SSP will be taking a bit of a break this holiday weekend. We may still post a few updates if there any interesting developments in the news or if we see another trickle of 2Q numbers, but for the most part, posting will be very light.
How are you spending your Independence Day? I'll be following this motto:
Celebrate the independence of your nation by blowing up a small part of it.
UPDATE: I forgot to mention that pre-primary fundraising reports in Georgia and run-off reports in AL-02 and AL-05 are due at midnight tonight. We'll round them up and give you the numbers as soon as they're all in -- so stay tuned for that.
Another month, another round of elections. Let's check in with all the races worth watching.
July 15:
AL-02: A runoff will be held here for the GOP nomination for the seat of retiring Rep. Terry Everett. Jay Love, a state representative from the Montgomery area, lead Dothan-based state Sen. Harri Anne Smith by a 35%-22% margin in the first round of voting. Republicans in DC have closed ranks around Love, but Smith is not going down without a fight, and has released a series of blistering attack ads against Love over tax hikes and -- in a possible preview of Democratic attacks to come -- using the words of Gov. Bob Riley to hit Love for being tied to "Big Oil". GOP division? I'm loving it.
A source close to the campaign of Democrat Bobby Bright says that some in the campaign believe that Smith would be the more formidable opponent, but I suspect that Love's strength in suburban Montgomery might give him the extra edge he would need in a general election match-up. We'll see.
AL-05: The GOP fell just shy of avoiding a runoff for the nomination to contest the seat of retiring Democrat Bud Cramer, with insurance executive and '94/'96 candidate Wayne Parker scoring 49% to businesswoman Cheryl Baswell Guthrie's 19%. Baswell Guthrie's campaign has quite clearly run out of steam, and I don't expect that Parker will have any difficulty dispatching her in the runoff.
GA-Sen: The Democratic primary to take on GOP Sen. Saxby Chambliss is a bit of a mess. To run down the cast of characters, you've got: DeKalb Co. CEO Vernon Jones, a controversial and self-proclaimed Bush Democrat with the worst kind of personal baggage; Dale Cardwell, a former Atlanta broadcast journalist, pole-sitter, and all-around weirdo; businessman and scientist Rand Knight, who has impressed some on the stump but has not raised any significant cash; Josh Lanier, a former senatorial aide and Vietnam vet who is taking a hard-line stance against campaign fundraising; and former state Rep. Jim Martin, who ran an unsuccessful campaign for Lt. Governor in 2006 but is the only candidate in the race who has raised any significant cash.
Jones would clearly be a disastrous choice for Democrats, and I think he'd hurt Democratic candidates both up and down the ballot if he somehow wins the nomination. Indeed, the most recent poll of the race shows that Jones is in the worst position of all the candidates in a head-to-head match-up with Chambliss. However, his name recognition is high and he's the only African-American candidate in the crowded field, so chances are that he'll at least make the run-off, which will be held on August 5th.
GA-10: Another nutty GOP primary. Many Republicans have not abandoned their distrust of Rep. Paul Broun, who was elected in a run-off last summer over the much better-known state Sen. Jim Whitehead with the help of crossover votes from Democrats. Unsurprisingly, Broun has picked up a challenge from state Rep. Barry Fleming. Crisitunity explains:
The inference that Broun isn't a 'real' Republican because Democrats helped him beat the establishment candidate is laughable, as Broun has one of the most conservative records of all House members. But Broun has established himself as more of a libertarian-leaning maverick, so the local GOP would probably prefer to see a more housebroken representative. Democrat and Iraq War vet Bobby Saxon awaits the victor, although this is an R+13 district where the GOP has to be favored.
Much like the Cannon-Chaffetz race in Utah, this is one pits an ultra-conservative against another "almost as" ultra-conservative.
GA-12: For many in the netroots, this is the big event. Crisitunity frames the race as follows:
This is the primary that has garnered the most netroots attention (if a bit belatedly). While this race turns primarily on the demographics of GA-12, there's also an ideological component, as John Barrow is one of the most conservative Democrats in the House... and unlike the other most conservative House Dems, he's in a D+2 seat and doesn't have the excuse of a deep red district.
State Senator Regina Thomas from Savannah is challenging Barrow from the left. Thomas is African-American and Barrow is white; this is significant in a district that's 45% African-American and where at least two-thirds of the Democratic electorate is African-American. While that might seem to give Thomas an inherent advantage, most of the local political figures (and some national figures, including Obama) have endorsed Barrow, and Thomas's money situation is a mystery (we're still awaiting her first FEC report). Her main impediment is simply low name recognition, especially in Augusta, the other city at the other end of the district. Her strategy seems to be to focus on word of mouth via black churches to get the word out, which will be interesting to see if it works in the face of Barrow's big bank account.
Regardless of who wins the primary, this should be a likely hold this cycle, as the Dems face third-tier Republican opposition (either former congressional aide John Stone or former radio talk show host Ben Crystal). This district has been very competitive at the general election level since its creation, though; Barrow won by only 864 votes in 2006, although that's largely because he was facing Max Burns, the previous GOP representative that Barrow unseated in 2004.
We should find out Thomas' pre-primary fundraising soon. If it turns out that most of her money raised is from Democrats.com, then I'd be concerned about her viability.
Some of you may have had the same "wtf?" moment that I did upon seeing James's Q1 Cash-on-Hand Competitiveness from a few months ago: the Democratic representative who was in the deepest fundraising hole vis-à-vis his or her opponent wasn't Carol Shea-Porter or Nancy Boyda or Tim Mahoney... it was David Scott, sitting in GA-13, a safe black-majority district in Atlanta's suburbs. He was being outraised by Deborah Honeycutt, who had actually raised 105% of CoH that Scott had.
There's a not-so-simple explanation at work here: GA-13 is ground zero for the efforts of a shadowy Republican direct-mail group called BMW Direct that specializes in using national fundraising appeals on behalf of conservative candidates at the local level. Josh Marshall summed up BMW's agenda succinctly:
finding nonsense Republican candidates in hopeless races, raising tons of money for their hopeless campaigns and then funneling all the money back to themselves and sundry contractors and cronies.
Honeycutt has posted some remarkable fundraising numbers, raising $1.7 million this cycle ($500,000 of that in Q1 alone), and burned through $1.5 million of it. (This despite being the 2006 candidate, and losing to Scott by a 69-31 margin as a result of having "no presence" locally.) The odd thing is: only $16,695 of that money got spent on the ground in Georgia. The rest simply disappeared into BMW's internal operations, or got farmed out to BMW contractors for activities like data processing and list rentals.
The Boston Globe broke the story, focusing on Charles Morse's 2006 race against Barney Frank. Morse raised $700,000 for the race in MA-04 via BMW's direct-mailing efforts, but 96% of that money, rather than being spent in the district, was paid to BMW. The net result of Morse's amazing fundraising? He won a total of 145 votes in the primary, failing to qualify for the general election.
BMW does apparently help a few legitimate officeholders (including Robin Hayes and Jim Ryun), but their efforts mostly seem to center on fleecing low-information right-wing grannies to give money to invest in candidates on the basis of flimsy appeals, all the while knowing that the candidates are going nowhere and running bare-bones campaigns, allowing them to keep almost all the money for themselves. (As several TPM commenters pointed out, this is almost exactly the plot line from The Producers.) Rarely has there ever been such a clear illustration of the giant pyramid scheme that is the Republican Party.
The Republicans in the House have a clever acronym for their analogue to the DCCC's Red to Blue program: ROMP (Regain Our Majority Program). I suspect the long line of Republican recruits challenging Democratic incumbents and holding out their tin cups to the NRCC are looking at the newest list of ROMP recipients and saying "Man, that is flagrant false advertising!"
Here's the newest list of fresh-faced, eager young recruits, ready to bring their grassroots-powered outsider energy to picking off do-nothing Democrats standing in the way of conservative progress:
Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, WV-02
Rep. Phil English, PA-03
Chris Hackett, PA-10
Rep. Tom Feeney, FL-24
Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Balart, FL-21
Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, FL-25
Steve Stivers, OH-16
Pete Olson, TX-22
Add that on top of the previous list of ROMP recipients from April:
Rep. Michelle Bachmann, MN-06
Rep. Vito Fossella, NY-13
Rep. Sam Graves, MO-06
Rep. Ric Keller, FL-08
Anne Northup, KY-03
Erik Paulsen, MN-03
Rep. Bill Sali, ID-01
Rep. Jean Schmidt, OH-02
Rep. Tim Walberg, MI-07
Darren White, NM-01
So, um... let's get this straight. The Republican route to regaining the majority is by spending a lot of money to defend a 14-year incumbent against a woman who runs an arboretum?
The newest ROMP installment, out of 8 recipients, features 2 seats where the Republicans are trying to defeat a Democrat, plus one where they're trying to hold an open seat. Add in the previous ROMP installment, which, out of 10 recipients, targets one Democratic seat for pick-up (plus 2 open seats for holds). So, if they add 1.5 more new Democratic targets every three months until the election, they'll have a full slate of ROMP recipients for picking up those 19 seats they need in order to Regain Their Majority in... uh, let's break out the calculator here... early 2011?
Lake Research for Larry LaRocco (5/20-25, likely voters):
Larry LaRocco (D): 28
Jim Risch (R): 43
Rex Rammell (I): 6
Undecided: 18
(MoE: ±4.5%)
If LaRocco wins this race, how many Senate seats would Democrats pick up across the nation? The National Journal ranks this race as the 14th most likely GOP seat to flip, but I think it might be more like 16 or 17.
Last week I wrote about Where We Can Make the Most Progress in the House, where I tried to measure the biggest probable right-to-left swings that might result from the 2008 election in the House (the biggest one would be swapping out Dana Rohrabacher for Debbie Cook, in case you missed it). In the comments, the question came up of what would happen if I ran the same analysis for the competitive 2008 Senate races.
I have been reluctant to do so, because when I did the House, I relied on a demographic model for predicting which caucus new House members might join and, from there, predicting their likely DW-Nominate score. That just doesn't work with the Senate: demographics-wise, states don't break down as cleanly as do House districts. And Senators tend to disobey their states' partisan lean much more so than Representatives: consider that we have two moderate Republican senators in one of our bluest states (Maine), two populist Democratic senators in one of our reddest states (North Dakota), and the swing states in the middle give us as wide a range of personalities as Russ Feingold and John Sununu.
So, I decided to try a different approach, more speculative than I generally prefer, where I tried to project prospective Democratic senators' voting preferences by averaging out the scores of already sitting senators who seem to have some commonalities with them. As a vague rule of thumb, I tried to use one senator who had the most in common geographically and one who seemed to have the most in common ideologically and/or stylistically, although these categories pretty thoroughly blended. Here's a case in point: Mark Warner. I decided he had a lot in common with Jim Webb (- 0.359), a fellow Virginian and someone else who knows how to connect with white working class voters, and also with Joe Biden (- 0.338), another mid-Atlantic senator with a mix of liberal intentions and pro-corporate leanings. Average those, and voila: Warner projects at - 0.349. (Some of my comparables, or the resulting scores, may strike you as completely misguided. This is all pure speculation on my part, so feel free to argue why in the comments, or ask for some clarification on a particular choice. My feelings won't be hurt.) One exception: if the Democratic candidates have a House record, I used their most recent score from there.
State
110th Sen.
110th Score
111th Sen.
111th Score (and Comparables)
Difference
OK
Inhofe
0.766
Rice
-0.392 (Dorgan + Casey)
-1.158
CO
Allard *
0.636
M. Udall
-0.375 (110th Congress)
-1.011
MN
Coleman
0.178
Franken
-0.746 (Klobuchar + Feingold)
-0.924
NH
Sununu
0.481
Shaheen
-0.442 (Leahy + Feinstein)
-0.923
TX
Cornyn
0.557
Noriega
-0.336 (Bingaman + Salazar)
-0.893
NM
Domenici *
0.281
T. Udall
-0.525 (110th Congress)
-0.806
NC
Dole
0.451
Hagan
-0.330 (Webb + Lincoln)
-0.781
NE
Hagel *
0.376
Kleeb
-0.366 (Tester + Dorgan)
-0.742
ID
Craig *
0.457
LaRocco
-0.242 (103rd Congress)
-0.699
OR
Smith
0.155
Merkley
-0.698 (Wyden + Whitehouse)
-0.698
KY
McConnell
0.507
Lunsford
-0.168 (Pryor + Ben Nelson)
-0.675
AK
Stevens
0.260
Begich
-0.360 (Tester + Bingaman)
-0.620
MS
Wicker
0.465
Musgrove
-0.147 (Landrieu + Ben Nelson)
-0.612
VA
J. Warner *
0.258
M. Warner
-0.349 (Webb + Biden)
-0.607
ME
Collins
0.084
Allen
-0.449 (110th Congress)
-0.533
KS
Roberts
0.376
Slattery
-0.151 (103rd Congress)
-0.527
As you can see, swapping Jim Inhofe for Andrew Rice is the biggest gain (probably in terms of IQ points as well as in terms of voting record) even without factoring in that Rice may be more progressive than my score gives him credit for. However, unlike the House, where there are a fair number of opportunities to replace a right-winger with a progressive, in the Senate we're pretty much limited to replacing right-wingers with moderates, or moderate Republicans with progressives, so the shifts are smaller.
Finally, you may notice asterisks for the GOP-held open seats. I've compiled a separate table that doesn't focus on "progress" but the "what if," i.e. how big a swing we're looking at in terms of the potential replacement (each of whom I've projected to be more conservative than the guy they're replacing, either based on their House record or on comparables). If you prefer to swap these numbers in for the numbers based on the retiring senator, this doesn't change the order of the overall results too much, although it does highlight the importance of making sure we win our biggest races. (Especially in Colorado... Mark Udall is on the moderate side, and hasn't endeared himself much lately with his Iraq and FISA votes, but he's way to the left of Allard, and even more so than Schaffer, who it turns out was one of the most conservative members of the House during his time there.)
Elizabeth Benjamin has some more straight dope from the nuttiest race of the year:
Multiple sources confirm that former Assemblyman Bob Staniere [sp], who has long desired to run for Congress, no longer lives in the district (not a requirement in this case; one must only live in the state) and is on the outs with the GOP powers-that-be on Staten Island, is indeed circulating petitions to run.
Frank Morano, a state Independence Party official, confirms his father, Carmine, is circulating petitions in an effort to get both the Indy and GOP lines (he'll need a Wilson Pakula for the latter).
The only hitch for Straniere? Staten Island Republicans despise him, and his name was quickly swatted down as a potential candidate in May by local GOP power broker Guy Molinari:
But Republican leaders seemed cool if not hostile to the idea of Mr. Straniere as a candidate. They pointed out that he had long feuded with other party officials, particularly with Congressman Fossella and Mr. Molinari.
In fact, Mr. Molinari described Mr. Straniere's chances of being supported by the Republican leadership as "impossible." He said that Mr. Straniere "would not be at all acceptable to the Republican Party. I would speculate that 98 percent of the Republican County Committee would say, 'No dice.' They would rather vote for a Democrat than for Straniere."
Straniere was locked in a vicious primary for the Staten Island Borough President race in 2001 against James Molinaro, which featured some extremely brutal attacks:
Charging that Mr. Straniere (pronounced stran-YER-ie) actually lives in Manhattan and that the Staten Island residence he claims is improbably crowded, Mr. Molinaro said: "Here is a man who claims to live in Staten Island, but he has four people registered to vote in a one-bedroom apartment. Now, I believe in closeness, but come on." Mr. Straniere acknowledges the two residences.
Speaking in an interview yesterday, Mr. Molinaro added: "He has been a defendant in 20 court cases in 20 years. He's been sued for everything from spending his law partner's money illegally to being sued by the federal government for not paying his taxes."
Earlier in the day, Mr. Straniere mocked his rival's speaking ability and education. "He doesn't even speak in his campaign ads." He asked: "What is his educational background? He never talks about anything involving his education after high school."
Straniere has been on the outs ever since. If he manages to petition his way onto the ballot, the disgust of Staten Island Republicans will be delicious.
Michael Kelley (D): 41
Geoff Davis (R-inc): 54
Undecided: 5
(MoE: ±4.2%)
Davis might still be feeling some residual negatives from list last bruising race, but he shouldn't have anything to worry about this November given Kelley's beyond anemic fundraising.
Still, it's amusing that Davis' numbers are worse than John Yarmuth's, who led Anne Northup by 57-40 in the latest SUSA poll of KY-03.
Roggio's biggest and most immediate hurdle is clearing the "some dude" status that he currently enjoys. His name recognition is a rock bottom 10% in this most recent poll (compared to 82% for Gerlach).
Despite his sizable lead, Gerlach can't rest on his laurels. The Philly suburbs are trending bluer and bluer by the day, especially in Montgomery and Bucks counties, where Democrats have expanded their registration advantage by another 7000 voters since the state's April 22nd primary.
Gerlach is living on borrowed time -- whether we'll get him in this election or in the next few years, we'll still knock him out eventually -- unless he can make it to the next round of redistricting and is somehow given more favorable lines (and that's a lot of "ifs").
Despite polling under 50 percent, there's still encouraging news in the poll for Landrieu. A solid 61 percent majority of respondents said they viewed her favorably, with only 33 percent viewing her unfavorably.
Kennedy, for his part, is also viewed favorably by 61 percent of respondents with only 11 percent viewing him unfavorably. Nearly 30 percent of voters were "not familiar" with him.
Bonus finding: McCain leads Obama by 52-36 in the state.
Robert Wexler (D): 33
Mel Martinez (R-inc): 33
(MoE: ±3.6%)
Floridians really seem to dislike Mel Martinez. His approval rating is a dismal 23%, with 43% disapproving of his antics in Congress. This one is shaping up to be a major pick-up opportunity on the horizon, especially if we can get a top-tier recruit like Florida CFO Alex Sink to enter the race. It's never too early to start thinking ahead to 2010.
Bonus finding: Obama leads McCain by 46-44 in the state.
Kay Hagan (D): 37 (39)
Elizabeth Dole (R-inc): 51 (47)
(MoE: ±3.0%)
The post-primary bounce is clearly over for Hagan, as Dole has corrected her numbers with media buys re-introducing herself throughout the state. One particular area where Hagan needs to shore up her support is among African American voters, where she only holds a 52-28 lead over Dole.
Bonus finding: In the Presidential race, McCain leads Obama by 45-41, with Bob Barr picking up 5%.
