Author: DavidNYC

Baruch College Survey Research for New York 1 (1/25-30, NYC residents, no trendlines):

Anthony Weiner (D): 36

Mike Bloomberg (R-inc): 43

Undecided: 16

Won’t Vote: 4

Bill Thompson (D): 32

Mike Bloomberg (R-inc): 45

Undecided: 19

Won’t Vote: 4

(MoE: ±4.3%)

Nice to see Bloombleberry dithering this far under 50, and the Weiner numbers are especially heartening. I think Thompson might be suffering from a little name-rec lag – his favorables are a nifty 48-10, but some 41% of people have no opinion of him. The poll didn’t ask Weiner’s favorables, but he’s probably better-known because of his 2005 mayoral run.

Interestingly, despite a still-lofty 64-29 approval rating, Bloomhauer doesn’t have much of an advantage in the top-lines horserace nums. Could people be growing sick of Bloombleberry even while they think he’s doing a good job? I can only hope.

P.S. The poll also tested the Dem primary:

Anthony Weiner: 31

Bill Thompson: 22

Tony Avella: 4

Won’t Vote: 6

Avella is a City Councilman. It’s not clear what the D sub-sample was. It’s also not clear to me why Baruch used city residents rather than registered voters, though they say there were 535 RVs out of a total sample of 705.

UPDATE: Quinnipiac also has a poll out today (1/20-25, registered voters, Nov. 2008 in parens):

Weiner: 35 (34)

Bloomberg: 50 (5)

Undecided: 12 (13)

Thompson: 34 (34)

Bloomberg: 50 (49)

Undecided: 13 (14)

(MoE: ±2.8%)

And for the Dem primary:

Weiner: 30

Thompson: 23

Undecided: 47

(MoE: ±3.5%)

The Dems’ numbers are the same, but I’m not sure what explains the Bloomster discrepancy. Could be wording, could be the sample, could be who knows.

(H/t Conspiracy):

Below is a table listing the committee assignments for the freshmen Senators in the 111th Congress (taken from here):

Note: Michael Bennet, Al Franken and Kirsten Gillibrand have not yet received any committee assignments.

While we don’t cover the legislative process here at SSP (for that, I’ll recommend you check out Kagro X’s new blog, Congress Matters), committee assignments can actually have a big impact on the electoral process. The gig you land can have an impact on what sort of legislation you can pass, how much pork you can direct home, what sort of fundraising you have access to, and what kind of influence you wind up accruing in general.

They can, on occasion, also play a direct role on the campaign trail. In 2006, Conrad Burns argued that replacing him would hurt Montana’s juice in the Senate. To help counter this, Harry Reid promised Jon Tester a seat on the powerful appropriations committee “as soon as possible.” I have to admited I snorted a bit at that formulation (who knows when “as soon as possible” is?), though of course Republicans tried to paint Reid as a liar for not giving Tester the Aprops seat right away.

But Harry Reid kept his word and came through with the assignment a few weeks ago. It’s good news for Tester as he starts thinking about his freshman re-election battle looming four years off in the horizon. And it’s also helpful for other Dems, because it shows that these sort of promises actually mean something.

We’ll bring you a House version of this chart soon.

A number of people who’ve expressed interest in helping gather election data so that we can compile presidential results by CD have asked for a more detailed guide. So here’s what I suggest:

1) Open up this spreadsheet.

2) Find a county where the three right-hand columns (F, G & H) are all blank. (If there’s information in any of those, it means someone has already requested data from that county, or at least investigated it.)

3) Call the phone number listed in column D. (If there’s no phone number, please look it up and paste it into column D.) When I call, this is what I like to say:

Hi. I’m a researcher looking for detailed election results from the 2008 election. Whom might I speak with about this?

Once I have the right person, this is the request I make:

I’m interested in precinct-level results for the Presidential and Congressional races in your county for the 2008 election. Are you able to send that to me?

That’s really you need to ask for – this request is very basic and should be readily understood. If you encounter any confusion, report back here in comments and we’ll try to figure out what the misunderstanding is.

4) At this point, the response you might get will vary. Some election officials will email you on the spot, some will only mail you hardcopy versions, and some might even insist on mailing you a CD. Still others might ask you to fill out a particular request form, or fax them a signed letter, or file a Freedom of Information request.

Just ask what you need to do and you should be given straightforward instructions. If you follow these, you should get the data you’re looking for without a problem. Note: If the county you talk to can only send hardcopies but you don’t have access to a scanner, let us know in comments.

5) Side note: Some counties – and this really cheeses me off, but there’s not much we can do – may require a payment for the data. If that happens, I recommend you do NOT pay for the data. Rather, find out how much the data would cost. Then open up this spreadsheet again and type your username into column F and the cost into column G. We’ll look into making purchases later.

6) Once you get the data, please upload your files to Scribd. (You’ll need to create an account there first.) Then, post the URL(s) in column H. That way we’ll know we have the data, and we’ll know where to find it.

That’s really all there is to it. If you have any questions at all, please feel free to ask in comments.

Just a teaser from Page One Kentucky:

Sources close to Lt. Governor Daniel Mongiardo tell us that he has informed Governor Steve Beshear that he will announce his campaign for the U.S. Senate tomorrow.

I like Dr. Dan, who lost just 51-49 to Bunning in 2004, despite getting almost no love and outside money. Now we’ll see if this move clears the primary field – and if it pushes Bunning into retirement.

Safe R:

     IN (Open)

     ND (Open)

2010 Final Ratings:

     MA (Open): Tossup

Last Updated: November 1, 2010 at 10:00 AM

Previous Ratings

From Nathan Gonzales:

With Republican and Democratic candidates scrambling for position in the special election in New York’s 20th District, 2008 GOP nominee Sandy Treadwell is not jumping into the race, according to GOP sources.

Treadwell, who spent almost $6 million of his own money last cycle in his 61%-38% loss to Cong. Kirsten Gillibrand (D), expressed interest early on, and even released public statements saying as much, but will not ultimately throw his name into consideration. According to GOP insiders, he is currently out of the Empire State and is not making immediate moves toward another run.

I guess blowing through another $6 mil wasn’t such an appealing thought for Sandy in this economy. Then again, maybe this is the guy we would have wanted, given his abysmal 38% showing. Hell, Kieran Lalor did better in the 19th!

Nathan also tells us about who is in the running:

Meanwhile state Sen. Betty Little (R) who has already announced her candidacy. And according to the Albany Times-Union, the Saratoga County GOP has decided to back Assembly Minority Leader Jim Tedisco and the Greene County GOP is with 2006 gubernatorial nominee John Faso.

With ten different counties covered by the district, this could get very interesting:

There will not be a primary for the special election, instead the party nominees will be chosen by a weighted vote among the county committees. Saratoga carries the most weight in the 10-county district.

Note that this applies to both sides – the Dems won’t have a primary, either (one of the worst aspects of New York’s often-cruddy election laws). So, apart from those of us on the ground in the 20th, we’re mostly gonna just have to hang tight here.

The good news: We’ve scrounged up precinct-level election results for about twenty counties that were on our list in order to complete the presidential results by CD. The bad news: We still need data from another ninety.

The bottom line is that we’ve downloaded from every website that lets you download, and we’ve emailed every county that lets you email. The remaining counties either don’t have websites or email address, or just haven’t responded to emails. So we need to start making phone calls.

I think the netroots – and really, we’re just talking about a single small blog here – could make a big impact by releasing a complete set of data. Before we started, I never thought that doing so would be possible, but now I believe it’s in our grasp. Finishing this would demonstrate that a dedicated band of volunteers can tackle a project most would assume would require a bunch of professionals and a lot of money.

It would also demonstrate that when it comes to data analysis, the Internet really has ushered in a new era of openness, transparency and accessibility. Indeed, our work has already been favorably cited in places like the Guardian and Roll Call, and in local newspapers as well. We’re breaking barriers, people!

Alright, enough with the attempts at rousing exhortations. There are still phone calls to make – the full list is here. If you have some free time during the day and can make a few calls, this short list of “high value” municipalities is a good place to start:

Getting precinct-level data for these counties/cities/towns (especially those toward the top of the list) is key, but all are important. If you want to try another route, start with your home state. If your home state is not on the list, then just pick some counties at random.

Remember that when you call, you need to ask for precinct-level results for both the presidential race and any United States House races within the county in question. (Without the latter data set, we can’t figure out which precincts are assigned to which CD.)

Also note that if you see a notation in the “Data Requested” column, or a price listed in the “Cost” column, that means we’ve already made contact with that county, so there’s no need to call them. (Mostly we’re waiting to figure out if we can find a sugar daddy to pay for the data from the counties which charge – grr! The nerve of them!)

If you do make a phone call and request the data, please make a note of it in the proper column. If the county emails it to you, great – just upload it to Scribd or Google Docs and post the URL in the spreadsheet. If they offer to mail it to you, please make a note of your request date (along with your name or user name) so that we can follow up if need be. And if they quote you a price, hold off on ordering – just note the price in the proper column.

Again, the full list of counties we need data for is right here. Let’s do this thing!

Not bad for a sophomore (then again, so is fellow vice-chair Bruce Braley):

New Jersey Rep. Albio Sires has been tapped as vice chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

In his new position, Sires will be charged with heading up the committee’s member participation and outreach, meaning he’ll be pushing Democrats to get more involved in fund raising and close races.

Over at Congress Matters, though, Kagro makes a good point:

How does this bode for the 2010 cycle in Florida’s 18th, 21st and 25th districts, currently held by Cuban-American Republicans Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Mario Diaz-Balart, respectively? In 2008, Wasserman Schultz, though chair of the DCCC’s “Red to Blue” program, famously refused to go all in for the Democrats running there. Now she goes into the 2010 cycle as a vice chair. And although it won’t necessarily be Sires’ job to turn those districts blue, you wouldn’t be crazy to wonder whether his heart won’t really be in that job, either. R or D, the Cuban-Americans in Congress don’t tend to get in each other’s way, at the very least, and in some cases are in fact very close friends.

That doesn’t make Sires a bad choice for the job, though. Just that it’s not likely to get better for Democratic Cuban-American candidates in Florida in terms of support from incumbent Dems.

Sigh. He’s probably right, especially with DWS being the other vice-chair.

A Democratic President, a Democratic Senate and a Democratic House. We’ve been waiting for this for fifteen years – that’s half my lifetime. And it’s finally here. Wow.

Of course, Rahm Emanuel is irreplaceable. But nonetheless, the filing deadline for the IL-05 special election closed earlier tonight. Twenty-six candidates filed, including fifteen Dems. Here’s what the Democratic field will look like (in alphabetical order, with descriptions mostly taken from Wikipedia):

Annunzio, Frank – great newphew of Frank Annunzio, deceased longtime Chicago-area Congressman

Bryar, Paul – physician at Northwestern Memorial and professor at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine

Capparelli, Cary – marketing consultant

Dagher, Pete – former Bill Clinton and Barack Obama staffer

Donatelli, Jan – former commercial pilot

Feigenholtz, Sara – state Representative

Forys, Victor – physician

Fritchey, John – state Representative

Geoghegan, Tom – labor attorney and author

Monteagudo, Carlos

O’Connor, Patrick – Chicago alderman

Oberman, Justin – former Transportation Security Administration administrator (and son of former Alderman Marty Oberman)

Quigley, Mike – Cook County commissioner

Thompson, Roger

Wheelan, Charles – Senior Lecturer at the University of Chicago and author

Progress Illinois says there are no real surprises here, though they’re skeptical of how seriously Ald. Pat O’Connor will run (he filed at 4:59pm – second thoughts?). Nonetheless, there are still several big names here (principally Feingenholtz and Fritchey), making it a challenge for other candidates to break through, especially in such a short time-frame.

The primary is on March 3rd.