| Likely D | Lean D | Tossup | Lean R | Likely R |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| CT-05 (Murphy) GA-12 (Barrow) IL-08 (Bean) IN-02 (Donnelly) KS-03 (Moore) MN-01 (Walz) NY-13 (Open) NY-19 (Hall) NY-24 (Arcuri) OH-18 (Space) PA-08 (Murphy) TX-23 (Rodriguez) |
AL-05 (Open) AZ-05 (Mitchell) AZ-08 (Giffords) CA-11 (McNerney) FL-16 (Mahoney) GA-08 (Marshall) IL-14 (Foster) IN-09 (Hill) KS-02 (Boyda) KY-03 (Yarmuth) MS-01 (Childers) NH-01 (Shea-Porter) NJ-03 (Open) NY-20 (Gillibrand) NY-25 (Open) OR-05 (Open) PA-04 (Altmire) PA-10 (Carney) PA-11 (Kanjorski) VA-11 (Open) WI-08 (Kagen) |
AK-AL (Young) AL-02 (Open) AZ-01 (Open) CO-04 (Musgrave) IL-11 (Open) LA-06 (Cazayoux) LA-04 (Open) MI-07 (Walberg) MN-03 (Open) NJ-07 (Open) NM-01 (Open) NV-03 (Porter) OH-15 (Open) OH-16 (Open) TX-22 (Lampson) WA-08 (Reichert) |
CT-04 (Shays) FL-21 (L. Diaz-Balart) FL-24 (Feeney) FL-25 (M. Diaz-Balart) IL-10 (Kirk) MI-09 (Knollenberg) MO-06 (Graves) MO-09 (Open) NC-08 (Hayes) NM-02 (Open) NY-26 (Open) NY-29 (Kuhl) OH-01 (Chabot) OH-02 (Schmidt) PA-03 (English) VA-02 (Drake) |
AL-03 (Rogers) AZ-03 (Shadegg) CA-04 (Open) CA-26 (Dreier) CA-46 (Rohrabacher) CA-50 (Bilbray) FL-08 (Keller) FL-13 (Buchanan) FL-18 (Ros-Lehtinen) ID-01 (Sali) IL-06 (Roskam) IL-18 (Open) IN-03 (Souder) KY-02 (Open) LA-07 (Boustany) MD-01 (Open) MN-06 (Bachmann) NE-02 (Terry) NJ-05 (Garrett) NV-02 (Heller) OH-07 (Open) PA-06 (Gerlach) PA-15 (Dent) TX-07 (Culberson) TX-10 (McCaul) VA-05 (Goode) VA-10 (Wolf) WV-02 (Capito) WY-AL (Open) |
|
11 D, 1 R
|
18 D, 3 R
|
2 D, 14 R
|
16 R
|
29 R
|
Races to Watch:
| CA-03 (Lungren) | IL-13 (Biggert) | MN-02 (Kline) | OK-01 (Sullivan) |
| CA-45 (B. Mack) | IN-04 (Buyer) | NC-10 (McHenry) | PA-05 (Open) |
| CA-52 (Open) | KS-04 (Tiahrt) | NJ-04 (Smith) | SC-01 (Brown) |
| IA-04 (Latham) | LA-01 (Scalise) | OH-03 (Turner) | SC-02 (Wilson) |
Today’s ratings changes:
Despite all the hype surrounding the DCCC’s recruitment of Montgomery Mayor Bobby Bright, we have until now been skeptical of Bright’s ability to seal the deal in this conservative R+13.2 district. No longer.
Republicans emerged from their primary with deep divisions – divisions that Bright is now capitalizing on, as most recently evidenced by his endorsement from the Republican mayor of Dothan, the second-largest population center of the district. With two recent polls showing Bright leading by 10 points, the Republicans can no longer claim a clear edge here.
This race is certainly still a long shot, but Alabama’s 3rd District was drawn to elect a Democrat, and it almost did so in 2002. GOP Rep. Mike Rogers has held this district since then with ease, but attorney Josh Segall’s fundraising (he’s raised $521K since starting his campaign earlier this year) and the district’s demographics can’t be ignored.
All is not well in Musgraveland. A divisive reputation and years of being pounded by negative third-party ads seems to have taken a heavy toll on GOP Rep. Marilyn Musgrave’s political health. The two most recent polls of this race have shown the incumbent trailing Democrat Betsy Markey by seven points in this Dem-trending R+8.4 district (the SUSA poll showed the presidential race nearly tied). The NRCC’s decision to reserve a whopping $1.2 million in ad time for this district is quite telling, too. A tossup this is.
Democrat Mark Schauer, a state senator, is a proven vote-getter in the conservative-leaning Battle Creek area, but his campaign against frosh GOP weirdo Tim Walberg has yet to engage fully. However, the cold hard reality of the numbers are catching up to Walberg — a recent EPIC-MRA poll shows his lead shrinking to a mere three points, while his job approval rating is in the dumps. With voters clearly frustrated with the status quo in Michigan, Walberg’s political fate is very much up in the air.
Under the rubric we use to rate races at SSP, a race in the “likely” column is one where an upset cannot be completely, entirely ruled out. We’re pretty sure that we can rule one out in New Hampshire’s 2nd District. Democrat Paul Hodes has by all accounts performed well in his first term in office, and all the polls we’ve seen confirm this. Hodes’ Republican challengers are a sorry lot, and are squandering their meager resources on a meaningless and mostly annoying primary. The eventual GOP victor does not stand a ghost of a chance against Hodes in November in this Dem-trending district.
It’s hard to believe, but the GOP’s chances of retaining this Staten Island-based district get worse and worse by the week. The only real candidate that the GOP could find, former state Assemblyman Robert Straniere, is both hated and unloved. And it shows in his fundraising, with only a paltry $15,000 raised for his campaign so far. Furthermore, his primary against physician Jamshad Wyne has taken a turn for the ugly and racist. The cherry on top? Straniere admits that he can’t even vote for himself in the primary, as he lives in Manhattan — very much a game killer in the parochial nature of Staten Island politics. Meanwhile, Democrat Mike McMahon continues to steamroll in fundraising.
We don’t enjoy making this call, but it’s hard to deny that Democrats have engaged in a damaging and resource-draining primary here between nutjob billionaire Jack Davis, Iraq vet Jon Powers, and attorney Alice Kryzan. Davis, in particular, has leveled some damaging accusations against Powers’ charity work on behalf of Iraqi children that continue to cause unwanted headaches for his campaign. Moreover, Davis himself is crazy as fuck, and there’s a very real chance that he could win the primary here due to his massive spending and name ID advantage from two previous campaigns. If so, we may be looking at a Likely R race against the relatively noncontroversial (so far) and well-funded Republican businessman Chris Lee.
If this winds up being a Powers-Lee race, this could return to tossup state at some point, especially if the DCCC brings its considerable resources to bear and if the NRCC can’t follow suit.
The GOP’s poll numbers in this R+1.6 district must be atrocious, because incumbent Phil English has clearly hit the panic button with a summer full of defensive campaign ads, and the NRCC itself has set aside over $800K in ad time to attack Democratic candidate Kathy Dahlkemper. Does that sound like behavior that merits a “Likely Republican” rating to you? Yeah, me neither.
Isn’t it time to move WY-AL to “lean republican”. Trauner was leading in the latest poll and has had the best fundraising so far.
He is running a great campaign and are getting som positive media coverage. I wouldn’t it would be a huge upset if he wins come November. Or?
I thought NC-8 was rated a tossup – what changed there?
Joel Haugen, the R nominee in OR-1 (David Wu’s district) who had previously endorsed Obama, has decided to withdraw as the Republican candidate and instead run as the candidate of the Independent Party. The Republicans have until 9/4 to replace him but I think it’s too late to get in the voter’s pamphlet.
This district, my district, is Likely to Safe D…
Given SurveyUSA’s poll, I’d say it’s time to move FL-21 to Toss-Up. Martinez’s fundraising is running close enough to Diaz-Balart’s; the DCCC could plug any gaps if necessary.
Jon Powers will win the Dem primary by a huge margin. We can trust Dem primary voters not to elect someone like Jack Davis.
I’d move all the names one column to the left. As I said before in July, and probably in June and May and maybe back in April. I predict a wave.
But let me make the case slightly differently:
Not even the NRCC agrees with SSP on these rankings.
That left hand column of “Likely D’s” — in another post by James L. today, following a similar one on Wednesday, some races were listed where the NRCC says it plans to spend money. The two lists together have 26 races. None of the 26 are names listed here as merely “Likely D.” That’s because they are Safe D and don’t belong on this table.
I don’t know all those races well enough to declare for sure, but really, to see Ciro Rodriguez name lingering around makes me think that the list is not fact-based. Rodriguez has raised a ton of money ($1.2 million CoH end of June). His Spanish-surnamed Repub challenger lost to the Anglo challenger in the Repub primary. Now the Anglo Repub is going up against the Hispanic Democrat is a district drawn by court order to be majority Hispanic. And any faint tint of red the district once had was due to the Hispanic’s homestate support of George W. Bush in ’04, and polling suggests that all of that has evaporated in the Great Chihuahua Desert which contains this district. Just to check if I had missed something (my mother no longer lives in his district due to the new lines) I went and searched Burnt Orange Report, Capitol Annex, and Texas Kaos. There was not one word about Ciro or this race that suggested anyone is paying any attention to it at all whatsoever. The only concerns must come from experts a thousand miles away.
But seriously, is anyone on the ground really worried about CT-05 (Murphy), GA-12 (Barrow), IL-08 (Bean), IN-02 (Donnelly), KS-03 (Moore), MN-01 (Walz), NY-13 (Open) REALLY?, NY-19 (Hall), NY-24 (Arcuri), OH-18 (Space), or PA-08 (Murphy)? Most of them are in states where Obama will win with more than 5% of the vote. Georgia has a massive voter registration drive going on. Otherwise only Ohio might be close at the Presidential level, but no one expects a rip tide reversal of the results in ’06. And then Kansas, yeah, well, leave it on the list, I dunno why or why not.
Then that next column, looks like the NRCC thinks they still have a shot at Lampson, Boyda, Mahoney, and Cazayoux. Maybe they do. But I’d move half or more of the races listed as “Toss-Ups” into the “Lean D” column. The Open Seats are open mostly because the Repub incumbents thought they might lose. Those races should now be Lean D.
So even using Repub sources, I say this list is far too timid.
Well, we shall see how this all turns out.
Rogers hasn’t had a serious challenger in the last 2 elections. Segall has raised over twice what the 04 candidate raised. This district is 33% african american. Segall needs less than a third of the white vote. State wide dems nearly swept the district in 06. Most of the local electeds are dems. This is a classic case of Reagan Dems who don’t feel the national dem party represents them culturally or improves their daily lives.