopes of re-directing the teabaggers.

WV-Gov: Julie Sobel at the Hotline has a complete wrapup of fundraising numbers for all the major candidates, both Dem and Republican, in the WV gubernatorial race.

Other Races:

Wisconsin Sup. Ct.: On Twitter, when Sarah Palin announced she was backing David Prosser, I called it the kiss of death. J. Pilmanis said no, she kissed a corpse. We’ll find out for sure tomorrow! Anyhow, the ad wars have, of course, gone full-tilt in the final days of the campaign. Here’s a roundup of some that we’ve seen:

WI Sup. Ct.: Former Dem Gov Abandons Prosser, Endorses Kloppenburg

This is a pretty amazing story – and not the kind of thing you want to see happen during the final weekend of your campaign:

Former Democratic Gov. Patrick Lucey is withdrawing his support for incumbent Justice David Prosser for Wisconsin Supreme Court and is throwing it to Assistant Attorney General JoAnne Kloppenburg.

Lucey released a statement to the media Thursday evening saying the campaign has revealed what he called “a disturbing distemper and lack of civility” in Prosser, though he did not cite specifics.

“I have followed with increasing dismay and now alarm the campaign of Justice David Prosser, whom I endorsed at the outset of his campaign and in whose campaign I serve as the honorary co-chairman,” Lucey said in the statement. “I can no longer in good conscience lend my name and support to Justice Prosser’s candidacy. Too much has come to light that Justice Prosser has lost that most crucial of characteristics for a Supreme Court Justice-as for any judge-even-handed impartiality. Along with that failing has come a disturbing distemper and lack of civility that does not bode well for the High Court in the face of demands that are sure to be placed on it in these times of great political and legal volatility.”

Lucey, age 93, served as governor of Wisconsin in the 1970s and was also the running mate of independent presidentical candidate John Anderson in 1980. Lucey may have declined to cite any examples of Prosser’s behavior, but I sure will:

  • He bellowed that a fellow justice was a “bitch” and vowed to “destroy her” – then blamed her for his outburst
  • He claimed that the same justice and another female colleague “ganged up” on him in an attempt to make him look bad
  • He confided to Republicans and right-wing allies that they could be sure how he’d rule on topics like redistricting and abortion rights – all but prejudging cases in advance

And those are just a few examples of Prosser’s lack of a proper judicial temperament. I haven’t even touched upon the fact that he promised he’d be a “complement” to Gov. Scott Walker and the Republicans in the legislature, on account of the fact that his views “closely mirror” theirs. Lucey’s critique of Prosser aligns very much with the case Kloppenburg and her supporters have been presenting all along, and it helps ensure that this will be topic #1 for the campaign’s final days. Couldn’t happen to a nicer guy.

SSP Daily Digest: 3/29

Senate:

FL-Sen: I was pretty bored with reading the George LeMieux tea leaves even before his cuppa began brewing, but in case you’re not me, the very-short-tenured former senator has been busy attending Lincoln Day dinners and meeting with GOP activists and potential donors. In beltway land, I think this upgrades him from “Lean Run” to “Likely Run.”

IN-Sen: Treasurer Richard Mourdock is trying to cause some trouble by saying that Gov. Mitch Daniels encouraged him to run against Dick Lugar in the GOP primary, while a Daniels spokesperson said the governor did no such thing. Daniels previously said he’d vote for Lugar, but didn’t exactly endorse him. In other news, Mourdock says he expects to show $125K raised for his race in just a month of campaigning.

Gubernatorial:

KY-Gov: Dem Gov. Steve Beshear just punked his top opposition in this year’s gubernatorial race, state Senate President David Williams, hard. Williams had insisted on broad spending cuts (including to education) as part of a Medicaid budget bill; the Democratic-controlled House had no interest in these cuts, but Williams refused any possible compromise. So House Dems (and rebellious House Republicans) passed the Williams bill anyway… I know, hang on … but full-well expecting Beshear to use his line-item veto to strike the cuts. Then they adjourned, so that the vetoes couldn’t get over-ridden. And that’s exactly what happened, handing Williams a humiliating defeat.

WI-Gov: I’m wondering which pollster will finally have the courage to report numbers to the THOUSANDTHS of a percent. For now, we’ll have to content ourselves with Republican-affiliated pollster We Ask America, which bravely ignores all rules about significant digits and goes all the way to hundredths. They show what other polls are showing: that Scott Walker (like other loser Midwestern Republican governors) has crappy job approval ratings, in this case 43.71 to 54.87. YES DECIMALS.

WV-Gov: The AP has a good run-down on which groups are endorsing whom in the gubernatorial race. On the Dem side, we’ve noted several of the big union heavy hitters, most of whom are backing state House Speaker Rick Thompson. But some important labor groups are supporting other candidates, like state Sen. Jeff Kessler (Fraternal Order of Police, nurses) and Treasurer John Perdue (teamsters, state troopers). Meanwhile, EMILY’s List has endorsed SoS Natalie Tenant. The AP also tried to get candidates to cough up estimates of their fundraising figures (final reports are due Friday), but only acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin responded, saying he’d pulled in about a million bucks.

And speaking of Thompson, he’s apparently the first on TV, with an ad touting his hardscrabble upbringing. By the way, SSP Southern Correspondent Trent Thompson notes that the soundtrack you hear is a Baptist hymn, which seems to be popular among Southern Dems (Bobby Bright featured this sort of thing in his advertising). (UPDATE: Actually, it’s an actually an old Hank Williams gospel song that’s commonly sung in churches.)

House:

CA-36: It looks like we have the final list of candidate filings for the special election. I count ten Democrats, six Republicans, five “nonpartisan,” two Libertarians (splitter!), and one “Peace and Freedom” candidate. Also, Howard Dean just endorsed Debra Bowen, which is not too surprising given that his former organization, Democracy for America (run by Howard’s brother Jim), also recently endorsed.

CA-51: Apparently there had been vague rumors that Dem Rep. Bob Filner might run for mayor of San Diego… and now apparently Filner just went and announced he was in fact doing so in a totally off-hand remark after a screening of the film Freedom Riders. (Filner himself was one of the Mississippi Freedom Riders.) There’s been some dispute over whether Filner’s remarks were accurately conveyed, but oddly, Filner’s office has refused to either confirm or deny the statement. Note that the race is in June of next year, so I believe Filner gets a free shot while keeping his House seat.

TX-23: Not so fast, Quico! Gary Martin of the Houston Chronicle says that Dems are looking at a few potential challengers to freshman GOPer Quico Canseco, including state Rep. Joaquin Castro and Pete Gallego, and state Sen. Carlos Uresti. Ex-Rep. Ciro Rodriguez is also apparently weighing a rematch. While the borders of the 23rd will undoubtedly shift somewhat, it probably can’t change a whole lot thanks to the VRA (it’s 66% Hispanic), so this race could heat up earlier than many others.

WI-01: Food service company owner and Kenosha County Supervisor Rob Zerban is apparently interested in challenging GOP Rep. Paul Ryan. Despite his leadership post and his inflexible conservatism, Ryan sits in a very swingish district that can’t really be improved in redistricting for a variety of reasons.

Other Races:

ME-St. Sen.: The Maine SoS has set May 10th as the date for a special election to fill the seat of state Sen. Larry Bliss (D). The reason for Bliss’s resignation was certainly unusual and quite poignant: He couldn’t find a job in Maine. State legislators work part-time and are only paid $13,000 a year. Bliss said that in the absence of other work, he’d been working as a “full-time” legislator and was really enjoying his job, but he could only find employment in California, prompting his resignation. Of course, this story really isn’t that unusual at all, given how many people are still out of work and struggling terribly. Also of note: Bliss was one of only a handful of openly LGBT state legislators nationwide.

PA-AG: Longtime Philly DA Lynne Abraham (D), who left office just last year, said she’s considering a run for state AG, despite being 70 years old. (Devoted Swingnuts will recall that ex-Rep. Patrick Murphy is also thinking about a run.) Believe it or not, no Democrat has won the AG’s office since it became an elected position in 1980.

Wisconsin Sup. Ct.: Unnamed sources tell the National Review they’ve seen polling showing the race between incumbent Justice David Prosser and JoAnne Kloppenburg “near even.”

Remainders:

Census: Like in NYC, pols in Atlanta are wondering why the new Census numbers for their city are so much lower than expected – 420K vs. a projected 540K. Jacob Alperin-Sherrif (better known to you as DemocraticLuntz) has an excellent post comparing Census projections with actual numbers for cities between 100K and 1 million people. You need to click through for his must-see scatterplot. There is one massive outlier: Atlanta, which is more than six standard deviations away from the mean.

Redistricting Roundup:

Indiana: Despite total Republican control over the process, it’s starting to look like the Indiana legislature won’t finish their congressional map before the body adjourns on April 29th, largely because of a walk-out by Democrats which ground most work to a halt. But the Democrats just reached what they’re saying is a favorable a deal with the Republicans, so perhaps the process will pick up again soon.

Iowa: The state’s independent redistricting panel will release the first draft of a new congressional map at 8:15 am local time on Thursday morning.

Virginia: New maps for Congress, the state House and the state Senate could be released by the legislature today. Stay alert!

Multivariate analysis of Wisconsin polling data

(This is cross-posted at Daily Kos)

A couple weeks ago, Kos/PPP polled all the Wisconsin Republicans up for recall and found some very interesting results. However, he did not poll the Dem races up for recall, as well as the statewide upcoming Supreme Court race. In an attempt to rectify this fault, although I’m no Poblano, I decided to try to use multivariate regression to try and model the Wisconsin polling data using information from each district.

Fortunately, the dynamics of the race were much simpler than Clinton vs. Obama 2008, and I found in the end that the polling results could be described by only two variables (which is very nice, as we only had eight data points, so the model shouldn’t be overfitted):

1. Obama: The percentage of the vote Obama received in 2008 (Courtesy of SSP)

2. Incumbency: The number of years the person has been in office (for instance, someone elected in 2008 would have an Incumbency of 2 years.) – Numbers from SSP above.

I also experimented with other variables (which I discarded in the end as being not statistically significant):

3. Barrett: The percentage of the vote Tom Barrett received in 2010. (Thanks to the Journal-Sentinel)

4. Scandal: A 1/0 value describing the unique circumstances of the aptly named Randy Hopper, and perhaps Mr. Prosser as well.

5. Kerry: Percentage of the vote Kerry received in 2004

I also decided on using percentages rather than margins as there was a better correlation between the two.

In the end, my 2-variable model describes very accurately (within +/- 1.5%) the percentage of voters who would commit to voting for a Democrat in a hypothetical election this year; the spreadsheet is included below.



(The main prediction is highlighted in red. There are other columns to the right which include the additional variables that did not turn out to be significant.)

In short, the vulnerability of each Senator is based mostly off of Obama’s performance in the state in 2008, along with a small bonus from incumbency (about 0.3 points per year in office.) Thus, Hopper is quite vulnerable simply from being a freshman (the scandal had not impacted his poll numbers at that point yet), while Alberta Darling has built up goodwill from being in office for 18 years.

Extrapolating this model for the three Democrats who are considered semi-vulnerable, we find they are mostly safe. The only one who’s really vulnerable is Mr. Holperin, who was first elected by 2.5% in 2008 and represents a seat Obama won by single digits. Note that I give the Democrats negative incumbency so it gives a bonus to the D #s (rather than a penalty), and since the model considers undecideds, anything 48% or up is probably leaning D.

Examining Justice Prosser, who gets elected by the State of Wisconsin as a whole, we find that the seat is probably somewhat leaning D at this point, but I would put the margin of error much higher on this estimate – the race is still developing, and a Supreme Court race is very different from a Senate one.

SSP Daily Digest: 3/23

KY-Sen: Lolz.

OH-Sen: This is about as far from the horse’s mouth as you can get (paging Goldy?): The Columbus Dispatch is simply asserting that Republican Treasurer Josh Mandel “is leaning toward a run for the U.S. Senate in 2012 and will make an announcement this spring.” They don’t even say, “according to sources”-is that supposed to be implied or something? Anyhow, I’ll wait for Young Master Josh to confirm, seeing as no one else is reporting this.

In other Ohio news, PPP has their miscellaneous report card available… and this time, it’s extremely miscellaneous.

CA-Gov (PDF): The Field Poll has preliminary job approval ratings for Gov. Jerry Brown, who has a pretty sharp-looking 48-21 score in the early going. But don’t get too excited: Guess who had 54-15 approvals at the same point in his first term? Yep, that’d be Gray Davis (scroll down to p. 3 for the completely historical picture).

NC-Gov (PDF): I’ll be honest, PPP’s regular NC-Gov polls were starting to all run together in my head, but this time, Tom Jensen & the gang tried something different: they tested a bunch of alternatives to the very unpopular incumbent Dem, Bev Perdue. The sad news for Team Blue, though, is that even our best hope, AG Roy Cooper, still trails likely GOP nominee Pat McCrory by a 43-35 margin, though that’s better than Perdue’s 50-36 gap. State Sen. Dan Blue (trailing 48-28) and Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton (trailing 47-27) don’t change the equation, either. I also seriously doubt that Cooper would run; he was courted for Senate in 2009 but declined early on. He seems pretty happy where he is and, at age 53, can still wait a bit before deciding to move up. (I’m guessing 2016 vs. McCrory would be a good matchup.)

WA-Gov: This is kind of meh, but if you like your tea weak, drink up.

FL-26: No, that’s not a typo! It’s just another super-genious catch by Greg Giroux. Lunatic Karen Diebel, last seen losing the FL-24 GOP primary to now-Rep. Sandy Adams, has filed to run for Congress once again. What’s awesome about this is that Diebel has kicked her DeLorean up to 88 miles per hour, since her paperwork says she plans to run in the as-yet-uncreated twenty-sixth congressional district. Click the PDF for the documentary proof. This should be great. (Click here if you need a refresher on Diebel’s batshittery, including the infamous Snakes in a Pool incident.)

IN-02: Former Republican state Rep. Jackie Walorski, best known as Wacky Jackie, surprised no one in formally announcing she’d seek a rematch against Rep. Joe Donnelly, something she’d been toying with ever since her narrow loss last fall. (Walorski blames Donnelly’s one-point escape on the five percent a Libertarian Party candidate managed to snag.) Of course, two huge, inter-related questions remain here: What will the 2nd CD look like after redistricting, and will Donnelly seek re-election or try his hand at higher office? Stay tuned… for a while.

NY-26: Janie’s got an ad: Republican Jane Corwin is out with a second spot (her first was a bio ad) that hits themes as old as the hills: Dem Kathy Hochul wants to raise taxes, and she’s a clone of Nancy Pelosi. NWOTSOTB, but the Corwin campaign claims that the ad is “is airing districtwide on broadcast,” according to The Hill.

OH-10: With his seat potentially headed for the carving board, Dennis Kucinich is obviously trying to win over as many friends as possible before the state legislature starts up the redistricting process. Kucinich said in an interview on Monday that President Obama’s decision to order air strikes on Libya “would appear on its face to be an impeachable offense.” (By the way, check out that PPP item up above – Kucinich has 27-40 favorables statewide.)

PA-07: Now this is damn interesting. At that recent DCCC fundraiser in Philly we mentioned the other day, Steve Israel reportedly met with former Safe Schools Advocate Jack Stollsteimer about a potential run against freshman Rep. Pat Meehan, who took over Joe Sestak’s old seat last cycle. Stollsteimer confirms he met with “party leaders,” and says he’s giving the race “serious consideration.” But what makes all this so unusual is that Stollsteimer served as Meehan’s press spokesperson for many years while Meehan was Delaware Co. DA and later U.S. Attorney! It’s only been a few months, but Stollsteimer says he has “serious problems with what [Meehan]’s already done as our Congressman.” Could be good!

PA-08: That don’t impress-a me much: the NRCC put out a press release attacking ex-Rep. Patrick Murphy for something or other, perhaps because they’re concerned he might run for his old seat again. (That’s possible, though he might also run for state AG.) But press releases are cheap, and who knows how many carbon-copy releases the NRCC put out, seeing as they don’t put them all up on their website.

LA-St. Sen.: They switch parties in Louisiana like Denny Hastert changes underwear-which is to say, not every day, but perhaps with some frequency. It should come as little surprise that the latest state legislator to don a not-so-fresh pair of tighty-whities is moving from D to R. But a diarist at Daily Kingfish points out that Norby Chabert (great name) isn’t exactly some crusty Dixiecrat playing out the string-he’s a freshman who has said publicly he voted for Obama, and was relentlessly attacked on that score during his first election campaign in 2009. It’ll be interesting to see if the whole mess of recent converts like Chabert wind up getting teabagged to death.

Philly Mayor: A judge denied Mayor Michael Nutter’s request to remove wacky opponent Milton Street from the ballot, and Nutter said he would not appeal. (Nutter said that Street violated the city’s residency requirements, which say you have to live in Philadelphia for three years before seeking office, because Street was serving out a sentence in a federal prison in Kentucky.)

Wisconsin Recall: The RSLC-that’s the Republican State Leadership Committee, the GOP equivalent of the DLCC-is going up with new television ads against Democratic state Sens. Jim Holperin and Dave Hansen, who sit in the two most Republican districts held by Dems and are the target of recall efforts. Neither district is really red, though-they were both lost by Kerry but won by Obama, making them more swingish than anything else. Politico notes that the RSLC has already been running ads against Holperin, and that the new buy is expect to cost $50K a week, while the anti-Hansen campaign will run “six figures over several weeks.”

How is this for awesome, though? One Wisconsin totally busted the RSLC for using stock footage so fake, it was actually watermarked with the words “FILE FOOTAGE” in the bottom corner!

Wisconsin Sup. Ct.: It was only a matter of time-and not that much. The WMC-Wisconsin’s version of the Chamber of Commerce-is preparing to run ads in support of Republican David Prosser’s campaign to stay on as justice. (I’m guessing these will be attack ads against JoAnne Kloppenburg.) Progressive groups are already on the air with a spot that equates Prosser with Gov. Scott Walker.

Meanwhile, in a candidate forum yesterday, Prosser’s already infamous “I’ll destroy you, bitch” comments of course came up-and he once again repeated his defense that, well, a bunch of women made him do it, by (as the AP put it) “ganging up on him.” He also apparently failed to apologize for his remarks.

Polltopia: You know what to do.

Redistricting Roundup:

Alaska: Yes, Alaska! While the state obviously doesn’t have to worry about congressional redistricting, it does have to re-do its legislative maps. And believe it or not, the state actually has something of a Democratic gerrymander, since last time around, Dem Gov. Tony Knowles controlled key appointments to the panel responsible for producing new maps. This time, of course, Republicans control all the levers of power, so payback is expected.

Maryland: MD has long been a popular target at SSP for redistricting plans, so I’m not sure there’s much new here in Aaron Blake’s latest state-by-state installment. But you geeks tell me!

Mississippi: Dems in the state House voted to join that NAACP lawsuit I mentioned yesterday, which is seeking to enjoin the state from holding elections this year under the old district lines-something which could happen if the legislature stalemates on new maps, which is looking increasingly likely.

WI Supreme Court: GOP Justice Calls Fellow Judge a ‘Bitch,’ Vows to ‘Destroy’ Her

I don’t want to bury the lede, so just check this out from Republican Wisconsin Supreme Court Justice David Prosser:

As the deeply divided state Supreme Court wrestled over whether to force one member off criminal cases last year, Justice David Prosser exploded at Chief Justice Shirley Abrahamson behind closed doors, calling her a “bitch” and threatening to “destroy” her. …

“In a fit of temper, you were screaming at the chief; calling her a ‘bitch,’ threatening her with ‘…I will destroy you’; and describing the means of destruction as a war against her ‘and it won’t be a ground war,'” [Justice Ann Walsh] Bradley wrote in a Feb. 18, 2010, e-mail to Prosser and others.

Prosser acknowledged his outburst, but said he was justified – and then proceeded to blame it on the woman he had verbally assaulted:

“I probably overreacted, but I think it was entirely warranted…. They (Abrahamson and Justice Ann Walsh Bradley) are masters at deliberately goading people into perhaps incautious statements. This is bullying and abuse of very, very long standing.”

Ordinarily, a state supreme court race would be a bit too down in the weeds even for SSP, but the April 5th contest between Prosser and JoAnne Kloppenburg has special resonance. Prosser is part of the court’s 4-3 conservative bloc – a bloc whose control over the court could be erased with a Kloppenburg victory. While the election is officially non-partisan, I haven’t hesitated to pin party labels on Prosser: He was a Republican member of the state Assembly for almost two decades, and even served as Speaker for a time. He’s been a consistent right-wing vote on the court, and went so far as to say he deserved re-election because he’d be a Scott Walker lackey:

Our campaign efforts will include building an organization that will return Justice Prosser to the bench, protecting the conservative judicial majority and acting as a common sense compliment [sic] to both the new administration and legislature.

The “new administration and legislature” Prosser is referring to of course means Walker and the Republican-controlled state Senate and Assembly. Walker’s union-busting legislation will ver likely come before the high court, and Prosser recently went even further and accused his opponents of wanting “someone on the Court who will be an almost automatic vote against anything that comes out of the new legislature” – which of course can only suggest he thinks he’s just the opposite.

Kloppenburg is relying on public financing, which means she cannot accept monetary donations. Fortunately, third-party groups are springing into action, including the liberal Greater Wisconsin Committee, which is up with an ad hitting the themes I’ve discussed here:

Prosser himself is already on the air, and right-wing groups are sure to fire back (the Club for Growth spent $321K during the primary). This will be a hard race to win, but it’s an important one to focus on.

P.S. One site you should definitely be following for this race is Illusory Tenant.

SSP Daily Digest: 3/18

FL-Sen: Biden alert – confirmed! There was a rumor that Joey Jo-Jo Biden Shabadoo would soon be doing a fundraiser for Bill Nelson. It turns out he’s doing two, on March 25th: One near Orlando and the other in Tampa.

OR-01: Not a particularly good addition to the resume for Rep. David Wu (D). As The Oregonian puts it, Wu “crashed his vehicle into a parked car in Northwest Portland last year, but passed a police field sobriety test and the incident never showed up in a police report.” A police official notes that a lack of a report is not uncommon, and says that Wu didn’t identify himself as a congressman.

VA-11: Republican Keith Fimian, who lost to Rep. Gerry Connolly in 2008 and 2010 (by a whisker), says he’ll run again – but only if the 11th CD “redistricts well,” something he doesn’t expect to happen… nor should he, given the likelihood that the state lege will adopt an incumbent-protection map.

LA-Gov: He doesn’t have any declared opponents for the November election, he’s got an astounding $9 million in the bank, and Democrats have been getting their asses kicked in Louisiana for years, but that’s not stopping Gov. Bobby Jindal from going on the air with his first television ad. The buy, according to a Jindal spokesman, is for “six figures,” so I guess that means anywhere from $100,000 to $999,999.

SC-LG: Republican Lt. Gov. Ken Ard has just been charged with 92 counts of violating ethics rules, in which he’s accused of putting campaign money to personal use and failing to properly disclose his spending. Among other things, Ard spent campaign funds to attend the SEC championship football game in Atlanta last year (the University of South Carolina got crushed), and he also bought his wife a gown to wear to the state’s Inaugural Ball.

Wisconsin Recall: The linked article has some vague but somewhat more specific figures on the number of signatures gathered in the recall efforts. One interesting detail: If some collection efforts finish earlier than others, that means we could have staggered recall elections. I personally think we’d be better off waiting to submit all our signatures at once so that we can have a unified effort. (And also, we should keep gathering sigs until the last day, to ward off challenges.)

Greg Sargent also has a new version of an ad in support of the recall from the PCCC and DFA (NWOTSOTB). Oddly, the final title card calls out Alberta Darling, Glenn Grothman, and Mary Lazich by name – but as you’ll recall, Grothman and Lazich are the two pretty much untouchable senators, thanks to their super-red districts.

On a related note, Think Progress observes that Michigan’s state constitution has similar recall provisions to those in Wisconsin. Republican Gov. Rick Snyder is also pushing anti-union legislation there, and he and his allies in the legislature could be subject to a recall movement as early as July.

WI Sup. Ct.: In other Wisconsin news, Republican Supreme Court Justice David Prosser is up with an oddly narrated ad that touts some healthcare-related decision he once made. I find it pretty gross and unseemly that high court judges are elected in the first place, and to see them speaking of judicial decision-making in such nakedly political terms is disturbing. But it’s the system we’ve got – and with any luck, Democrat JoAnne Kloppenburg will have a fighting chance against Prosser in next month’s election.

Models: Harry Enten has published a model for forecasting the results of House races in presidential years. He predicts that Republicans will win 238 seats, which, assuming the GOP holds NY-26, would mean a loss of only four seats for the party in power. But the model has a margin of error of ±10 seats, so conceivably the Republicans could hold as many as 248 seats and as few as 228. Obviously, you’ll have to click the link for the full details of Harry’s model.

Votes: Seven House Republicans voted against banning all federal funding to NPR: Rob Woodall (GA-07), Chris Gibson (NY-20), Richard Hanna (NY-24), Pat Tiberi (OH-12), Steve LaTourette (OH-14), Dave Reichert (WA-08), and Sean Duffy (WI-03). Weirdo teabagger Justin Amash (MI-03) voted “present.” And yeah, I had to look up Rob Woodall, too: He’s the freshman who replaced the retired John Linder last year (Woodall was Linder’s chief of staff). This vote really stands out because GA-07 is one of the reddest districts in the nation (it gave 40-point margins to Bush, though “only” 20 to McCain), and all the others on this list have quasi-semi-some-of-the-time moderate reputations.

WATN?: In case you really care about Joe Miller, I guess you can click the link….

Redistricting Roundup:

Louisiana: State Rep. Rick Gallot, who chairs the LA House’s redistricting panel, released three different preliminary proposals. (Scroll down to the bottom for PDFs of the maps.) All of the plans involve pitting Republican incumbents against each other: two of the maps throw freshman Rep. Jeff Landry in with Charles Boustany; the third combines Landry with Bill Cassidy. A fourth plan (not linked in the article) by Rep. Joe Harrison (R) would combined John Fleming and Rodney Alexander. By the way, Gallot is a Democrat, yet he’s apparently heading up the GOP-controlled House’s redistricting efforts. Louisiana confuses me.

Mississippi: Uh, wow. Dem House Speaker Billy McCoy absolutely flipped out and seems to have turned what was a winning situation for the Dems into a disaster. For a moment there, it looked as though Republicans (who control the Senate) were ready to agree to incumbent protection plans for each chamber – and give the kiss-off to Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant, who wanted to take a more aggressive approach. But McCoy crumbed the play, releasing a statement saying… well, click the link for the whole thing – it’s really berserk. He says he won’t recognize any further maps from the Senate, he considers the whole thing a done deal, and he’s sending the maps to the Department of Justice for preclearance – even though they haven’t been passed into law! I have a strong feeling that he’ll get an envelope back marked “Return to Sender,” but the more important fact is that this now strengthened Bryant’s hand and probably makes Senate Republicans much more likely to jettison a bipartisan gerrymander and take Bryant’s approach. Ah, well, it’s just delaying the inevitable – even with the most favorable of maps, I can’t imagine Dems in MS holding the House for very long.

New Jersey: It’s a classic problem, and one that puts Republicans in the rare position of siding with minority communities, while the Democrats are on the outs. Hispanic and Asian political leaders in New Jersey are unhappy with their communities’ under-representation in the legislature, and they want to see more majority-minority districts drawn. Republicans are all too eager to help – and Democrats are, of course, unhappy, because that means packing Dem voters into darker-blue districts, rather than spreading them around to make more seats competitive. This is a miniature, state-level version of what happened in the early 90s on the federal level and reflects an ongoing, hard-to-resolve tension.