There’s somethin’ happenin’ here.
UPDATE: Jeb Bradley (R) to seek rematch against Rep. Carol Shea-Porter in NH-01. You can bet he won’t hesitate to go ugly this time. (Thanks to jwgoodwin.)
UPDATE II (James): From the “Where Are They Now?” file–former KY-02 candidate and state Rep. Mike Weaver (D), is going to run for State Treasurer.
As you may know, a Republican-held state Senate seat has opened up in New York, giving the Dems a chance to narrow the GOP’s already-tiny lead in this body (33-28 as of today). A special election will be held on Feb. 6th in the 7th state Senate district on Long Island. Democrats have selected Nassau County Legislator Craig Johnson as our nominee, and from everything I’ve heard, he’s popular, well-liked and considered to be a strong candidate.
This is going to be an incredibly hard-fought race, though, despite this district’s Dem leanings. The state Senate is the last bastion of power for the Republican Party – they won’t just stop at teeth and nails to hold on to this seat. So I just plunked down $100.01 to help Johnson, and I hope you can contribute as well. (ActBlue is not yet activated for NY state candidates, but if want to put “Swing State Project” in the comment box, we can try checking in with the campaign after the election to see how we did. Of course, don’t forget to add a penny for the Internets!)
And if you are in the area and want to help volunteer, you can fill out this form. Most of Johnson’s site appears to be held over from his prior election campaign, so I’m not certain if the volunteer form is still working properly – though I can tell you for a fact that my donation went through without a hitch. No word yet on whether there will be any virtual phone-banking, but if I hear anything, I’ll relay it, of course.
This is the first battle of the new year. Let’s show `em that we aren’t resting on our laurels.
UPDATE: NYBri says that folks can also give via the NY Democratic Party, and that allegedly 100% of money given through this page will go to Johnson’s race.
By my count, there were 76 Republican freshmen elected in 1994. (Thirty-four beat incumbent Dems, 24 won Dem-held open seats, and another 18 held on to GOP-held open seats.) According to the Cook Political Report, twelve of these frosh went on to lose their first re-election campaigns in 1996.
Who were these one-term wonders?
Sen. Wayne Allard said today he will honor his term-limits pledge and leave at the end of 2008, creating a replacement fight that should turn Colorado into one of the country’s biggest electoral battlegrounds. …
There’s a long list of potential candidates for Allard’s seat, including Rep. Mark Udall, D-Eldorado Springs, and various Republicans, such as outgoing Gov. Bill Owens, Tancredo, McInnis and Schaffer.
Someone care to update the wiki page?
P.S. Who might replace Rep. Mark Udall in CO-02? It’s D+8, so I doubt the GOP will contest it too fiercely.
(Via DKos.)
P.P.S. (James L.) Despite previous speculation, it looks like Tom “The Tank” Tancredo is taking his name out of consideration on the Republican side.
Sort of like life at the post office, elections – like the mail – just never stop.
Go to the website for the House Government Reform Committee (now chaired by Rep. Henry Waxman). Click the link in the top-right corner for “Minority Office.” What do you get?
No comment necessary.
Happy New Year!
Whoa. Kagro at DailyKos passes along this brief local blog post which says that Chuck Hagel is out – not running for president, not running for the Senate. This is big news.
We discussed candidate recruitment for Nebraska in this thread a little while back. Now that the seat may potentially be open, who do you like for the nomination – both Dem and Republican?
Take a look up at the banner on top of this screen, that big green bar. See the name in the title there? Remember that? Well, believe it or not, this site once focused entirely on the presidential swing states. (It was only after the 2004 election that we branched out to other races.)
So, with the next presidential election a mere 677 days away – ie, sooner than your local Best Buy will have Nintendo’s Wii back in stock – I thought we might take a look at the swing states in play for 2008. Now, as you know, I’m a big believer in the fifty-state strategy, but as you also know, these things take time. As much as I’d like to believe we’ll see an expanded playing field in the next presidential race, I think we all realize that Howard Dean’s plan is the work of many years.
Therefore, I’d like to start with a similar approach to the one I took three years ago, one which served us well, I think. Back then, I considered as a swing state any state where the vote margin between both sides was ±10%. (Specifically, where the margin between (Gore + Nader) – (Bush + Buchanan) was ±10%.) This time, it’s a little simpler because there were no meaningful third-party candidates in 2004, so I’m just going to look at the Kerry – Bush vote.
In any event, this is the list I wound up with, using the numbers found on Dave Leip’s site:
| State | EVs | Bush | Kerry | Margin |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| California | 55 | 44.36% | 54.31% | 9.95% |
| Maine | 4 | 44.58% | 53.57% | 8.99% |
| Hawaii | 4 | 45.26% | 54.01% | 8.75% |
| Delaware | 3 | 45.75% | 53.35% | 7.60% |
| Washington | 11 | 45.64% | 52.82% | 7.18% |
| New Jersey | 15 | 46.24% | 52.92% | 6.68% |
| Oregon | 7 | 47.19% | 51.35% | 4.16% |
| Minnesota | 10 | 47.61% | 51.09% | 3.48% |
| Michigan | 17 | 47.81% | 51.23% | 3.42% |
| Pennsylvania | 21 | 48.42% | 50.92% | 2.50% |
| New Hampshire | 4 | 48.87% | 50.24% | 1.37% |
| Wisconsin | 10 | 49.32% | 49.70% | 0.38% |
| Iowa | 7 | 49.90% | 49.23% | -0.67% |
| New Mexico | 5 | 49.84% | 49.05% | -0.79% |
| Ohio | 20 | 50.81% | 48.71% | -2.10% |
| Nevada | 5 | 50.47% | 47.88% | -2.59% |
| Colorado | 9 | 51.69% | 47.02% | -4.67% |
| Florida | 27 | 52.10% | 47.09% | -5.01% |
| Missouri | 11 | 53.30% | 46.10% | -7.20% |
| Virginia | 13 | 53.68% | 45.48% | -8.20% |
| Arkansas | 6 | 54.31% | 44.55% | -9.76% |
Twenty-one states in total: twelve blue and nine red. Four states are new to this list (CA, DE, HI, NJ) and five states were dropped from the previous list (AZ, LA, NC, TN & WV – though NC was only included later, when Edwards was added to the ticket).
Obviously, quite a few of these seem pretty implausible candidates for switching – certainly anything from NJ to CA would be a huge shock. Perhaps less so with the bottom three red states on the list, given our recent electoral successes in each – but of course, presidential politics is a whole ‘nother ballgame, and we often do well in state and local races in red states while getting crushed on the national level.
So the playing field is, in all likelihood, quite a bit narrower than this list would imply. It’s also conceivable that some of the states which are no longer on the list could come into play (in particular, AZ). (By the way, the next closest blue states outside this list IL, CT and MD – if they flip, I’m crunching down on my netroots-issued cyanide capsule.)
Anyhow, which states do you think are most likely to flip – and why? And if your analysis hinges on a particular candidate (or type of candidate) getting nominated for pres or VP, please detail that as well.
Nassau County Clerk Maureen O’Connell will be the Republican nominee to succeed state Sen. Michael Balboni, who is due to take a job in the Spitzer administration, GOP sources said yesterday.O’Connell, 56, served in the Assembly from 1999 until January, when she left Albany after winning the 2005 county clerk election against Democrat Tricia Farrell. She has also served as a trustee and deputy mayor of East Williston and was a registered nurse and lawyer.
O’Connell won that county clerk race (against Trica Ferrell, not Farrell) last year by 53-47, while Democrats were busy sweeping all the other county-wide races (including a victory over a 30-year GOP incumbent in the DA race). So that’s not a bad showing. But, note well: Nassau County as a whole still has a three-point GOP registration edge (PDF), 39R-36D-21I. As I noted yesterday, the 7th state Senate district has a three-point Dem edge.
The Dems are still busy deciding. In the mix:
Democrats said to be interested in the seat include Nassau Legis. Craig Johnson of Port Washington and North Hempstead Town Clerk Michelle Schimel. Assemb. Thomas DiNapoli of Great Neck also has been mentioned, though he is also interested in replacing Alan Hevesi as state comptroller.
We should know who our candidate is soon.
(Hat tip: The Albany Project.)
