Author: DGM

 

With the retirement of long-time incumbent Pete Domenici, we are looking at an opportunity we may not see again for a long time. As many who are reading this are likely aware, on the Republican side, Reps. Heather Wilson, the pseudo-moderate representing the first district (which, unfortunately, includes my hometown of Albuquerque) and Steve Pearce, the right-winger who represents the second district (including Las Cruces) will be running against each other in order to gain the Republican nomination for the Senate. Naturally, we need a candidate who can defeat Wilson and Pearce in a general election, but we also want to elect a solid progressive who will stand up for New Mexican citizens, not the corporations.

 

You have all probably already read about the various sites which are already working on drafting Congressman Tom Udall to run for the senate, and many of you are probably asking an important question: why is it so important, not only to support Rep. Udall in a run for senate, but to actively work on drafting him for it?

Tom Udall is a strong progressive who will fight for the people of New Mexico, not the business interests. According to the non-partisan group Project Vote Smart, in 2006, he was given a 100% by NARAL, Planned Parenthood, Citizens for Tax Justice, the National Education Association, the National Association of Elementary School Principals (2005), the National Parent Teacher Association (2004), the League of Conservation Voters, the American Wilderness Coalition, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Alliance for Retired Americans, the AFL-CIO, the SEIU, United Auto Workers, the Children’s Defense Fund, the Arc, the American Public Health Association, Disabled American Veterans, and the American Association of University Women; as well as a 95% from the Public Interest Research Group, the National Organization of Women, and the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights (96%).

In addition to being a solid progressive, Tom Udall is also the strongest Democratic candidate we can muster (except, perhaps for Gov. Richardson, and I think we can all agree we’d like to see Bill as Secretary of State or Vice-President). According to CNN’s Election 2006 and Election 2004 Rep. Udall has won his district by 75% of the vote in 2006 and 70%, compared to Rep. Pearce who only won with 60% of the vote in both 2004 and 2006, and Rep. Wilson only barely broke 50% in 2006 and 55% in 2004. According to a recent Survey USA poll; Udall had an 18 point advantage against both Pearce (55-37) and Wilson (56-38). To put this in perspective, Albuquerque Mayor Martin Chavez, who is the only major Democrat to declare his candidacy, loses to Pearce by 21 points (35-56) and to Wilson by 4 (44-48). In addition, Tom Udall starts off with state-wide recognition after being New Mexico’s Attorney General during the 1990s. 

In Tom Udall, we have both a solid progressive and a strong candidate to run against either Heather Wilson or Steve Pearce. As such, it is critical we draft Tom Udall for the Senate, not only to strengthen the Democratic majority in congress, but to put a solid progressive and advocate for all New Mexicans. After considering all of this, it should no longer be a question of why we critically need Rep. Udall in the Senate, and anyone who is looking for a strong candidate and a strong progressive voice in the Senate; you should support our movement to draft Tom Udall for Senate.

Politico has it right here

So, now that we're likely to knock out Sununu, is it time to concentrate on the last Republican member of congress in the state (Gregg)?

Looking into the 2008 senate elections, we've been given a good look at what everyone here thinks on the details and the general picture of the 2008 elections. Now it's time to look at a bunch of 2008 senate rankings from various groups.

CQ Politics ranks two Democratics seats as “leans Democratic” (Landrieu and Johnson) and four as being “Democrat favored” (Baucus, Harkin, Lautenberg, and Pryor) everyone else is considered “safe Democratic”.

The Republicans, on the other hand, start off with one seat being listed as “leans Democratic” (Open Virginia), two as “no clear favorite” (Open Colorado and Coleman), four as “leans Republican” (Open Nebraska, Collins, Smith, Sununu), and ten as being “Republican favored” (Stevens, Chambliss, Sessions, McConnell, Dole, Domenici, Inhofe, Graham, Alexander, and Cornyn). The rest are considered safe.

Cook ranks one Democrat as being a “leans Democratic” (Landrieu) and one as being “likely Democratic” (Johnson – Poss. Ret.) while everyone else is considered “safe”.

For the Republicans, he lists two seats as being “Toss-up” (Colorado and Virginia open seats), four as being “leans Republican” (Collins, open Nebraska, Coleman, and Sununu), and five as being “likely Republican” (Stevens – poss. ret., Domenici – poss. ret., Craig, Smith, and Dole), the rest are considered “safe” with Inhofe and Cochran considered as possible retirements.

Rothenberg considers three Republicans (Sununu and open seats for Virginia and Colorado) to be “toss-ups”; three Republicans (Coleman, Collins, and Smith) and one Democrat (Landrieu) to be “narrow advantage incumbent party”; five Republicans (Dole, Domenici, Open Nebraska, McConnell, and Stevens) and one Democrat (Johnson) to be “clear advantage incumbent party”; and everyone else is considered to be safe. *note, Rothenberg has only officially updated 'til Hagel's announced retirement

Also, Larry Sabato has his own senate predictions in addition to House and Governor's races with some analysis of the states if you care to read them.

I want to say that I personally don't agree with Cook's assessment that Sununu can be considered a “leans Republican”. Even if Shaheen doesn't jump in, this race is, at best, a toss-up and a lean-Democratic if she does jump in. That's just me though, what do you guys think?

So, Politico is saying that Mark Warner is indeed going to be running.

I've mentioned this before, but we have a good opportunity to create a filibuster-proof majority by the end of the 2010 senate elections. In order to take advantage of this we need to look at making sure that we exploit every last possibly competitive seat this cycle and the next one.

 

 First of all, this is my estimation of what the competitiveness of the 2010 senate cycle is going to look like:

(Held by Democrats)

(Likely competitive)

 

• Salazaar (Colorado)

(Unlikely competitive [barring retirement or strong challenger])

 

• Lincoln (Arkansas)
• Boxer (California)
• Inouye (Hawaii)

(Held by Republicans)

 

(Likely competitive)

 

• Bunning (Kentucky)
• Specter (Pennsylvania)
• Burr (North Carolina)/
• McCain (Arizona)

 (Unlikely competitive [barring retirement or strong challenger])

 

• Coburn (Oklahoma)
• Bond (Missouri)
• Voinovich (Ohio)
• Kansas open seat (Brownback)
• DeMint (South Carolina)

 

Now, this is a preliminary look at the 2010 map, and I'm certain there is going to be some disagreement as to the specifics, but 2010 is probably going be another year with a field that the Democrats can take advantage of (since the Republicans have already take most of the southern seats up in 2004, they have no real pool for picking up seats in 2010). Assuming we can win 5 seats in 2008, we'd have to pick up at least 4 more in 2010 in order to get that filibuster-proof majority we want (let''s face it, even in the best-case scenario, we're not getting a filibuster-proof majority in 2008).

That's the good news, the bad news is in 2012, where the map is stacked very heavily against us. There are going to be 24 Democrats up for re-election in 2012 compared to only 9 Republicans (ok, fine 22 Democrats 2 independents, one of which could conceivably turn in that time period). Here's the estimation for 2012:

 

(Held by Democrats)

 

(Likely competitive)

 

• Tester (Montana)
• McCaskill (Missouri)
• Webb (Virginia)
• Byrd (West Virginia) *assumes retirement*

(Unlikely competitive [barring retirement or strong challenger])

 

• Casey (Pennsylvania)
• Brown (Ohio)
• Klobuchar (Minnesota)
• Akaka (Hawaii)
• Cardin (Maryland)
• Kennedy (Massachusetts) *assumes retirement*
• Bingaman (New Mexico)

(Held by Republicans)

(Likely competitive)

 

• N/A (subject to change due to open seats)

(Unlikely competitive [barring retirement or strong challenger])

 

• Corker (Tennessee)
• Kyl (Arizona)

This is the consequences of winning this many seats in a year that, quite frankly, by the numbers should have favored Republicans in the Senate. 2012 will be a miserable year for us in the Senate, there is no way around that fact, but if we take appropriate measures now, we can have build a large enough buffer that we can not only retain the senate, but we can keep a working majority of at least 55 seats after the Senate elections.

Charlie Cook has released his latest rankings for the 2008 Senate seats.

 Some things to note:

 -Cook believes that as many as seven Republican senators could retire this cycle and only one Democrat (Johnson). To put this in perspective, there were only four actual retirements in 2005-2006 with only one of them being a Republican, Dayton (D-MN), Sarbanes (D-MD), Jeffords (I-VT), and Frist (R-TN).

 -The only two Democrats who are not considered safe are Landrieu (leans Dem) and Johnson (Likely Dem) (possible retirement)

The hard numbers of the 2005-2006 cycle should have given the Republicans a built-in defense against the Dems taking the Senate (they had a 55-45 advantage at the time) but even then they couldn't prevent it. This time around there are a large number of Republican retirements, quite a few of them in states which are likely to be swing states in 2008 (Virginia and New Mexico come to mind). Even if no one else retires we're still in a very good position to build a filibuster-proof Senate majority by the end of the 2009-2010 cycle.

The last diary I wrote concerned the general expectations of the Congressional elections, and since this will definitely have a substantial impact on the Congressional elections, I think we need to look at how specific presidential candidates affect the congressional races.

To keep this from getting too out of hand, I'm only really looking at the top candidates for each party (Democrats: Clinton, Obama, and Edwards; Republicans: Giuliani, Thompson, Romney, and McCain)

 

Disclosure: I'm supporting Barack Obama in the presidential primaries.

Democratic Candidates

Hillary Clinton: Ok, to get this out of the way, Hillary Clinton is the frontrunner and, at the moment, most likely to win the nomination. The congressional races she helps are going to be in already blue states: Oregon (Gordon Smith) New Hampshire (Sununnu) possibly Minnesota (Coleman). In House races, she again helps freshman who are in blue districts and states and will help our efforts against the remainder of the northeast Republicans (Chris Shays, the lone New England Republican for one). Now here's the bad part: she's not all that helpful in the midwest or the south where quite a few Senate races could become competitive if the conditions are right: Kentucky (McConnell) Texas (Cornyn) North Carolina (Dole) Alabama (Sessions) Colorado (open) and Tennessee (Alexander).

My analysis: Clinton wins at the cost of the other tickets. Bill Clinton did the same thing in the 1996 election and that's what I think would happen here.

Barack Obama: Alright, Obama is the number two and, depending on the circumstances, could upset Clinton. So what does Obama do for the congressional ticket? Well, he's actually a ticket enhancer. Obama's candidacy will boost turnout of black voters and young voters (blacks vote at least 90% for Democrats and in southern states like Tennessee, Kentucky, and Alabama it could lead to some good upsets). Additionally, Obama also seems to do well among independents which would definitely be good for the two freshman congressmen in New Hampshire and in some red districts where winning over independent voters is important.

My analysis: Obama is a ticket-lifter, he doesn't inherently hurt the ticket the way Clinton does and, in fact, depending on who the Republicans pick, could actually put some extra seats into play that otherwise wouldn't be competitve.

John Edwards: Ok, Edwards is the dark-horse right now, and unless something really dramatic happens he's not winning the nomination, but having said that, here's my analysis of his impact on congressional races. Edwards is definitely a popular figure in the midwest and in a few of the southern states (North and South Carolina for instance). He'd definitely help candidates like Pryor and Harkin in Arkansas and Iowa respectively, and could probably do something about Elizabeth Dole (seriously, why doesn't he just drop out of the presidential race and just rerun for the Senate against Liddy Dole?).

My analysis: Edwards is more of a help than a detriment, and, quite frankly, had he been the nominee in 2004, we'd probably have picked up a couple of those southern seats in the Senate. Edwards share Obama's ability to make some southern seats more competitive, though his being on the ticket in 2004 does make him more polarizing than in previous years and being able to be linked to Kerry in the south could do more harm than good to congressional races. (John, it's not too late to challenge Liddy…)

Republicans to be added tomorrow

 

(Discuss. – promoted by James L.)

Most of the news in the Swing State Project is based around specific races and candidates, but I'd like to get a more general look at the Congressional races. More to the point, I'm trying to look into your expectations, what are you expecting in the 2008 elections? And what would you consider to be a huge win or a huge loss?

So, here are my expectations:

Senate Races

Expecting: (Dems pick up 2-3 seats)

Reason: The environment in the senate already gives the Democrats a huge advantage (only defending 12 compared to the Republicans' 22), in addition the national mood favors the Democrats pretty well overall. The individual races give me a bit more pause, the Democrats have a good advantage in two senate races already (Colorado and New Hampshire) with strong prospects in at least three other states (Maine, Minnesota, and Oregon). Having said that, the Democrats are in trouble in Louisiana, and in a presidential year, I'm having a hard time seeing Mary Landrieu surviving the race in Louisiana if the governors race doesn't turn around. Additionally, the Democrats might have another competitive seat in South Dakota, depending on the condition of Tim Johnson and whether or not Rounds decides to challenge him. The two assumes the Democrats win in both Colorado and New Hampshire and picks up one of the three states with high prospects and Mary Landrieu loses her seat, the three assumes the previous conditions with Landrieu keeping her seat.

Big Win: Dems win 5+ seats

Reason: In addition to the seats mentioned on top, there is still the potential for more competitive seats coming from North Carolina, New Mexico, Virginia, Alaska, and Kentucky. My minimum of five seats assumes a clean sweep of all the competitive seats, assuming how some of these states go, it could end up being a landslide, picking up 6-8 seats in the senate. Keep in mind that I think winning 8 seats is only technically possible, and I'd probably have a heart attack from shock if that happened.

Big Defeat: Dems lose 0-2 seats

Reason: The flip side of the coin has to be the possibility of some Democratic seats being compeitive. I've already covered Louisiana and South Dakota, so I'll also bring into the equation the possibilties of competitive races in Iowa and Arkansas. Huckabee could still challenge Pryor and the possibility is still there that he could lose. The zero assumes either no incumbent party lost seats or the Dems either picked up New Hampshire or Colorado but lost Louisiana, the 2 assumes the Democrats don't win anything and lose in Louisiana and in either Arkansas or South Dakota. Again, keep in mind this is another of the shock scenarios, the chances of this happening are about the same as the chances of the Dems winning 8 or more seats.

I've got to get ready for work, so I'll post what I think for the House a little later. And if you disagree with me, please, I want to know what you think.

Update:

Alright, I’m going to give my outlook for the House, now keep in mind that I’ve actually been concentrating a bit harder on the Senate than the House, so I’m only going to give what I think the general mood is, you House watchers, if you think I’m wrong, please speak up and correct me:

House

Expecting: Dems break even or pick up 1-2 seats

Reason: Ok, the overall national mood still favors the Democrats, and while the Senate is definitely a huge opportunity for the Dems, the House is a very different story. With the purging of a lot of Republicans from blue districts in the Northeast (Connecticut, New Hampshire, and New York) and the fact it’s a presidential year, I don’t really see the Democrats making a repeat of 2006. The Democrats are going to have to defend a bunch of newly acquired seats such as TX-22 and FL-16. The Dems do have the ability to knock off a few more Republicans though, (NM-1 [Heather the Feather] and CT-4, for example). While the DCCC does have a money advantage over the NRCC, it’s not as dramatic as the one between the DSCC and the NRSC.

Big Win: Democrats pick up 6+ seats

Reason: Keeping in mind all everything I’ve mentioned before, the overall mood does favor the Democrats, and with more retirements likely to be on the way from Republicans, the Democrats have the potential to make a few more competitive races in swing districts. Additionally, if the Republicans pick someone like Rudy Giuliani, who would likely hurt conservative turnout in Republican districts, that might be enough to give the Democrats an edge in a few more areas.

Big Loss: Republicans pick up 4+ seats.

Reason: Look, I want it to be perfectly clear, the Republicans won’t pick up the House next year, they just don’t have the resources, will, or stability to do it. Having said that, there are definitely circumstances where the Republicans can pick up a few seats, as I mentioned before, TX-22 and FL-16 are probably going to be difficult to hold on to, not to mention KS-3 and NH-2 (was it 1 or 2 that was the suprise pick up in House?). Additionally, the congressional seat won by John Hall might be in trouble if Ari Fleschier decides to run against him. There are still other districts with really big problems like in Arizona, Georgia, and a few other House seats, but you should keep in mind this is the “nightmare” scenario, one to be prepared for, but not paranoid about either.

The Hill is reporting that Norm Coleman may be facing a primary challenge from one of his former advisors.

http://thehill.com/l…

Minnesota is a Democratic-leaning state and has no real love for the war, but if this is a strong enough primary challenge, Coleman will have to move to the right on the war in order to win a Republican primary, this is defintely a good sign.