DCCC Unveils Third Wave of Red To Blue

The DCCC is rolling out their third wave of candidates included in their Red To Blue fundraising program today:

AK-AL: Ethan Berkowitz

AZ-01: Ann Kirkpatrick

AZ-03: Bob Lord

CO-04: Betsy Markey

FL-21: Raul Martinez

FL-25: Joe Garcia

LA-04: Paul Carmouche

MD-01: Frank Kratovil

NM-01: Martin Heinrich

NM-02: Harry Teague

NV-03: Dina Titus

NY-13: Mike McMahon

VA-02: Glenn Nye

VA-11: Gerry Connolly

These additions swell the Red To Blue roster to 37 names, although the additions of Kirkpatrick, Titus, and Heinrich were previously announced. The full roster of Red To Blue candidates is available on the DCCC’s website.

The only mild surprise here for me is Frank Kratovil, who is up against far-right Republican Andy Harris in Maryland’s 1st CD, an R+9.8 district. I knew the DCCC would acknowledge this race as a pick-up opportunity, but I didn’t expect it to happen this soon.

The DCCC is also rolling out a new slate of 20 “Emerging Races”, a sort of “watch list” for future Red To Blue additions. Among them are Jill Derby (NV-02), Nick Leibham (CA-50), and Michael Skelly (TX-07). We’ll post the full list when we can.

UPDATE: Here’s the full list of “emerging races”:

AL-03: Josh Segall

CA-50: Nick Leibham

FL-09: John Dicks

FL-18: Annette Taddeo

IL-06: Jill Morgenthaler

IL-18: Colleen Callahan

IN-03: Mike Montagano

KY-02: David Boswell

MN-02: Steve Sarvi

MN-06: El Tinklenberg

NC-10: Dan Johnson

NJ-05: Dennis Shulman

NV-02: Jill Derby

OH-02: Vic Wulsin

PA-03: Kathy Dahlkemper

PA-06: Bob Roggio

PA-15: Sam Bennett

TX-07: Michael Skelly

VA-05: Tom Perriello

VA-10: Judy Feder

87 thoughts on “DCCC Unveils Third Wave of Red To Blue”

  1. I was entirely expecting Connelly to be added today though (one week after the primary – like Heinrich was)

    I need to go through my rankings and edit everything from 30 and on.  

  2. It is a great list.  I am particularly excited to see my friend Frank Kratovil on this list.  He is the hardest working campaigner I have ever met.  He is also both incredibly charismatic and a policy wonk.  He is also a strong champion of the constitution and is the type of better Democrat that Kos keeps talking about.

  3. Good to see the additional push into the Southwest with AZ-03, NM-02, NV-03 (Titus) and CO-04 being added to AZ-01 and NM-01.

  4. This is the first I’ve heard of him, which means this may be the only candidate ever added to Red to Blue that I hadn’t been familiar with already.

    VA-02 has been off the radar for like 9 months now.  What has put it back on?

    Is the Obama nomination the clinching factor?  (The district is 21% black, and I’m guessing that there’s historically been low turnout in that AA community.)

    I’m pleasantly surprised, because I always like contesting more seats, and Obama is playing hard in Virginia anyway so there should be a full strength Democratic campaign statewide, which helps (although if McCain is playing hard defense here and drives up GOP turnout in-district, it could actually hurt us here, depending on more detailed factors that I don’t know).

    ———–

    I’d like to see a post in the future that is all three red to blue lists, the “emerging races” list, and then the possibly competitive candidates (by our reckoning) that haven’t made any of the four lists.  That would be interesting.

  5. Betsy Markey and Ethan Berkowitz should have been on that list a long time ago. MD-01 is just about Van Hollen’s backyard.

  6. Also good to see FL-21 (Martinez) and FL-25 (Garcia) on the list.  No free pass – not this election — this is our time.  Has Wasserman Schultz completed political “Finishing School”?

  7. I’m sorry the D Trip did not add Annette Taddeo at the same time they added the two men. They should not appear to overlook the woman candidate when the three are to some extent coordinating in their effort to flip the South Florida Hispanic districts.

    Ms. Taddeo is a very attractive candidate from what I’ve seen on her website, and Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, her opponent, is correspondingly unattractive, unless you go for Scientology (yeah, low blow, I know, but fact-based).

    Taddeo has owned and operated a successful translation service and language teaching business for 15 years. She is Columbian-born to Columbian mother and Italian-American father, married to a nice Jewish doctor.

    Her website shows a business background. Check out her page “Campaign Prospectus.” She has hired top pollster Celinda Lake, as well as other top campaign professionals with recent experience in special elections in Louisiana and Mississippi, as well as in Florida contests.

    Congressional District 18 at a glance

    • Party Registration – 35% Democrat, 39.4% Republican, and 25.6% Independent

    •  CD-18 is seeing historic increases in Democratic registration… If the trend continues, there will be only a two point lead in Republican registration.

    • Likely Voters

    40% White (Anglo), 30% Cuban-American, 22% Non-Cuban Hispanic

    •  Bill Nelson (Dem) received over 56% of the vote in CD-18 in 2006; Alex Sink (Dem) received 52.3% of the vote in CD-18.

    • After carrying CD-18 by 8 points in 2004, George Bush is now viewed negatively by nearly 70% of the district’s voters. Nearly 60% have a major problem with Ros-Lehtinen rubber stamping Bush’s policies 85% of the time.

    •  In 2006, two State House races in CD-18 changed from Red to Blue, as long-time Republican seats went Democratic in areas that included Little Havana, Miami Beach, and the Florida Keys.

    I’m adding this one to my list of expected Democratic pick-ups.

  8. Talk about In Your Face, GOP:

    http://www.actblue.com/page/em

    The DCCC also announced 20 emerging races. In each of these races, Democratic candidates have generated excitement in their districts for their campaigns for change:

    Sam Bennett (PA-15)

    David Boswell (KY-02)

    Colleen Callahan (IL-18)

    Kathy Dahlkemper (PA-03)

    Jill Derby (NV-02)

    John Dicks (FL-09)

    Judy Feder (VA-10)

    Nick Leibham (CA-50)

    Dan Johnson (NC-10)

    Mike Montagano (IN-03)

    Jill Morgenthaler (IL-06)

    Tom Perriello (VA-05)

    Bob Roggio (PA-06)

    Steve Sarvi (MN-02)

    Dennis Shulman (NJ-05)

    Josh Segall (AL-03)

    Michael Skelly (TX-07)

    Annette Taddeo (FL-18)

    El Tinklenberg (MN-06)

    Vic Wulsin (OH-02)

  9. cause most of these races are the one’s we’ve been discussing as the one’s we could take in a wave election.

    Nice to see that our leadership gets it.

    Very impressive list but add NJ-5 to red to blue!

    I like the idea of the watch list too, gives people publicly an opportunity to see that they are not being ignored by the big wigs and might help with fundraising for those democrats. It’s easier to call fundraise  when you can say “If you donate you might be able to get us DCCC backing.”

    Good work as usual from DCCC nice to know we have people who know what they are doing.

  10. Is this the only race with a primary?  Up until this point they added to the list only after the primaries were complete.  With the late, Sept 9, primary in NY waiting would not have had as big of an impact but I have very mixed feelings on the DCCC putting this district on the list.  There is plenty of help they could have offered behind the scenes while letting the race play out.  

  11.    I’m very pleased that loud-and-proud progressive Democrat Joe Garcia made the list.  He and Martinez have been raising crazy amounts of money.  I’m a little disappointed and not surprised that there is not a single Pennsylvania race in the Red to Blue program.  It seems our races are always late to develop.  In 2006 people only thought Joe Sestak (who was himself something of a late entrant) would win in Pennsylvania.  But we turned out 4 Republican incumbents – more than any other state.  

  12. I think Rep. Kathy Castor will run for Governor in 2010. She has a base in Tampa, a famous last name, she’s progressive, a good leader, and young. Is Mel Martinez retiring or something, because I’ve heard he’s pretty popular and would be very hard to beat.  

  13. I cannot think of a better time to be a Democratic political junkie.  There are literally dozes of interesting races out there — and most of these are races we can win.  From that standpoint, I am going to enjoy these times because we may not have the winds at our backs at this level again for a long time.  

    I agree on the inclusion of FL-25.  People I know who follow politics down there say Joe Garcia is running a strong, aggressive campaign, and that the Diaz-Balarts are really worried about the race (perhaps even more so than in Lincoln’s race).  

    From my own personal standpoint, I am really tuned into our candidates in NJ-05 and TX-07.  I think we have two very strong, very intriguing nominees running against two ultra-right wingers.  Shulman and Skelly, I think are going to continue to run superb under the radar campaigns, and have a real shot (along with many others listed here) at ousting Scott Garrett and John Culberson.

Comments are closed.