Month: November 2007

Dairy magnate Jim Oberweis, a candidate for the open seat of retiring Republican Rep. Dennis Hastert, released an internal poll this week that shows him looking strong in the upcoming special election.  From McLaughlin & Associates (R) (10/16-18, likely voters):

Jim Oberweis (R): 49%
Bill Foster (D): 22%
Undecided: 29%

Jim Oberweis (R): 47%
John Laesch (D): 27%
Undecided: 26%

Jim Oberweis (R): 47%
Jotham Stein (D): 20%
Undecided: 33%
(MoE: 5.7%)

Huge leads in every scenario for Oberweis.  If accurate, he’s in a strong position to retain this seat for the GOP.  To the best of my knowledge, Foster, the self-funding physicist, has yet to go up on the air (Oberweis has been running commercials), so his numbers are dampened by a general lack of name ID.  Still, that is a tough position to claw back from in a district that gave 55% of its vote to Bush in 2004.

The one caveat: the GOP primary still looks unsettled at this point.

Jim Oberweis (R): 41%
Chris Lauzen (R): 37%
Kevin Burns (R): 3%
Undecided: 19%
(MoE: 5.4%)

Not a commanding lead for Obie-Wan just yet, although he definitely has the cash to smoke Lauzen, a state senator, out of contention.

Looks like Heather Wilson’s much-hyped fundraiser with Vice President Dick Cheney in DC tonight was a bit of a bust:

Rep. Heather Wilson (R-N.M.) was expected to raise about $110,000 for her Senate campaign Thursday night at a Washington fundraiser with Vice President Dick Cheney, according to a source close to Wilson. […]

Wilson’s fundraiser, held at the Capitol Hill Club, was set to raise about half of the $110,000 from political action committees and half from personal contributions.

In fairness, $110K is not a bad haul for a fundraiser.  But this wasn’t just any other fundraiser — this was an event with one of the heaviest hitters on the GOP bench, Grand Moff Cheney himself.  For comparison’s sake, let’s flashback to September, when Cheney raised a much healthier $275,000 for Rep. Sam Graves (R-MO), who will be facing a competitive race against ex-Kansas City Mayor Kay Barnes (D) next year.  A few short months later and the combined powers of Wilson and Cheney could barely crack $100K for one of the top tier Senate races in the nation next year?  Weak.

Or perhaps Cheney’s heart just wasn’t into it.  The event wasn’t a formal endorsement of Wilson’s campaign, so perhaps he spent the evening sighing wistfully and thinking of Steve Pearce.

The battle for redistricting and the reapportionment of House seats has been a hot topic at the Swing State Project for a while. A few days ago, we took a look at the fastest and slowest-growing House districts in the nation. It might be time to follow that up with Polidata’s projections (based on ’06 estimates) for the states that stand to gain and lose House seats after the 2010 Census:

State	Delegation	Change
Arizona	4R, 4D	+2
Florida	16R, 9D	+2
Georgia	7R, 6D	+1
Illinois	10D, 9R	-1
Iowa	3D, 2R	-1
Louisiana	5R, 2D	-1
Massachusetts	10D	-1
Michigan	9R, 6D	-1
Minnesota	5D, 3R	-1
Missouri	5R, 4D	-1
Nevada	2R, 1D	+1
New Jersey	7D, 6R	-1
New York	23D, 6R	-2
Ohio	11R, 7D	-2
Oregon	4D, 1R	+1
Pennsylvania	11D, 8R	-1
Texas	19R, 13D	+4
Utah	2R, 1D	+1
Washington	6D, 3R	+1

To recap, while many of the states that stand to lose seats are of a bluish hue, the net effect of these changes will be decided mostly by the Democrats’ strength at the redistricting table. The redistricting process varies from state to state, but the DLCC has an extremely handy chart here detailing how it’s done in all 50 states, along with the balance of power in each state legislature. (Note: this chart is not updated to reflect the Democratic gain of the Mississippi and Virginia state senates.)

With some artful redistricting, Illinois should be able to rid itself of a few GOP House incumbents, for instance. Michigan’s delegation is also out of whack, but the Dems will need to reclaim the state senate in order to get a total edge in the process. Republicans have already done some amazingly twisted things with the Texas map this decade, so it’ll be hard to see how they could squeeze four more pick-ups out of their new bounty. I have to imagine that one or possibly two of those new seats will be Latino-dominated.

Any other thoughts from our crack team of redistricting fans in the comments?

(From the diaries. Crossposted at New Mexico FBIHOP. – promoted by James L.)

Albuquerque mayor Martin Chavez has been touting his roots to New Mexico.  Just take a look at his bio on his campaign site:

A native son of New Mexico, Martin Chávez was born and raised in Albuquerque, New Mexico. His family’s roots in New Mexico have been traced to the 1500s.

Many New Mexicans who have had family in the state for generations are proud of their “native roots”.  These are the people who can name their family back to the Spanish settlers.  But the Albuquerque Tribune asked an interesting question: What role will being the only “native son” play in the Senate election?

After doing a bit of research, probably not much.

“When given a choice, New Mexicans usually prefer a native son.”
-Mark Fleisher, Martin Chavez Campaign Manager

It sounds great.  Sounds completely plausible; after all, even Stephen Colbert planned on running for President (but only in South Carolina) as a “favorite son.”

But in New Mexico, where you were born or grew up does not seem to make much of a difference in whether or not New Mexicans will vote for you.  After all, as the Tribune article wrote:

[A]ll three of the other leading contenders for the Senate – Reps. Tom Udall, a Santa Fe Democrat, Heather Wilson, an Albuquerque Republican, and Steve Pearce, a Hobbs Republican – were born outside New Mexico.

They are all Representatives with multiple elections under their belt — and have defeated “native sons” along the way.

Most recently, Heather Wilson defeated Patricia Madrid in the 2006 election by less than a thousand votes.  While Madrid was born in Las Cruces, NM, Wilson only moved to Albuquerque in 1991. 

In the Second District, Steve Pearce defeated native son Gary King (Stanley, NM) in 2004.  And King even has the pedigree of a father (three-time governor Bruce King) who was also born in New Mexico.  Pearce did, however, move to Hobbs at the age of two.

Udall has easily defeated all comers in the Third Congressional District in recent years, but his closest call came against then-incumbent Bill Redmond; a Chicago native.  Before Redmond, the seat was held by now Gov. Bill Richardson.

Richardson was born in Pasadena, CA, and did not move to Santa Fe, NM until 1978.  He ran for Congress against longtime incumbent Manuel Lujan in 1980 and lost.  He succeeded in 1982.  Richardson defeated John Sanchez (55-39) in 2002; Sanchez was a native of Albuquerque.  He then easily defeated Santa Fe-born John Dendahl in 2006, with a record margin.

The last time Chavez ran for statewide office, for governor in 1998, he lost to Gary Johnson.  Johnson was born in South Dakota.  I could not find, however, when exactly Johnson moved to New Mexico.

While Chavez will continue to tout his nativeness to the state, in the grand scheme of things… it probably doesn’t make a whole lot of a difference.

With the December 11th special election to fill the seat of the late Rep. Paul Gillmor (R), we now have our first poll of the race.

Public Opinion Strategies (R) for Bob Latta (Nov. 11-12, likely voters):

Robin Weirauch (D): 36%
Bob Latta (R): 50%

Generic Democrat: 37%
Generic Republican: 45%
(MoE: ±5.2%)

This is a district that gave Bush 61% of its vote in 2004, so Latta’s 50% and especially the generic R tallies are especially underwhelming.  POS isn’t the most reputable of Republican pollsters, but the result is still interesting.  Weirauch has a tough hill to climb and not much time to do it, but Latta isn’t blowing her out of the water yet.

From CNN:

Former House Speaker Dennis Hastert is expected to announce Thursday on the House floor that he is retiring from Congress, a senior aide to the congressman told CNN Wednesday.

The aide said that Hastert will announce his plans to retire tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. in an address on the House floor. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s office provided the floor time to the former speaker to address his colleagues.

“His plan is to make his farewell address tomorrow on the House floor,” the aide said. “He is then going to decide at some point this year when he will step down.”

The aide said the effective date of Hastert’s resignation not yet been determined.

So, no telling when a special election would be. As many have speculated, Hastert may be gaming things so that the special won’t coincide with the Illinois presidential primaries on Feb. 5th, which will presumably feature favorite son Barack Obama, and consequently higher Dem turnout. (IL’s congressional primaries – the first in the nation – are also that same day.) Some background info on the timing of the special is available here.

Stay tuned.

(Hat-tip: pierredude)

http://politicaltick…

Former Speaker Dennis Hastert will announce tomorrow his intent to resign around 2:30 on the House Floor. This is yet another open seat for the Republicans to defend. Long expected, and more then once rumored to be announced, this looks like the real deal.

Currently the Democrats in the race are ’06 Nominee John Laesch, Businessman Bill Foster, and Lawyer Jotham Stein. Foster seems to be winning the endorsement race by a wide margin, but anything is possible. I didn’t have time to look into the money picture though.

The Republicans have as possibilities State Senator Chris Lauzen, and Mayor of Geneva Keven Burns. I haven’t had time to dig too deeply into this yet, but does anybody have any info an any of the Republicans?

Club For Growth nutcase Bill Sali has another Democratic challenger on his hands: businessman Walt Minnick, a former Senate candidate who lost by 16% to Larry Craig in 1996.  For those keeping score, that’s not a bad performance considering that Bill Clinton won less than 34% of the state’s Presidential vote that year.  Minnick will join ’06 nominee Larry Grant and army vet Rand Lewis in the Democratic primary.

At his announcement speech today, Minnick was joined by former Gov. Cecil Andrus, the last meaningful Democratic figure to hold office in Idaho:

“This is a man who can win in the fall; a man I trust and can be elected in November as Congressman from the first district,” said former Idaho governor and Secretary of the Interior Cecil D. Andrus.

Andrus was introducing Walt Minnick, candidate for the Democratic nomination to the House of Representatives, in front of supporters and press this morning in front of the Idaho Historical Museum in downtown Boise.

Minnick’s entry and Andrus’ endorsement comes with this as a backdrop:

After Grant lost to Sali, Idaho Statesman political columnist Dan Popkey quoted a few Idaho Democrats who were angry with Larry Grant for running a lackluster campaign, squandering goodwill with unreturned phone calls and offers of help, not listening to campaign advisors and declining to campaign aggressively against Sali’s far-right philosophies.

Some Democrats think Popkey’s column opened the door for party members to talk about their disappointment with Grant, leaving room for a challenge primary.

While the ripest year to beat Sali was 2006, it’s certainly a change of pace to see a three-way primary for a House seat in Idaho.  Perhaps this race could get interesting later down the line.

On Monday, November 19th, at 10 AM, Fred Johnson will announce to the people of West Michigan that he is running for the U.S. House of Representatives, Michigan’s 2nd District.  The announcement will be made at the Union Depot in Muskegon, located at 610 W. Western Ave.

All West Michigan Democrats, independents, and Republicans who want to change our nation’s direction by restoring integrity and progress should attend this important event.

A map showing the location of the Depot can be seen by clicking on the link below:

http://maps.google.c…

To find out more information about Fred Johnson and the campaign, or to contribute to the Fred Johnson for Congress, visit our website at:

http://www.fredjohns…

Please forward this announcement to your friends, colleagues, and anyone else that you think may be interested.

Sincerely,

The Fred Johnson for Congress Campaign Committee

Tom Bos and Rillastine Wilkins, Co-Chairs

It’s official:

First-term state Rep. Jon Elrod will announce Thursday that he’ll run for U.S. Rep. Julia Carson’s 7th District congressional seat next year, his spokesman said.

Elrod, an Indianapolis Republican who defeated incumbent Ed Mahern in state representative district 97 last year, will make Thursday’s announcement at noon, his spokesman said.

Elrod confirmed to 6News he planned to announce something Thursday but declined to say what that would be. However, his spokesman Kyle Kasting said Elrod would announce he is seeking the Republican nomination for the seat held by Carson, a Democrat.

As a frosh state representative, it remains to be seen how formidable Elrod would be in a general election match-up.  However, a state legislator from a Dem-leaning district is a pretty decent recruitment score for the Indiana GOP.

As we’ve said before, this seat is only vulnerable because of Carson’s health issues and her sagging electoral performance as of late.  With a stronger Dem on the ballot — and, I have to presume, the party’s Indianapolis bench must be fairly deep — this district (which gave Kerry 58% of its vote in ’04) should be an easier hold.

One possible scenario is that Carson will retire after the deadline, and allow the nomination to be given to her grandson, newly-elected city councilor André Carson.  I think a primary would be a much healthier option, though.

(H/T: Blue Indiana)