Van Hollen – Why so FEW Seats??

42 thoughts on “Van Hollen – Why so FEW Seats??”

1. We should have gained at least another 10 seats.  We should have won IL-10, WA-08, MN-03, NJ-07, NE-02, and PA-06 among others.  I dont know if we are going to have another chance to try and make gains the way we did in 2008.  

2. Well, I suppose if you were deluded enough to seriously believe we were going to gain 50+ seats, then Tuesday was a stunning disappointment.

   I think there were two factors at play here:
   
   1. We underestimated ticket splitting among moderate suburban voters.  I really don’t know how much money we could (or couldn’t) have spent to change that.  People on this very website would have been screaming their heads off if we didn’t spending money tons of money on races like IL-10 and WA-08, yourself included.  I think this aspect needs to be a valuable lesson to all of us about making assumptions about the electorate and the nature of coattails.
   
   2. Relatedly, people in more conservative districts were pretty certain that Obama was going to win, so they weren’t about to hand over all the keys to Washington to the Dems.  OH-02-ers may loathe Jean Schmidt, but a vote for Vic Wulsin was a vote for Nancy Pelosi.  I think we underestimated that as well.  I’d agree, that we probably shouldn’t have wasted as much money in these districts, but if we hadn’t spent anything at all, we wouldn’t be looking at Reps. Bright, Kratovil, Minnick, or Markey, now would we?).

   So, no, I don’t think it was a bad night, and I think chasing after Chris Van Hollen with torches and pitch forks is a little out of touch with reality.  I was expecting a net gain in the high 20s, but I’m hardly feeling enraged or suicidal that it was “only” in the low 20s.  We overestimated our support among a few key demos; somehow the Republic will soldier on.

   What really concerns me about this attitude is that 2010 isn’t going to be nearly as good for us for obvious reasons.  If people are writing off a 20+ gain as failure, how the hell are they going to deal with an election where we’re probably looking at a net LOSS.  I’m not saying that this election couldn’t have been better, because it certainly could have, I’m saying that please, for the sake of our community and our party, get a grip and get your ass in gear for 2010.  

3. The problem is that first time voters in many states did not vote down the ballot.  That’s where the real problem lies and the DCCC did not emphasize the importance of down ballot races.  Looking at some states here’s what we find:

   Arizona – State became more radical Republican

   Pennsylvania – State experienced very little change and this is a Democratic state.  We were only able to knock off 1 Republican, when Dent and Gerlach were in great positions to be knocked off.  The reason why neither were targeted is because both Kanjorski and Murtha created problems.  Hope that both of them retire by 2010.

   The only states that experienced surges for Democrats were:

   Nevada – And we knocked off 2 Rep State Senators, Porter, and came close to taking out Heller (however DCCC spending arrived too late).

   Michigan – Democrats picked up nine seats in the State House, even when they were expected to lose seats.  We also took out Walberg and Knollenberg.  The defeat of Knollenberg was already in the bag, yet Walberg and his Club for Growth buddies weren’t willing to give up that easy.

   Colorado – Democrats gained one additional seat in the State Senate by winning an open seat that featured a Tom Tancredo radical.

4. I was saying high teens, low twenties for the longest time – I only went up to thirty because of Sabato and Cook. A net gain of at least twenty seats, just two years after netting 30 is pretty damn good. I think there is only one other comparable example in history if I’m not mistaken.

5. …he was a no recruit.  The Republicans failed at ANY attempt at recruiting except for one candidate who actually died.  Candidates who actually had a shot in hell were actually chased away.  After finding no one they decided to choose someone among a rather sad crew who decided to run anyway despite of rather than because of the Republican party.  And even then they made a horrid choice (Morano who got the Independence Party endorsement would’ve been the strongest).

   As a side note I’ll also note McCain won Staten Island 52 to 48.  Notice the drop off in support between McCain and Straniere.  And this was after Straniere based his entire campaign on trying to tie himself as closely to McCain as possible.

   http://blog.silive.com/politic…

6. I’m pretty satisfied with the DCCC performance overall

   Sure, there were districts where perhaps better judgment could have been made – either because potentially competitive candidates weren’t supported, or too much was spent on campaigns that lost.

   But these decisions are made based on the information available at the time in a constantly dynamic and shifting environment. Polls, candidate performance, district dynamics, past results, presidential coattails or lack thereof, news cycles etc were all constantly changing. Invariably any campaign committee worth their salt is going to spend some money on races that don’t pan out, is going to put money into other races that turn out to be icing on the cake, and some races end up not getting funding but coming close to winning.

   I’ve been part of making decisions about candidate support both for national PACs and at the state legislative party committee level — the day after the election is often makes you second-guess the decisions you made in September and October (or earlier).

   This year, we were on the offense, working to win Republican seats — that invariably involves some amount of risk and gambling, and some of those gambles won’t pay off.

   I think your idea that 13 of the seats “required little to no effort” is misguided. Four of the seats certainly fit that description (AZ-1, NY-13, NY 25 and VA11), but I’d argue that the DCCC effort in the other races made sense and could have been part of what it took to win the seats. Campaigns are decided by a mixture of factors and efforts, and attributing a win to a single factor is over-simplifying things too much. Yes, black turnout was essential to in NC-8, OH-1, and VA-2, but in races this close, a victory isn’t guaranteed unless all the pieces come together – being on the air, attacking the opponent, raising the challenger’s name ID, etc are all part of what allows a candidate take advantage of underlying dynamics. Pretending to know would have happened in any of these districts without DCCC involvement is stretching things way to far.

   I’d especially take issue with many of the races you characterized as “wasted” money — even if in the end the races didn’t work out the way we would have liked, most of them were worth investing in.  

   Young in Alaska? Hell yeah, ethics-challenged Republican incumbent who spent much of the cycle running behind the Democratic opponent. Palin on the ticket saved his ass, but it was still worth trying.

   Lampson in Texas? Sure, it was a tough district won under bizarre conditions in 2006, but a party doesn’t abandon their incumbents (except under Mahoney type of conditions) , and Lampson made a race of it. Pete Olsen’s mini-scandal (around voter fraud)  could have taken root and swayed the race — as it was, the Republican was held to 52% in a heavily GOP district.

   Baker in MO-9? While we probably didn’t nominate our strongest potential candidate, Judy Baker ran a decent race and ended up with almost 48% of the vote — the Columbia vote for Obama nearly pulled her over in the open seat race. This race could have gone the other way, in which case we’d be hailing the DCCC for their brilliance in supporting her.

   Tinklenberg? When a Republican incumbent finishing her first term makes a major gaffe two weeks before the election, when the Democratic candidate was a moderate local official who was a good fit for the district, where polls showed a major shift in favour of the challenger, and when the final margin was only about 3% for the Republican — it seems to me that spending money there was a good decision.

   Lincoln Diaz-Balart? While the final results were a disappointment, the polls were very close until the very end, our candidate was a popular (if controversial) local office holder, and the race was part of a long term investment in picking the lock on the Republican Cuban vote in Miami-Dade.

   Victoria Wuslin? After a much closer than expected finish two years ago, it was definitely worth going in to try to finish Mean Jean off. A very Republican district, but Schmidt only managed to get 45% (because of an independent candidate)  – this race could have gone otherwise, and keeping Schmidt from establishing a solid hold on this district (at least until 2012 redistricting) is money well spent.

   Souder? Souder only got 54% 2 years ago, polls showed a very close race, and the Obama ground game in the state gave reason for hope. I would have preferred if Hayhurst had run again, but this was a reasonable gamble in a Republican district (against a despicable congressman).

   Trauner in WY? Open seat, candidate who almost pulled an upset 2 years ago, divisive Republican primary. It was definitely worth trying to pull this one off — and worth continuing to do party building in another Rocky Mountain state.

   Kay Barnes was a good recruit, but Graves campaign against her was extremely brutal and effective — a candidate with a  rural base potentially  would have been stronger here, but it was worth a try. If Democrats are going to be competitive in MO, then we’ve got to invest in rural areas (like MO-6 and MO-9) instead of ceding that territory to the GOP and retreating entirely to the city/suburban enclaves.

   Bob Lord/ John Shadegg? Questionable, but another one of those Republican districts that is worth gambling on — the incumbent was initially uncertain about running, the challenger showed strength, and party loyalty in west is very much in flux — even if we didn’t knock Shadegg off, this is territory that is growing and very much up for grabs in future elections.

   The only race you consider “wasted” money that I would agree with is Scott in GA — there is no way that Honeycutt was ever a serious challenger in a district like this, and the Obama turnout guaranteed a Democratic victory. The DCCC fell for a bad poll and wasted money here when they should have known better.
   
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   As for races that should have been targeted – I agree with many of your choices, but several of them were real surprises in terms of being close — expecting the DCCC to have anticipated what almost no one else did in CA-44, PA-6, or NY-24 is not totally realistic.

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   I’m not going to play Monday-morning quarterback after a successful election… I would have loved another 20 seats, but that would have been an amazing outcome, not something there was reason to expect. Van Hollen did a great job this year, and I hope he stays on for another cycle.

7. Not the beginning of your post, the beginning of this election.  The job of Chris Van Hollen as head of the DCCC is recruiting candidates, raising funds, and organizing in close races.  

   FL-24: WHY Do you think Feeney DID an “Apology” ad?  You don’t pull that s*** when you are ahead.  His apology ad didn’t kill him, a strong Recruit and the political climate killed him.  

   NC-08: Do you seriously think Kissell could have won without over 2 million dollars from the DCCC?  The fundraising paid off for CVH.

   VA-05: Goode is going to barely lose.  How can you say the D-Trip spending didn’t make a difference?
   
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   Please, tell me how you can blame CVH for Mahoney being unable to keep it in his pants?  Or Boyda refusing DCCC assistance?  Or Sekulla-Gibbs not running a write-in campaign this time?  Or Michael Jackson running as a third party candidate?  You bring those four losses in like there is something CVH and the D-Trip could have done about it and that is simply not true.  
   
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   How can you say spending on Brown in South Carolina or Capito-Moore in West Virginia were good ideas?  Brown won 60-40.  Do you consider Zack Space of Ohio a very weak incumbent?  Let alone about another 50+ Democrats who didn’t break 60%?  Capito-Moore blew Barth out of the water 57-43 or so.  The amount of money they spent here was a waste.  The timing would not have changed the effectiveness of it.  

   I don’t see how you can call MO-09 “wasted money”.  If Luetkemeyer would not have loaned his campaign over 1 million dollars in the last two weeks, he probably would have lost.  He only won by 2.5%.  

   Tiberi and Latham both won by 20 points.  I don’t know how you can say they should have been targetted with a straight face, in any context.  DCCC did not spend any money against Bilbray in CA, so I don’t know why you are saying they pulled out.  
   
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   The truth is, the DCCC had strong recruits, and kept almost all their incumbents on board for 2008.  Van Hollen fundraised like a work-horse and broke a lot of records.  Hindsight is 20/20, and I still question some of your analysis.  Republicans showed out in big numbers in a lot of places to vote for McCain and Palin, that saved a lot of Republicans.  Deal with it.  

8. There are some real problems with the analysis you've put up here, and it seems to me that you're assuming that the DCCC must be at fault for the Democratic seats that were lost, even though there is no inclination that the DCCC action or inaction can really be seen as being even a remote cause of their loss.

   First of all, you're blaming the DCCC for not spending money in races which broke late, and had, before then, not really shown much inclination towards being competitive. Joe Wilson of SC-02 won re-election with over 60% of the vote in 2006, and Rob Miller wasn't really a top tier candidate. If the DCCC would've put money into that race then the NRCC would've also dumped money there, the margin would've been the same, and then you'd be complaining that the DCCC wasted money in the district. In IA-04, Latham beat Greenwald by over 20 points, so I'm not entirely sure what DCCC money would've really done, only let her lose by 10 points? In CA-44, there was never any sort of reason to believe that Calvert was as vulnerable as he was, no one, not Rothenberg, Cook, or anyone who had knowledge of that race had any inclination that the race was ever going to be close. Arcuri's close performance didn't have anything to do with a lack of money, since he had raised twice as much money as his opponent. Gerlach's opponent in PA-06 only raised about a quarter of what he did, and the media market here is in Philadelphia's (extremely expensive) media market, so in order to make a dent the DCCC would've had to spend millions in this district, one which featured a relatively weak challenger.

   I'm also finding it incredibly amusing that you complain that the DCCC was wasting money by going into OH-02 and MN-06, but you think they should've gone into TX-10, a district that is just as Republican as those two and that didn't have an incumbent who was nearly as controversial as either Schmidt or Bachmann, there's some real consistency problems with your argument. You're also complaining that the DCCC didn't come up with something which would've “attacked Jackson, yet in a way which didn't come across as being offensive to African-Americans.” That's gotta be a joke right? Jackson was always something that was always out of the DCCC and Cazayoux's hands, that ego-maniac is what cost Cazayoux the seat, and there was nothing the DCCC could've done about it.

9. Fundraise, Candidate recruitment, help candidates fundraise for themselves, and independent expenditures. Fundraising department was great, helping the candidates fundraise for themselves was great, and while there were certainly many lost opportunities you have to realize a few things:

   2008 wasn’t supposed to be as easy as 2006, we basically tried to eliminate what we narrowly lost in ’06 and tried to expand the field in races that weren’t deemed competitive in ’06. PA-06 certainly was a missed opportunity, but it’s hindsight. The Dcrew, after blowing ~15 million in the last 2 cycles in this district decided not to go after Gerlach when candidate recruitment (which was the main problem) went bad. Certainly a 2 million ad buy at the end would have brought Roggio over the top, but 2 million aint chump change. The other 2 districts which some may know I constantly bitch about candidate failure there – AL-03 and MI-11, the Dcrew really failed here. We had a good candidate in AL-03, an expenditure of ~1 million could have brought Segall over the top, and Bright coattails may have helped him in Montgomery, but the main problem was that Auburn didn’t support Segall enoughg. MI-11, i’ve always argued, would be a very easy district as its trending Democratic, has a terrible terrible incumbent, and we’d be able to hold it in the future. 2 Cycles however of bad candidate recruitment have made what were very close margins, completely missed opportunities.

   Races that I blame Democrats (and no, not just the DCCC, and besides CVH is not a wizard) are: MI-11, PA-06, PA-15, FL-15, and to smaller extents CA-50 and AL-03. Otherwise, I think the DCCC and CVH did about as good a job as is reasonable possible.

10. I don’t think ANYONE expected there to be a close race. ANYONE. Certainly not here at SSP, where we didn’t consider it Lean Dem, Likely Dem, or even a race to watch.

    To come here now claiming that the D-trip “should have” spent money on Arcuri seems very Nostradamian of you.

    Additionally, just to contradict your statement about Judy Baker, take a look at Rick Boucher. I don’t think anyone here’s going to claim that VA-09 is not “rural”, and yet he is very pro-choice, like 100% from NARAL pro-choice. (http://www.ontheissues.org/VA/Rick_Boucher.htm)

11. I really don’t see how we could have expected too much more from CVH and the DCCC.  

    There were a couple of races, like the ones mentione in AL 3 here money should have been spent and a few races were recruits should have been gotten but even the DCCC can’t do everything.  

    We picked off many of the weaker incumbents and a few open seats in 06.  We picked off a couple more and more open seats this year.  The fact is, the incumbents we wen’t up against this year were in a much stronger position than the ones we went after in 06.  

    Maybe if you didn’t do rediculous things like expect us to win 52 seats and then whine about what we have, people wouldn’t think your a troll.  

12. money dumped into a race does NOT translate, not even close, to vote percentage increase.  Maybe there’s a weak correlation, but there’s NO WAY that money can translate anywhere neatly into margin.

13. Not to nitpick, but by my count winning both VA-05 and OH-15 would give us a net gain of 22, not 21.

    GAINS (Counting Perriello & Kilroy)
    
    1. Bright, AL-02
    
    2. Kirkpatrick, AZ-01
    
    3. Markey, CO-04
    
    4. Himes, CT-04
    
    5. Grayson, FL-08
    
    6. Kosmas, FL-24
    
    7. Minnick, ID-01
    
    8. Halvorson, IL-11
    
    9. Kratovil, MD-01
    
    10. Schauer, MI-07
    
    11. Peters, MI-09
    
    12. Titus, NV-03
    
    13. Adler, NJ-03
    
    14. Heinrich, NM-01
    
    15. Teague, NM-02
    
    16. McMahon, NY-13
    
    17. Maffei, NY-25
    
    18. Massa, NY-29
    
    19. Kissell, NC-08
    
    20. Driehaus, OH-01
    
    21. Kilroy, OH-15
    
    22. Boccieri, OH-16
    
    23. Dahlkemper, PA-03
    
    24. Nye, VA-02
    
    25. Perriello, VA-05
    
    26. Connolly, VA-11

    LOSSES
    
    1. Mahoney, FL-16
    
    2. Boyda, KS-02
    
    3. Cazayoux, LA-06
    
    4. Lampson, TX-22  

14. was a team effort.  I don’t believe Van Hollen deserves to be beaten up for the net results.  If we Perriello and Kilroy wins, we will have gained 22 seats, which brings our total to 258.  This number is symbolic–we had exactly 258 house seats, 57 senate seats, and the White House after the 1992 elections.

    Let’s not count off CA-04, AK-AL, and LA-04.  We can win these seats and be up 25 seats this year.

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