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

  1. NY-26 – I’m worried about Jon Powers losing the primary to whacko self funder Jack Davis.  

    ID-01 – Walt Minnick has raised more money total, and has more cash on hand than Rep. Bill Sali.  Talk about game over.  

    VA-11 – George Connelly came in with a very strong Q1.  I really don’t see the point anymore.  

  2. You mean to tell me I still have to refer to my Almanac? All joking aside cool resources, thanks.

  3. Just a reminder that for the first time since 2002, Michigan’s House delegation could shift (from 9-6 Republican to 8-7 Democrat).

    In MI-07, state Sen. Mark Schauer has outraised Tim Walberg, a freshman pawn of the Club for Growth — this despite a recent Walberg fundraiser featuring Dick Cheney.

    And in MI-09, former state Sen. Gary Peters picked up the endorsement of former primary opponent Nancy Skinner (whose 51-46 loss in ’06 to Joe Knollenberg put the district on the DCCC’s radar). Peters has plenty of cash-on-hand and good name recognition, from both his state Senate days and his successful run as Michigan Lottery Commissioner.

    Knollenberg knows he’s in for a fight, which is good news for the rest of the country since otherwise he could use his cash reserves to help vulnerable Repubs in other districts.

  4. Yet another poll on this race, but it’s a reprise from Survey USA so now we can start developing trendlines. For April 17, it’s Gregoire 50%, Rossi 46%. (Previous Survey USA poll was April 7, and was Gregoire 48%, Rossi 47%.) I’d expect about a 4-6% margin with a few points going to third-party candidates, so this looks right on the mark.

  5. It looks like this race is really heating up.

    Bob Lord, a Democrat, raised $220k this quarter, and John Shadegg, a 7-term Republican incumbent, only raised $150k!

    Shadegg announced his retirement earlier this year and then decided to run again. He also got bad press for an FEC scandal. Those two must have really hurt him, not to mention all his bad policy choices.

    Lord is perfect to represent CD3. He fits the bill for that district and he’s a candidate who really cares. He’s a great guy too.  

  6. In VA-05 my least favorite Republican (Virgil Goode) just got outraised for the second time in a row by one of my favorite Democratic challengers, Tom Perriello. The DCCC is now targeting the race and it could be a very, very interesting race.

    Also in my own backyard Ashwin Madia who is a upstart Iraq War vet just beat out the establishment canidate and won the DFL (Minnesota Democratic Party) endorsement. Now the DCCC has added him to the Red to Blue program. It is going to be a very exiting race.

    I’m also very exited about the possibility of sending a wind energy guru to GHWB’s old seat. Michael Skelly is running a fantastic campaign and raised more money then any other canidate in the nation. This could well be competitive.  

  8. Josh Segall has posted some huge fundraising numbers for the first quarter and out raised the incumbent Mike Rogers.  The district is R+4 and is the second least Republican district in the state, second only to Arthur Davis’s (Cramer’s is R+6).  This is a district we can win in and one we need to target.  

    1. I love wikipedia. But it needs a standard word of caution that it’s simple to edit the pages there, and therefore simple to vandalize the info as well, which could and does go undetected for quite a while.

      It would be nice if there were an online page somewhere (which can’t be changed) with up-to-date PVI’s calculated

  9. This week the DCCC added ID-01 (Minnick) and MN-03 (Madia)to the Red to Blue program.  I suggest the following races are could be added to the Red to Blue program today without delay, by region:

    East: NY-25 (Maffei), MD-01 (Kratovil)

    Midwest: OH-02 (Wulsin), IL-18 (Callahan)

    South: MS-01 (Childers) – sleath member already?, Al-03 (Segall), FL-21 (Martinez), FL-25 (Garcia)

    West: AZ-03 (Lord), CO-04(Markey), NV-02 (Derby)

  10. There are so many random races that very well could be extremely competitive that we could win (VA-5, MS-3, NJ-5).  I think that if there really is a huge wave and Obama brings it out, we could win like 40-50 seats.  If America really is sick of Republicans and Obama brings out huge numbers of voters (he did so here in MN) then I dont see how we wont gain a shit ton of seats.  We’ve already got a good 15 seats we can pick-up regardless of nominee and a number of others it will be close.  Obama coattails (if they are what I hope they are) is going to blow this out of the water and we will pick-up seats in every region of the country and a lot of them.

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