Author: Crisitunity

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (2/9-11, registered voters):

Byron Dorgan (D-inc): 57

John Hoeven (R): 35

(MoE: ±4%)

Conventional wisdom seems to dictate that in the 2010 North Dakota senate race, Byron Dorgan is safe despite North Dakota’s red-state status… unless popular Republican governor John Hoeven runs, in which case we’d have an epic battle. There’s been no indication, however, that Hoeven intends to run, and based on R2K’s first poll of this race, he may not want to bother.

Despite the fact that he’s just as well-known and popular as Dorgan (Hoeven’s favorables are 68/27, while Dorgan’s are 67/30), Hoeven loses by a substantial margin, losing every part of the state and every demographic category except “Republicans.” As Kos speculates, North Dakotans, like other small-staters (consider Alaskans’ attachment to Ted Stevens), know well how linked their local economy is to federal appropriations, and seem unwilling to trade in Dorgan’s decades of seniority and powerful committee posts.

One of the more interesting developments in the behind-the-scenes organization of the House this year is the introduction of a whole new caucus, the Populist Caucus. It’s the brainchild of IA-01’s Bruce Braley, who despite his sophomore status is well on his way to establishing himself as a major player in the House (he’s also the DCCC’s candidate services vice-chair).

The House Democrats certainly aren’t hurting for ideological caucuses (the Progressive Caucus, New Democrats, and Blue Dogs pretty clearly mark out the left, center, and right of the Democratic caucus). But the Populist Caucus — which has a current top priority of getting “Buy American” provisions included in the stimulus package, but plans to focus on health care and tax as well as trade issues — is interesting because it draws on members from across the ideological spectrum. In addition to Braley, the announced members are:

Reps. Michael Arcuri (D-NY); Pete DeFazio (D-OR); Betty Sutton (D-OH); Leonard Boswell (D-IA); Steve Cohen (D-TN); Joe Courtney (D-CT); Keith Ellison (D-MN); Bob Filner (D-CA); Phil Hare (D-IL); Mazie Hirono (D-HI); Hank Johnson (D-GA); Steve Kagan (D-WI); David Loebsack (D-IA); Eric Massa (D-NY); Linda Sanchez (D-CA); Jan Schakowsky (D-IL); Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH); Peter Welch (D-VT); and John Yarmuth (D-KY).

While there’s a fair amount of overlap with the Progressive Caucus (of the 20, 11 are also big-P Progressives), there are also some New Dems (Courtney, Braley himself), and some of the less objectionable Blue Dogs (Arcuri, Boswell). There isn’t even much of a correlation with the first bailout vote — of the 19 who voted, 7 were ‘ayes’ (Arcuri, Boswell, Cohen, Ellison, Hare, Loebsack, and Schakowsky) — although that may have to do with the panic surrounding the initial bailout and dismay over how it’s been administered. There are some names that you’d certainly expect to see in any Populist Caucus (DeFazio), but also some likely suspects missing (starting with Marcy Kaptur).

If there’s a common thread here, it may be what I observed among Democratic ‘no’ votes when looking for a pattern in the strange vote alignment in the first bailout vote in September: it’s representatives from rural or small-city districts that seem to be geographically and/or economically removed from Wall Street and other centers of power (although there are a few exceptions, like Jan Schakowsky’s affluent IL-09). Or, it may simply boil down to the districts with some of the angriest constituents:

“As someone who has been out holding town hall meetings and getting a faceful of that populist rage, I know that it is real, it is a force that needs to be dealt with, and it needs to be given a voice,” said Braley.

New York Governor David Patterson has set the special election in NY-20 for March 31. Those two months are a pretty generous timeframe, but from the Dems’ standpoint, it’s necessary, to give candidate Scott Murphy some time to introduce himself to the district. (The self-funding Murphy hasn’t held elective office before.)

That timeframe also gives Jim Tedisco the chance to get better familiarized with the kinds of technology the kids are using these days. (After all, the new post-2008 GOP strategy appears to be “We’re going to do the exact same thing as before. Except now we’re going to use Facebook and Twitter.”)

Brownsox at Daily Kos has an amusing piece on how the tech-savvy, linked-in Tedisco has a feature on his website that front-pages everything from the #NY20 Twitter feed… including all the press releases coming from the DCCC’s blog, such as “Will Tedisco Finally Reimburse Taxpayers Over $21,000 for His 20-Minute Car Ride?” (Throw in Pete Hoekstra‘s little problems with constantly Twittering away his locations on his recent trip to Iraq and Afghanistan, and you’ve gotta wonder if the GOP would be better off just sticking with the tools they’ve already mastered: direct mail and AM radio.)

Arlen Specter has his first confirmed challenger for 2010, but it’s not Allyson Schwartz or Patrick Murphy (the two names you usually see associated with this race): it’s Joe Torsella. He hasn’t held elective office before, but he’s a local mover and shaker in Philadelphia: he was, until very recently, CEO of the National Constitution Center, and before that, Ed Rendell’s deputy mayor.

Torsella’s interest in the Senate seat has always struck me as being a little above his pay grade (his only run for office was the primary for the open seat in PA-13 in 2004, which he lost to Schwartz; he was also reportedly wooed for the PA-06 candidacy in 2008). He does have one huge asset in his corner, though: Governor Ed Rendell. With Rendell having given no indication of interest in the Senate, Torsella is basically running as a Rendell proxy, and should have access to all the levers of Rendell’s machinery. Time will tell whether that will be enough to overcome the better-known Schwartz (and/or Murphy) in the primary, though.

Public Opinion Strategies (R) for Jim Tedisco (2/3-4, registered voters):

Scott Murphy (D): 29

Jim Tedisco (R): 50

(MoE: ±4.9%)

NY-20 was always going to be a tough hold, despite the fact that it narrowly went for Obama over McCain, because of its historically Republican nature (as seen in the GOP registration advantage and the utter lack of a convincing Democratic bench). Although this is an internal poll from Tedisco’s camp, it pretty clearly shows what kind of a hole we’re starting in.

Complicating matters is the name recognition factor: Tedisco, as Assembly Minority Leader and someone with deep roots in nearby NY-21, sports a 51% favorable/13% unfavorable rating, while local businessman Scott Murphy has never held office before. Murphy’s one advantage is self-funding: he’s already amassed $600,000 cash on hand, including a $250,000 loan from himself. Which is good… if Murphy’s going to be competitive in this race, in the face of a relatively short timeframe, it’s going to have to be through a lot of paid media.

Rasmussen (2/4, likely voters, 12/4 in parentheses):

Creigh Deeds (D): 30 (39)

Robert McDonnell (R): 39 (39)

Some other candidate: 6 (4)

Brian Moran (D): 36 (41)

Robert McDonnell (R): 39 (37)

Some other candidate: 4 (5)

Terry McAuliffe (D): 35 (36)

Robert McDonnell (R): 42 (41)

Some other candidate: 3 (5)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Rasmussen polls the Virginia governor’s race a second time, meaning we now have trendlines… and, frankly, they don’t look very appetizing. Ex-Del. Brian Moran led AG Robert McDonnell last time by 4, but now he’s trailing by 3, while Del. Creigh Deeds fell from a tie to a 9-point deficit.

Part of the problem here may be that, while McDonnell has long since consolidated Republican support, the three Dem contenders are in primary attack mode, driving their numbers down as they target each other. The numbers in the McAuliffe/McDonnell matchup don’t seem to have budged much, which suggests that McAuliffe may be doing the best job right now of the three of getting his message into the media… although that still doesn’t seem to translate into a good performance in the general matchup.

UPDATE (James L.): Public Policy Polling’s Tom Jensen weighs in:

I think the answer here is in the timing of the poll being conducted. It was done Wednesday night. McDonnell resigned as Attorney General Tuesday and that was all over local tv news casts Tuesday, and then all over the state’s newspapers on Wednesday. That level of exposure is unusual for a 24 hour media cycle this far out from November, and I bet it helped McDonnell to lead in the poll. I certainly don’t think there was any nefarious intent in the timing of the poll but that sort of thing does have an impact.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (2/2-4, registered voters):

Kathleen Sebelius (D): 47

Todd Tiahrt (R): 37

Kathleen Sebelius (D): 48

Jerry Moran (R): 36

(MoE: ±4%)

Todd Tiahrt (R): 24

Jerry Moran (R): 19

Undecided: 57

(MoE: ±5%)

The race for the open Senate seat in Kansas looks to be Kathleen Sebelius’s for the taking, if she would just show up (and hopefully these numbers will pique her interest). Research 2000 finds that the Kansas governor leads both of her potential candidates by a double-digit margin. If anyone can break the sixty-plus years of Republicans having a lock on the Kansas senate seats, it’s her.

There’s one sort of generalized caveat here, though: Sebelius isn’t over the 50% mark here, and yet she’s extremely well-known (with a 56% favorable/37% unfavorable, almost everyone has an opinion of her), leaving me to wonder where that last few percent to put her over the top in this dark-red state are going to come from. With both Reps. Tiahrt and Moran much less-known (check out the undecided numbers on their primary), they seem to have the room to expand. While you can’t deny that Sebelius is in the driver’s seat here, this looks to be a much closer race in Nov. 2010 than the current gaudy numbers indicate. (Discussion is already well underway in conspiracy‘s diary.)

When Judd Gregg’s head first reared up over White House airspace in consideration for the spot at Commerce, my first concern wasn’t about the musical chairs in New Hampshire or about the perception vs. reality of ‘bipartisanship…’ it was about the fact that we were putting the Census Bureau in the hands of a conservative Republican. I assumed I was the one of few people with this rather arcane concern, but some serious pushback started coming in the last few days, from people like Rep. Barbara Lee… particularly in view of Gregg’s vote against providing emergency funding for the 2000 census.

Today, it was revealed that in the Obama administration, the Census Bureau director would be reporting directly to the White House (or more specifically, to Rahm Emanuel) rather than to Gregg. This provoked a furious reaction from House Republicans (and you gotta wonder if they would have said boo if Obama had decided to take, say, Bill Richardson out of the Census Bureau’s line of command):

“Any attempt by the Obama administration to circumvent the census process for their political benefit will be met with fierce opposition as this ill-conceived proposal undermines a constitutionally obligated process that speaks to the very heart of our democracy,” said California Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the committee.

You wouldn’t necessarily think the Census Bureau would be such a political football, but, well, spend some time at a data-driven site like SSP and you’ll know why. Census data is the basis for House redistricting and allotting electoral votes… the very building blocks of getting and maintaining political power. The 2000 census is a case in point: left poorly funded by a Republican Congress (meaning not enough enumerators to perform adequate follow-up counts), and unable to use oversampling methods thanks to a US Supreme Court ruling, the 2000 census probably left millions of Americans undercounted.

Unsurprisingly, the undercounted tend to be the people who are both the hardest to reach (undocumented persons avoiding contact with government representatives, homeless people with no particular address) and the most vulnerable. The catch-22 is, to provide social services to these populations, they need to be counted by the Census in order to determine the magnitude of the need and to secure the proper funding. Already-strapped cities and counties lose billions of dollars in potential federal and state aid because of undercounted residents. Connect the dots, and you can see why it’s imperative to keep the Census properly funded and out of Republican hands.

Quinnipiac (1/29-2/2, registered voters):

Ted Strickland (D-inc): 56

John Kasich (R): 26

Ted Strickland (D-inc): 54

Mike DeWine (R): 32

(MoE: ±2.9%)

Mike DeWine (R): 37

John Kasich (R): 22

Kevin Coughlin (R): 3

(MoE: ±5.1%)

Ted Strickland is starting to look fairly secure in his 2010 bid for re-election as Ohio governor, posting double-digit margins against two top-tier challengers. Strickland is well-liked (60 favorable/19 unfavorable), while ex-Sen. Mike DeWine inspires a whole lot of “meh” and people seem to simply not remember anything about ex-Rep. John Kasich (21 favorable/6 unfavorable, with 71% don’t know). Although Kasich has been the name most closely linked to this race, he loses the primary to DeWine, probably on the strength of the two-term senator’s statewide name recognition, although he still fares better than State Sen. Kevin Coughlin, the only declared candidate at this time.

You may remember that a few weeks ago, a PPP poll gave Strickland only a 6-point margin over Kasich for 2010. One of these polls must be way off. (Considering that the PPP poll found only 52% African-American support for Strickland, my money is on PPP being more of an outlier.)

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (1/29-2/2, registered voters):

Ben Chandler (D): 42

Jim Bunning (R-inc): 45

Jack Conway (D): 42

Jim Bunning (R-inc): 46

Crit Luallen (D): 41

Jim Bunning (R-inc): 45

Dan Mongiardo (D): 42

Jim Bunning (R-inc): 46

Ben Chandler (D): 42

Trey Grayson (R): 42

Jack Conway (D): 41

Trey Grayson (R): 42

Crit Luallen (D): 42

Trey Grayson (R): 42

Dan Mongiardo (D): 42

Trey Grayson (R): 43

(MoE: ±4%)

R2K polls the Bluegrass State on behalf of the Orangehate Site, and we are looking at a very tight Senate race. Jim Bunning, who has been the subject of some very public pressure from Republican leadership to get out of the way, is leading his likely Democratic opposition by 3 or 4 points. The four likeliest Democratic challengers (Rep. Ben Chandler, Attorney General Jack Conway, Auditor Crit Luallen, and Bunning’s 2004 opponent, Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo; of these four, only Mongiardo has declared) all put up virtually the same numbers, indicating, as with most polls we’ve been seeing in the last few months, that they’re all basically running as “generic D” right now. (Hard to believe, I know, but those creatures known as “voters” apparently aren’t in round-the-clock campaign mode like we are.)

On the one hand, these poll numbers may come as a bit of a surprise to people looking at the Kentucky senate race as one where the Democrats have a clear edge. Bunning has a few advantages here, though: one, the power of incumbency, and the name recognition and general staying-power that come with it. And two: the overall Republican strength in Kentucky, one of the few states that seems to keep on moving away from us at the presidential level, although it’s still quite amenable to statewide Dems.

On the other hand, Bunning clearly is in bad shape here, falling far short of the relative safety of the 50% mark, based on pretty wide name recognition (41 favorable/47 unfavorable), leaving him little room to go up. And that’s before he’s exposed to the rigors of a two-year campaign, which didn’t go so well last time back when he was five younger.

R2K also polls GOP Secretary of State Trey Grayson, a young up-and-comer who would assumedly be the party’s preferred candidate. He doesn’t fare as well as Bunning, but unlike Bunning, he’s not well-known and yet liked by those who know him (39 favorable/18 unfavorable), giving him a lot more room for expansion. This is why Grayson is, by most people, considered the more dangerous GOP option.