- LA-04: Former Shreveport Mayor Keith Hightower (D) is taking a hard look at the open seat of retiring GOP Rep. Jim McCrery:
Hightower said he is “trying to look at the lay of the land” before making a decision.
One thing that may be in his favor, he said, is that Democratic candidates have an advantage in 2008 because Congress is under Democratic control.
“Part of the reason McCrery is getting out is that he was on the down side. But I would be on the up side,” Hightower said.
A Hightower candidacy would force Republicans to sweat a little in this R+6.5 district. Could they afford to play defense in this district and in LA-06, where state Rep. Don Cazayoux (D) will challenge what is likely going to turn into an open seat?
- AZ-08: Should Democrats start worrying about the seat of frosh Rep. Gabby Giffords? A Summit Group poll conducted 12/3-4 for AZ state Senate President Tim Bee (R) shows Giffords under 40%:
Gabrielle Giffords (D-inc): 36%
Tim Bee (R): 30%
(MoE: 5%)Bee has yet to make his candidacy official (he’s still in the “exploratory phase”), but with results like these, you can bet that he’ll be entering the race in the near future.
- IN-07: Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels has set a date for the special election to replace the late Rep. Julia Carson: March 11. Democrats will caucus this Saturday to choose the nominee for the special election, and a contested primary will happen in May to determine the November nominee. While Carson’s grandson, Indianapolis city councilor Andre Carson, is looking like the front runner for the caucus nomination, some are speculating that we could see a different cast of characters contest the May primary.
- NM-03: NM FBIHOP brings the news that Carol Miller, the same spoiler who caused Republicans to win a 1997 special election for the seat now held by Tom Udall, is running again. However, I haven’t been able to find this story in other media yet. UPDATE: Link to sub. only ABQ Journal story.
- IL-14: The fists are flying in the GOP primary to replace Dennis Hastert.
- CT-05: Chris Murphy tells it like it is: “I think it’s hard to justify that Senator Lieberman is a member of the Democratic Party any longer.”
The early makings of a 2012 Senate campaign, perhaps? We can only hope…
17 thoughts on “James Hell’s House Race Round-up”
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That is a seat where Giffords should be ahead by about 20 points. These results are not good and if we lose a seat like this, we are likely to come back in 2008 deep in the minority.
I forgot to put the link to the Albuquerque Journal article by Raam Wong in my post. A horrible oversight on my part, but you can see the Journal article here.
Bad, bad miss on my part.
Excellent, as soon as he was elected I thought Murphy had senate potential. The real question however, is whether Dodd retires in 2010 as previously rumored. 2 open seats in row could be, uhm, bad. I think I’ve heard some local mayors are interested, but there’s gonna be an outgoing republican governor in 2010 as well.
CT-Sen races will be interesting after this cycle.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/cq/200…
Looks like good news for Ann Kirkpatrick.
and who paid for the poll?
since no one else answered my question about the legitimacy of the summit group’s giffords poll, i checked the article myself:
“An unverified poll conducted on Dec.3-4 among 300 voters showed that in a match-up between Bee and U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, the incumbent would hold a 36-percent-to-30-percent advantage, according to data released by Bee’s exploratory team, which has been active for months.
Those polled preferred Republicans over Democrats, 34 percent to 30 percent, Bee’s team said. The poll was conduced by the Summit Group, and the margin of error is plus or minus 5 percent.
No other poll results or details, such as the party affiliations of individuals who participated or how the survey participants were selected, were released.”
Clearly, Mr. Bee paid for the poll to puff up his own numbers. The fact that they won’t release any other information about it makes it pretty close to meaningless. Hope the suckers that Mr. Bee sent the info to didn’t buy it hook, line and sinker. But if they did, that’s good. Less GOP money for other winnable efforts.