SSP Daily Digest: 11/11

• AK-Sen: Joe Miller made a drive toward the hoop with his attempt to get an injunction to force the state to stop counting write-in ballots that weren’t spelled precisely “Lisa Murkowski,” but a federal judge stuffed that back in his face late yesterday, denying the immediate injunction and saying there’s no risk of irreparable harm; the question, of course, will continue in the courts, just at a more leisurely pace while the count goes on. As for the actual counting (which began yesterday, and went through about 20% of the total), things have seemed to continue on pace for Murkowski to hold on. 89% of the write-ins were unchallenged for Murkowski. 8.5% of the ballots were challenged by Miller observers, but only 1.4% of ballots were successfully challenged. Only 164 of the 19,203 ballots analyzed had write-ins other than Murkowski (including, amusingly, two people who wrote in Joe Miller). Roll Call points out that Murkowski would be on track to win even if Miller’s injunction succeeds, considering what a small percentage of ballots are being challenged in the first place, which makes it look like Murkowski’s remarkably painstaking campaign of instructing people how to spell her name paid off.

• IN-Sen: If there’s a Republican who’s guilty of the crimes of attempting to legislate and not punching Dems in the groin at every opportunity, it’s Richard Lugar. Between that and his age, he’s at great risk of a teabagging in 2012 (assuming he doesn’t retire), and there’s already a line forming of potential primary rivals expressing interest, including state Treasurer Richard Mourdock, state Sen. Mike Delph, and 2010 primary loser Don Bates.

• MA-Sen: Here’s another piece handicapping potential challengers to Scott Brown; while most of the names are familiar (Mike Capuano, plus assorted other Kennedys and Reps.), it adds one more to the mix that I haven’t heard but certainly seems plausible: Gov. Deval Patrick, whose stock has risen lately with a surprisingly comfortable re-election.

• VA-Sen: Beltway Kremlinologists are analyzing Jim Webb’s pronouncements, notably ambivalent about another Senate run, and announcing that he’s sounding even iffier now. While George Allen seems to have the inside track on the GOP nomination, filling a hole left by Webb would be a big question mark for the Dems. Ex-Gov and DNC chair Tim Kaine seems like the likeliest bet, although Tom Perriello also gets a mention.

• FL-22: Somehow I suspect someone from GOP leadership paid a visit to Allen West and gave him a refresher course in political discipline, as he abruptly reversed course and decided that his bomb-throwing best friend from the right-wing radio world, Joyce Kaufman, won’t be his chief of staff. As we talked about yesterday, the main problem might not be her long track record of outrageous statements but the Ethics and FCC problems that might result if she kept her day job too.

• NY-29: While everyone knows that Joe Manchin, Chris Coons, and Mark Kirk are gaining early entry to the Senate for the lame duck session (because of the special election status of their elections), there’s also one new House member also getting that privilege. Recall that David Paterson bumped the special election to replace Eric Massa all the way back to November to coincide with the general election, so Tom Reed is set to be sworn in next week too (gaining the seniority edge over his myriad fellow GOP freshmen). (UDPATE: Several folks have pointed out that Marlin Stutzman, just elected to IN-03 in a dual special/general in the wake of Mark Souder’s resignation, also gets the same treatment next week.)

• DSCC: The quest for a DSCC leader just goes on, as no one wants to be left holding that flaming bag of dog doo. Al Franken took himself officially out of the running. Even Chuck Schumer, who everyone regards as the fallback position if no one else steps up, is still adamant that he isn’t going to take it either.

• Money: I don’t think the Dems could have salvaged the House even if it hadn’t been for the huge last-minute outlays of advertising cash from American Crossroads and assorted other 527s, but it certainly helped the GOP run up the score in the close, late-breaking races. At any rate, it’s good to see that at least someone on Team Blue is recognizing that we’re behind the 8-ball on the dark money front, and at least for the short term it’s a can’t-beat-’em-join-’em scenario. David Brock from Media Matters is on the case, trying to pull such a mega-527 together to start corralling high-dollar Dem donors.

• CO-St. House: This is a pleasant surprise: the Dems may yet be able to hold onto the state House in Colorado (which would let them keep the trifecta, if that happened). The GOP is claiming a 33-32 majority right now, but the race in HD-29, where incumbent Debbie Benefield apparently lost to Robert Ramirez by 208 votes, is at least back on the table with 687 more votes discovered that need to be counted. (Of course, it’s worth being skeptical about her taking nearly 2/3s of those outstanding votes.)

• NY-St. Sen.: Here’s the situation with the Senate in New York, where it may be weeks before we know who’s in charge. The GOP has paper-thin leads in two Dem-held seats: Mark Grisanti leads Antoine Thompson in a Buffalo-area seat, while Jack Martins leads Craig Johnson in northern Nassau County. (There’s also one other race not yet called, where incumbent Dem Suzi Oppenheimer still leads.) Dems have asked for recounts in both the races where they’re trailing, so this is apt to drag on. If the leads hold, the GOP will retake control the Senate 32-30 (assuming Grisanti cooperates with them, which sounds like it may not be a done deal). If Dems turn one around, the clusterfudge gets even nuttier, as it’ll be a 31-31 tie, which should let Dem Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy be the tiebreaker but promises endless litigation over just what sort of powers the still ill-defined LG position even has.

• WATN?: Three different names from Florida are considering their options today. One is Jim Davis, not the creator of Garfield but rather the five-term ex-Rep. who left the House in 2006 to run for Governor (and lost to Charlie Crist), who’s now looking for a political third act as Tampa mayor. The election to replace termed-out Pam Iorio will be held in March. Another name is Rod Smith, a former state Sen. whom you might remember losing the 2006 Dem gube primary to Davis, and losing in 2010 as Alex Sink’s running mate; he’s set to take over as Dem state party chair, as Karen Thurman looks like she’s finally getting put out to pasture after another terrible cycle. Finally, there’s Alan Grayson, who’s going to need a new job in a few months; he says he’s likely to run for something again someday, not wanting to waste the large supporter base online that he built over the last few years.

• Polltopia: Scot Reader has a very interesting look at the success rates for internal polls this cycle (of which there were an unprecedented number released). He finds that GOP internal pollsters performed better than Dem internal pollsters this cycle, to the extent that firms like POS were pretty close to the mark. (Although it’s worth noting that, while public polling of Senate and Gov races was close to the mark — with the exception of Nevada, where the internal polling was much closer — it also tended to underestimate Republican support in the House, in the end.) If his name sounds familiar, he’s the guy behind the Polltrack twitter feed (now renamed Pollmaven), which we strongly urge you to follow.

246 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 11/11”

  1. Really interesting.

    The results in Clark pretty much confirm what I was suspecting during early voting. We did quite well in The East Side and Henderson, but got shellacked in The Southwest and Northwest.

    The rurals were horrible for Dems, but urban turnout was enough to cancel them out.

  2. Given that Leonard Boswell (generally acknowledged to be a weak incumbent) survived a huge Republican wave–and with a bigger winning margin than Bruce Braley!–I’ve been wondering whether the GOP would have taken IA-03 had they nominated Jim Gibbons instead of Brad Zaun. Gibbons would have had more money (including NRCC help), but he had his own flaws and problems as a candidate. I explored the alternative at Bleeding Heartland.

    What do SSPers think? This topic has come up in lots of my conversations with Iowa political junkies during the past week.

  3. If he doesn’t win the primary race, he still has the Governor term to finish out (like Manchin in WV). And since he’s not running for reelection, it doesn’t really matter how bruising the campaign might become.  

  4. is the federal judge named Tayshaun?

    Anyway, Deval just beat a pretty solid GOP challenger, so he seems like a logical choice. I also think, though, Capuano would beat Brown and that they should dismantle his district to make everyone else even safer.

  6. Tim Kaine would be a horrible candidate. He left office unpopular due to the economy ripping holes in the state budget and the fact that he was moonlighting as DNC chair. Perriello, despite being a one-term Congressman coming off a loss, would be a better candidate. Either way, if Allen runs and Webb doesn’t, I don’t see the Dems holding the seat, considering how short voters’ memories are these days.

  7. Rep-elect Martin Stutzman (IN-03), replacing the resigned Mark Souder (IN-a-woman-he-wasn’t-married-to), will also be seated immediately.

  8. has to be getting Webb to re up.

    Beg, flatter, plead, cajole, wine & dine, twist his arm, use Obama, use Bill Clinton, make leadership position promises, whatever…

    If Webb announces re-election plans early, might that give Allen second thoughts?

  9. Looks like Hill isn’t running for anything in 2012.

    “I think it’s unlikely that I’ll run for an office in 2012,” Hill said. “Circumstances can change, but I can’t see a scenario that I would be a candidate for an office in 2012.”

    Oh and check out this:

    Although that might be the case, he said he wants to make sure President Barack Obama gets re-elected two years from now.

    “I talked to him after the election on Wednesday morning, and he told me that he did not want to lose touch with me and that he wanted to talk to me when he got back from Asia,” Hill said. “He’s over there now, and when he gets back I’m sure we’ll have a conversation, and we’ll see what his thoughts are.”

    Although his plans for his future are still unsure, Hill said he will remain involved in politics. Because politics have consumed the majority of his adult life, he said he cannot imagine not being involved in some way.

    Does that or does it not sound like he will be getting a job offer? 50+ incubents lost re-election the President is not going to personally meet with every one is he? This must mean something.

    http://www.idsnews.com/news/st…

  11. “If Dems turn one around, the clusterfudge gets even nuttier, as it’ll be a 31-31 tie, which should let Dem Lt. Gov. Robert Duffy be the tiebreaker but promises endless litigation over just what sort of powers recently created and still ill-defined LG position even has.”

    What does this refer to? The position of Lieutenant Governor of New York was created in 1777  

  13. Mourdock seems like the most likely candidate, although I hadn’t considered the possibility of the idiots making the same mistake they did against Coats and flooding the field with anti-Lugar candidates. I like the idea of the lunatic fringe messing up yet again and making the IN seat competitive for us, but at the same time I can’t say I wouldn’t be laughing my ass off if Lugar manages to squeak by with 40% of the vote in his primary due to his opponents being dumb.  

  14. is thinking he’ll have a new district to run in that favors him for 2012.  The new FL redistricting law says “No apportionment plan or individual district shall be drawn with the intent to favor or disfavor a political party or an incumbent;”, and that’s sounds like a done deal for an Orlando based district when paired with compactness and geographical boundary restrictions.

    And in order to get that quote, I looked through the FL election results.  Anyone else know that they passed the exact same amendment for state legislature seats?  That should really fuck over the GOPers there as Id think smaller populations means less room to gerrymander.  (Obviously different depending on the district.)

  17. What turned out to be one of the most important factors that clinched Reid’s reelection was the Latin@ vote, and Las Vegas CityLife looks into it.

    Long story short: Harry Reid made critical connections to the community…

    A week before the election, a special guest pushed a shopping cart through the aisles of Cardenas Market on Bonanza Road and Lamb Boulevard. He came back a few days later with his family.

    “He loved the store so much, he wanted to show his wife,” said Phil Avila, district director of Cardenas Markets.

    Avila pointed proudly to two small framed photographs on the wall of his office — one of U.S. Sen. Harry Reid and another of his wife, Landra.

    Reid’s visit wasn’t your average courtesy stop at a local business. This particular store played a critical role in the senator’s re-election, as a hub of voter registration and education operating seven days a week in the months before the election. A coalition of local and national organizations took turns manning clipboards outside the automatic doors starting in the spring.

    While Sharrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrron Angle just kept spitting and farting on them.

    The Angle campaign invested in a series of television ads that accused Reid of being an “illegal alien’s best friend” and portrayed the community as criminals. When she had to pull the first round because of copyright concerns, she followed up with something even worse: Spots that featured a white family cowering in fear of shadowy gangs from south of the border.

    Angle’s ads were just the beginning. Robert De Posada, an Angle ally, created an ad urging Hispanics not to vote, ostensibly because Harry Reid and President Barack Obama failed to deliver on promises of comprehensive immigration reform. Angle refused to denounce it, and then blundered in a meeting with a high school Hispanic group, when she told some of the students they looked “a little more Asian” to her.

    “The Sharron Angle ads that were insulting to the Hispanic community, they backfired for her,” [Fernando] Romero [President of Hispanics in Politics] said. “Then the capper was the ‘Don’t Vote’ ad. She offended so many groups.”

    Angle picked on the community because she thought she could get away with it, Romero said. In doing so, she repeated a mistake Nevada Republicans have made over and over again. In the primary, Republicans Chad Christensen and Danny Tarkanian campaigned on platforms that included a promise to institute an Arizona-style immigration law in Nevada. The issue did not propel either one of them to victory.

    But Angle ignored their failure and began to campaign on the issue. She made several appearances with Maricopa County Sheriff Joe Arpaio, the so-called toughest sheriff in America, who happens to be extra tough on illegal immigrants (and under investigation by the Justice Department for his treatment of inmates).

    It will be interesting to see if the Nevada GOP decides to change course for 2012. John Ensign has quite the anti-immigrant voting record, so don’t expect Latin@ voters to come to his rescue any time soon. Dean Heller used to be considered fairly moderate, but he’s tacked to the right ever since going to Congress, including going more anti-immigrant, so put him in the same boat as Ensign. And of course, Baby Tark and Angle herself have already become curse words en la comunidad, The only person who could probably right this ship is Brian Sandoval, and I guess he’d be the wild card should he decide to give up the Governor’s seat to run for US Senate so soon.

    And unless Sandoval decides to run, Shelley Berkley, or Ross Miller or Catherine Cortez Masto should Shelley decide not to run, will probably be able to count on getting a good supermajority of the Latin@ vote.

  19. I have to hope he either retires or loses a primary, but I’m also scared of that possibility. While there’s nothing inherently wrong with having extremely conservative positions, a lot of those who have them appear to be almost radical in their approach to politics (see Angle, Sharon). I’m not sure what I value more: what I believe would be a legitimate chance to take the seat, especially if Obama contests Indiana as strongly as he did last time, or someone what appears to be a sane, responsible voice in a party that needs them.

    For the time being, it’s certainly the former.  

  20. She probably wins ballsiest campaign this cycle.  She really had nothing to lose but still she did it and appears to have done it right.

    I still lvoe the DeMint was pushing her to endorse Millar after the primary and trying to get her out of the way.  Now DeMint wants to do away with earmarks.  I’m sure their relationship will be just fine lol.

    If the re-count drags though, does Parnell get to appoint someone in January if its not decided?  That would be interesting.  He could appoint Palin lol.

  22. 52,000 new ballots from Sacramento County, and Harris WON it by 5,000 votes!

    She is trailing in the county, so this is actually significant.

    The margin reported by the SoS: 157361 Cooley-142669 Harris.

    The margin reported by Sacramento County’s website: 178844 Cooley-169118 Harris.

    This is a place Cooley expected to pick-up some votes. instead, Harris won a BIG dump of ballots by a significant margin. I think about 40,000 Sacramento ballots remain.

  24. Lashes out at Harry (Rory’s dad) for supposedly double-crossing him…

    In the summer and fall of 2008, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had several conversations with his son Rory Reid in which they discussed plans for the future, according to a source with knowledge of the discussions.

    During the conversations, Harry Reid told Rory Reid, a Clark County commissioner, that it was unlikely he would seek a fifth term in the U.S. Senate and encouraged his son to run for governor, the source said.

    With the understanding that he and his father wouldn’t share the top of the 2010 Democratic ticket, the younger Reid set in motion his failed bid for governor, according to the source. Rory Reid didn’t think his father would be on the ballot, the source said, speaking anonymously because of the sensitive nature of the family discussions.

    A spokesman for Harry Reid denied the source’s account of the conversations and said the senator did not encourage his son to run for governor.

    “Rory knew from the very beginning that Sen. Reid was running for re-election,” Jon Summers said in an e-mail. “Sen. Reid was very clear publicly and privately early on that he was running. This was never in question. Period.”

    It seems to confirm the negative opinion some Democrats and many Republicans here have about Harry…

    Except that it isn’t true. Jon Ralston just dropped a HUGE BOMB on his fellow Sun reporter’s story…

    Here’s a ?: If Rory thought Dad wasn’t going to run, why did he commission a poll after he was committed in ’08 about impact of two Reids?

    Basically, Ralston calls BS on this latest accusation that Harry misled Rory to believe he wouldn’t run for another Senate term. To me, it just seems like some in Rory’s inner circle still can’t get over the craptastic campaign they ran. Oh, and it confirms what I’ve been telling y’all for some time, which is that Harry Reid and Rory Reid are NOT “tied at the hip”. Far from it…

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