241 thoughts on “Weekly Open Thread: What Races Are You Interested In?”

  2. This is easily shaping up to be the most boring congressional special election of the cycle.  Even in the Illinois 5th and others.. the primaries were interesting.  Here the state Senator Ted Deutch seems guaranteed to win the primary and general.

    Although i would image in the Mass Senate race results will encourage Ted to not sleep through the general and actually send out some mailers with absentee ballot forms attached.  Maybe run a tv spot as well.

    Either way, still the sleeper congressional race of the election cycle.  

  3. Caucuses are coming up on Tuesday. There will be a non-binding straw poll plus electing delegates to the Senate district conventions, where they will be elected to the state convention where a candidate will get the Democratic endorsement. But then there is sure to be a brutal primary beacause two of the top tier candidates (Matt Entenza and Mark Dayton) have pledged to run already.  

  5. I have a libertarian-populist-fundamental christian (I know, rly?) friend who supports him and was wondering what kind of candidate he is.

  6. Does anyone know the status of the incumbents in districts 3 (Johnson), 4 (Hall), 13 (Thornberry) and 23 (Rodriguez)? The filings were supposed to be finalized at the beginning of January, and the aforementioned incumbents are still shown as unconfirmed.

  8. Kentucky’s was earlier in the week, West Virginia’s is today.

    In Kentucky, both parties filed a full slate, which hasn’t happened since 2000 (it almost did in 2006, but Ben Chandler’s Republican opponent dropped out afterward). There’s a five-way primary to face Yarmuth in KY-03, and the nomination will probably end up going to pizza baron Jeffrey Reetz. Six Republicans are vying to face Ben Chandler, that one will probably be Andy Barr, since he’s on the “Young Guns” or “Patriots” or whatever list the NRCC has. I doubt any of the Republican-held seats will be seriously contested — half the Democrats running have run in previous cycles, to little success.

    In West Virginia, there’s currently a six-candidate field to oppose Mollohan, which may grow as there are a few who have pre-filed, but not actually filed (WV has a weird system which involes both pre-filing and filing). I believe the Republicans initially recruited ex-State Del. David McKinley to run, but former State Sen. Sarah Minear recently jumped into the race as well, so he may not be their star recruit anymore. Currently Shelley Capito has one opponent, Virginia Lynch Graf, who doesn’t look to be much of a challenge. Nick Rahall seems to be dodging a bullet, as his three Republican opponents so far are pretty unthreatening. Republicans were looking for a former college football coach to jump in, but he decided against it. There’s still the possibility of a primary challenge from State Del. Ralph Rodighiero, but so far he hasn’t pulled the trigger.

    Hmm, that’s a lot of words for what will turn out to be two pretty uncompetitive states.  

  10. Paul Hodes needs to pull off a victory in this state if we’re going to have any chance of being able to hold on to a good  majority in the Senate. I’m also interesting in the 2nd CD race where it looks like the race will be between Ann McLane Kuster (currently my fav), Dejoie, and the blogosphere’s fav politician Katrina Sweet. I’m hoping Kuster can pull off a victory in both the primary and the general against either Bass or Horn. We need to hold onto this seat!    

  11. I just watched and enjoyed Obama addressing and taking questions from the GOP conference.  

  12. I am a huge fan of Democratic Congressman Bill Foster, the scientist/businessman who took Denny Hastert’s seat when Hastert stepped down.

    This race gets rated pretty safe for Foster, who gets good marks and endorsements, especially as it looks like the Republican primary candidates are beating each other up pretty badly, but a poll would be interesting.

  13. wondering what is Barbara O’Brien, who is the current LG of Colorado, going to do next? Is she running for Governor, or will Hick pick her as his LG? This is the third time that I have posted this, because I have yet to get a reply.

  14. I know I posted about this before, but really, our control of the House heavily depends on the number of retirements over the coming two months so I’m trying to gauge how many dems we need to keep an eye on. I’d be expecting at least one more, but the GOP are banking on 5+ to have a decent chance of taking the House. Currently, I’m worried about the following:

    Ike Skelton (MO) R+14

    Lincoln Davis (TN) R+13

    John Spratt (SC) R+7

    Collin Peterson (MN) R+5

    Bob Etheridge (NC) R+2

    Tim Bishop (NY) EVEN

    Leonard Boswell (IA) D+1

    Paul Kanjorski (PA) D+4

    Remember, earlier announcements by candidates to seek re-election does not mean we’re out of the woods, (Case in Point Marion Berry). Any thoughts?

  15. State Senator Brad Zaun appears to have raised less money so far than former ISU coach Jim Gibbons (the favorite of the large GOP donors), but Zaun went up on tv on Friday with this ad:

    Not too polished.

  19. Charlie Justice looks like a fundraising powerhouse compared to Bill Young.  

    Rep. Bill Young

    4Q – $750.00

    CTD – $55K

    COH – $396K

    St. Sen. Charlie Justice

    4Q – $49K

    CTD – $212K

    COH – $91K

  20. …sorry if this is off topic. has anybody out there heard of or read the book “The Man Who Sold the World, Ronald Reagan and the Betrayal of Main Street America” by william kleinknecht? you should check it out. because we can recruit and run great candidates but until we take on and smash once and for all the ‘morning in america’ meme and the myths around saint ronnie we will only get so far. the last chapter of the book is titled “The Second Rate Society”. that is the meme we should be running on. the gop regards their ‘less taxes, less goverment more freedom’as their strength. it has failed this nation and we should run right at it and show our fellow americas how this has and is failing them. i think scott brown got away with this bs in mass. and it cost us a senate seat we could ill-afford to lose.

  21. Guys,

    One could seriously argue that the Ohio Sos race is the most important “down ballot” race in the whole freakin country.

    Despite the fact that its gonna be losing TWO House seats, Ohio remains a voitile “purple” state. and the Ohio SoS has two VITAL roles:

    1. Running the 2010/2012 elections and

    2. Voting on the reapportionment commission

    Races in NY, Cali or Tejas attract more attention, but face it, the outcome of their elections is pretty much a foregone conclusion, thanks to a combination of demographics and/or gerrymandering.

    But look at look how Ohio has swung back and forth over the last generation and who winds up in the White House. But more important perhaps has been the swing in the Ohio US House delegation.

    AND if we lose the Ohio SoS all of that goes in the dumper… Its straight out of Shakespeare (“For want of a nail, the shoe was lost, for want of a shoe, the horse was lost…”) We lose Ohio SoS, we lose reapportionment, then we lose more Dem House seats and in 2012 lose more electoral college votes.

  22. Any chances of a top-tier candidate getting into the race on the Democratic side?  I really want McCain to go down, and I think there’s a good chance he won’t make it out of the primary.

  23. http://blogs.suntimes.com/swee…

    Not a groundbreaking development…Meister was pretty Some Dude-y although he was openly gay and I believe a self-funder. This will probably drop his share of the vote from like 1% to 0.5%. Personally I’m thinking Alexi wins by 7 points or so and Jackson comes in 3rd.

  26. There are a lot of parallels in my former district in NYC to what is going on in the senate primary between Gillibrand and Ford but in the case I actually think 32 year old former Hillary Clinton and John Kerry organizer Reshma Saujani is much more of a threat to Carolyn Maloney than Harold Ford is to Gillibrand. Saujani has much more consistent stands on social issues and in general is a more likeable candidate than Ford. Saujani is currently outraising Maloney and has been been helped by stupid statements by the likes of Martha Coakley clone Geraldine Ferraro saying whatever political future Saujani had is over by challenging Maloney. Especially in the aftermath of Scott Brown victory the NY State democratic party seems to be having a civil war between the Bloomberg/Paterson/Ford Jr/Saujani pro Wall St faction and the Spitzer/Cuomo anti Wall St faction with Schumer/Gillibrand/Maloney trying to sit in the middle playing off both sides.

    Saujani who would be the first female South Asian member of congress was until a recently a lawyer at the hedge fund group Fortress Investment and is perceived to be a more pro Wall Street candidate than Maloney. NY-14 if anyone doesn’t realize encompasses Manhattan’s Upper East Side along with many major attractions such as Rockefeller Center and Grand Central Station. This might actually be one of the few pro Wall Street districts in America and while it is only one of 435 districts I suspect a competitive primary will gain substantial national media attention. Saujani biggest problem is much of her campaign donations are comming from the same people supporting Ford Jr and she as the New York Observer put it she is starting a generational war between older and younger women voters

    Links:

    http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01…

    http://www.observer.com/2010/p…

  27. We’ve seen Democratic/liberal candidates raise loads of money from the Internet before.  Might it be a good idea to bring back the three-blog lists again?  It would be a proactive thing to do to try stem the tide this election may be.

Comments are closed.