159 thoughts on “Weekly Open Thread: What Races Are You Interested In?”

  1. Let’s say in some freakishly bizarre event both Kirsten Gillibrand and Chuck Schumer lost their re-election bids. Both insisted on serving out their full term, and both had been beaten by people who hadn’t held elective office before. So who would have the greater seniority, and the senior Senator title? I was just thinking of it today, and couldn’t think of the answer. Thanks in advance.  

  3. I met tea party favorite Dave Funk today. I recognized him in the checkout line at Costco, where he was buying candy for a parade tomorrow. He has been campaigning against Boswell the longest–at least a year now. He doesn’t have a realistic shot at winning the Republican primary, in my opinion, but if no one gets 35 percent of the vote on June 8 and it goes to convention, he could win the nomination. Probably State Senator Brad Zaun would be favored in a convention scenario, though.

    Early voting started in Iowa yesterday (40 days before the primary), and I’m waiting to see how NRCC favorite Jim Gibbons spends his money. I still think his campaign slogan Burn the Boats! is one of the weirdest I’ve ever heard. Gibbons has the money men backing him, but if he can’t win 35 percent on June 8 I don’t see him getting the nomination at a district convention.

  7. This “Rendell Republican” is not very impressed with the Democratic field.  None of them seem to have the crossover appeal in the SEPA suburbs with the possible exception of Anthony Williams.  I think the PA Democratic Party is reverting back to its normal fiscally liberally culturally conservative BS that is the exact opposite of voters in the SEPA suburbs.  Arguably Wagner and Onorato are more culturally conservative.  Hoeffel is too economically to the left, but otherwise I agree with him on the environment and social issues.

    Unless there is a serious change in circumstances, I will definitely voting for the Corbett/Cawley ticket in November.  Maybe if a Dem took a strong stance against drilling in the Marcellus Shale region I would consider voting for them, but Onorato, Wagner and Williams seem to be dead set on using the Marcellus Shale to fund their spending plans.

  8. ended today. Looks like Democrats failed to contest seven seats (FL-01, FL-04, FL-06, FL-21, GA-06, GA-09, and GA-11). Conversely, the Republicans only left the open FL-17 seat uncontested.

  9. I believe that election day for our friends across the Atlantic is next Friday, and it seems rather interesting what the British are going through, with them having American style televised debates and such. It’s pretty obvious that Brown is going to lose his job as Prime Minister, but will Cameron and the Tories get a majority or will Lib Dem leader Cregg do well enough to cause a hung parliament and a minority government ala our friends in Canada? Wonder what anyone else thinks on this. Seems rather fascinating that campaign in the UK is only for 6 weeks, while it lasts for years in American, generally right after the election ends.

  11. In Hawaii, the House unexpectedly approved a civil union bill that the Senate passed 18-7 in January. They had been holding it back because they didn’t have a veto-proof majority in the House (it passed 31-20). It’s up to Lingle to sign it or veto it. The gubernatorial candidates’ reaction have been thus: Duke Aiona wasted no time coming out against it, while Neil Abercrombie praised it. Mufi Hannemann hasn’t commented on it yet, but I’m willing to be he’ll be against it as well, given how conservative he seems to be.

    In Virginia, municipal elections for most cities (Virginia Beach and Suffolk have theirs in November, while a few cities like Alexandria and Richmond have them in gubernatorial years) are on Tuesday. One thing I found out the other day is that a student at the College of William & Mary is running for the Williamsburg City Council, and has gotten the endorsement of the Daily Press, so I will be interested to see if he pulls off a win.

  12. love the Derby. Jack Conway and his 72 year old father are putting up their colt. It is a long shot, but still touching. If the colt actually wins Conway could get much free positive press over it. Last year a 50-1 won, so who knows. The WaPo is a good read, touching.  

  13. I’ve been doing some digging about the kind of groups that are supporting Rand Paul and Peter Schiff because many of the Libertarian folks who I know claim there are no corporate dollars flowing to these guys despite the fact that what they would do to the tax code would be a corporation’s wet dream in my view.  

    So if anyone can give me more information on a group like POLITICAL EXPLORATION AND AWARENESS COMMITTEE (PEAC)

    I would welcome it.  Thank you in advance.  

  14. I’m starting to think we could be in for a real surprise there Tuesday night. I have a feeling that Stutzman may just pull it off.  

  15. I’m currently trying to do a diary on congressional districts, and I’m specifically looking at the results for each congressional district in the 2004 presidential election.

    I need detailed results for FL-22 and TX-1, and I was wondering where I could find that information (uselectionatlas doesn’t have it to the best of my knowledge).

    The problem w/ the stuff on swingstateproject is that it doesn’t go into enough detail (i.e. it might say that AL-100 voted 47% for Obama, but what I want to know is that AL-100 voted 47.47% for Obama).

    Thanks in advance.

  16.  I think that Whitman has not faced the strongest attacks from Poizner. Brown will have alot of material to work with in the fall and while one piece may not be enough to send Whitman’s numbers down, all of them should make a big impact. Here is one piece of Whitman’s secrets.

    http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…

  17. ref http://blog.oregonlive.com/map…

    The first one is a Tim Hibbits poll, taken Apr 14-15. Hibbits is the OR gold standard, sorta like our analogue to Field in CA.

    The April 14-15 poll of 300 likely Democratic primary voters found Kitzhaber with 50 percent of the vote, compared to 21 percent for Bradbury and 4 percent for a third candidate, Roger Obrist.

    The second is a SurveyUSA poll of the R race for local TV (KATU) from April 11:

    Dudley……………….28 percent

    Allen Alley…………..13 percent

    Bill Sizemore………..11 percent

    John Lim……………….7 percen

    Disclosure – I’m supporting Bradbury, he was on the air early, but I don’t see him overcoming this ad from Kitzhaber –

    Incredibly good ad, IMO, and it’s blanketed the airwaves here. (Got my mail-in ballot yesterday)

  22. Apparently Fritz Hollings is trying to pull a Lautenberg and take out Jim DiMent. Their have been rumors for weeks and it looks like he is going to launch his campaign formerly this week.  

  24. A tweet from a WA Republican says Rossi is in. I’m not sure if he has inside info or its just a prediction. If I find out, I’ll tell ya’ll.

  29. Last weeks debate on the possible admission of Puerto Rico as a state [a proposition of which I am not confident that a majority of Puerto Ricans desire] gave rise to a question in regards to the filibuster in the Senate.  

    Do the rules specify that 60 votes, or 60% of the seats for senators, are necessary for cloture?

    It makes a difference in the occasion of the admission of a new state, since 60% of 102 would be 62.

  32. “The two Republican candidates seeking to unseat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi have hauled in a combined $1.8 million in contributions through the end of March-$200,000 more than Pelosi herself. ”

    http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/…

    This might be a case where the more that R’s invest in defeating Pelosi, in San Francisco, the better the Democratic Party is.

    I forget what her winning margin was, but it was extremely high.  

    Now if an extreme3ly well funded person on the left of the Democratic party was contesting the primary, she could, conceivably, be in some minor, very minor, trouble.  But such an attack would only be on a basis of her facilitating the funding of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

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