Author: Crisitunity

Last week we released our first wave of results, for over 100 congressional districts. Today, as promised, here’s our second wave, with the results for another 95 districts.

Despite the huge avalanche of data, we’re still only halfway done. Please take a look at our master database to see what states remain. Even if you don’t have time to tabulate data yourself but if you’ve sniffed out some precinct-level data sources anywhere, please let us know in the database! We need you, to put the “crowd” in “crowdsourcing.” (A permalink to all our results so far is available here.)

District	Obama #	McCain #	Other #	2008 %	2004 %	2000 %
AZ-01	127,790	157,160	3,848	44.3/54.4	46/54	46/51
AZ-02	138,275	220,667	4,279	38.1/60.8	38/61	41/57
AZ-03	121,996	162,724	3,422	42.3/56.5	41/58	43/55
AZ-04	86,815	43,610	1,651	65.7/33.0	62/38	63/35
AZ-05	140,287	153,736	3,362	47.2/51.7	45./54	43/54
AZ-06	135,178	220,718	4,068	37.6/61.3	35/64	37/61
AZ-07	123,202	89,725	2,491	57.2/41.7	57/43	58/38
AZ-08	161,164	181,771	4,141	46.4/52.4	46/53	46/50
FL-01	112,291	232,449	3,638	32.2/66.7	28/72	31/69
FL-02	161,822	196,555	3,715	44.7/54.3	46/54	47/53
FL-03	144,167	52,056	1,213	73.0/26.4	65/35	65/35
FL-04	141,930	231,915	3,541	37.6/61.5	31/69	34/66
FL-05	191,959	249,328	5,029	43.0/55.9	41/58	46/54
FL-06	117,280	184,864	3,089	38.4/60.6	39/61	42/58
FL-07	116,797	158,437	2,868	42.0/57.0	43/57	46/54
FL-08	187,295	167,127	2,714	52.4/46.8	45/55	46/54
FL-09	169,897	190,344	4,596	46.6/52.2	43/57	46/54
FL-10	164,148	150,962	4,895	51.3/47.1	49/51	51/49
FL-11	174,314	88,357	2,642	65.7/33.3	58/41	61/39
FL-12	115,180	123,958	2,424	47.7/51.3	42/58	45/55
FL-13	175,991	196,908	3,732	46.7/52.3	44/56	46/55
FL-14	167,015	224,405	3,084	42.3/56.9	38/62	39/61
FL-15	137,627	152,415	3,352	46.9/52.0	43/57	46/54
FL-16	174,255	191,423	3,821	47.2/51.8	46/54	47/53
FL-17	209,839	29,758	899	87.3/12.4	83/17	85/15
FL-18	128,124	122,428	1,774	50.8/48.5	46/54	43/57
FL-19	223,009	115,655	2,249	65.4/33.9	66/34	73/27
FL-20	186,912	106,344	2,240	63.3/36.0	64/36	69/31
FL-21	122,024	127,402	1,232	48.7/50.8	43/57	42/58
FL-22	175,731	162,012	2,638	51.6/47.6	52/48	52/48
FL-23	194,022	39,159	1,141	82.8/16.7	76/24	80/20
FL-24	116,527	127,386	2,562	47.3/51.7	45/55	47/53
FL-25	126,010	128,349	1,359	49.3/50.2	44/56	45/55
HI-01	152,320	60,979	4,129	70.1/28.1	53/47	55/39
HI-02	172,881	59,450	5,278	72.8/25.0	56/44	56/36
IL-01	248,990	37,176	1,587	86.5/12.9	83/17	84/16
IL-02	260,869	28,676	1,347	89.7/9.9	84/16	83/17
IL-03	154,999	85,502	3,203	63.6/35.1	59/41	58/40
IL-04	119,227	18,453	1,866	85.4/13.2	79/21	79/20
IL-05	178,170	62,906	3,383	72.9/25.7	67/33	66/34
IL-06	156,903	119,998	3,737	55.9/42.8	47/53	44/53
IL-07	255,470	33,662	1,935	87.8/11.6	83/17	83/16
IL-08	140,593	104,544	3,161	56.6/42.1	44/56	42/56
IL-09	188,822	68,989	3,202	72.3/26.4	68/32	67/31
IL-10	178,561	111,755	2,801	60.9/38.1	53/47	51/47
IL-11	163,664	137,334	4,640	53.6/44.9	46/53	48/50
IL-12	140,346	114,112	4,086	54.3/44.1	52/48	54/43
IL-13	188,155	154,788	4,148	54.2/44.6	45/55	42/55
IL-14	145,613	118,327	3,559	54.4/44.2	44/55	43/54
IL-15	123,074	124,717	4,472	48.8/49.4	41/59	43/54
IL-16	114,337	96,108	3,622	53.4/44.9	44/55	43/54
IL-17	113,913	79,311	2,918	58.1/40.4	51/48	54/44
IL-18	139,085	136,394	4,690	49.6/48.7	42/58	44/54
IL-19	69,939	93,635	2,941	42.0/56.2	39/61	41/56
MD-01	142,667	208,743	6,839	39.8/58.3	36/62	40/57
MD-02	164,089	106,088	5,263	59.6/38.5	54/45	57/41
MD-03	176,572	118,975	5,997	58.6/39.5	54/45	55/41
MD-04	240,715	40,002	2,200	85.1/14.1	78/21	77/21
MD-05	219,437	114,607	4,287	64.9/33.9	57/42	57/41
MD-06	138,091	198,238	7,426	40.2/57.7	34/65	36/61
MD-07	214,542	54,354	3,578	78.7/20.0	73/26	73/25
MD-08	201,510	69,062	3,922	73.4/25.2	69/30	66/31
NE-01	121,411	148,179	4,303	44.3/54.1	36/63	36/59
NE-02	138,809	135,439	3,561	50.0/48.8	38/60	39/57
NE-03	73,099	169,361	4,282	29.6/68.6	24/75	25/71
NV-01	158,418	85,226	5,139	63.7/34.3	57/42	56/41
NV-02	167,812	167,900	8,417	48.8/48.8	41/57	37/57
NV-03	207,418	159,574	7,716	55.4/42.6	49/50	49/48
NC-01	177,941	105,738	1,288	62.4/37.1	57/42	57/42
NC-02	155,681	141,840	2,397	51.9/47.3	46/54	46/53
NC-03	117,178	190,093	2,456	37.8/61.4	32/68	35/64
NC-04	275,205	159,427	4,305	62.7/36.3	55/44	53/46
NC-05	126,556	203,076	4,208	37.9/60.8	33/66	33/66
NC-06	122,291	212,011	3,525	36.2/62.8	30/69	32/67
NC-07	150,071	167,888	2,747	46.8/52.4	44/56	48/52
NC-08	152,261	135,234	2,222	52.6/46.7	45/54	46/54
NC-09	174,410	212,250	3,043	44.8/54.5	36/63	36/63
NC-10	108,496	191,580	3,501	35.7/63.1	33/67	34/65
NC-11	159,772	179,061	4,746	46.5/52.1	43/57	40/58
NC-12	218,599	89,790	2,033	70.4/28.9	63/37	57/42
NC-13	204,190	140,486	3,193	58.7/40.4	52/47	49/50
SC-01	118,356	174,458	3,810	39.9/58.8	39/61	38/59
SC-02	135,452	175,052	3,284	43.2/55.8	39/60	39/58
SC-03	95,124	178,089	3,644	34.4/64.3	34/66	35/63
SC-04	118,453	188,854	5,229	37.9/60.4	34/65	33/64
SC-05	135,564	160,944	3,497	45.2/53.7	42/57	43/55
SC-06	139,438	83,696	2,278	61.9/37.1	61/39	58/40
WA-01	226,526	130,343	5,911	62.4/35.9	56/42	53/42
WA-02	202,480	151,992	7,415	56.0/42.0	51/47	48/46
WA-03	183,306	159,803	6,898	52.4/45.7	48/50	46/48
WA-04	111,423	159,904	5,127	40.3/57.8	35/63	34/62
WA-05	152,921	171,426	8,283	46.0/51.5	41/57	40/56
WA-06	182,446	128,681	6,545	57.4/40.5	53/45	52/43
WA-07	308,226	55,200	5,536	83.5/15.0	79/19	72/21
WA-08	210,998	155,900	5,779	56.6/41.8	51/48	49/47
WA-09	172,318	115,837	5,298	58.7/39.5	53/46	53/43

This round was even more fun than the previous batch, because it involves a number of states where the turnaround was huge (either because of the favorite son effect, as in Illinois, or because the Obama campaign actually decided to compete there for once, like Nevada and North Carolina). Want to see some truly staggering progress? Check out IL-08, once the core of Chicago’s deep red suburbs (and home to Rep. Phil Crane), and even the site of a 56-44 edge for Bush in 2004. This year? Obama won 57-42.

As we get into the more complicated states here (the last wave picked all the lowest hanging fruit), there are some caveats to be mindful of, which may affect the data reliability a small amount. In Florida, for instance, we’re missing precinct-level data for one county, which affects two districts (the 3rd and 6th); unfortunately, it’s a pretty big county (Alachua, home of Gainesville and Univ. of Florida). In Illinois, all districts are affected by the curse of split precincts, which don’t seem to make much of a big difference, while some of the downstate districts are affected by some missing precinct-level data from some smaller counties; because of their small size, it doesn’t seem to affect the district’s overall percentages much, though.

In North Carolina, our spreadsheet whiz there broke the totals down into ‘hard’ and ‘soft’ totals, with ‘hard’ reflecting only known numbers and ‘soft’ allocating early votes and absentees proportionately (which apparently just sit in an indistinguished lump in NC). I chose to proceed using the ‘soft’ totals, which are much larger, but a stickler might choose to focus on ‘hard’ totals instead. South Carolina also has a high number of ‘indivisibles’ in its spreadsheet, which appear to be a lot of split precincts. The high number of indivisibles appears to exert some pressure on some of the percentages in South Carolina, perhaps in SC-01, where there appears to be little leftward movement since 2004.

So, take the numbers with a grain of salt, and certainly don’t expect these numbers to be a 100% match for Polidata’s numbers, forthcoming this spring. And of course, please contribute to this project however you see fit!

One happy result of our crowdsourcing presidential results-by-congressional district project is that it pointed our way to a spreadsheet put together by Benjamin Johnstone-Anderson, not an SSPer that I know of, but clearly an elections geek of the highest order. This spreadsheet covers the entire state of Washington at the precinct level (not just in split counties), and it’s designed to give results not just by congressional district, but also by municipality and legislative district.

The nice thing about this kind of spreadsheet is that it lets us do the same sort of analysis at the state level that we at SSP are fond of doing at the national level. By calculating a half-assed sort of PVI (based only on 2008 numbers) and arranging LDs from most to least Democratic, we can form a picture of who the most vulnerable legislators of each party are, much more precisely than just by looking at county-level data. (In most states you can at least look at party registration numbers to measure districts, but there’s no registration by party in Washington.) This would be a fantastic resource to have for as many states as possible, and I’d like to encourage other SSPers to perform and post the same sort of analysis for their states (if the necessary information can be found).

District	Where	2008 %	“PVI”	Sen.	Rep. 1	Rep.2
43	Univ. District	88.8/9.6	D+37	D (2010)	D	D
37	S. Seattle	86.1/12.6	D+34	D (2010)	D	D
36	Ballard	83.8/14.8	D+31	D (2010)	D	D
46	N. Seattle	82.6/15.9	D+30	D (2010)	D	D
34	W. Seattle	77.6/20.8	D+25	D (2012)	D	D
11	Renton	71.0/27.3	D+19	D (2012)	D	D
32	Shoreline	69.9/28.6	D+17	D (2010)	D	D
27	Tacoma	67.6/30.6	D+15	D (2012)	D	D
22	Olympia	64.7/33.4	D+12	D (2012)	D	D
29	Parkland	64.3/33.6	D+12	D (2010)	D	D
21	Lynnwood	64.1/34.2	D+12	D (2010)	D	D
33	Des Moines	63.6/34.7	D+11	D (2010)	D	D
48	Bellevue	63.5/35.0	D+11	D (2010)	D	D
41	Mercer I.	63.6/35.1	D+11	D (2012)	D	D
40	Mt. Vernon	62.9/35.3	D+10	D (2012)	D	D
38	Everett	61.3/36.3	D+9	D (2010)	D	D
1	Bothell	61.2/37.0	D+9	D (2012)	D	D
3	Spokane	60.0/36.9	D+8	D (2012)	D	D
45	Redmond	60.8/37.7	D+8	D (2010)	D	D
49	Vancouver	59.7/38.4	D+7	D (2012)	D	D
30	Federal Way	59.0/39.4	D+6	D (2010)	D	R
23	Bainbridge I.	58.7/39.5	D+6	D (2012)	D	D
5	Sammamish	57.5/41.1	D+5	R (2012)	R	R
19	Longview	56.6/40.9	D+4	D (2012)	D	D
24	Port Angeles	56.0/41.8	D+4	D (2012)	D	D
44	Snohomish	56.0/42.2	D+3	D (2010)	D	R
47	Auburn	55.8/42.6	D+3	D (2010)	D	D
28	Lakewood	55.6/42.8	D+3	R (2012)	D	D
42	Bellingham	53.8/44.2	D+1	R (2010)	R	D
35	Shelton	52.8/45.1	D+0	D (2010)	D	D
17	Orchards	52.0/46.3	R+1	R (2012)	D	D
39	Monroe	51.6/46.1	R+1	R (2012)	R	R
25	Puyallup	51.8/46.5	R+1	D (2012)	R	D
10	Oak Harbor	51.7/46.5	R+1	D (2012)	R	R
26	Port Orchard	51.1/46.9	R+1	D (2010)	R	D
31	Enumclaw	50.2/47.9	R+2	R (2010)	R	D
15	Sunnyside	49.7/48.4	R+3	R (2010)	R	R
6	Country Homes	49.6/48.5	R+3	D (2010)	R	D
2	Orting	47.9/50.1	R+5	R (2012)	R	R
18	Battle Ground	46.6/51.6	R+6	R (2012)	R	R
20	Centralia	45.4/52.5	R+7	R (2012)	R	R
9	Pullman	43.1/54.7	R+10	R (2012)	R	R
12	Wenatchee	42.8/55.3	R+10	R (2012)	R	R
4	Spokane Valley	42.3/55.1	R+10	R (2012)	R	R
14	Yakima	42.7/55.6	R+10	R (2012)	R	R
16	Walla Walla	38.6/59.6	R+14	R (2012)	R	D
7	Colville	38.1/58.9	R+14	R (2010)	R	R
13	Ellensburg	38.1/59.7	R+15	R (2010)	R	R
8	Kennewick	36.6/61.6	R+16	R (2010)	R	R

Analysis over the flip…

We can see that only about one-third of these districts are what you’d think of as being competitive (let’s say a “PVI” between D+5 and R+5)… and there are almost no legislators of the wrong party in uncompetitive seats. There’s only one Republican representative in a seat better than D+5, and one Democratic representative in a seat worse than R+5. This points to a big built-in structural advantage for Democrats in Washington; there are 23 (out of 49) districts greater than D+5, so they barely need to rely on swing territory at all to maintain control of the legislature.

The good news is, as much as the Democrats are in a position of strength in the legislature (near the 2/3s mark in each chamber), there’s still room to expand and not much defense to play. There are 7 Republican senators (out of 49) and 14 Republican representatives (out of 98) in districts won by Obama, while there are no Democratic senators and 1 Democratic representative in districts won by McCain.

In fact, the one Democratic senator who lost in 2008, Marilyn Rasmussen in the 2nd LD, would have been the only Democratic senator in a McCain district had she not lost in an upset. The top-of-the-ticket data goes a long way to explaining her loss; the 2nd is an growing exurban area in rural Pierce County with a lot of growth, so there’s an influx of new voters unfamiliar with Rasmussen’s long tenure in the district and thus not likely to ticket-split. This is also the same part of WA-08 that, both times, basically gave Dave Reichert his victory margin over Darcy Burner, and it seems to be one of the only areas in the state that is going in the wrong direction.

Unfortunately, the Democrats missed the opportunity in 2008 to take out the two most vulnerable GOP senators according to this table, Cheryl Pflug in the 5th and Mike Carrell in the 28th; they’re safe till 2012. (They also lost what was considered to be the most hotly contested senate race, a little further down the table. Don Benton in the 17th survived by only a few hundred votes.)

The most theoretically vulnerable GOP senator up in 2010 is Dale Brandland in the Bellingham-based 42nd; however in practice, two other senators slightly lower on the list, Pam Roach in the 31st and Jim Honeyford in the 15th, are likelier to be vulnerable (Honeyford because he represents Washington’s second-least-white district, with fast-growing Latino and Native populations but a mostly Anglo electorate, meaning that victory is possible with a larger minority turnout… and Roach simply because her sheer Jean Schmidt-style odiousness makes her a perpetual target).

Democrats will also be defending two senate freshmen in 2010 in districts that have an R+ PVI (although that Obama won): Derek Kilmer in the 26th and Chris Marr in the 6th. These are the two districts where the GOP picked up Democratic-held open House seats, so these races will bear watching.

The above-mentioned 5th may also be the best place to pick off some GOP representatives: Jay Rodne and Glenn Anderson. (One rep, Skip Priest in the 30th in the blue-collar suburbs of Federal Way, clocks in higher, but he’s pretty well-entrenched and certainly the most moderate Republican left in the House.) I’m wondering why the 5th (the furthest-out reaches of the affluent Eastside suburbs plus rural eastern King County) has never been heavily targeted; without seeing 2004 data, my guess is that it’s never voted anywhere near this heavily Democratic before. Even the nearby 41st and 48th had a mostly Republican legislative bench until a few years ago and probably didn’t go for Gore or Kerry by 25-point margins; this just seems to be the last district on the Eastside to fall into the Democratic column. We just need to show up to compete, preferably with some good candidates (like a certain netroots heroine with kickass fundraising skills?).

In the 2008 election, the Dems lost one Senate seat to drop back to a 31-18 lead. In the House, the Dems flipped two seats and the GOP flipped three, so the composition moved to a 62-36 edge and GOP each flipped two seats, for a wash, so the composition stayed at 63-35 edge. Dems need to gain 2 seats in the Senate and 4 3 in the House to make it over the magic 2/3s mark (although hopefully they won’t need to override Chris Gregoire on anything, but she won’t be around forever). Doable? Tough, but possibly so.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (12/8-10, likely voters):

Arlen Specter (R-inc): 43

Pat Toomey (R): 28

Undecided: 29

(MoE: ±5%)

Chris Matthews (D): 24

Patrick Murphy (D): 19

Allyson Schwartz (D): 15

Undecided: 42

(MoE: ±5%)

Chris Matthews (D): 28

Patrick Murphy (D): 21

Undecided: 51

Chris Matthews (D): 30

Allyson Schwartz (D): 18

Undecided: 52

Patrick Murphy (D): 23

Allyson Schwartz (D): 20

Undecided: 57

Chris Matthews (D): 44

Arlen Specter (R-inc): 45

(MoE: ±4%)

Patrick Murphy (D): 36

Arlen Specter (R-inc): 48

Allyson Schwartz (D): 35

Arlen Specter (R-inc): 49

Chris Matthews (D): 46

Pat Toomey (R): 35

Patrick Murphy (D): 44

Pat Toomey (R): 36

Allyson Schwartz (D): 42

Pat Toomey (R): 36

Every possible configuration of the 2010 Pennsylvania Senate race you can imagine is here, courtesy of Research 2000 for Daily Kos. Arlen Specter can’t be liking what he’s seeing. Thanks to Rasmussen last week, we already knew that Specter was vulnerable against Chris Matthews (they found Specter up 46-43). R2K finds an even closer race in that configuration, with Reps. Patrick Murphy and Allyson Schwartz trailing Specter by 10+ points but holding him below 50%. (Consider this mostly a measure of name recognition at this point; Matthews has a national platform, but Murphy and Schwartz are little known outside their districts and right now are basically “generic D.”)

But guess who else is holding Specter below 50%? Pat Toomey, who looks to be taking the controls for yet another kamikaze mission by the Club for Growth. If the free-market fundamentalist Toomey wins the primary, the general is effectively over, with even Murphy and Schwartz thumping him in head-to-head matchups.

Considering that Specter won the primary against Toomey in 2004 by only 2 points (with a slightly different-looking Pennsylvania GOP, where many of the remaining moderates hadn’t yet jumped ship), Toomey winning the primary this time is a distinct possibility, given a Republican base with an even purer, less diluted conservatism. Specter pulls in only 43% in the primary matchup, which points to the balancing act he’ll have to negotiate in the next two years: either burnish his RINO credentials and support most of the Obama agenda in order to survive the 2010 general, or join the southern GOP rump’s obstructionist efforts in order to survive the 2010 primary. I believe the technical term for such a situation is “damned if you do, damned if you don’t.”

Enough things have happened (such as states certifying their results) that we’re ready to roll out our first wave of results from Swing State Project’s big crowdsourcing project of compiling presidential results by congressional district. Usually, knowing presidential results by CD requires waiting for Polidata to compile this data and make it public in March… but the power of an infinite number of nerds typing on an infinite number of spreadsheets makes it possible for us to short-circuit the process. (There’s still tons of stuff left for enterprising nerds to do, especially if you have access to precinct-level data. Check our database in progress.)

Without further Apu, here’s the first wave, representing nearly one quarter of all congressional districts. Explanation of many of the technicalities follows below the chart (and a simple spreadsheet of just the 2008 numbers is available here):

District	Obama #	McCain #	Other #	2008 %	2004 %	2000 %
AL-01	117,804 (114,847- 120,761)	184,257 (180,524- 187,990)	2,195 (2,167- 2,222)	38.7/60.6	35/64	38/60
AK-AL	123,594	193,841	8,762	37.9/59.4	36/61	28/59
AR-01	95,102	145,340	7,185	38.4/58.7	47/52	50/48
AR-02	131,891	161,540	5,855	44.1/54.0	48/51	48/49
AR-03	96,485	185,055	6,894	33.5/64.2	36/62	37/60
AR-04	98,832	146,082	6,356	39.3/58.1	48/51	49/48
CO-03	160,746 (158,973- 162,519)	169,233 (167,036- 171,429)	5,602 (5,539- 5,664)	47.4/50.4	44/55	39/54
CO-05	129,101 (126,976- 131,226)	189,532 (187,084- 191,980)	4,982 (4,863- 5,100)	39.9/58.6	33/66	31/63
CT-01	218,367	108,315	4,365	66.0/32.7	60/39	62/33
CT-02	209,546	139,888	5,055	59.1/39.5	54/44	54/40
CT-03	201,334	116,962	3,872	62.5/36.3	56/42	60/34
CT-04	189,142	125,978	2,108	59.6/39.7	52/46	53/43
CT-05	181,902	136,898	4,048	56.3/42.4	49/49	52/43
DE-AL	255,459	152,374	4,579	61.9/37.0	53/46	55/42
ID-01	128,134	220,787	8,210	35.9/61.8	30/69	28/68
ID-02	108,693	183,022	7,387	36.3/61.2	30/69	28/67
IN-08	139,500 (137,953- 141,047)	150,945 (148,866- 153,024)	3,813 (3,734- 3,892)	47.4/51.3	38/62	42/57
IA-01	175,394	122,629	4,327	58.0/40.6	53/46	52/45
IA-02	190,973	122,395	5,671	59.9/38.4	55/44	53/43
IA-03	173,932	143,771	5,785	53.8/44.4	50/50	49/48
IA-04	166,104	142,396	5,724	52.9/45.3	48/51	48/49
IA-05	122,537	151,188	4,297	44.1/54.4	39/60	40/57
KY-01	104,626	176,807	4,424	36.6/61.9	36/63	40/58
KY-02	118,700	188,955	4,473	38.0/60.5	34/65	37/62
KY-03	193,260	150,552	3,393	55.7/43.4	51/49	50/48
KY-04	118,773	189,008	5,086	38.0/60.4	36/63	37/61
KY-05	75,815	162,614	4,241	31.2/67.0	39/61	42/57
KY-06	140,811	180,526	4,444	43.2/55.4	41/58	42/56
LA-01	74,405	214,479	4,708	25.3/73.1	28/71	31/67
LA-02	130,741	43,459	1,782	74.3/24.7	75/24	76/22
LA-03	97,420	163,294	5,306	36.6/61.4	41/58	45/52
LA-04	108,084	161,853	3,134	39.6/59.3	40/59	43/55
LA-05	103,707	175,097	3,638	36.7/62.0	37/62	40/57
LA-06	130,398	180,708	4,212	41.4/57.3	40/59	43/55
LA-07	103,500	187,607	4,915	35.0/63.4	39/60	42/55
ME-01	232,145	144,604	6,885	60.5/37.7	55/43	50/43
ME-02	189,778	150,669	7,090	54.6/43.4	52/46	48/45
MA-01	198,880	102,445	n/a	66.0/34.0	63/35	56/33
MA-02	178,090	117,272	n/a	60.3/39.7	59/40	58/35
MA-05	175,871	117,654	n/a	59.9/40.1	57/41	57/36
MA-06	192,502	135,956	n/a	58.6/41.4	58/41	57/36
MA-07	189,329	97,173	n/a	66.1/33.9	66/33	64/29
MA-08	202,962	32,749	n/a	86.1/13.9	79/19	73/15
MA-09	169,042	107,281	n/a	61.2/38.8	63/36	60/33
MA-10	196,218	155,288	n/a	55.8/44.2	56/43	54/39
MI-01	166,194	160,130	6,588	49.9/48.1	46/53	45/52
MI-02	167,607	179,427	5,878	47.5/50.8	39/60	38/59
MI-03	169,283	171,255	7,344	48.7/49.2	40/59	38/60
MI-04	170,275	163,886	5,928	50.2/48.2	44/55	44/54
MI-05	207,479	113,013	5,521	63.6/34.7	59/41	61/37
MI-06	177,324	146,377	3,365	54.2/44.8	46/53	45/52
MI-07	171,535	154,244	6,524	51.6/46.4	45/54	46/51
MI-08	198,207	172,346	6,412	52.6/45.7	45/54	47/51
MI-09	202,689	155,719	2,960	56.1/43.1	49/51	47/51
MI-10	160,971	166,932	7,452	48.0/49.8	43/57	45/53
MN-01	173,880	158,964	8,383	51.0/46.9	47/51	45/49
MN-02	193,218	198,966	7,683	48.3/49.8	45/54	44/51
MN-03	200,239	175,730	6,110	52.4/46.0	48/51	46/50
MN-04	217,982	113,600	6,835	64.4/33.6	62/37	57/37
MN-05	254,764	81,749	7,076	74.1/23.8	71/28	63/29
MN-06	183,950	219,939	8,519	44.6/53.3	42/57	42/52
MN-07	154,127	162,938	8,177	47.4/50.1	43/55	40/54
MN-08	195,128	163,506	8,810	53.1/44.5	53/46	49/44
MS-01	129,939	213,478	n/a	37.8/62.2	37/62	40/59
MS-02	196,400	99,428	n/a	66.4/33.6	59/40	57/41
MS-03	131,292	216,256	n/a	37.8/62.2	34/65	35/64
MS-04	93,661	198,756	n/a	32.0/68.0	31/68	33/65
MO-08	104,252 (100,910- 107,593)	178,358 (170,990- 185,726)	4,729 (4,606- 4,851)	36.3/62.1	36/64	39/59
MT-AL	231,667	242,763	16,662	47.2/49.4	39/59	33/58
NH-01	186,370	164,403	3,026	52.7/46.5	48/51	46/49
NH-02	198,456	152,131	3,225	56.1/43.0	52/47	48/47
NM-01	180,833	119,342	873	60.1/39.6	51/48	48/47
NM-02	114,928	118,063	3,298	48.6/50.0	41/58	43/54
NM-03	176,661	109,427	3,456	61.0/37.8	54/45	52/43
ND-AL	141,278	168,601	7,786	44.5/53.1	36/63	33/61
OR-01	228,817	135,975	10,108	61.0/36.3	55/44	50/44
OR-03	260,128	93,931	10,297	71.4/25.8	67/33	61/32
OR-05	192,355	154,488	9,385	54.0/43.4	49/50	47/48
RI-01	148,388	75,747	3,694	65.1/33.3	62/36	63/31
RI-02	148,159	89,642	4,110	61.3/37.1	57/41	60/33
SD-AL	170,924	203,054	7,997	44.8/53.2	38/60	38/60
TX-01	83,252 (81,507- 84,997)	187,768 (183,628- 191,907)	1,940 (1,901- 1,978)	30.5/68.8	31/69	33/68
TX-31	125,321 (123,983- 126,658)	173,294 (171,304- 175,284)	3,563 (3,535- 3,590)	41.5/57.3	33/67	32/69
VT-AL	219,262	98,974	6,790	67.5/30.5	59/39	51/41
VA-01	179,442	193,273	3,652	47.7/51.4	39/60	39/58
VA-02	142,257	136,725	2,991	50.5/48.5	42/58	43/55
VA-03	229,822	72,249	2,223	75.5/23.7	66/33	66/32
VA-04	178,795	173,358	3,087	50.3/48.8	43/57	44/54
VA-05	157,362	164,874	3,621	48.3/50.6	43/56	41/55
VA-06	134,212	182,573	3,869	41.9/56.9	36/63	37/60
VA-07	177,789	205,949	3,648	45.9/53.2	38/61	37/61
VA-08	234,203	100,234	3,594	69.3/29.7	64/35	57/38
VA-09	108,220	160,430	4,596	39.6/58.7	39/60	42/55
VA-10	205,964	179,337	4,025	52.9/46.1	44/55	41/56
VA-11	211,466	156,003	3,417	57.0/42.1	49/50	45/52
WV-01	103,096	141,016	4,279	41.5/56.8	42/58	43/54
WV-02	113,853	142,112	4,175	43.8/54.6	42/57	44/54
WV-03	87,178	114,933	4,011	42.3/55.8	46/53	51/47
WI-01	191,901	177,162	4,281	51.4/47.5	46/54	45/51
WI-02	286,089	123,495	5,054	69.0/29.8	62/37	58/36
WI-03	213,211	150,618	5,327	57.8/40.8	51/48	49/46
WI-04	234,468	73,447	3,108	75.4/23.6	70/30	66/30
WI-05	174,174	243,597	4,191	41.3/57.7	36/63	35/62
WI-06	181,198	176,871	4,996	49.9/48.7	43/56	42/53
WI-07	200,562	152,507	5,624	55.9/42.5	50/49	48/47
WI-08	195,608	164,696	4,711	53.6/45.1	44/55	43/52
WY-AL	82,868	164,958	6,832	32.5/64.8	29/69	28/69

The easy ones to do were the at-large states, and states where the SoS has already reported by congressional district (Connecticut, Idaho, Kentucky, Minnesota, and Virginia). Also easy were states where district lines precisely follow county lines (Arkansas, Iowa, and West Virginia).

We also have a number of excellent spreadsheets in our portfolio where people were able to locate precinct, ward, or town data. (A huge thank you to everyone who has contributed, and one more reminder that there are still many more states to do, although they get progressively harder from here on out.) These include Louisiana, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, and Wisconsin.

You may notice that not all the districts from MA, MI, and OR are included. That’s because in each of these states, there’s one pesky jursidiction that hasn’t reported at the precinct level yet: Fall River in Massachusetts, Wayne County in Michigan, and Josephine County in Oregon. If you find this data anywhere, please let us know! (A few other minor requests for our anonymous spreadsheet wizards: if the persons who did MA and MS have “other” data, could you add those to the databases? And whoever did WI, could you provide the “Wisconsin long” form that shows precinct-level data in split counties? Thanks in advance!)

You’re probably wondering about those ones where there’s a total and then a range of numbers in parentheses. These districts (AL-01, CO-03, CO-05, IN-08, MO-08, TX-01, and TX-31) are ones where there were county splits but I felt confident proceeding even without precinct data, because there was only one split county and it represented such a small percent of the total that even if I allocated the votes within the county completely wrong it still wouldn’t affect the total percentages by more than a fraction of one percent. In these cases, I’m presenting both range values (of the maximum and minimum possible) and a point estimate (calculated by allocating half of those counties’ votes for each candidate to the district in question, and half to the other district).

As we get more states done, we’ll roll more of them out. We’re expecting California and Nebraska to report by CD soon (which will give us another 56 CDs right there), but for almost all the other states, we’re missing precinct-level data. If you like this resource and have access to useful information, but don’t have the time or stamina to spreadsheet it all, please just let us know in the comments or the master database, and I’m sure someone else will pounce on it.

PPP (12/8-9, Democrats)

Caroline Kennedy (D): 44

Andrew Cuomo (D): 23

Kirsten Gillibrand (D): 6

Tom Suozzi (D): 3

Byron Brown (D): 3

Carolyn Maloney (D): 3

Nydia Velazquez (D): 4

Brian Higgins (D): 5

Not sure/someone else: 8

(MoE: ±3.2%)

PPP’s poll of New York Democrats shows a wide showing of support for Caroline Kennedy to replace Hillary Clinton (to the seat once held by Robert F. Kennedy). Now, it could certainly be argued that this is simply a test of name recognition, seeing as how there isn’t any public campaigning for the position; this really isn’t any different than a poll of vice-presidential preferences, since there’s really only one voter that decides the race (David Paterson, in this case). But it suggests that not only is Paterson safe in appointing elective neophyte Kennedy, but that he’d likely receive widespread support for doing so.

Second choice for NY-Sen

Caroline Kennedy (D): 24

Andrew Cuomo (D): 35

Kirsten Gillibrand (D): 4

Tom Suozzi (D): 4

Byron Brown (D): 5

Carolyn Maloney (D): 9

Nydia Velazquez (D): 6

Brian Higgins (D): 5

Not sure/someone else: 9

As an added bonus, PPP also asks respondents their second choices. It looks like Kennedy-then-Cuomo and Cuomo-then-Kennedy are by far the most common configurations (again, assumedly because of their high name recognition), although Carolyn Maloney puts together a surprisingly strong showing (probably thanks to her presence in the NYC media market).

Marist (12/8, registered voters)

Caroline Kennedy (D): 25

Andrew Cuomo (D): 25

Byron Brown (D): 6

Nydia Velazquez (D): 4

Kirsten Gillibrand (D): 4

Carolyn Maloney (D): 3

Tom Suozzi (D): 3

Adolfo Carrion (D): 2

Steve Israel (D): 1

Unsure: 26

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Marist, by contrast, polls registered voters instead of Democrats only, and seems to push leaners less. They find a much closer contest between Kennedy and Cuomo, suggesting a lot of Democratic loyalty to the House of Kennedy. Breakdown by party shows Democrats supporting 31 for Kennedy vs. 21 for Cuomo, while Republican support is 34 for Cuomo and 21 for Kennedy. Kennedy leads in NYC, while Cuomo gets the plurality of support in the suburbs and upstate.

Christmas seems to be coming a few days early for Kentucky Democrats: Jim Bunning, who barely won re-election in the Republican year of 2004 against a little-known state senator (after several campaign trail incidents that called into question his mental faculties), plans to run for a third term. The Louisville Courier-Journal is reporting today that Bunning has formed a steering committee to begin fundraising for 2010. (H/t RandySF.)

Given how red Kentucky is, at least at the presidential level, this has to be one race where we’d do better running against a crazy incumbent rather than against a generic R (especially in an off-year election where there won’t be presidential coattails to help Bunning over the finish line). As we discussed in our Kentucky recruitment thread a few weeks ago, Rep. Ben Chandler would probably be the best bet on the Dem side (although he’d leave behind a pretty red district to fill). Other names include Auditor Crit Luallen (who, perhaps unwisely, turned down the opportunity to go after Mitch McConnell this year) and Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo (who lost to Bunning in 2004 while still a state senator).

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (12/2-4, likely voters)

Robin Carnahan (D): 43

Christopher Bond (R-inc): 47

(MoE: ±4%)

The Great Orange Satan has started polling potential matchups for 2010, and as suspected, one potentially vulnerable Republican incumbent is Kit Bond in Missouri. Matched against possible candidate Secretary of State Robin Carnahan (member of Missouri’s preeminent political family), 22-year incumbent Bond leads by only 4 points.

Bond’s favorables are just under the 50% mark at 49/43, while the less-known Carnahan clocks in at 48/26 with 26% having no opinion, giving her a lot of room for growth. Interestingly, the only region of the state where Carnahan currently leads is the city of St. Louis; if (like Claire McCaskill in 2006) she can maintain usual Democratic margins in the urban parts of the state while holding down losses in the state’s big red middle, she can eke out the victory.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (12/2-4, likely voters)

Ken Salazar (D-inc): 49

John Elway (R): 38

(MoE: ±4%)

Ken Salazar (D-inc): 51

Tom Tancredo (R): 37

Research 2000 also released the first set of polls for the 2010 senate race in Colorado (diaried yesterday by safi), which at least has the potential of being the Democrats’ top vulnerability. However, Ken Salazar is looking pretty safe against two top GOP contenders. One of those contenders is polarizing bigot Tom Tancredo, whom you wouldn’t expect to get much traction, but the other one is former Broncos QB (and car dealer) John Elway, a popular if not legendary figure in Colorado. But apparently he’s lacking in the political skills department, if he’s barely running ahead of the loathsome Tancredo (and he certainly can’t blame lack of name recognition).

Former GOP Gov. Bill Owens is sometimes mentioned as a candidate, although he hasn’t taken any steps in that direction. He ended his term fairly popular and would probably fare better than either of these clowns, so it would be interesting to see a head-to-head with him included.

Rasmussen (12/4, likely voters)

Creigh Deeds (D): 39

Robert McDonnell (R): 39

Some other candidate: 4

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Brian Moran (D): 41

Robert McDonnell (R): 37

Some other candidate: 5

Terry McAuliffe (D): 36

Robert McDonnell (R): 41

Some other candidate: 5

Rasmussen has polled the 2009 Virginia governor’s race, and every configuration points to a close contest. Attorney General Robert McDonnell seems to be locked in as the Republican candidate, but the Democratic field is very much up in the air, with three credible candidates in the mix: Rep. Creigh Deeds (who narrowly lost to McDonnell in the 2005 AG’s race), Rep. Brian Moran, and former DNC chair Terry McAuliffe. In the three head-to-heads, Moran fares the best, beating McDonnell by 4, while the nationally-known McAuliffe fares the worst, losing by 5. There is no poll included of the Democratic primary.

Although Deeds ran for statewide office four years ago, this may be primarily a case of name recognition; Moran is from Alexandria, so voters throughout the DC media market are likely to be familiar with him, while Deeds is from rural Bath County in southwestern Virginia. This creates an interesting strategic question: nominate Deeds and try to put into play another whole region of the state that otherwise wouldn’t be (even if it’s one that’s vote-poor and shrinking), or nominate Moran and try to maximize Dem performance in northern Virginia, which is by far the biggest concentration of Democratic strength (but still can’t, by itself, win a statewide election). As for McAuliffe, who, judging by his TV appearances this summer appears to be attempting to represent Margaritaville, name recognition may not be the problem so much as a perception of carpetbagging and/or sleazy insiderness.

You may recall that right before the general election in November, I put together benchmarks that selected statewide candidates would need to hit, on a county-by-county basis, in order to get over 50% in closely-fought states. I wanted to go back and see how well this measure worked; Georgia seemed like an apt place to start, not just because it was very close at both the presidential and senatorial levels, but also because a bit of troubleshooting is in order to see what happened with the steep dropoff in the senate runoff. Let’s start with the original table, which contains the 2008 benchmarks (and the 2004 Kerry/Bush numbers, on which they were based:

County	% of 2004 statewide vote	What we need to break 50% statewide	2004 Pres.
Statewide	100.0	50/49	41/58
Fulton	10.2	68/31	59/40
Cobb	8.5	46/53	37/62
DeKalb	8.4	82/18	73/27
Gwinnett	7.4	42/57	33/66
Chatham	2.8	59/41	50/50
Clayton	2.4	79/20	70/29
Cherokee	2.2	29/70	20/79
Richmond	2.1	66/34	57/43
Henry	1.9	42/58	33/67
Muscogee	1.9	60/39	51/48
Bibb	1.7	60/40	51/49
Forsyth	1.7	25/74	16/83
Fayette	1.6	37/62	28/71
Hall	1.5	30/69	21/78
Columbia	1.4	33/66	24/75
Houston	1.4	42/57	33/66
Coweta	1.3	34/65	25/74
Douglas	1.3	47/52	38/61
Paulding	1.2	32/67	23/76
Clarke	1.1	67/31	58/40
Carroll	1.1	38/61	29/70
Dougherty	1.0	68/32	59/41

Now let’s take a look at the 2008 numbers, including both the senate general election and runoff. (I’ve also included the white percentage of each county, as a means of seeing if a higher non-white electorate meant a higher drop-off in the runoff. But, as an indication of how polarized Georgia is, notice how well the white percentage in each county correlates with the Republican share of the vote in that county.)

County	% of 2008 general statewide vote	2008 Pres.	2008 Senate General	% of 2008 runoff statewide vote	2008 Senate Runoff	2007 white %
Statewide	100.0	47/52	47/50	100.0	43/57	62.0
Fulton	10.3	67/32	63/33	10.4	60/40	48.5
Cobb	8.0	48/54	42/53	8.6	36/64	63.4
DeKalb	8.2	79/20	76/21	8.7	74/26	33.9
Gwinnett	7.4	44/54	43/53	7.8	36/64	61.0
Chatham	2.8	57/42	55/42	2.7	52/48	54.9
Clayton	2.5	83/17	81/17	2.4	80/20	24.8
Cherokee	2.4	24/75	24/71	2.4	18/82	83.9
Richmond	2.0	66/34	64/34	1.9	59/41	43.4
Henry	2.2	46/53	46/51	2.2	42/58	61.5
Muscogee	1.9	60/40	60/38	1.6	57/43	47.6
Bibb	1.7	59/41	57/42	1.7	53/47	46.2
Forsyth	1.9	20/78	20/75	2.0	15/85	80.4
Fayette	1.5	34/65	34/62	1.8	31/69	73.5
Hall	1.5	24/75	26/68	1.6	20/80	86.9
Columbia	1.4	28/71	28/69	1.4	24/76	78.8
Houston	1.4	40/60	40/57	1.4	35/65	66.3
Coweta	1.4	29/70	30/66	1.4	25/75	77.4
Douglas	1.4	51/49	50/46	1.4	44/56	62.2
Paulding	1.4	30/69	32/64	1.3	26/74	81.8
Clarke	1.2	65/34	61/35	1.1	62/38	67.5
Carroll	1.1	33/66	35/60	1.1	30/70	n/a
Dougherty	1.0	67/32	64/34	1.0	64/36	33.3

Let’s start with how Obama and Martin (in the general) fared against the benchmarks that I set for them. On the whole, their actual percentages seemed to lag the benchmarks by about 2-3%, which is apt, as they both finished around 47%, 3% shy of a majority. There were only a few counties where they exceeded their benchmarks, and these are also the counties that are undergoing the most demographic change (in a way that’s favorable to the Democrats). Cobb and Gwinnett Counties are two of the four large counties in the Atlanta metro area, and are traditionally very conservative (they were Newt Gingrich’s turf back when he was in the House). But with Obama getting up to 48% in Cobb County and 44% in Gwinnett, they’re approaching swing county territory. (Cobb County is seeing growth in middle-class African-Americans and Gwinnett County is becoming an entry point for many Latino and Asian immigrants.)

More analysis over the flip…

Slightly further from the core of Atlanta are Clayton, Henry, and Douglas Counties, and these counties are being transformed even more rapidly by a rapid influx of African-American exurbanites. Clayton County’s white percentage, 24.8% in 2007, is down from 34.9% in 2000. Douglas County’s white percentage is 62.2%, down from 75.9 in 2000, and Henry County’s white percentage is 61.5%, down all the way from 80.1% in 2000… and that is matched by the double-digit swings in their voting patterns since 2004, and the way they exceeded their benchmarks (in fact, by 7% in Douglas County).

This is balanced by the mostly white and right-wing exurban counties at the northern fringes of the Atlanta area (Cherokee, Forsyth, and Hall Counties). Here, Obama and Martin trailed their benchmarks by the largest margins (by 5 or 6%).

The whitest counties (Hall, Coweta, Paulding) were the only counties where Martin (in the general) actually outperformed Obama, further suggestive of the racial polarization of the vote. By contrast, Martin tended to underperform Obama the most in heavily African-American counties (down 3% in DeKalb, 4% in Fulton, 3% in Dougherty). Interestingly, Martin also way underperformed Obama (by 4%) in Clarke County, not heavily black but home of Athens and the Univ. of Georgia. To me, this suggests that the underperformance has less to do with Obama/Chambliss ticket-splitting than with undervotes (i.e. casual or sporadic voters, probably disproportionately young and/or black, voting for Obama and not voting downballot). There were nearly 180,000 undervotes statewide between the two races (3.93 million total in the presidential, vs. 3.75 million in the senate race).

Now let’s turn to the dropoff in Martin’s performance between the general and the runoff. My initial assumption (and that of many other observers) was that Martin suffered for a lack of African-American turnout in the runoff, without the draw of Obama at the top of the ticket. That’s probably still true, but it’s a little more complicated than that. I’d expect the heavily black counties (DeKalb and Clayton) to have formed a smaller percentage of the statewide vote in the runoff than in the general, but that didn’t happen; in fact, DeKalb County’s share of the vote went up a lot, from 8.2% in the general to 8.7% in the runoff. The percentages of the vote didn’t change much, either. Martin only gave up 2% in DeKalb and 1% in Clayton, while the lone counties where Martin actually performed better in the runoff than the general were Dougherty (mostly-black Albany, downstate) and, again, Clarke (Athens/UGA).

Instead, the big dropoffs seemed to happen in the in the suburbs and exurbs, where Martin’s runoff numbers tended to revert back to very close to the 2004 Kerry/Bush numbers. For instance, out in wingnut land, Martin slipped from 20% to 15% in Forsyth County, 24% to 18% in Cherokee County, and 26% to 20% in Hall County. More alarmingly, the same rate of slippage happened in the more favorable suburban counties, like Cobb County (42% to 36%), Gwinnett County (43% to 36%), and Douglas County (50% to 44%). Interestingly, the percentages of the statewide vote in these counties, as with DeKalb County, went up too (8.0% to 8.6% in Cobb and 7.4% to 7.8% in Gwinnett), suggesting that the reliable Republicans who haven’t white-flighted it out of these counties yet continued to vote reliably in the runoff, while participation by other voters in these counties fell off dramatically.

To me, these numbers suggest some miscalculation at the organizing level… perhaps a focus on turning out every possible vote in reliable Democratic constituencies (DeKalb, Clayton, and Clarke Counties), while allowing other counties to slip through the cracks that people still aren’t used to thinking of as potentially Democratic counties (Cobb, Gwinnett, Douglas), as apparently many young and/or black infrequent voters in these rapidly-changing counties didn’t make it to the polls in the runoff. Not that these missing votes really mattered much in the end — Martin needed to not just match his general election numbers in the runoff but beat them by another 3% — but it’s food for thought on where to go trolling for those last few votes to try and get over the top in Georgia.

Rasmussen (12/2, likely voters)

Chris Matthews (D): 43

Arlen Specter (R-inc): 46

(MoE: ±4.5%)

That object looming in Arlen Specter’s rearview mirror may in fact be as large as it appears… it’s Tweety’s giant head. The bluening of Pennsylvania seems to be continuing unabated, as Rasmussen’s first look at the 2010 senate race in Pennsylvania sees 28-year veteran Specter looking surprisingly weak against Matthews, a figure many would describe as ‘polarizing.’ Specter has an overall 60% favorability in the poll, but as much as Democrats seem willing to respect him (he gets a 48% favorable among Democrats, while only a 70% favorable among Republicans), they still seem to be in a 2006-08 mindset where they’d just rather vote for a Dem.

The 68 78-year-old Specter can’t be looking forward to a double gauntlet of Pat Toomey in the primary and now this. (Speaking of which, maybe Rasmussen should try polling the Specter vs. Toomey matchup.) For that matter, maybe Rasmussen should try polling some other Democrats (starting with Allyson Schwartz), in case the Chris Matthews noise turns out to be bluster.

Politico reports today that, on the one hand, Matthews is discussing the possibility of leaving MSNBC and relocating to Pennsylvania to focus on the race. But on the other hand, NBC insiders think it’s a ploy to renegotiate his contract, which expires in 2009. Right now, a renegotiation is not anticipated to be as rich as his current $5 million per year (and which will leave him lagging way behind fellow pundit Keith Olbermann)… threatening to run for Senate instead of jumping to another network is kind of a new wrinkle in the usual pattern, though.

UPDATE by Diego Infierno: Joe Sestak has withdrawn his name from consideration.