Campaign and Election News – Covering Key Races Around the Country
Weekly Open Thread: What Races Are You Interested In?
It’s time we had a little pep talk:
385 thoughts on “Weekly Open Thread: What Races Are You Interested In?”
Primary’s next May. Nutter will be challenged.
Makes me want to say BRING IT ON 2012!
I was interested to look at what seats gained from 2006-2008 were still in our possession; we gained about 50 then lost about 60, so the new Reps still with us are:
Gabrielle Giffords
Jerry McNerney (provisionally)
Ed Perlmutter
Joe Courtney
Chris Murphy
Joe Donnelly
Bruce Braley
David Loebsack
John Yarmuth
Tim Walz
Heath Shuler
Jason Altmire
Jim Himes
Gary Peters
Larry Kissell
Martin Heinrich
Gerry Connolly
Any in that group you’d be worried about (though if they can survive this year, they can survive a lot)?
I’m actually hoping Miller wins so that McAdams can come back in a Presidential year and beat him.
WRT to the newly elected or re-elected Senators, Ayotte and Bennet are there for the long haul. Burr in NC and Kirk in IL are goners in ’16. Johnson in WI and Rubio in FL could stick it out if they frame their votes right. Blunt and Portman are tossups.
The rest are safe. I’m wondering if Conway should have challenged McConnell last cycle. Instead, he’ll have to wait till ’14 to challenge him or go for the open seat.
Or 2014 or 2016 for Gov and Senate. I know this has already been broached but it seems like a good way to see who the consensus “diamonds in the rough” are. Also, what challengers should run again? The only rule is that at least one of your choices has to be from your state.
To get the ball rolling I’ll suggest Sestak for PA-07, and eventually Senate in 2016, as well as Klein in FL-22.
He had shown ambition before, what about a challenge to Guinta (I assume Portsmouth will still be in Guinta’s district.)?
and Ian McShane is brilliant.
Perfect video given the circumstances, by the way.
Any theories on why the late arriving votes in Washington are more Democratic than the election night totals? It’s not just King County, Democrats margins seem to be improving everywhere.
From his May 24th newsletter:
The tenth seat – the one that will give the Republicans control of the Senate – is coming closer and closer. Three key developments:
1. Connecticut
State Attorney General Richard Blumenthal has been caught repeatedly fabricating a record of service in Vietnam. While he constantly claims to have fought, the fact is that he never went near the place. His candidacy is falling apart as a result.
The Republican candidate against Blumenthal will be Linda McMahon, a businesswoman whose husband founded the World Wrestling Federation. She is outspoken and an outsider. She now trails Blumenthal by only 3 points (48-45) and deserves our help. Go here to donate to McMahon’s campaign.
2. Wisconsin
Ron Johnson – an independent, successful businessman with great access to funding – won the Republican nomination to run against Russ Feingold. A true conservative, Ron has an excellent chance to win. Feingold, who is way too liberal even for Wisconsin, is under 50% in the polls and Johnson should move up quickly. This race could be the key to getting 51 seats. Please give him money. Go here to donate to Johnson’s campaign.
3. Washington
Dino Rossi, the strongest candidate against Senator Patty Murray may enter the race soon. He currently runs even with Murray in the polls. Stay tuned.
So those are our best shots for a tenth seat. Here’s how the other nine play out:
Delaware = No problem.
North Dakota = No problem.
Indiana = Should be no problem. Coats is far ahead of Ellsworth.
Illinois = Mark Kirk ahead thanks to scandal engulfing the Democratic candidate.
Arkansas = Blanche Lincoln will probably lose her runoff and Republican Congressman John Bozeman should defeat Lt. Gov John Halter.
Nevada = Harry Reid remains behind his opponents.
Pennsylvania = Joe Sestak will not be harder to beat than Specter was (conventional wisdom says he will be). He is waaaaayyy to liberal and Pat Toomey should beat him.
Colorado = Former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton is ahead of the appointed incumbent Michael Bennet, but both face tough primaries. We should win the seat.
California = A virtual tie between Barbara Boxer and her likely GOP opponent. With Boxer far under 50%, we should win this seat.
But focus on Connecticut, Wisconsin, and Washington State. Nine seats do us no good.
Remember, you build a ten story building from the top down. Don’t you?
When I read this, I imagine his nasally voice reading out each line out loud. He’s about as good at predictions as Basil Marceaux.
Some good news amongst all of the bad here in Michigan. State Senator Gretchen Whitmer (who just so happens to be my senator) was chosen by her caucus, yesterday, to be senate minority leader, and it couldn’t have happened to a better person.
She’s the first female leader in either house in the state’s history, is young, is currently the longest-serving senator in the state senate (because of term limits), is cooperative but disciplined and firm, and most important, she’s actually friends with the newly chosen senate majority leader, Republican Randy Richardville. I say most important, because with a 28/12 supermajority, she’ll need whatever inside help she can get to influence policy. She said she wants to find a way to make Democrats “relevant” given the supermajority in the senate, and that she accepts the challenge to do so.
What I want to see her do is propose legislation that will make the tea partiers in our new legislature play their cards. She needs to show Michiganders just how out of step they are with the values of the state, because many of these folks weren’t scrutinized and kind of sneaked through, this time.
many times there’s a bad cycle incumbents of the defeated party up next decide to bolt, who do you think it will be this time and when? i’d guess bingaman will bolt soon, for one.
with final results in, Republicans actually came up a bit short (literally 17 votes) of unseating a Democratic House incumbent they initially thought they had beaten. Should we prevail in that contest, that means Republicans only picked up 2 seats in the state House (bringing their embarrassing 6-45 minority up to 8-43), far lower than the 4 to 8 seats they were expecting to gain. In the state Senate, final results do indeed confirm Republicans lost the seat of their retiring minority leader 45-55%, leaving that chamber controlled by Democrats 24-1 (not a typo). Sam Slom is the sole remaining GOP state Senator in Hawaii, facing 24 other Democrats. He must be really pissed. I’m still trying to figure out what they plan to do with committee assignments…does he get to be the token Republican on every single one? The idea is committees are supposed to be broken down to represent the overall split in the chamber, (as with the US Congress), but I’m not sure how they expect to handle a situation like this, where GOP representation rounds to 0 on committees.
This race was interesting because Ranked Choice Voting was just implemented before the election.
Former State Senator Don Perata received 35% of the 1st place votes, followed by Councilmenber Jean Quan (24%) and Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan (21%). Today, after the 2nd and 3rd place votes were allocated, Quan jumped ahead of Perata 51% to 49%. This was possible because when the 3rd place candidate (Kaplan) was eliminated, 75% of her votes went to Quan.
There was an organized effort, primarily from progressives, urging voters to select anyone but Perata –and it appears to have worked.
They are still counting absentee and provisional ballots, but the outcome is unlikely to change.
Kamala Harris was starting to pull away from Steve Cooley, opening up a lead of 17k votes Friday morning. Then, out of nowhere, Cooley shot up and now leads by 16k votes.
Ugh, not good. Cooley is an anti-gay douche who wants to fight to uphold Prop 8 in the courts. As a gay guy myself, I have a personal interest in seeing him go down and hate the fact that he’s convinced so many people to view him as a moderate.
I wonder who will replace Lieutenant Governor-elect Newsom.
Tried to keep incumbents in their districts, but the only ones I’m fairly confident I succeeded with are Sarbanes and Ruppersberger. and Kratovil lives in the new MD-01 for sure.
Here are the #s (O/M)
MD-01 (Eastern Shore + Baltimore): 63/36
MD-02 (Harford->MontCo, green): 62/36
MD-03 (BaltCo->PGCo, purple): 64/34 (rounds to 50% white but is actually just barely minority-majority)
MD-04 (red): 73/25 (52% black)
MD-05 (yellow): 63/36
MD-06 (panhandle->Cecil co, green): 34/63
MD-07 (gray): 78/20 (52% black)
MD-08 (most of MontCo, purple): 63/36
Can help but wonder why the Cook County Clerk is showing Rush losing to Wardingley??????
Up big in Fresno and Kern with a lot more votes still to be counted than Kings where he is behind. Only 500 odd outstanding in Kings and LOTS more in the other two. Remember though that only part of each county is in his district.
For all the handwringing, overall it really does seem to me like there’s a lot less fatalism and hysteria among Democrats this time than in other bad years. Certainly, from what I’ve read it seems a lot better than in ’94, although to be fair I was too young to be following politics much back then.
Certainly, though, the mood seems considerably brighter than in 2004, when most Democrats felt absolutely crushed. (Which in hindsight seems ridiculous – an incumbent, wartime president winning a narrow reelection was hardly a realignment, yet from the reaction most people had, myself included, you would have thought it was 1972 on steroids.) Frankly, the mood seems less dire than it did even after the Brown/Coakley race.
Why is this? We really did not do well in the House – Republicans will probably pick up 64 seats in the end, which is a pretty massive gain. And we got crushed in state legislatures.
I have a few reasons. Part of it is the fact that we held the Senate and by a somewhat wider-than-expected margin, which meant that mainstream press coverage treated this a bit like a “split decision.” A big part of it was simply that unlike the other years mentioned, this wasn’t a big surprise; most Dems had been bracing themselves for losing the House for months, which made the outcome a little anticlimactic.
Compared to ’94, I think there’s the sense among most Democrats that, for all the disappointments, we really did accomplish a lot the last two years. In ’94, despite some major pieces of legislation, all the centerpieces of the Democratic agenda completely imploded. Most Democrats also seem to be fairly sure of long-term demographic trends in their favor, and because of the political volatility of the past few cycles, there isn’t the sense that we’re in permanent decline or permanently shut out, which is what Democrats felt after ’94.
Above all, I think even the most critical voices recognize that this is overwhelmingly because of the economy, and that we got dealt a bad hand and an extremely difficult climate. In ’94, the economy, though still weak in some senses, was overall doing fairly well. The losses that year truly had a lot to do with Democratic incompetence, corruption, and scandals.
Thoughts?
it was roughly 60-32 Bachmann, 61-27 Emmer. How awful.
Millenial voters (18-29) voted for Democratic House candidates 57-40. Non-millenial voters voted for Republicans 54-44. That is a HUGE difference. My generation is more left-wing than the rest of the electorate by an unprecedented level. Frankly, I do not expect fundamental change in American politics until the ultra-conservative Generation Jones voters leave the electorate. They voted for Republicans this cycle 59-38!
When the millenials come of age and start voting in force, I think we will get single-payer health care. The other generations will be more resistant, but will not be able to overcome the staunchly left-wing politics and sheer numbers of the millenials. I think the odds start favoring the election of a progressive Democrat to the presidency in 2026.
And before anyone chimes in saying that older voters are always more conservative, I’d like to point out that Kerry won the oldest voters narrowly will still losing the election.
In researching 2012 Senate races, I came across this article from November 2008, in which Country musician Hank Williams, Jr. indicates his desire to enter the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Tennessee “during the next primary election.” How crazy would that be? With his triangulation on financial reform (at least in rhetoric), Corker may be susceptible to a challenge from the right.
The GOP is back in control, so don’t forget to turn your clocks back one century tonight
the commission creates a new Hispanic VRA district in Arizona that incorporates a fair amount of the Hispanic population currently in AZ-08? Ironically, such a VRA district could hurt Giffords by making her district more white and more pro-GOP.
I don’t particularly like Sestak, personality-wise, either, but he did an impressive job campaigning with his last-minute comebacks in both primary and general elections. How many people would have given him a good chance of coming as far as he did, when he first got into the primary race? Or just a month ahead of the primaries, for that matter?
Rendell, meanwhile, would have been a disaster. His job approval is in the tank: in the mid to high thirties. His favorables are underpolled, but likely in the same general area.
Ted Lieu, who currently is termed out of the Assembly, is running for the late Jenny Oropeza’s Senate seat. Other possible names are fellow Assemblyman Warren Furutani and LA City Councilwoman Janice Hahn (who ran against Newsom in the LG primary in June).
I like Lieu alot, he’s very much like our current treasurer John Chiang, he’s very progressive on LGBT, the environment and health care. Hope he wins.
Looking like a 60-40 R majority in the Iowa House unless absentees and provisionals change things next week. In one district the Dem leads by 28 votes, in another district the Rep leads by 26.
Most likely split in the Iowa Senate is 26D to 24R. A Dem is ahead by 73 votes in SD 13, while a Repub is up by 13 votes in SD 47 (but there seem to be few outstanding ballots there).
SD 47 contains Ottumwa, and I think it’s extremely likely that Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ coattails helped the Republican score a huge upset here.
He managed to make a comeback once, but I don’t know whether he’s really got a shot at another.
Ellsworth lost his own district in the Senate election, and generally I can’t help but wonder if we’ve overrated his political abilities.
I think we’ll easily get into the teens in 2012 just because of a dead cat bounce. If redistricting is not a disaster, we may be able to take back the house narrowly.
it was actually drawn as a Republican district. Even if Democrats assume Walsh is dead with coattails and don’t change the district much, I still think it gets more Democratic. Especially because AFAIK McHenry County is growing pretty quickly and IL-08 can retreat from it due to population reasons.
Annie Kuster will almost certainly be back–New Hampshire Dems already loved her and she impressed the national party with her performance, all factors considered (district, opponent, environment.) Hodes’ inability to get to 37% in the Senate race took some of the bloom off his rose, and I think he would have a tough time against Kuster in a primary.
Wow, Dreihaus only lost by 7%. That’s extremely well done considering oh Kilroy did (she didnt even break 40%) and him being what I thought to be the first incumbent to become DOA.
At this stage in his career that’s a HUGE step down. He served in that seat 12 of 14 years (lost in ’94 and won it back in ’96), then served a term as a big-state Governor. No way will he go back unless he really LOVES the House. If he does anything, it will be to run for Governor again in 2014. But most likely he’s done.
that will be a dead issue for any future campaign. So on what basis do you think Herseth would “probably beat Noem,” who will be the incumbent – mind you, in South Dakota, no hotbed of liberalism?
how many of you think that Paul LePage will be the first governor in history to openly tell the president to go to hell or get out of his state?
I’m wondering if 2010 really did get all of the voters’ anger out of their systems. I was just thinking about how Dems had huge trouble this year in places like Virginia and Westchester County, NY where they also got walloped in 2009. Is there some cathartic value to 2010 that 2009 didn’t have? Someone convince me, please.
Obviously, people change their mind … and Akaka hasn’t really gotten to fundraising but … he says he’ll run “god willing”
Primary’s next May. Nutter will be challenged.
Makes me want to say BRING IT ON 2012!
I was interested to look at what seats gained from 2006-2008 were still in our possession; we gained about 50 then lost about 60, so the new Reps still with us are:
Gabrielle Giffords
Jerry McNerney (provisionally)
Ed Perlmutter
Joe Courtney
Chris Murphy
Joe Donnelly
Bruce Braley
David Loebsack
John Yarmuth
Tim Walz
Heath Shuler
Jason Altmire
Jim Himes
Gary Peters
Larry Kissell
Martin Heinrich
Gerry Connolly
Any in that group you’d be worried about (though if they can survive this year, they can survive a lot)?
I’m actually hoping Miller wins so that McAdams can come back in a Presidential year and beat him.
WRT to the newly elected or re-elected Senators, Ayotte and Bennet are there for the long haul. Burr in NC and Kirk in IL are goners in ’16. Johnson in WI and Rubio in FL could stick it out if they frame their votes right. Blunt and Portman are tossups.
The rest are safe. I’m wondering if Conway should have challenged McConnell last cycle. Instead, he’ll have to wait till ’14 to challenge him or go for the open seat.
Or 2014 or 2016 for Gov and Senate. I know this has already been broached but it seems like a good way to see who the consensus “diamonds in the rough” are. Also, what challengers should run again? The only rule is that at least one of your choices has to be from your state.
To get the ball rolling I’ll suggest Sestak for PA-07, and eventually Senate in 2016, as well as Klein in FL-22.
He had shown ambition before, what about a challenge to Guinta (I assume Portsmouth will still be in Guinta’s district.)?
and Ian McShane is brilliant.
Perfect video given the circumstances, by the way.
not running for governor
http://majorityinms.com/2010/1…
D -> R
Alabama: Lt. Governor, Agriculture Commissioner
Arizona: Attorney General
Arkansas: Lt. Governor, Secretary of State, Land Commissioner
Colorado: Secretary of State, Treasurer (pending final results)
Florida: Chief Financial Officer
Georgia: Attorney General, Agriculture Commissioner, Labor Commissioner
Illinois: Treasurer, Comptroller
Iowa: Secretary of State
Kansas: Secretary of State, Attorney General, Treasurer
Missouri: Auditor
New Mexico: Secretary of State
Ohio: Secretary of State, Attorney General, Treasurer
Oklahoma: Lt. Governor, Attorney General, Treasurer, Auditor, Labor
Commissioner, Insurance Commissioner, School Superintendent
South Carolina: Superintendent of Education
Wisconsin: Treasurer
R -> D
California: Lt. Governor, Insurance Commissioner
New Mexico: Land Commissioner
I am interested in seeing the new districts, especially in texas
Larson’s lead is up to 3322 votes.
http://vote.wa.gov/Elections/W…
Any theories on why the late arriving votes in Washington are more Democratic than the election night totals? It’s not just King County, Democrats margins seem to be improving everywhere.
From his May 24th newsletter:
When I read this, I imagine his nasally voice reading out each line out loud. He’s about as good at predictions as Basil Marceaux.
Some good news amongst all of the bad here in Michigan. State Senator Gretchen Whitmer (who just so happens to be my senator) was chosen by her caucus, yesterday, to be senate minority leader, and it couldn’t have happened to a better person.
She’s the first female leader in either house in the state’s history, is young, is currently the longest-serving senator in the state senate (because of term limits), is cooperative but disciplined and firm, and most important, she’s actually friends with the newly chosen senate majority leader, Republican Randy Richardville. I say most important, because with a 28/12 supermajority, she’ll need whatever inside help she can get to influence policy. She said she wants to find a way to make Democrats “relevant” given the supermajority in the senate, and that she accepts the challenge to do so.
What I want to see her do is propose legislation that will make the tea partiers in our new legislature play their cards. She needs to show Michiganders just how out of step they are with the values of the state, because many of these folks weren’t scrutinized and kind of sneaked through, this time.
many times there’s a bad cycle incumbents of the defeated party up next decide to bolt, who do you think it will be this time and when? i’d guess bingaman will bolt soon, for one.
with final results in, Republicans actually came up a bit short (literally 17 votes) of unseating a Democratic House incumbent they initially thought they had beaten. Should we prevail in that contest, that means Republicans only picked up 2 seats in the state House (bringing their embarrassing 6-45 minority up to 8-43), far lower than the 4 to 8 seats they were expecting to gain. In the state Senate, final results do indeed confirm Republicans lost the seat of their retiring minority leader 45-55%, leaving that chamber controlled by Democrats 24-1 (not a typo). Sam Slom is the sole remaining GOP state Senator in Hawaii, facing 24 other Democrats. He must be really pissed. I’m still trying to figure out what they plan to do with committee assignments…does he get to be the token Republican on every single one? The idea is committees are supposed to be broken down to represent the overall split in the chamber, (as with the US Congress), but I’m not sure how they expect to handle a situation like this, where GOP representation rounds to 0 on committees.
This race was interesting because Ranked Choice Voting was just implemented before the election.
Former State Senator Don Perata received 35% of the 1st place votes, followed by Councilmenber Jean Quan (24%) and Councilmember Rebecca Kaplan (21%). Today, after the 2nd and 3rd place votes were allocated, Quan jumped ahead of Perata 51% to 49%. This was possible because when the 3rd place candidate (Kaplan) was eliminated, 75% of her votes went to Quan.
There was an organized effort, primarily from progressives, urging voters to select anyone but Perata –and it appears to have worked.
They are still counting absentee and provisional ballots, but the outcome is unlikely to change.
Kamala Harris was starting to pull away from Steve Cooley, opening up a lead of 17k votes Friday morning. Then, out of nowhere, Cooley shot up and now leads by 16k votes.
Ugh, not good. Cooley is an anti-gay douche who wants to fight to uphold Prop 8 in the courts. As a gay guy myself, I have a personal interest in seeing him go down and hate the fact that he’s convinced so many people to view him as a moderate.
I wonder who will replace Lieutenant Governor-elect Newsom.
http://img94.imageshack.us/img…
Tried to keep incumbents in their districts, but the only ones I’m fairly confident I succeeded with are Sarbanes and Ruppersberger. and Kratovil lives in the new MD-01 for sure.
Here are the #s (O/M)
MD-01 (Eastern Shore + Baltimore): 63/36
MD-02 (Harford->MontCo, green): 62/36
MD-03 (BaltCo->PGCo, purple): 64/34 (rounds to 50% white but is actually just barely minority-majority)
MD-04 (red): 73/25 (52% black)
MD-05 (yellow): 63/36
MD-06 (panhandle->Cecil co, green): 34/63
MD-07 (gray): 78/20 (52% black)
MD-08 (most of MontCo, purple): 63/36
Can help but wonder why the Cook County Clerk is showing Rush losing to Wardingley??????
http://electionnight.cookcount…
Surely not.
Hey Costa could actually pull it out:
Up big in Fresno and Kern with a lot more votes still to be counted than Kings where he is behind. Only 500 odd outstanding in Kings and LOTS more in the other two. Remember though that only part of each county is in his district.
http://www.sos.ca.gov/election…
http://vote.sos.ca.gov/returns…
Am i missing something?
Looking at the governor’s races on tap for 2011 and 2012 isn’t doing much for my psyche as a Democrat.
2011 will feature a tough (but winnable) Dem defense of Steve Beshear in deep red KY, and two probable Republican holds in LA and MS.
In 2012, Democrats are defending 8 of 11 seats up for grabs. Again, the Republican seats are all red – IN (OPEN), ND (Dalrymple), and UT (Herbert).
Dems, on the other hand, have potentially tough defenses in:
MT (OPEN)
NC (Perdue, who I hope will not run given her approvals)
NH (Lynch, who I doubt will run for a fifth term)
MO (Nixon)
WA (Gregoire, who I doubt will run for a third term)
WV (Tomblin)
Dems should have a significant edge in deep blue DE and VT.
Add this to the 23 Senate seats Dems are defending, you have one hell of a playing field for Dems in the big ticket races.
http://www.syracuse.com/news/i…
For all the handwringing, overall it really does seem to me like there’s a lot less fatalism and hysteria among Democrats this time than in other bad years. Certainly, from what I’ve read it seems a lot better than in ’94, although to be fair I was too young to be following politics much back then.
Certainly, though, the mood seems considerably brighter than in 2004, when most Democrats felt absolutely crushed. (Which in hindsight seems ridiculous – an incumbent, wartime president winning a narrow reelection was hardly a realignment, yet from the reaction most people had, myself included, you would have thought it was 1972 on steroids.) Frankly, the mood seems less dire than it did even after the Brown/Coakley race.
Why is this? We really did not do well in the House – Republicans will probably pick up 64 seats in the end, which is a pretty massive gain. And we got crushed in state legislatures.
I have a few reasons. Part of it is the fact that we held the Senate and by a somewhat wider-than-expected margin, which meant that mainstream press coverage treated this a bit like a “split decision.” A big part of it was simply that unlike the other years mentioned, this wasn’t a big surprise; most Dems had been bracing themselves for losing the House for months, which made the outcome a little anticlimactic.
Compared to ’94, I think there’s the sense among most Democrats that, for all the disappointments, we really did accomplish a lot the last two years. In ’94, despite some major pieces of legislation, all the centerpieces of the Democratic agenda completely imploded. Most Democrats also seem to be fairly sure of long-term demographic trends in their favor, and because of the political volatility of the past few cycles, there isn’t the sense that we’re in permanent decline or permanently shut out, which is what Democrats felt after ’94.
Above all, I think even the most critical voices recognize that this is overwhelmingly because of the economy, and that we got dealt a bad hand and an extremely difficult climate. In ’94, the economy, though still weak in some senses, was overall doing fairly well. The losses that year truly had a lot to do with Democratic incompetence, corruption, and scandals.
Thoughts?
it was roughly 60-32 Bachmann, 61-27 Emmer. How awful.
Millenial voters (18-29) voted for Democratic House candidates 57-40. Non-millenial voters voted for Republicans 54-44. That is a HUGE difference. My generation is more left-wing than the rest of the electorate by an unprecedented level. Frankly, I do not expect fundamental change in American politics until the ultra-conservative Generation Jones voters leave the electorate. They voted for Republicans this cycle 59-38!
When the millenials come of age and start voting in force, I think we will get single-payer health care. The other generations will be more resistant, but will not be able to overcome the staunchly left-wing politics and sheer numbers of the millenials. I think the odds start favoring the election of a progressive Democrat to the presidency in 2026.
And before anyone chimes in saying that older voters are always more conservative, I’d like to point out that Kerry won the oldest voters narrowly will still losing the election.
http://www.wsmv.com/politics/1…
In researching 2012 Senate races, I came across this article from November 2008, in which Country musician Hank Williams, Jr. indicates his desire to enter the Republican primary for U.S. Senate in Tennessee “during the next primary election.” How crazy would that be? With his triangulation on financial reform (at least in rhetoric), Corker may be susceptible to a challenge from the right.
the commission creates a new Hispanic VRA district in Arizona that incorporates a fair amount of the Hispanic population currently in AZ-08? Ironically, such a VRA district could hurt Giffords by making her district more white and more pro-GOP.
http://tpmdc.talkingpointsmemo…
I don’t particularly like Sestak, personality-wise, either, but he did an impressive job campaigning with his last-minute comebacks in both primary and general elections. How many people would have given him a good chance of coming as far as he did, when he first got into the primary race? Or just a month ahead of the primaries, for that matter?
Rendell, meanwhile, would have been a disaster. His job approval is in the tank: in the mid to high thirties. His favorables are underpolled, but likely in the same general area.
http://www.presstelegram.com/n…
Ted Lieu, who currently is termed out of the Assembly, is running for the late Jenny Oropeza’s Senate seat. Other possible names are fellow Assemblyman Warren Furutani and LA City Councilwoman Janice Hahn (who ran against Newsom in the LG primary in June).
I like Lieu alot, he’s very much like our current treasurer John Chiang, he’s very progressive on LGBT, the environment and health care. Hope he wins.
Looking like a 60-40 R majority in the Iowa House unless absentees and provisionals change things next week. In one district the Dem leads by 28 votes, in another district the Rep leads by 26.
Most likely split in the Iowa Senate is 26D to 24R. A Dem is ahead by 73 votes in SD 13, while a Repub is up by 13 votes in SD 47 (but there seem to be few outstanding ballots there).
SD 47 contains Ottumwa, and I think it’s extremely likely that Mariannette Miller-Meeks’ coattails helped the Republican score a huge upset here.
Iowa Senate Democratic leader Mike Gronstal insists that he won’t allow a vote on a constitutional amendment to ban gay marriage, no matter what happens. It’s a gutsy play, because he’s up for re-election in 2012, and the GOP just won both Iowa House districts that make up his Senate district 50.
He managed to make a comeback once, but I don’t know whether he’s really got a shot at another.
Ellsworth lost his own district in the Senate election, and generally I can’t help but wonder if we’ve overrated his political abilities.
I think we’ll easily get into the teens in 2012 just because of a dead cat bounce. If redistricting is not a disaster, we may be able to take back the house narrowly.
it was actually drawn as a Republican district. Even if Democrats assume Walsh is dead with coattails and don’t change the district much, I still think it gets more Democratic. Especially because AFAIK McHenry County is growing pretty quickly and IL-08 can retreat from it due to population reasons.
Annie Kuster will almost certainly be back–New Hampshire Dems already loved her and she impressed the national party with her performance, all factors considered (district, opponent, environment.) Hodes’ inability to get to 37% in the Senate race took some of the bloom off his rose, and I think he would have a tough time against Kuster in a primary.
Wow, Dreihaus only lost by 7%. That’s extremely well done considering oh Kilroy did (she didnt even break 40%) and him being what I thought to be the first incumbent to become DOA.
At this stage in his career that’s a HUGE step down. He served in that seat 12 of 14 years (lost in ’94 and won it back in ’96), then served a term as a big-state Governor. No way will he go back unless he really LOVES the House. If he does anything, it will be to run for Governor again in 2014. But most likely he’s done.
that will be a dead issue for any future campaign. So on what basis do you think Herseth would “probably beat Noem,” who will be the incumbent – mind you, in South Dakota, no hotbed of liberalism?
how many of you think that Paul LePage will be the first governor in history to openly tell the president to go to hell or get out of his state?
I’m wondering if 2010 really did get all of the voters’ anger out of their systems. I was just thinking about how Dems had huge trouble this year in places like Virginia and Westchester County, NY where they also got walloped in 2009. Is there some cathartic value to 2010 that 2009 didn’t have? Someone convince me, please.
Obviously, people change their mind … and Akaka hasn’t really gotten to fundraising but … he says he’ll run “god willing”
http://www.staradvertiser.com/…