Campaign and Election News – Covering Key Races Around the Country
Weekly Open Thread: What Races Are You Interested In?
Speak now or forever hold your peace.
56 thoughts on “Weekly Open Thread: What Races Are You Interested In?”
Republican Bradley Byrne entered the Alabama gubernatorial race this week. I think he is viewed as more moderate than the other GOP candidates. He has a varied political background with appointed and elected public service experience. I think the poll put out by Artur Davis’ campaign is questionable due to its findings. Alabama and other Southern states seem quixotic in terms of the politicians they elect. A number of them have Democratic controlled state legislatures with Republican governors.
VA Republicans are having their convention right now. I want to know who their candidate for attorney general will be, specifically what happens to State Sen. Ken “Kooky” Cuccinelli.
Will the new congressional district in Utah (UT-4) be filled next year? If so, is anyone showing interest in running for this seat?
this reminds me of something, i can’t make the connection right now:
A nightmare, actually!
I dreamed I had written a fairly long and reasoned comment on some tricky issue; I can’t remember it exactly, but it was something like the proper response to a Republican charge of Democratic corruption that might well have merit. But I couldn’t finish it because I got called in to work — I’m a bartender. I came home DRUNK nine hours later, left my long comment in preview cause I couldn’t understand it well enough to edit it, and just wrote a quick single line and posted it.
Then in the morning I came back to SSP to see if anyone had responded to my comment, only to realize that I hadn’t posted the interesting one, and instead had posted something like “I trust the Republicans on this one. Xxxxxx probably is corrupt.” And gotten flamed for it, including an admonition from James about unproven conclusions and etc. I was horrified.
I remember telling myself in my dream, no more drunk commenting!!
I wanna see a poll showing how Ethan Berkowitz does against in all three different statewide elections.
Senate: Berkowitz vs Murkowski
Governor: Berkowitz vs Palin
House: Berkowitz vs Young
in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and I found something suprising and worth mentioning. Here is a map of the municipalities of the UP showing ancestry//race. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi…
the dark purple on the map shows munc. that are plurality African American. There are 5. Now here is a map of the 2008 presidential results broken down by precinct.
You’ll notice that John McCain won every single plurality African American township. That got me thinking, how could John McCain have possibly won a 37% African American township, or a 27% African American township for that matter, when Barack Obama easily won 100% White townships just miles away? Do you think it is because of the high AA populations that the white voters did not support Obama? Because these are like Deep South levels of White voters support in these townships. But in, say Richmond township, which is 98% White, Obama won 72% of the vote. Does anybody have any thoughts/explanations?
The state legislative races in Iowa will be particularly important in 2010, not only because we’re losing one of our 5 CDs after the next census, but also because of marriage equality. As long as Democrats retain control of at least one chamber, we are very likely to be able to stop any Republican efforts to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal has made clear on many occasions that a marriage amendment will pass over his dead body (see here for a recent example).
Fortunately, there is almost no conceivable way that Republicans could retake the Iowa Senate in 2010. Democrats currently hold 32 of the 50 seats. This week at Bleeding Heartland I previewed the potentially competitive Iowa Senate races. I would be surprised if Republicans ended up with a net gain of more than three seats.
of NJ with Dave’s app. But I can’t really share it with you because exporting isn’t supported on Mac. Essentially, I merged the old 11th and old 7th districts.
I’ll see if I can get some screen shots to show you what I mean.
This primary has suddenly become the most interesting by far of this cycle. So many themes:
* DINO vs a real Democrat
* establishment backed (by WH & Governor) vs feisty upstart
* Unprincipled politician (switching solely because he’d otherwise lose his primary) vs Principled politician (giving up a safe House seat and potentially his political career to run for Senate)
… probably not, but worth watching as a possibility. D bench is probably too weak to exploit the rift. Only real hope would be a self-funding businessman.
However, bad blood could spill over into the race for Governor, which is a better possibility for a D pickup.
Inglis has been moving leftward, and could draw significant opposition. State Senator David Thomas would be a MJAOR opponent, as could some other possibilities.
Republican Bradley Byrne entered the Alabama gubernatorial race this week. I think he is viewed as more moderate than the other GOP candidates. He has a varied political background with appointed and elected public service experience. I think the poll put out by Artur Davis’ campaign is questionable due to its findings. Alabama and other Southern states seem quixotic in terms of the politicians they elect. A number of them have Democratic controlled state legislatures with Republican governors.
VA Republicans are having their convention right now. I want to know who their candidate for attorney general will be, specifically what happens to State Sen. Ken “Kooky” Cuccinelli.
Will the new congressional district in Utah (UT-4) be filled next year? If so, is anyone showing interest in running for this seat?
this reminds me of something, i can’t make the connection right now:
A nightmare, actually!
I dreamed I had written a fairly long and reasoned comment on some tricky issue; I can’t remember it exactly, but it was something like the proper response to a Republican charge of Democratic corruption that might well have merit. But I couldn’t finish it because I got called in to work — I’m a bartender. I came home DRUNK nine hours later, left my long comment in preview cause I couldn’t understand it well enough to edit it, and just wrote a quick single line and posted it.
Then in the morning I came back to SSP to see if anyone had responded to my comment, only to realize that I hadn’t posted the interesting one, and instead had posted something like “I trust the Republicans on this one. Xxxxxx probably is corrupt.” And gotten flamed for it, including an admonition from James about unproven conclusions and etc. I was horrified.
I remember telling myself in my dream, no more drunk commenting!!
I wanna see a poll showing how Ethan Berkowitz does against in all three different statewide elections.
Senate: Berkowitz vs Murkowski
Governor: Berkowitz vs Palin
House: Berkowitz vs Young
in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, and I found something suprising and worth mentioning. Here is a map of the municipalities of the UP showing ancestry//race. http://upload.wikimedia.org/wi…
the dark purple on the map shows munc. that are plurality African American. There are 5. Now here is a map of the 2008 presidential results broken down by precinct.
http://www.michiganliberal.com…
You’ll notice that John McCain won every single plurality African American township. That got me thinking, how could John McCain have possibly won a 37% African American township, or a 27% African American township for that matter, when Barack Obama easily won 100% White townships just miles away? Do you think it is because of the high AA populations that the white voters did not support Obama? Because these are like Deep South levels of White voters support in these townships. But in, say Richmond township, which is 98% White, Obama won 72% of the vote. Does anybody have any thoughts/explanations?
The state legislative races in Iowa will be particularly important in 2010, not only because we’re losing one of our 5 CDs after the next census, but also because of marriage equality. As long as Democrats retain control of at least one chamber, we are very likely to be able to stop any Republican efforts to pass a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage.
Iowa Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal has made clear on many occasions that a marriage amendment will pass over his dead body (see here for a recent example).
Fortunately, there is almost no conceivable way that Republicans could retake the Iowa Senate in 2010. Democrats currently hold 32 of the 50 seats. This week at Bleeding Heartland I previewed the potentially competitive Iowa Senate races. I would be surprised if Republicans ended up with a net gain of more than three seats.
of NJ with Dave’s app. But I can’t really share it with you because exporting isn’t supported on Mac. Essentially, I merged the old 11th and old 7th districts.
I’ll see if I can get some screen shots to show you what I mean.
From Greg Sargent: http://theplumline.whorunsgov….
This primary has suddenly become the most interesting by far of this cycle. So many themes:
* DINO vs a real Democrat
* establishment backed (by WH & Governor) vs feisty upstart
* Unprincipled politician (switching solely because he’d otherwise lose his primary) vs Principled politician (giving up a safe House seat and potentially his political career to run for Senate)
… probably not, but worth watching as a possibility. D bench is probably too weak to exploit the rift. Only real hope would be a self-funding businessman.
However, bad blood could spill over into the race for Governor, which is a better possibility for a D pickup.
Inglis has been moving leftward, and could draw significant opposition. State Senator David Thomas would be a MJAOR opponent, as could some other possibilities.
http://www.greenvilleonline.co…