Campaign and Election News – Covering Key Races Around the Country
Weekly Open Thread: What Races Are You Interested In?
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34 thoughts on “Weekly Open Thread: What Races Are You Interested In?”
Republican John Peterson has announced his retirement from PA District 5. This is great news as he is a rubber stamp for Bush.
We now have a primary — along with the primary between Obama and Hillary — where there are 3 good Democrats running and about 10 Republicans.
I know you all think this is a lock for the Republicans. But that may not be true. Penn State is in this District and their very active Democratic Student Group has enrolled a LOT of new votesrs — all Democrats.
Plus a lot of Republicans are changing parties and the Democrats are energized like nothing seen since Kennedy.
Now if we could get a little support, money wise, this is a golden opportunity for a Blue pickup.
How about it?? This is a big district in terms of geography but really cheap in terms of media.
I’m looking forward to seeing polls for Idaho and Louisiana Senate races, as well as New Hampshire and New Jersey. I see those races as the most likely to change in CQ’s rankings.
NC-Sen: I was just thinking about how there is a primary between the Lt. Governor and the State Treasurer. If only Richard Moore would have run for US Senate, we wouldn’t have as much of a problem as we are now.
“Blue Majority Endorsement Recommendation Thread” – A lot of people are posting guys who have sufficient backing, if you ask me. For example, Himes (CT-04) is already a top tier race. The DCCC is GOING to spend money for him. He is raising good money, and even if he weren’t, he could self fund a little.
Some “Already been endorsed” people don’t look like they need the financial backing anymore. For example, Darcy Burner, Donna Edwards, Eric Massa, Dan Maffei, Leslie Byrne, and Al Franken. Maybe you could make a “Blue Majority Alumnis” page, and a “Blue Majority” page. Someone recommended that when I brought this up in the Blue Maj. End. Thread.
I hate to bring Presidential politics into this, but this is worth knowing if you live in Indiana: http://politicalticker.blogs.c…
Obama’s staff is hoping the chance to play a game of 3-on-3 pick-up with the presidential candidate will entice Indiana high school students to register their friends to vote in the state’s May 6 contest. Every student that signs up at least 20 new voters before Indiana’s April 7 registration deadline will be eligible to be picked to play against Obama in a game the campaign is calling “The 3-on-3 Challenge for Change.”
I also had a weird dream last night, so that’s on my mind too, but I won’t get into that
Please fill in any holes I have here, and let me know of any other interesting races.
Senate
AK Begich (Stevens)
OR Merkley/Novick (Smith)
ID LaRocco (Risch) [Craig]
WY Rothfuss (Enzi)
WY-special N. Carter/Goodenough (Barrasso)
NM T. Udall (Pearce/Wilson) [Domenici]
CO M. Udall (Schaeffer) [Allard]
SD Johnson (?)
NE Kleeb/Ramiondo (Johanns) [Hagel]
OK Rice (Inhofe)
MN Franken/Nelson-Pallmeyer (Coleman)
LA Landrieu (Kennedy)
MS-special Musgrove (Wicker) [Lott]
KY Fischer/Lunsford (McConnell)
GA ? (Chambliss)
SC Cone/Turnipseed? (Graham) (McBride)
NC Neal/Hagan (Dole)
VA M. Warner (Gilmore) [J. Warner]
NJ Lautenberg (Sabrin/Pennacchio/Unanue)
NH Shaheen (Sununu)
ME Allen (Collins)
House
AK-AL Benson/Berkowitz/Metcalfe (Young)
WA-08 Burner (Reichert)
OR-05 [Hooley] (?)
CA-04 Brown (?) [Doolittle]
CA-12 Speier (?) [Lantos]
CA-45 P. Clay/Hunsicker/Bornstein (Bono Mack)
CA-46 D. Cook (Rohrabacher)
NV-02 Derby/? (Heller)
NV-03 ? (Porter)
UT-02 Matheson (?)
ID-01 Grant/Minnick (Sali)
WY-AL Trauner (Lummis/?) [Cubin]
AZ-01 Kirkpatrick/? (?) [Renzi]
AZ-05 Mitchell (?)
AZ-08 Giffords (Bee)
NM-01 Heinrich/? (?) [Wilson]
NM-02 McCamley/Teague/? (?) [Pearce]
NM-03 [Udall] Jon Adams/Wiviott (?)
TX-22 Lampson (Sekula-Gibbs)
TX-23 C. Rodriguez
NE-02 Esch/R. Carter (Terry)
NE-03 ? (A. Smith)
KS-02 Boyda (Ryun/Jenkins/?)
KS-03 Moore (Jordan)
MN-01 Walz (?)
MN-02 Sarvi/? (Kline)
MN-03 Bonoff/Madia (Paulsen) (Dillon) [Ramstad]
MN-06 Tinklenberg? (Bachman)
WI-08 Kagen (?)
MI-07 Schauer (Walberg)
MI-08 Alexander (Rogers)
MI-09 Peters (Knollenberg) (Kevorkian)
MI-11 Spencer/Kriewall (McCotter)
IA-01 Braley (Hartsuch)
IA-02 Loesback (Miller-Meeks/Tehen/Harder)
IA-03 [Boswell]/Fallon (x)
IL-06 Morgenthaler (Roskam)
IL-08 Bean (Greenberg) (Abernathy)
IL-10 Seals (Kirk) (Kalbfleisch)
IL-11 Halvorson (?) (Wallace) [Weller]
IL-14 Foster (Oberweis)
IL-16 Abboud (Manzullo) (Summers)
IL-18 C. Callahan (Schock) [LaHood]
IN-06 Welsh (Pence)
IN-07 Carson/? (Elrod)
IN-08 Ellsworth (?)
IN-09 Hill (Sodrel)
OH-01 Driehaus (Chabot)
OH-02 Wulsin (Schmidt)
OH-03 Mitakides (M. Turner)
OH-05 x (Latta)
OH-07 Neuhardt (Austria)
OH-12 Robinson (Tiberi)
OH-14 B. O’Neill (LaTourette)
OH-15 Kilroy (Stivers) [Pryce]
OH-16 Boccieri (Schuring) [Regula]
OH-18 Space (Dailey)
WV-02 Barth (Capito)
LA-01 Reed (Scalise/Burns) [Jindal]
LA-02 [Jefferson]/K. Carter/? (?)
LA-04 Cox? (?) [McCrery]
LA-06 Cazayoux/M. Jackson (Jenkins/Calongne) [Baker]
AL-02 Bright (?) [Everett]
AL-05 [Cramer] ? (?)
GA-01
GA-08 Marshall (?)
GA-11
GA-12 Barrow (?)
NC-08 Kissell (Hayes)
FL-09
FL-10
FL-13 Jennings (V. Buchanan)
FL-15 Higgs (Posey) (Bouffard) [D. Weldon]
FL-16 Mahoney (?)
FL-18 Taddeo (Ros-Lehtinen)
FL-21 R. Martinez (L. Diaz-Balart)
FL-22 Klein (?)
FL-24 Curtis/Kosas (Feeney)
FL-25 J. Garcia (M. Diaz-Balart)
VA-01
VA-05 Perriello (Goode)
VA-10 Feder/? (Wolf)
VA-11 Byrne/Connolly (?)
MD-01 Kratovil (Harris) [Gilchrest]
MD-04 Edwards (James) (Crider) [Wynn]
PA-03 Waltner/Foust/Dahlkemper (English)
PA-04 Altmire (Hart)
PA-05 ? (?) (Wilson) [Peterson]
PA-06 ? (Gerlach)
PA-08 P. Murphy (Manion)
PA-10 Carney (Meuser/C. Hackett)
PA-15 S. Bennett (Dent)
NJ-03 Adler (?) [Saxton]
NJ-05 Shulmann (Garrett)
NJ-07 Stender (?) [Ferguson]
NY-25 Maffei (?) [Walsh]
NY-26 Powers (?) [T. Reynolds]
NY-29 Massa (Kuhl)
CT-04 Hines (Shays)
CT-05 C. Murphy (Cappiello/Caligiuri) (Burbank)
NH-01 Shea-Porter (Bradley)
MA-05 [Meehan] Tsongas (Ogonowski)
ME-01 ? (?) (Eder?) [Allen]
other candidates:
Peter Goldmark (former WA-05, WA commissioner of public lands?)
Pete Ashdown (former UT-Sen)
Rick Noriega is running against John Cornyn, who has rubberstamped Bush’s agenda more than nearly every other senator. Cornyn is way ahead in fund raising, however, Noriega won more votes in the democratic primary than Cornyn did in the republican primary. I liken this to the election in Virgina in which Jim Webb beat George Allen. At the outset, it seemed impossible, but with a lot of help from Allen’s “macaca” moment and grassroots/netroots support, Webb pulled off a close victory.
Rick has set a fundraising goal of $35,000 by 3/31. At DailyKos, they’ve set a goal of 1000 donors per candidate. At 933, Rick is closing in on that number. Your donation, big or small, will help send a powerful message. Please help turn Texas purple by supporting Rick Noriega! You can support him at BlueMajority.
Doug Heckman (D-GA) announced yesterday that he will seek the seat of John Linder (R-GA) in the 7th district in the general election. Heckman is a Iraq War Veteran & Army Reserve Officer & Financial Executive. Website is http://www.DougHeckman.com
I can’t believe I forgot TX-Sen.
But in reply to your points about SC and WY:
1. I mean this list not as a list of races that are potentially viable for us. I just mean this list to be races that may be worth watching, for one reason or another. Even if we’re not likely to win, there are ones where I’d like to see news about a candidate, or I’d like to see what percentage they hold the R to, or something like that. To get a better feel of a district, for example, or a candidate.
2. If conservatives hate Graham enough in SC, something could happen. Unlikely, but a nonzero probability nevertheless.
3. WY-Sen-Special: Based on Trauner’s near-success two years ago, I’m not ruling this one out. But I’m not really too enthused about either candidate so far, although Carter’s definitely stronger, and has a vaguely-interesting campaign theme. And I’m not ignoring Barrasso until he proves that he’s a seat-holder with Thad Cochran consistency. He’s still a big “?” in my judgement.
4. As for WY-Sen (regular), I’m mainly paying attention to this to see how far Rothfuss gets. He seems like a very promising candidate (I actually sorta hope he switches to the other race), and I want to see him use this race to give himself name recognition more than anything else. I’m not expecting him to beat Enzi, but I’m also curious how much he’ll hold Enzi to.
I sometimes wonder if I’m doing the 50-state strategy with more hardcore-ness than the Dem leadership are doing, what with my making (by myself) full Senate and House lists by raking SSP and Senate Guru of congressional election information, and actually vaguely trying to keep track of all of them (by myself as well)…
Bud Gammom (D-GA) who is a former fighter pilot has announced his intentions to take on Phil Gingrey (R-GA) for the 11th district seat. Gammom was a congressional nominee to the U.S. Airforce Academy. Website is http://www.budgammon.us
Republican John Peterson has announced his retirement from PA District 5. This is great news as he is a rubber stamp for Bush.
We now have a primary — along with the primary between Obama and Hillary — where there are 3 good Democrats running and about 10 Republicans.
I know you all think this is a lock for the Republicans. But that may not be true. Penn State is in this District and their very active Democratic Student Group has enrolled a LOT of new votesrs — all Democrats.
Plus a lot of Republicans are changing parties and the Democrats are energized like nothing seen since Kennedy.
Now if we could get a little support, money wise, this is a golden opportunity for a Blue pickup.
How about it?? This is a big district in terms of geography but really cheap in terms of media.
I’m looking forward to seeing polls for Idaho and Louisiana Senate races, as well as New Hampshire and New Jersey. I see those races as the most likely to change in CQ’s rankings.
NC-Sen: I was just thinking about how there is a primary between the Lt. Governor and the State Treasurer. If only Richard Moore would have run for US Senate, we wouldn’t have as much of a problem as we are now.
“Blue Majority Endorsement Recommendation Thread” – A lot of people are posting guys who have sufficient backing, if you ask me. For example, Himes (CT-04) is already a top tier race. The DCCC is GOING to spend money for him. He is raising good money, and even if he weren’t, he could self fund a little.
Some “Already been endorsed” people don’t look like they need the financial backing anymore. For example, Darcy Burner, Donna Edwards, Eric Massa, Dan Maffei, Leslie Byrne, and Al Franken. Maybe you could make a “Blue Majority Alumnis” page, and a “Blue Majority” page. Someone recommended that when I brought this up in the Blue Maj. End. Thread.
I hate to bring Presidential politics into this, but this is worth knowing if you live in Indiana: http://politicalticker.blogs.c…
I also had a weird dream last night, so that’s on my mind too, but I won’t get into that
format: state[-district] Democrat/otherDemocrat (Republican/otherRepublican) (third) (party) (candidates) [retiring incumbent, if any]
Please fill in any holes I have here, and let me know of any other interesting races.
Senate
AK Begich (Stevens)
OR Merkley/Novick (Smith)
ID LaRocco (Risch) [Craig]
WY Rothfuss (Enzi)
WY-special N. Carter/Goodenough (Barrasso)
NM T. Udall (Pearce/Wilson) [Domenici]
CO M. Udall (Schaeffer) [Allard]
SD Johnson (?)
NE Kleeb/Ramiondo (Johanns) [Hagel]
OK Rice (Inhofe)
MN Franken/Nelson-Pallmeyer (Coleman)
LA Landrieu (Kennedy)
MS-special Musgrove (Wicker) [Lott]
KY Fischer/Lunsford (McConnell)
GA ? (Chambliss)
SC Cone/Turnipseed? (Graham) (McBride)
NC Neal/Hagan (Dole)
VA M. Warner (Gilmore) [J. Warner]
NJ Lautenberg (Sabrin/Pennacchio/Unanue)
NH Shaheen (Sununu)
ME Allen (Collins)
House
AK-AL Benson/Berkowitz/Metcalfe (Young)
WA-08 Burner (Reichert)
OR-05 [Hooley] (?)
CA-04 Brown (?) [Doolittle]
CA-12 Speier (?) [Lantos]
CA-45 P. Clay/Hunsicker/Bornstein (Bono Mack)
CA-46 D. Cook (Rohrabacher)
NV-02 Derby/? (Heller)
NV-03 ? (Porter)
UT-02 Matheson (?)
ID-01 Grant/Minnick (Sali)
WY-AL Trauner (Lummis/?) [Cubin]
AZ-01 Kirkpatrick/? (?) [Renzi]
AZ-05 Mitchell (?)
AZ-08 Giffords (Bee)
NM-01 Heinrich/? (?) [Wilson]
NM-02 McCamley/Teague/? (?) [Pearce]
NM-03 [Udall] Jon Adams/Wiviott (?)
TX-22 Lampson (Sekula-Gibbs)
TX-23 C. Rodriguez
NE-02 Esch/R. Carter (Terry)
NE-03 ? (A. Smith)
KS-02 Boyda (Ryun/Jenkins/?)
KS-03 Moore (Jordan)
MN-01 Walz (?)
MN-02 Sarvi/? (Kline)
MN-03 Bonoff/Madia (Paulsen) (Dillon) [Ramstad]
MN-06 Tinklenberg? (Bachman)
WI-08 Kagen (?)
MI-07 Schauer (Walberg)
MI-08 Alexander (Rogers)
MI-09 Peters (Knollenberg) (Kevorkian)
MI-11 Spencer/Kriewall (McCotter)
IA-01 Braley (Hartsuch)
IA-02 Loesback (Miller-Meeks/Tehen/Harder)
IA-03 [Boswell]/Fallon (x)
IL-06 Morgenthaler (Roskam)
IL-08 Bean (Greenberg) (Abernathy)
IL-10 Seals (Kirk) (Kalbfleisch)
IL-11 Halvorson (?) (Wallace) [Weller]
IL-14 Foster (Oberweis)
IL-16 Abboud (Manzullo) (Summers)
IL-18 C. Callahan (Schock) [LaHood]
IN-06 Welsh (Pence)
IN-07 Carson/? (Elrod)
IN-08 Ellsworth (?)
IN-09 Hill (Sodrel)
OH-01 Driehaus (Chabot)
OH-02 Wulsin (Schmidt)
OH-03 Mitakides (M. Turner)
OH-05 x (Latta)
OH-07 Neuhardt (Austria)
OH-12 Robinson (Tiberi)
OH-14 B. O’Neill (LaTourette)
OH-15 Kilroy (Stivers) [Pryce]
OH-16 Boccieri (Schuring) [Regula]
OH-18 Space (Dailey)
WV-02 Barth (Capito)
LA-01 Reed (Scalise/Burns) [Jindal]
LA-02 [Jefferson]/K. Carter/? (?)
LA-04 Cox? (?) [McCrery]
LA-06 Cazayoux/M. Jackson (Jenkins/Calongne) [Baker]
AL-02 Bright (?) [Everett]
AL-05 [Cramer] ? (?)
GA-01
GA-08 Marshall (?)
GA-11
GA-12 Barrow (?)
NC-08 Kissell (Hayes)
FL-09
FL-10
FL-13 Jennings (V. Buchanan)
FL-15 Higgs (Posey) (Bouffard) [D. Weldon]
FL-16 Mahoney (?)
FL-18 Taddeo (Ros-Lehtinen)
FL-21 R. Martinez (L. Diaz-Balart)
FL-22 Klein (?)
FL-24 Curtis/Kosas (Feeney)
FL-25 J. Garcia (M. Diaz-Balart)
VA-01
VA-05 Perriello (Goode)
VA-10 Feder/? (Wolf)
VA-11 Byrne/Connolly (?)
MD-01 Kratovil (Harris) [Gilchrest]
MD-04 Edwards (James) (Crider) [Wynn]
PA-03 Waltner/Foust/Dahlkemper (English)
PA-04 Altmire (Hart)
PA-05 ? (?) (Wilson) [Peterson]
PA-06 ? (Gerlach)
PA-08 P. Murphy (Manion)
PA-10 Carney (Meuser/C. Hackett)
PA-15 S. Bennett (Dent)
NJ-03 Adler (?) [Saxton]
NJ-05 Shulmann (Garrett)
NJ-07 Stender (?) [Ferguson]
NY-25 Maffei (?) [Walsh]
NY-26 Powers (?) [T. Reynolds]
NY-29 Massa (Kuhl)
CT-04 Hines (Shays)
CT-05 C. Murphy (Cappiello/Caligiuri) (Burbank)
NH-01 Shea-Porter (Bradley)
MA-05 [Meehan] Tsongas (Ogonowski)
ME-01 ? (?) (Eder?) [Allen]
other candidates:
Peter Goldmark (former WA-05, WA commissioner of public lands?)
Pete Ashdown (former UT-Sen)
Rick Noriega is running against John Cornyn, who has rubberstamped Bush’s agenda more than nearly every other senator. Cornyn is way ahead in fund raising, however, Noriega won more votes in the democratic primary than Cornyn did in the republican primary. I liken this to the election in Virgina in which Jim Webb beat George Allen. At the outset, it seemed impossible, but with a lot of help from Allen’s “macaca” moment and grassroots/netroots support, Webb pulled off a close victory.
Rick has set a fundraising goal of $35,000 by 3/31. At DailyKos, they’ve set a goal of 1000 donors per candidate. At 933, Rick is closing in on that number. Your donation, big or small, will help send a powerful message. Please help turn Texas purple by supporting Rick Noriega! You can support him at BlueMajority.
Doug Heckman (D-GA) announced yesterday that he will seek the seat of John Linder (R-GA) in the 7th district in the general election. Heckman is a Iraq War Veteran & Army Reserve Officer & Financial Executive. Website is http://www.DougHeckman.com
I can’t believe I forgot TX-Sen.
But in reply to your points about SC and WY:
1. I mean this list not as a list of races that are potentially viable for us. I just mean this list to be races that may be worth watching, for one reason or another. Even if we’re not likely to win, there are ones where I’d like to see news about a candidate, or I’d like to see what percentage they hold the R to, or something like that. To get a better feel of a district, for example, or a candidate.
2. If conservatives hate Graham enough in SC, something could happen. Unlikely, but a nonzero probability nevertheless.
3. WY-Sen-Special: Based on Trauner’s near-success two years ago, I’m not ruling this one out. But I’m not really too enthused about either candidate so far, although Carter’s definitely stronger, and has a vaguely-interesting campaign theme. And I’m not ignoring Barrasso until he proves that he’s a seat-holder with Thad Cochran consistency. He’s still a big “?” in my judgement.
4. As for WY-Sen (regular), I’m mainly paying attention to this to see how far Rothfuss gets. He seems like a very promising candidate (I actually sorta hope he switches to the other race), and I want to see him use this race to give himself name recognition more than anything else. I’m not expecting him to beat Enzi, but I’m also curious how much he’ll hold Enzi to.
I sometimes wonder if I’m doing the 50-state strategy with more hardcore-ness than the Dem leadership are doing, what with my making (by myself) full Senate and House lists by raking SSP and Senate Guru of congressional election information, and actually vaguely trying to keep track of all of them (by myself as well)…
Bud Gammom (D-GA) who is a former fighter pilot has announced his intentions to take on Phil Gingrey (R-GA) for the 11th district seat. Gammom was a congressional nominee to the U.S. Airforce Academy. Website is http://www.budgammon.us