Author: Crisitunity

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (1/5-7, likely voters):

Roy Cooper (D): 43

Richard Burr (R-inc): 45

Richard Moore (D): 40

Richard Burr (R-inc): 46

(MoE: ±4%)

If you were to ask me, I’d point to Richard Burr as the Republicans’ most endangered incumbent Senator in 2010. He’s kind of a back-bench non-entity up for his first re-election, he made it into office in a strongly Republican year (2004) against an underwhelming opponent (Erskine Bowles), and North Carolina underwent a pretty dramatic blue shift in 2008, although that may dissipate a bit by 2010.

So it’s nice to have some polling data to support my intuition. Roy Cooper, North Carolina’s Attorney General who was just re-elected by a convincing margin, polls very well against Burr, losing by only two points. R2K also tests Richard Moore, the former Treasurer who lost the 2008 gubernatorial primary to then-Lt. Gov. Bev Perdue, who doesn’t poll quite as well (perhaps he’s still tarnished from that acrimonious primary). However, six points back from an incumbent two years out is still a fairly good place to be, too.

Burr’s favorables are only 47 favorable/46 unfavorable, while Cooper’s are 41/21 and Moore is at 37/27, which looks especially nice for Cooper. While media speculation tends to focus on Cooper, it’s not entirely sure whether Cooper will get into the race, and there are a few other top-tier Dems seemingly mulling the race (Rep. Brad Miller comes to mind, as well as Rep. Heath Shuler). But this race easily looks to be a Tossup with Cooper in it (and probably even with Moore or Miller instead).

It’s been the world’s worst-kept secret for the last three days or so, but this morning George Voinovich made it official: he’s hanging it up in 2010, leaving behind an open seat in a swing state where the recent momentum has been with the Democrats.

In a statement from his office, Voinovich emphasized that he wanted to spend his final two years in the Senate focusing on legislating instead of campaigning.

“These next two years in office, for me, will be the most important years that I have served in my entire political career,” Voinovich said in a statement. “I must devote my full time, energy and focus to the job I was elected to do, the job in front of me, which seeking a third term – with the money-raising and campaigning that it would require – would not allow me to do.”

All eyes turn to the ensuing musical chairs now; Roll Call, like most outlets, posits ex-Rep. and ex-OMB Director Rob Portman as the likeliest GOP candidate (although with no mention of John Kasich as a backup; instead it offers retread Mike DeWine and nutjob Ken Blackwell as other options). As always, we’ll keep you posted as hats get thrown into the ring.

UPDATE: Well, that was fast. Politico‘s Scorecard is already reporting that Rob Portman is getting in the race and will announce his candidacy shortly. Let’s see if that has the effect of clearing the field.

UPDATE, part deux: On the Democratic side, Politico is now reporting that Rep. Tim Ryan is making loud public noises about “certainly consider”ing the Senate race, while Lt. Gov. Lee Fisher’s surrogates are saying that he is “leaning against running.” I wonder if we could have both fields cleared within the next few days?

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (1/5-7, likely voters):

Barbara Boxer (D-inc): 49

Arnold Schwarzenegger (R): 40

(MoE: ±4%)

First, here’s the bad news: Barbara Boxer is under the 50% mark that represents relative safety for an incumbent. The rest of the story is pretty good: that’s against Arnold Schwarzenegger, who is the best-known and probably most popular Republican in California, a guy who many people have feared would convincingly defeat Boxer or at least turn this expensive blue-state seat into a top-tier tossup.

And that presumes that Schwarzenegger even runs, which may not be likely at this point, as his popularity (which enjoyed a resurgence just in time for his re-election in 2006) seems to be waning again. The same sample gives him 42/51 favorable/unfavorable ratings (note that almost everyone in the state has an opinion, meaning he’d have to start changing minds instead of just winning over undecideds).

Californians aren’t that red-hot about Boxer either (she has a lukewarm 48/46 favorable/unfavorable). But if Arnold says ‘hasta la vista’ to electoral politics, with the other potentially strong statewide California Republicans (Insurance Commissioner Steve Poizner and ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman) eyeing the governor’s seat, and with probably none of the GOP House members willing to give up their safe seats on a fool’s errand, it’s possible she might only draw second- (or third-) tier opposition again.

ARG (12/27-29, registered voters):

Paul Hodes (D): 40

Judd Gregg (R-inc): 47

Undecided: 13

Carol Shea-Porter (D): 35

Judd Gregg (R-inc): 54

Undecided: 11

(n=569)

ARG! takes a first look at the prospective matchups in the 2010 New Hampshire Senate race. No one has declared yet, although both of NH’s Democratic representatives have expressed some interest, and it’s not even certain whether Gregg plans to run for re-election, considering that he’s likely to race his first tough race in, well, forever.

Of the two representatives, Paul Hodes fares much better, coming within 7 points of Gregg, which is a pretty good place to be, two years out from taking on an entrenched incumbent. Carol Shea-Porter, who had a shakier 2008 re-election than Hodes, falls short by a somewhat wider margin. Although Hodes and Shea-Porter are the Dems getting the lion’s share of attention right now, it might be interesting to see a poll matchup between Gregg and popular Democratic Governor John Lynch; while Lynch seems comfortable in Concord and doesn’t seem likely to run, maybe he’d change his tune if he saw polls giving him an edge.

Big news out of the Show Me State: Christopher “Kit” Bond, senator since 1986, will not be running for re-election in 2010. This contradicts Bond’s statements of even several months ago that he would seek a fifth term.

Previous polls had indicated this would be a competitive race even with Bond running for re-election (R2K recently saw only a 4-point edge for Bond against Secretary of State Robin Carnahan). But with an open seat… and with a whole bench full of Carnahans on our side and rather middling pickins on the GOP side… this suddenly moves up next to Florida on the 2010 senate watch list.

We recently discussed possible candidates in the Missouri recruitment thread. (bpfish‘s comment in that diary is pretty comprehensive, and definitely merits a read.) On the Dem side, as previously mentioned, Robin Carnahan probably tops most people’s lists, but her brother, Rep. Russ Carnahan, could just as easily be the one. (The other Dem representatives are Lacy Clay and Emanuel Cleaver, African-Americans representing urban districts who are unlikely to make the jump to statewide, and Ike Skelton, who is in his 70s and unlikely to give up his Armed Services gavel.) Other possibilities include Auditor Susan Montee, and ex-state rep. Judy Baker, who just narrowly lost the House race in the conservative 9th District.

Tons of possibilities on the GOP side, starting with former governor Matt Blunt, who’s young but may need more time than that to rehabilitate his image from his unsuccessful gubernatorial term. Representatives Sam Graves (who won convincingly in a should-have-been-competitive race), Jo Ann Emerson, and Todd Akin may all be eyeing the race. (The other GOP reps are Blaine Luetkemeyer, who’s brand new, and Roy Blunt, who seems to be looking for an exit strategy.)

Ex-Treasurer Sarah Steelman, who lost the gubernatorial primary, may also be a possibility, as may be ex-Rep. Kenny Hulshof, although he may have lost the governor’s race by too large a margin to be taken seriously any more. More remote possibilities include former senators Jim Talent and John Ashcroft (yes, John Ashcroft) coming back for another bite at the apple. Last but not least… don’t rule out Brock Olivo. The 9th District was just too small a stage for a mind as expansive as his. (Discussion already underway in txobserver‘s diary.)

During the election season, people seemed to assume that Swing State Project has long been in the business of handicapping congressional races. However, believe it or not, 2008 was the first time that SSP attempted to rate and predict every congressional race. It was an extremely fun project, as we argued back and forth, trying to sell each other on particular candidates’ hidden strengths or districts’ unique quirks, parsing the meaning of “Lean” and “Likely,” or simply trash-talking each other. (In order to briefly return to those golden days, this is a fully collaborative post, and David and James have their say further down too.)

Now that every House race has finally been called and things have settled back down to business as usual here, we thought we’d do a little retrospective and see how our predictions matched up with the actual results. (Our final predictions are here.) Our table is broken into races where Team Blue was on the offense and on the defense, ordered in terms of the margin of victory (or loss). (An asterisk refers to a race that was once on the chart, but dropped off by the end.) Even if you aren’t that interested in our slightly belated soul-searching about our predictive skills, this should be a very useful chart for our readers, as the decreasing margins give a pretty clear picture of who’s vulnerable going into the next cycle.

District	Offense	Margin	Rating	District	Defense	Margin	Rating
NY-13	Open	27.6	Safe D	FL-16	Mahoney	-20.2	Likely R
IL-11	Open	23.9	Lean D	LA-06	Cazayoux	-7.8	Tossup
AZ-01	Open	20.5	Likely D	TX-22	Lampson	-7.0	Tossup
FL-24	Feeney	16.1	Lean D	KS-02	Boyda	-4.4	Lean D
NY-25	Open	12.9	Likely D	LA-02	Jefferson	-2.7	Safe D
CO-04	Musgrave	12.4	Lean D	PA-11	Kanjorski	3.2	Tossup
NM-02	Open	12.0	Tossup	AL-05	Open	3.6	Lean D
VA-11	Open	11.7	Lean D	NY-24	Arcuri	4.0	Safe D *
NM-01	Open	11.4	Lean D	NH-01	Shea-Porter	5.9	Lean D
NC-08	Hayes	10.8	Lean D	TX-17	Edwards	7.5	Safe D
OH-16	Open	10.8	Lean D	WI-08	Kagen	8.1	Lean D
MI-09	Knollenberg	9.5	Lean D	FL-22	Klein	9.4	Safe D
NV-03	Porter	5.1	Tossup	AZ-05	Mitchell	9.6	Lean D
OH-01	Chabot	4.9	Tossup	ME-01	Open	9.8	Safe D
VA-02	Drake	4.9	Lean R	CA-11	McNerney	11.6	Lean D
NJ-03	Open	4.2	Tossup	MS-01	Childers	10.6	Likely D
FL-08	Keller	4.0	Tossup	PA-04	Altmire	11.8	Likely D
CT-04	Shays	3.7	Tossup	AZ-08	Giffords	11.9	Likely D
PA-03	English	2.4	Tossup	PA-10	Carney	12.6	Lean D
MI-07	Walberg	2.3	Tossup	TX-23	Rodriguez	13.9	Likely D
NY-29	Kuhl	2.0	Lean D	IA-03	Boswell	14.3	Safe D
ID-01	Sali	1.2	Tossup	GA-08	Marshall	14.4	Lean D
MD-01	Open	0.8	Tossup	NH-02	Hodes	15.0	Safe D *
OH-15	Open	0.7	Lean D	PA-08	P. Murphy	15.2	Likely D
AL-02	Open	0.6	Lean R	IL-14	Foster	15.4	Likely D
VA-05	Goode	0.2	Lean R	PA-12	Murtha	15.8	Lean D
LA-04	Open	-0.4	Tossup	OR-05	Open	16.0	Likely D
CA-04	Open	-0.6	Tossup	KS-03	Moore	16.8	Likely D
CA-44	Calvert	-2.4	Safe R	NY-01	Bishop	16.8	Safe D
MO-09	Open	-2.5	Tossup	NY-19	Hall	17.4	Safe D *
MN-06	Bachmann	-3.0	Tossup	OH-10	Kucinich	17.9	Safe D
NE-02	Terry	-3.8	Tossup	IA-02	Loebsack	18.4	Safe D
SC-01	Brown	-4.0	Lean R	KY-03	Yarmuth	18.8	Likely D
PA-06	Gerlach	-4.2	RTW *	PA-07	Sestak	19.2	Safe D
CA-50	Bilbray	-5.1	Likely R	IN-09	Hill	19.4	Likely D
AK-AL	Young	-5.2	Lean D	TX-27	Ortiz	19.5	Safe D
IL-10	Kirk	-5.2	Tossup	OH-18	Space	19.8	Safe D *
KY-02	Open	-5.2	Lean R	CT-05	C. Murphy	20.2	Likely D
CA-03	Lungren	-5.5	RTW	TN-04	Davis	21.0	Safe D
WA-08	Reichert	-5.6	Tossup	IL-08	Bean	21.4	Safe D *
MI-11	McCotter	-6.0	Safe R	WI-07	Obey	21.7	Safe D
FL-25	M. Diaz-Balart	-6.2	Tossup	CO-03	Salazar	23.2	Safe D
OH-02	Schmidt	-7.2	Lean R	FL-02	Boyd	23.8	Safe D
SC-02	Wilson	-7.5	RTW	ND-AL	Pomeroy	24.0	Safe D
MN-03	Open	-7.6	Tossup	NY-20	Gillibrand	24.2	Lean D
NJ-07	Open	-8.0	Tossup	SC-05	Spratt	24.6	Safe D
AL-03	Rogers	-8.2	Likely R	WA-02	Larsen	24.8	Safe D
CA-46	Rohrabacher	-9.5	Likely R	NM-03	Open	26.2	Safe D
WY-AL	Open	-9.8	Lean R	NC-11	Shuler	26.2	Safe D *
IL-13	Biggert	-9.9	RTW	NC-04	Price	26.6	Safe D

As you can see, by the time you get up to 50, the Democratic defense list has started to get kind of uninteresting, while there are still some hotly contested offense seats left to discuss. It’s a pretty good illustration of how lopsided the playing field for the two parties was this year. For instance, there’s only one Democratic defense seat that we had left on our big board that fell off the list: Tim Walz in MN-01, who was Likely D but won by 29.6% (good for 67th place).

On the other hand, here’s the continued list for offense seats!

51) NV-02, Heller, -10.4, Lean R

52) TX-10, McCaul, -10.8, Lean R

54) AZ-03, Shadegg, -11.1, Lean R

57) NJ-05, Garrett, -13.5, Lean R

58) TX-07, Culberson, -13.5, Likely R

59) WV-02, Capito, -14.2, Lean R

60) NY-26, Open, -14.5, Lean R

67) NC-10, McHenry, -15.2, Likely R

68) IN-03, Souder, -15.3, Tossup

72) FL-18, Ros-Lehtinen, -15.8, Likely R

73) FL-21, L. Diaz-Balart, -15.8, Tossup

77) OH-07, Open, -16.4, Likely R

80) NC-05, Foxx, -16.8, Likely R

81) PA-15, Dent, -17.2, Likely R

83) FL-13, Buchanan, -18.0, Likely R

89) VA-10, Wolf, -20.0, Likely R

95) IA-04, Latham, -21.2, Likely R

103) MO-06, Graves, -22.5, Likely R

128) LA-07, Boustany, -27.6, Likely R

142) LA-01, Scalise, -31.4, Likely R

The first thing I notice is that there are only six places where we got it “wrong,” where wrong means we felt that, rather than leaving a race as “Tossup,” we could move it to “Lean” or even “Likely…” only to see it go the wrong way. On the defense side, that means Bill Jefferson at Safe D, whose loss I think absolutely no one saw coming (the NRCC’s four-digit campaign expenditures notwithstanding). It also means Nancy Boyda at Lean D. Although she seemed to have a comfortable edge in polls, her surprise loss provides a nice object lesson for incumbents defending tough districts: don’t try to run a campaign that actually appeals to your constituents’ logic and good judgment. Accept the DCCC’s money, and use it to run negative TV spots, instead of trying to engage them intellectually with policy-specific newspaper ads.

On the offense side, the big screwup is Don Young at Lean D; again, this is one that basically no pundit saw coming, thanks to extremely consistent polling in favor of Ethan Berkowitz. The lesson here: never underestimate Alaskans’ willingness to vote for more pork, even if it means supporting a felon (or soon-to-be felon) in the privacy of the voting booth.

We also had something of a crisis of faith in Bobby Bright in AL-02, in the face of tepid campaigning and a crimson district. Despite our dropping him late in the game to Lean R, his name rec and DCCC spending seemed to pull him over the line. Finally, we were caught off guard by the magnitude of the Obama coattails in Virginia, where we left Glenn Nye (VA-02) and Tom Perriello (VA-05) at Lean R. The polls just weren’t there for them, in GOP-leaning turf, but the bluening of Virginia lifted them far enough. (If there’s one candidate I’m personally shocked that won, it’s Perriello; I was miffed to see the DCCC pouring money into a guy who seemed way too progressive for such a rural and downscale district. Here’s one race where I’m super-happy to eat some crow.)

Where else did we whiff? IN-03 and FL-21 seemed like Tossups at the time, given the very close polling and baffled-seeming incumbents, but these ones are languishing up around #70. Apparently the constituents decided late in the game that, in IN-03, they had a challenger they just didn’t know enough about (Mike Montagano), and in FL-21, probably a challenger that they just knew too much about (Raul Martinez).

We may also have been a little generous on the Louisiana challenges in LA-07 and LA-01 (both listed as Likely R). Jim Harlan, with a conservative profile and his own fat pocketbook, seemed like the best possible candidate for LA-01; however, given that this is one of the nation’s most right-wing districts, I guess we have to take a 30-point loss (instead of the usual 50-point beatdown that we take in that district) as some sort of moral victory.

On the flipside, we missed a number of strong performances in California, especially the near upsets of Ken Calvert in CA-44 and Dan Lungren in CA-03. What’s most interesting is that the rising blue tide in California seemed very evenly distributed throughout the state and probably tied to an Obama-driven boost in infrequent voters voting straight-ticket D, as higher-profile challenges to Dana Rohrabacher and David Dreier did only slightly better than completely under-the-radar challenges to guys like Buck McKeon, Wally Herger, and Elton Gallegly.

Where did we buck the odds? I’m pleased with how well we did at moving the right people to “Lean D” in the weeks before the election; at the time, it seemed a little audacious to call a win in advance for Gary Peters, Larry Kissell, Suzanne Kosmas, Betsy Markey, and Eric Massa in their fights against (lame) incumbents, but they all pulled it out… as did last-minute change Mary Jo Kilroy, who finally managed to pull it out in overtime and save us a lot of egg on our faces.

On the whole, we ran up a pretty good track record (while using the ass-covering category of “Tossup” a lot less than certain other prognosticators). The lesson here is that prognosticating is more art than science; your predictions are only as good as your polls and your scuttlebutt.

DavidNYC: This was indeed a very fun project and a tremendous learning experience, and I expect will continue to do race ratings in the future. It was also remarkably time-consuming, especially as we got toward the end – as Crisitunity suggests, there was a lot of back-and-forth as we pored over Google spreadsheets – plus the occasional bit of smack talk. But I think we’d all gladly take more cycles like the one just concluded!

I just have a few additional thoughts. I think our Senate ratings hit the mark, and I think we were in general pretty disciplined in not moving races until we had sufficient evidence to justify a change. Some examples I’m thinking of include OR-Sen and CT-04, where we insisted on seeing polling before concluding that popular, “moderate” Republican incumbents were truly in jeopardy.

On the flipside, I think sometimes you just have to acknowledge an open seat is gone, as we did early on by moving VA-Sen to Safe D in August, and later NY-13 in October. (Both of these were thirty-point races.)

One of our biggest flubs, though, was NY-24. We had the race as Likely D until a week before election day, when we moved it to Safe. A lack of polling, zero outside spending, and a seemingly unimpressive Republican who had been substantially outraised all convinced us that there was nothing to see here.

We couldn’t have been more wrong. In the end, Mike Arcuri raised “just” $1.6 million (unimpressive compared to fellow freshmen like Chris Murphy, Patrick Murphy or even Paul Hodes), while Richard Hanna took in almost $1.1 mil. The final four-point margin was hair-raising, and suggests Arcuri still has a lot of work to do to establish himself. It also tells us that there will always be surprises – and that absence of evidence is not evidence of a Straniere.

James: Crisitunity and David touched on a lot of key points above, but I’ll just add that I think that we all were a bit caught off guard by just how much of a focal point our race ratings exercise became in the day-to-day operations of this blog.

When I first drafted a preliminary set of race ratings at the tail end of 2007, David’s response after I asked him for his thoughts was merely: “Nice work!” David later admitted to me that he felt as if he were a busy parent being handed a crappy piece of crayon art by a proud six year-old son. But once that crayon drawing was slapped on the fridge, if you will, we all realized that we would have to put in a great level of care into making sure we felt that each rating had a strong leg to stand on. In that sense, our race ratings project became the engine of SSP: we all had to step up our game to make sure that no major (or even minor) developments in the key House races would slip past us unnoticed — especially after we achieved some early success by noticing MS-01 before anyone else did.

Our goal of making this ratings project as honest and credible as possible, I believe, had a great impact on our front page coverage, and I know we caught on to a lot of stories and developments that we may have otherwise missed had it not been for our relentless commitment to stay on top of things. There’s no doubt in my mind that our ratings exercise, even if it provided no great revelations to anyone else, helped improve the work and quality of this blog immensely over my output in the summer and fall of 2006.

This could be a random burp from the rumor mill, but the Stranger (Seattle’s alternative weekly, or more precisely, Seattle’s alternative alternative weekly) is reading some tea leaves and coming up with the conclusion that Chris Gregoire, fresh off her hard-fought re-election victory as Washington governor, is headed to the other Washington to replace fellow western governor Bill Richardson at Commerce.

The concern began today when she backed out of a pre-legislative forum for tomorrow and people realized that no one was sure where she was, other than a statement that “she would be making an announcement Tuesday morning.” The Bellingham Herald reports that she flew to DC on Sunday. And then the Stranger, when calling Gregoire’s spokesperson, got a hilarious series of non-denials:

Q: Is Governor Gregoire going to be Obama’s nominee for Commerce Secretary?

A: “We’re not able to speak to that so we’ll do a release in the morning.”…

Q: Is she going to continue as Governor of Washington State?

A: “I’m not allowed to say.”

If not for the bizarre conversation with the press flack, I wouldn’t give this much weight; this seems a strange departure for Gregoire after having just fought her way to a second term. I could see her jumping to take Attorney General, but Commerce seems an odd fit.

At any rate, one unfortunate side effect would be that Lt. Gov. Brad Owen, who’s generally derided as a bit of a DINO, takes over until the next general election; Owen, however, based on his general lack of ambition, wouldn’t seem likely to endeavor to keep the job on a permanent basis. (Lt. Governor in Washington isn’t elected as part of the same ticket as Governor, and has no statutory duties there than breaking ties in the state senate; Owen has been content to stick with this non-job for well over a decade.)

Update: Andrew at Northwest Progressive Institute, who’s a pretty finger-on-the-pulse guy, says no about Commerce, although that still leaves the question of her surprise announcement:

Gregoire’s legislative director, Marty Brown, is telling reporters that Gregoire did not travel to Washington, D.C. to accept a job with the Obama administration. However, Gregoire is scheduled to make an important announcement tomorrow morning at 6 AM.

A commenter at Daily Kos also reports that Dwight Pelz, the Washington state Dems chair, told him (at tonight’s Drinking Liberally) that she wasn’t headed to Commerce. Well, how about we just start taking bets on what her big announcement is about, instead?

Democrats in Texas came remarkably close in November to drawing into a tie in the Republican-controlled state House of Representatives where there was previously an eight-seat margin; a few dozen votes in one district that barely went the wrong way would have done the trick. However, while they don’t have control over the chamber, there’s been a steady flow of good news out of Austin over the last few days: it looks like a combination of Democrats plus insurgent Republicans are poised to replace Speaker Tom Craddick with fellow GOPer Joe Straus. As of today, Straus reportedly has secured pledges of 96 members (out of 150). This includes all Democrats except one, plus several dozen Republicans (with their numbers sure to continue to grow).

Now, before you get too happy, remember that Straus is a Republican, and a conservative one at that (although more from the Chamber of Commerce wing of the party than the truly unhinged), leaving the actual legislative agenda probably little changed. (And more importantly, for the Dems to have a meaningful seat at the redistricting table in Texas in 2010, they’ll need to actually control the chamber.)

But being rid of Craddick is a very welcome development, as he was from the hardcore knuckle-dragger wing of the GOP and, back in the day, Tom DeLay’s prime enforcer/enabler at the legislative level. Craddick, for instance, was at the core of the 2004 DeLay-mander that cut a swath through U.S. House Democrats from Texas. Craddick has even been the target of previous attempts by his own party to remove from the speaker’s seat, over his attempts to create a mini-K Street in Austin and wield power in the House through lobbyists and campaign contributions. Today, both parties are saying “good riddance.”

PPP (1/3-4, registered voters):

Andrew Cuomo (D): 58 (23)

Caroline Kennedy (D): 27 (44)

Undecided: 14 (8)

(MoE: ±3.7%)

Something big has happened over the last few weeks in the “race” to succeed Hillary Clinton as New York’s junior senator, according to the trendlines set by the new PPP poll. The Kennedy boomlet seems to have crested and is receding, suggesting that her awkward media rollout and halting answers to questions has prompted something of a backlash. (In fact, 44% of those surveyed state that their opinion of Kennedy has become less favorable since she started publicly campaigning for the seat.)

However, there is one important apples ‘n’ oranges problem here. The month-old PPP poll was a) only of Democrats, rather than all New York voters like this one, and b) included a whole raft of other candidates instead of just the big 2, although none of them polled above the single digits. The month-old Marist poll (which was of registered voters, and found Kennedy and Cuomo tied at 25%, with 26% undecided and the balance going to other candidates) might be a better reference point, although even if you use that as a benchmark, you still have a pretty significant Kennedy collapse. Another approach is to delve into the crosstabs, which indicate in the current sample that Cuomo leads Kennedy 54-34 among Democrats only (with 12% undecided)… again, a pretty steep turnaround.

Of course, there’s only one voter in this race, and if there’s any substance to the trial balloons floated by the Paterson camp last Friday, he may well be on track to pick Kennedy anyway.

Well, he isn’t quite as obscure as Tim Ted Kaufman, but Blagojevich has named his pick for the vacant Illinois senate seat and it’s someone who wasn’t on anybody’s watch list: former Illinois Attorney General Roland Burris. Burris is the first African-American to win statewide office in Illinois, elected comptroller in 1978. He’s failed to win the primary in three separate gubernatorial runs, including in 2002 against Blagojevich.

Burris is 71. This leads to the question: is he running for re-election in 2010? That’s not immediately clear, but Burris stated earlier that whoever gets the appointment should be able to win re-election. Burris sold himself to Blagojevich when the position came open, and unlike most anyone else, continued to sell himself harder after Blago got arrested.

Shortly after Obama’s Nov. 4 victory, Burris made known his interest in an appointment to the Senate but was never seriously considered, according to Blagojevich insiders. But in the days following Blagojevich’s arrest, and despite questions over the taint of a Senate appointment, Burris stepped up his efforts to win the governor’s support.

What’s strange here is that Blagojevich’s own defense attorney said that no appointment would be forthcoming, and of course earlier Harry Reid said that no Blagojevich appointment would be seated by the Senate… so it’s unclear what exactly Blagojevich is thinking (although that seems like it has frequently been the case lately). Burris apparently has not been connected to any of the investigations of Blagojevich, but it seems highly iffy as to whether or not he ever actually becomes a senator, with Reid’s threat, and the Illinois legislature still considering impeachment procedures against Blagojevich. (Discussion is already underway in safi‘s diary.)

UPDATE (James L.): Looks like Senate Dems are standing firm:

It is truly regrettable that despite requests from all 50 Democratic Senators and public officials throughout Illinois, Gov. Blagojevich would take the imprudent step of appointing someone to the United States Senate who would serve under a shadow and be plagued by questions of impropriety. We say this without prejudice toward Roland Burris’s ability, and we respect his years of public service. But this is not about Mr. Burris; it is about the integrity of a governor accused of attempting to sell this United States Senate seat. Under these circumstances, anyone appointed by Gov. Blagojevich cannot be an effective representative of the people of Illinois and, as we have said, will not be seated by the Democratic Caucus.

As is Illinois’ Secretary of State:

Illinois Secretary of State Jesse White says he’ll reject any paperwork that Gov. Rod Blagojevich files to name a new U.S. senator.

The secretary of state keeps state records and certifies official actions.

But White says he won’t certify anything Blagojevich does to fill the Senate seat once held by President-elect Barack Obama.

(Hat-tip: SusanG)

Later Update: Did you catch the Blago/Burris press conference? Reportedly, it was nothing less than surreal.