2Q House Fundraising Round-Up

Yesterday was the deadline for House and Senate campaigns to file their fundraising reports for the second quarter of 2007.  Like we did for the first quarter, we’ve amassed a list of noteworthy fundraising numbers for House incumbents and challengers.  While this list is seriously mega, it is not meant to be comprehensive.  If we’ve missed anything, please post the numbers in the comments.  And remember: these numbers are adjusted for rounding.

Scroll buttons ready?  Away we go!


A few quick notes:

  • Republican challengers who outraised Democratic incumbents: Jim Ryun (KS-02) and Andrew Saul (NY-19).
  • Democratic challengers who outraised Republican incumbents: Charlie Brown (CA-04), Russ Warner (CA-26), Jim Himes (CT-04), Michael Montagano (IN-03), Frank Kratovil (MD-01), Andrew Duck (MD-06), David Nacht (MI-07), Kay Barnes (MO-06), Eric Massa (NY-29), Vic Wulsin & Steve Black (OH-02), John Boccieri (OH-16), Darcy Burner (WA-08).  Go Team Blue!
  • Republican incumbents who were out-raised by other Republicans: Wayne Gilchrest (MD-01), Jean Schmidt (OH-02) and Ralph Regula (OH-16).
  • Democratic incumbents who were out-raised by other Democrats: Steve Cohen (TN-09).
  • Anatomy of a Dud: Sean Sullivan, just a few months ago, was a highly touted Republican recruiting coup in Connecticut against freshman Rep. Joe Courtney.  As the former commander of the Groton naval base, he could conceivably have some appeal in the district, where Groton holds a special mystique.  However, after three full months of campaigning, Sullivan has only $31K raised and $14K on hand to show for it.  According to The Politico, Republicans in Washington are plenty furious at his “disastrous” fundraising pace, and he’s now persona non grata in DC.  Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Courtney is on pace to amass $1 million before the year is over.  I love it.
  • NY-20 and PA-08: Before today, the talk was all about how impressive Mark Kirk’s (R-IL) fundraising pace is.  Leave it to Kirsten Gillibrand and Pat Murphy to blow his take out of the water.  Gillibrand raised a massive $707K, and Murphy collected over $750K.  Gillibrand’s tally sure makes the not-insignificant fundraising reports of challengers Sandy Treadwell and Richard Wager, well, a little less significant.  And you’ve gotta believe that Murphy’s staggering figure is going to give any would-be challenger a serious pause.
  • AZ-01 and CA-04: Rick Renzi’s and John Doolittle’s incredible shrinking cash-on-hand figures sure look like ominous signs for the embattled incumbents.
  • WV-02: Can someone please tell John Unger to file his July quarterly report?  At the time of writing this, I cannot find Unger’s report in the FEC database.  Inquiring minds want to know how much support he’s attracting.
  • Take a look at the CoH figures for most of these potentially vulnerable Republican incumbents.  The thing that you should note is that very few of them are bigger than $1 million.  I suspect that that is the lingering effect of 2006: many of these incumbents, realizing that it was a wave year, dumped all or most of their warchests on ensuring their re-election.  Yet another blow to the traditional Republican money advantage.
  • UPDATE: Unger’s report is in.  Less than $27K raised, but this isn’t a Sean Sullivan-type report since Unger only officially filed for the race around the end of the quarter.  He’ll have to make a good showing in the third quarter, though.

63 thoughts on “2Q House Fundraising Round-Up”

  1. If one considers the collapse of the Bush presidency, the GOP debacle in Ohio in 2006 (where we took back most of the statewide offices) and now these numbers, it’s hard not to be optimistic.

    The details tell the story. For example, as Jerid noticed at BSB, just two wealthy families provides the bulk of Mr. Regula’s 37 donors. Would it be fair to speculate that a desperate plea went out to generate just enough donations to maintain the PRETEXT of an active campaign?

    I think that it entirely fair to say that throughout Ohio “we’ve got ’em right where we want ’em.”

    Namely, back on their heels, and in disarray.

    But we’ve got to remember, this race is a marathon, not a sprint.

    Earl Britt
    johnforcongress.com

    1. I somehow left her out of the “Republicans outraised by Republicans” list the first time around.

      1. Jenkins is a far stronger candidate as a woman, and a moderate Republican. Boyda can beat Ryun, will beat Ryun because of this priamry, (exclusing a disatorous Democratic presdiential campaign), but cannot beat Jenkins. Boyda beats Ryun by siphoning moderate Republicans and conservative to moderate independants who may not like her, but prefer her over the wacky far right, fundy Ryun who offends them and is just too conservative for them to vote for. Through Jenkins in, she gets those votes, beat Boyda by a 6-8 point margin, and hits the burgeoning KS-DP with a serious blow. Against Ryun, Boyda wins 51-49, further entrenches herself and saves a district for us, and Jenkins possibly decides to run for Governor in 2010 instead. Ryun may run again in 2010 feeling that Jenkins primary sabotaged him in 08 and was the only reason he lsot. That would give Doyda a third victory.

  2. Larry Joe Doherty loaned himself $100,000 of his $175,000 so he and Grant are head to head in actual fundraising.
    Of course, loaned money spends as well as donated money, just doesn’t reflect broader support.

    1. state assembly member, who has about a third teh cash as the Democratic incumbent the best candidate the Republican party can trhow at us in a Democratic leaning district. Andal’s take is not impressive considering that almost all his money came from one fundraiser.

  3. I may have missed a couple, but a lot of our freshmen have 500K plus on hand, which is impressive: Giffords, McNerney, Mahoney, both Murphys, Klein, Hall, Gillibrand, Altmire, Sestak, and Rodriguez. Walz, Yarmuth, Space, and the new Indianans aren’t far off.

    1. Jenkins poses a much greater threat to Boyda in the general, and the growth of the Democratic party in Kansas mostly relies on stealing dissatisfied and moderate Republicans and independents who are enraged that their party has been taken over by wingnuts, hence Jim Ryun.

    2. On one hand, one wants Ryun to lose to Jenkins because he’s got awful policy positions and she doesn’t.  On the other hand, one presumes that Ryun would be much easier for Boyda to beat than Jenkins would be; Boyda could expect to scoop up half or more of Jenkins’ supporters in a Boyda-Ryun race.  Then there’s the calculation of the odds of Boyda losing; if she stands a very good chance of losing in either case, then one would want Jenkins to win so that the eventual outcome, Congresswoman Jenkins, is not so bad.  So how do you sort through those and decide who to root for, I wonder?  I’d been rooting for Ryun so far, but you just said “Go Jenkins go”, so obviously you got a different outcome from this calculus.  (Or maybe you just want Jenkins to bloody Ryun up a bit, but not beat him; that’s my actual preference.)  I’d be curious if you’d share your thinking a bit.

    3. Boyda doesn’t have a primary.  Kansas primary is in August of 2008 – one of the latest in the country so Ryun and Lynn need to raise enough to sustain themselves for the primary fight of their lives. 

      Too – does anyone know the spread of how much of that is primary vs. general dollars?

      1. NY-19 will be much easier to hold than NY-20.  NY-19 almost has as many registered Democrats as Republicans and has a growing minority population which is fueled by the flight of Hispanics and African Americans from the city to the suburbs.  Hall should be able to win narrowly here in 2008 and 2010 and be safe in 2012 when the legislature extends the district to pick up heavily Democratic precincts in the Bronx. 

        NY-20 is tougher, but Gillibrand is one of the top fundraisers in the House and is a very saavy politician.  The district has a lot of ticket splitters that will support her at the Congressional level even while voting Republican at the Presidential level.

  4. Here.

    Kleeb is the only announced challenger, right now, and he didn’t start fundraising until the last couple of days of the quarter, so there’s no real number for him other than what’s left over from 2006.

    Terry’s starting to get a warchest going. Not insurmountable, but we need to get moving here in Omaha if we want to beat him this time.

    1. That yes, Jim Ryun DID run a horrible campaign, and thought he was perfectly safe after successfully beating off a better financed Nancy Boyda in 2004, and that Ryun would likely have more financial backing from wingnut groups like CFG.

      Jean Schmidt though is a horrible example, though. The only reason why OH-02 is ever on the map is simply because of Jean Schmidt. Democrats shouldn’t ever be winning there much less competing there as it is a ruby-red district, but they can do so thanks to Schmidt’s wingnuttery. Look at how Vic Wulsin did better than next door neighbor John Cranley, who had a much better resume, better financed, and had the full support of the DCCC; however Chabot hung on thanks to the fact that he wasn’t considered to be a wingnut (even though he pretty much is).

      Phil Kline is probably not the best choice for example, either, seeing as how the ONLY reason he was swept out was because of his wingnut views. Republicans still control all other statewide offices other than Governorship and, now thanks to Kline, Attorney General. His resurgance in Johnson Co. had nothing to do with elections and everything to do with being picked by the county Republican party to fill in Morrison’s old job (a bit of irony there, actually).

      Yes I agree, there are many examples where we want ‘moderates’ rather than wingnuts, Wayne Gilchrest and Walter Jones, as well as a few of the New Jersey Republicans, but electorally speaking, the only reason why the seats of Tim Walberg and Mike Ferguson were in play (and will be next year) were because of their extreme views/voting records.

      Take a marginal district like MN-03 with Ramstad. Had its  candidate been Michelle Bachman, Tim Walberg, Jim Ryun, they would have been defeated precipitously despite it being a 51% Bush district. With Ramstad, it is his for life barring some Foley scandal, and that is simply because he is “moderate”.

      Or take the success stories of Specter versus Santorum.

  5. This is another case of a Republican incumbent being outraised by a fellow Republican.  Schmidt’s fundraising ($96K in quarter, $75K COH) is anemic to say the least.

  6. First, what a great chart.  It’s a wonderful resource.

    As to CA-11:

    In his CA-11 race against Jerry McNerney, Republican Dean Andahl raised $265,000 of his $288,000 from 206 individual contributors.  That’s a good number, but note that it is an average of $1,289 per person. 
    http://tray.com/cgi-
    He had a big fundraiser in late June where 300 attended and 250,000 was raised.  http://www.cctextra….
    The Republican establishment has clearly rallied to Andahl.  He will be a very tough competitor, and in my view, about as good as the R’s could hope for.  This will be a tough race (but we all expected that).  But as to money raised during 2Q, Andahl has gathered the low hanging fruit. 

  7. Shays, Bush’s favorite chickenhawk in Congress, thought he was homefree after he beat Diane Farrell by a whisker for the second time last year.  So he dispensed with all of his talk about timelines for withdrawal and went back to supporting the escalation and opposing timelines offered by the Democrats.

    But hold on there!  Just 48 hours after Democratic challenger Jim Himes announces that he’s raised $353k, Shays comes out and says that the troops should be withdrawn by December 2008.  If that isn’t an example of “money talks,” I don’t know what is. 

    How curious that Shays, the avowed pacifist (CO status granted in 1972), has no problem letting other young men bleed into the sands of the Iraqi desert for years to come, but he’s not about to face his own political mortality. 

    The guy will say anything to keep his seat.

    Let’s remember that number- just 48 hours after Himes announces his fundraising total.  Is anyone else nauseated by the guy?

      1. how well the theory of “wingnuts staying home” really holds in reality, and this isn’t an attack on you, but I really don’t think this theory has been proven enough in actual elections. There’s no doubt, in any event, that Lincoln Chafee for example, brought more moderates in than he alienated conservatives. There’s no way that Laffey would have garnered the 48% of the vote Chafee acquired. He would have been lucky with 40%, and he actually wasn’t the most conservative wingnut out there (when compared to someone like Walberg). Specter, too, undoubtly brought more votes due to his moderation than did some of the 49% of Toomey Republicans that decided to stay home or vote Constitutional.

        But you do bring in a good point that likely Ryun and Ryun allies will try to tarnish Jenkins’ reputation to death; If this is a close primary and Ryun barely gets by, it’s very likely that a good many of the Jenkin Republicans will vote Boyda, similar to how many Northup Republicans are voting Beshear in Kentucky (though different circumstances, granted).

        My overall assertion, though, is that the longer the Kansas Republican party continues to nominate draconian conservatives like Phil Kline and Jim Ryun, there’s bound to be a backlash among moderate Republicans and independents who have been, as of late, supporting Sebelius, Dennis Moore, Paul Morrison, and to a smaller extent, Nancy Boyda. Jenkins, though, would likely halt or reverse that trend, so I think it’s to the Democratic Party of Kansas’s advantage that the Republicans nominate bad candidates like Jim Ryun.

        But we’ll see how this is all plays out.

        1. talk of pointless gerryamdnering. NY-20, NY-19, and CA-11 are all quickly trending Democratic, and will be wuite willing to elect Demcorats. Why is there such urgency to Gerrymander them, all the three are only moderately Republican leaning. Altmire’s district may have voted for Bush, but that’s becasue it’s socially conservative like him. It’s an ancestrally Democratic district and Altmire is a very good fit for it. There’s no reason to mess with Pittsburg, that district should be split up into Murphy’s and English’s districts if anything. I agree about Space.

        2. The most likely, and easiest, change in CA-11 is to fill the hole.  In 2000, a strong Dem section was carved out of CA-11 and put into CA-18, just to the south.  The Dems were afraid of losing the seat due to Gary Condit.  The hole is basically both sides of I-5 through Modesto.  The problem is once returned to CA-11, CA-18 will be more Republican. 

      2. aren’t whiney stay at home losers, like Democrats can be. They don’t just sit at home if they’ve got a Demcorat to beat, they hold ther noses and vote Republican. Look at 06, for all the countless reports of an early civil war with the conservative faction, all the disatisfaction, all the talk of conservatives just staying home and not voted, it never materialized. They turned up in normal numbers. Yours is the theory that has just not proved to hold through. Jenkins is the extremely popular State Treasurer. She takes the vote4s Boyda has to have to win, moderate republicans, independants, and conservative Democrats. Ryun does not.

        1. Like I said I was a Poll worker and I saw live ballots.  I did more than talk to a friend.

          It is an ecological fallacy to draw inferences from a friend to the entire population of WI CD-2 and then claiming relevance to the one voters action.

          Did you even look at the voter totals or was your friend so ultimately critical that just knowing what she did reveals the penultimate truth of Dane County voting habits?

          The final vote statewide 2006 was:

          Doyle:  1139115
          Green:  979427
          Total  2161700 (counting write-in & 3rd party)

          Van Hollen: 1023457
          Falk:  1016005
          total  2,124,167 (counting write-in & 3rd party)

          Votes for Governor minus votes for AG: 37533

          So Doyle outpolled Falk by 37,533 statewide

          Statewide Margin of victory for Van Hollen over Falk: 7452

          Jim Doyle 2006 re-election 2006
          Dane county total Doyle votes Governor: 213940
          Dane county total Falk votes for AG:  211402
          Gov total minus AG total  2538
          Dane County total votes Doyle:  149661
          Dane County total votes Falk:  138507
          Dane County Gov minus AG totals  11154

          As you can all see 11154 is larger than 7452

          I was correct about what I said about Dane County, it was pissed off Progressives who reacted to the slimy campaign of personal attacks that Falk ran against fellow Progressive Peg Lautenschlager.  She lost the race right here in Dane County where she is County Executive and which typically offers up the largest percentage of the vote for progressive candidates statewide

          So I will stand by voting totals for my analysis and you can stand by your critically important friend for yours and we can let the Swing State Project readers determine for themselves whose analysis is worth reading.

          1. seems to have swung the most heavily towards the Democrats from 2004 to 2006. (I made a minor mistake, there are 4 districts encompassing Monroe, not 3). 2 of the 3 Republicans who currently represent all won it in 2002 and 2004 (though in Walsh’s case, he had no challenger in 2004) except Kuhl. Monroe was the only county that Massa won in 2006, gaining 9% over the ’04 challenger, Maffei narrowly carried it by a few hundred votes, and though Reynolds still won Monroe, he lost 4% (which, admittedly, was the most unimpressive part).

    1. One would have to be crazy to think that Jerry is not in for a tough race.  This one will go down to election day just as 2006 did.  All that will hurt us is overconfidence. 

      Impressive numbers?  Yes.  Lots raised, and Andal only entered the race in late May.  And that’s more than Jerry raised all the way through mid 3Q 2006.  But as I said, Andal gathered the low hanging fruit. 

      Former assembly member?  Yes, but also member of the Board of Equalization and Tax Franchise Board, a member of school board of trustees, and part of Arnold’s transition team.  The guy is conservative and well-connected.  He will be a tough candidate.  It would behoove our side to take seriously such candidates in republican leaning districts against our freshmen.  I know I do. 

  8. Warner out raised a minor amount of cash against an incumbent with 2.0M in the bank! Look at the first quarter….raised 3K!

    In examining the FEC doc’s I see that the 2006 campaign ended with a 117K surplus.

    The 2008 cycle apparently yields just 4 donors (the 3K) and the rest as a mysterious increase in the 2nd quarter accounting.

    I believe it is the merged 2006 funds that showed up the 2nd quarter. If this isn’t true then the total on hand should be about double what it is today.

    Warner raised only $55K from individuals in 2006. The majority of that support came from his endorsement by Wes Clark. $156K came from his own pocket. I believe it is these funds that showed up in this report.

    To his Warner’s credit, his current expenses show some professional consulting expenses that might indicate a more professional campaign in creation for 2008.

    Remember…Warner lost the primary to Cynthia Matthews whose entire campaign reciepts for 2006 was only $54K. She lost the 2004 General by 13% and the 2006 General by 19%.

    The key number against incumbents is Cash on Hand.

    Many don’t feel the need to do serious fundraising against opponents they know they can bury in cash if they need to do so.

    Dreier for example could raise a $1,000,000 with 2 or three fundraising events in Washington.

    Let’s not celebrate a report without understanding the context. I would hold that true for any district.

    This is not aimed at Russ Warner as a negative. It’s simply one district that I know well.

    I would do the same analysis for any candidate before celebrating his/her report.

      1. the civil war in the Kansas Republican party is very real and while I failed to articulate my thoughts completely I agree that a Ryun win would drive a number of GOP moderates disaffected with social conservatism towards Boyda.  Kansas is close to verging on a three party state, with only two voting options.

        Johnson County has a lot of very wealthy corporate minded Republicans and they are pro-science and pro-schools.  The beginning of the tipping point was the rise of the Intelligent Design movement and the attack on Evolution (Science in general) in Kansas.  Johnson County Republicans are not particularly interested in those issues and inherently understand that undermining science undermines business.  Science creates innovation which spurs creation which generates business opportunity.  They do not want religious barriers to interfere with the process and that is part of the fundamental strain behind the GOP Civil War. 

        Something else with the potential to help Ryun v. Jenkins is  the longer the Brownback presidential campaign remains viable and active the more it will benefit Ryun.  Ryun and Brownback are close political allies.

        They don’t stay home, they just skip over the race when they vote.  And this type of behavior certainly does happen.  A progressive version happened right here in Dane Co., Wisconsin in the Attorney General’s race in 2006. The Progressive community was disappointed that progressive Kathleen Falk first even challenged, but then ran a nasty campaign of personal attacks against progressive AG Lautenschlager who was politically weakened by a DUI early in her term in office.  On election day Jim Doyle received 10,000 more votes than Kathleen Falk in Dane County (Madison) and Kathleen Falk is Dane County Executive mind you, and she lost state wide by about 6,000 votes.  If every Doyle voter were a Falk voter she would have won that race. What happened was progressives did not vote in that race.  I work at the polls and I saw many ballots where no vote was entered for the AG race while they voted Dem in general.  So I have seen the effect with my own eyes on legal ballots, it happens. Both on the left and on the right.

        1. is already trending Democratic. I remember reading a diary in Kos last year showing that of all of the districts (then) held by Republicans in Upstate, all but one (Randy Kuhl’s) were trending Democratic in registration numbers; that all of them (except for possibly Walsh’s) had a plurality of Republican voters; That many of the Republican voters have begun voting Democratic (what he called ‘Legacy Republicans’); and that yearly registration numbers have shown tremendously higher rates of Democratic and Independent registration than before (except Kuhl’s). This bodes well for our 3 new incumbents, for Dan Maffei, for our highly touted candidate versusing against Reynolds, for the future against McHugh, but badly for Eric Massa.

          Of course redistrictring will undoubtly play a role in refiguring out the landscape of Upstate, and in large part not because of politics but because of its stagnant population growth, where it will likely lose a seat in the next census. Probably the most fair would be to combine Reynolds and Kuhl, consolidate Buffalo into 2 districts (from 3), Rochester into 2 (from 3), while likely moving the rest of the Upstate districts westward slightly (as reflecting population changes). This plan, while supported by common sense (and not splitting cities + counties for incumbent protection) would likely yield 1 safe Republican district and many others ripe for takeover.

  9. I would be terrified over the fact that Jim Ryun outraised Nancy Boyda except for two facts.  1) wise or not Boyda has called for the DCCC to back off her campaigns in an attempt to claim that she is a Kansas, not a national Democrat. 2) Jim Ryun is already in near full blown campaign mode fighting moderate GOP hopeful Lynn Jenkins for the Republican nomination to oppose Boyda.  The Club of Growth is already launching TV ads against Jenkins with the usual epithets of “big spender” “high taxer” and so forth.  So this campaign has started already full speed ahead and a lot of that money raised in this race is being used to fight the next round of the Kansas GOP Civil War.  KS-2 is going to be a smackdown of Titanic proportions in 2008 and this is a race I am following as closely as able.  Boyda is one of my 4 “adopted” Dem freshmen, the others bring Steve Cohen of Tenn., John Yarmuth in KY, and of course, Steve Kagen of the 8th CD in Wisconsin.

    It is not often I have strong feelings about a GOP primary but Jim Ryun is about as fruit loopy as you can get and nearly anyone in that district would be better suited for Congress than Jim Ryun.  Go Jenkins go!  America will be better off if she can cut off one of the Religious Right’s many serpent heads.

  10. is for Boyda to turn out every Democrat and Independent possible and then winning about 10% of moderate Republicans.  This is basically the same strategy as Dennis Moore’s.

    1. If Lynn Jenkins wins the primary, any votes she might take from Boyda on her left she will lose to the wingnut who sits out the election on the right pouting that she defeated posterboy wingnut extraordinaire Jim Ryun.  This is Kansas and their wingnuts are serious about being true believers.

      I have seen nothing that indicates that Boyda is in trouble in KS-2 so far.  She seems to be settling in well and her populist people driven campaign is ready for round 2. She is well poised to expand on her close 2006 victory margin. 

      Jim Ryun has much greater fund raising power than Lynn Jenkins and after Jenkins takes over a year of sustained pounding from the right Boyda is not going to look much more liberal than Jenkins, from a wingnut perspective.  The Club of Growth is already pounding away at Jenkins branding her a liberal in TV ads. 

      So we are going to have to agree to disagree.  I assert Ryun is the greater threat ultimately because by November of 2008 Jenkins will be damaged goods.  Jenkins is already being defined and has yet to seriously fight back against the right wing branding that is going on in KS-2.  I remember how John Kerry allowed himself to be swift boated and Jenkins is already close to have a swift boat problem.

      You have to watch the trends in the state and they are moving Boyda’s way.  If she continues her competent start there is little reason to think they will replace her. The GOP voters that sent Bill Graves into the KS Governor mansion have shifted in electorally significant numbers into the Kathleen Sebelius led Democratic party. Boyda appeals to the same electorate that simply adores Sebelius, the most popular politician in the state at the moment.

      1. is an independent commission, but there is a good chance that Republican territory is removed from both AZ-05 and AZ-08 to create a new district. 

        McNerney can be made safe by extending the district into heavily black and Hispanic areas near Oakland and getting rid of Republican parts of Alameda and Contra Costa counties.

        Space can be made safe by removing heavily Republican areas at the western end of the district and giving him most of Democratic leaning Stark county. 

        Carney is going to be very tough in PA-10.  The problem is that the only Democratic territory nearby is in Paul Kanjorski’s district and Democrats won’t want him to give up that territory. 

        Altmire should be easy to make safe:  just give him some more urban precincts near Pitsburgh. 

        Kagen can be made safer by taking out some of the Republican counties on the Western end of the district and give him Democratic leaning territory like Oshkosh that is now in WI-06. 

        We need to make gains in Florida and Texas to make sure that Lampson and Mahoney are made safer providing that they are still around.

        1. How many Members of the House of Representative used the State Treasurer’s office as a springboard to Congress?

          Who cares if you are popular as State Treasurer?

          These days State Treasurer’s are in the news more for selling cocaine than winning House seats.

          What evidence other than the label “moderate” which you seem to ascribe magical powers to, do you have for asserting Jenkins has significant electoral appeal that may challenge Ryun’s or Boyda’s in KS-2?

          I will put my knowledge of KS-2 up against yours any day.  Anyone who uses this site can review my commentary on KS-2 as the 2006 elections evolved and I was spot on and among the few people in the entire nation to call a Boyda upset over Ryun when even the DCCC and other 50 State Strategy proponents were skeptical.  Meanwhile your contributions to commentary on KS-2 were….? 

          Being contrarian is not being an analyst.  The common wisdom was Ryun would win in a walk over Boyda in 2006 and I challenged it and was spot on correct.  I am again challenging the common wisdom as lazy analysis not fact based and I stand my my analysis of KS-2 until facts are presented of a changing eletoral environment.

          Jim Ryun is the foe to fear in KS-2 not Lynn Jenkins.

      2. neither does Walz. Giffords district is fastly becoming Democratic because of Tuscon and a raising latino population, again no reason to change it. Mitchell’s district could maybe be tinkered a little.

  11. were talking shit. One was quoted saying that if you’re a Republican, and you’ve ever thought about running for congress, now’s your chance. They feel this district is theirs for the taking, and they’re getting all puffy and overconfident. They are either blind to the great strides Gillibrand has been making with ciztens with her great consituent services and moderate voting record. They see this as a solidly Republican district, but Bush only got 55% here in 2004, far from overwhelming, and Gillibrand is already on line to raise 4 million dollars. Treadwell, as a former chairman of the State Republican party, and former SoS, is a credible and formidible candidate, he has a primary which is going to sap his resources, and then he’s going to have to face Gillibrand with her tons of money and better name rec. She’s entrenching herself even better than I had hoped, and once she gets by this year, I think she can secure her hold on the district.

  12. Its going to be an open seat, and there will be nothing more than nominal Republican opposition.

    However, Chicago Alderman Manny Flores raised almost $500k this quarter.  There are 2 other candidates that I know of, and neither of them were in that ballpark.

    In fact, the word on the street is that Flores crushed every other first time candidate in fundraising this quarter.

    1. the black establishment polticians are mostly highly conservative, when they don’t need to be. Thisw is a liberal district. Tinker ran some despicable anti-semetic mailers last year, said the district should elect a black Reperesentative just because most of it’s reisdents are black, and she’s a really conservative business democrat, (she was an airline executive).

  13. We’ll have to keep an eye on Tennessee 09. Nikki Tinker (sore loser, much?)  raised over $100K to run against the Democratic incumbent, and it doesn’t appear to be from the funnel of Emily’s List – she’s not on their latest endorsement list, anyway. (I checked this afternoon.)

    I recognize that it was an accident that TN-09 elected a progressive last cycle because none of the middle of the road candidates would withdraw, and they split the vote.  Nevertheless, Cohen’s someone we definitely want to keep, now that he’s in Congress. 

    I think I’ll add him to my 2008 roster on ActBlue, at least until we see what the Third Quarrter fundraising figures are:

    http://www.actblue.c

    Do drop by and see who my other early picks are.

  14. Has anybody done statistical calculation of these data?  Is there a list of above-average fundraisers? Like to report that data on my blog.

    Thanks,
    Ted Shlechter aka DrTed of TheBridge

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