Month: May 2008

When incumbent GOP Representative Wayne Gilchrest lost his primary to a “Club for Growth” backed extremist, Maryland’s First Congressional District became competitive — and with help, could actually favor the Democratic candidate, Frank Kratovil.  When Blue Catapult PAC held an event for Frank, we learned that not only is he a great candidate, but that the dynamics of the district make it ripe for a Democratic pickup.

Why can MD-01 turn Blue?

Frank is a Great Candidate. He is the current State’s Attorney for Queen Anne’s County, and he is in court in the morning and campaigns later in the day. Unlike his opponent, he is a native of Maryland’s Eastern Shore, which comprises about half the voters and are very protective of their congressional representation. Frank is a lifelong Democrat and was President of Maryland Young Democrats when he was younger. He is outspoken against the War and supports a sane fiscal policy.

This is now an Open Seat. With the moderate Wayne Gilchrest losing his primary, the seat is now truly competitive. The district breaks down in Party ID to about 40% Democrat, 40% Republican and 20% independent. Gilchrest represented the district well with his moderation, including opposing the continuation of the War, and not always supporting Bush’s tax policies. As this is going to be a truly competitive seat, it should get most of the attention of Maryland’s Democratic political apparatus.

Frank’s opponent is Too Conservative for the District. The right-wing 527 “Club for Growth” put in over $1 million in media and mailings in beating Gilchrest and will probably do more in the Fall. Gilchrest has not endorsed the man who beat him in the primary and some of his former staff are already helping Kratovil. The GOP candidate, Andy Harris, is a state representative who believes that taxes are too high and government should leave business alone. As Frank said to us on Tuesday, with all the problems in the country — the War, health care, the environment, etc. — all Harris talks about is taxes.Gilchrest’s independence fit the district well — Harris’ knee-jerk conservatism does not. he is alos from the Baltimore metropolitan area which will put Eastern Shore resident ill at ease.

But to make this District blue, Frank needs your help. While his Cash on Hand at the end of last quarter was not far from Harris’, the Club for Growth spending will add unofficial troughs to his campaign. Once Frank gets his message out he should win — but he needs the resources to do that.

Please Contribute to Frank Kratovil HERE

Just $15, $20 or $30 will go a long way as the more funding Frank gets now, the more seriously the national party will take his campaign.
Thank you.

Please Contribute to Frank Kratovil HERE

Crossposted at Daily Kos and EENR Blog.  I didn’t see much discussion of this race, so thought this might be helpful for readers here.

Most of you probably remember me from all of the hard work I put in blogging about Rick Vilello, former candidate for the PA-05 nomination.  Well, during that time I also got very sick.  So sick that I was unable to go to work and they eventually had to let me go.  The good news is that my sickness was apparently an allergic reaction to something in the area, and now that I have left the area, I’m no longer sick.  I’m returning to the PA-06 and noticed that there has not been a single diary on our very progressive candidate down there.  I would like to rectify that situation.  Bear in mind that I do not work for the Bob Roggio campaign, although I do look forward to volunteering for it.

First off, I would like to include a link to Bob Roggio’s website.  Feel free to check in early and often.

Bob Roggio for Congress

So who is Bob Roggio?  Aside from being the next Congressman from the PA-06, he has had many roles.  He was a successful businessman, a member of the military, and a political activist.  He is also graduated from Penn State, and the story of this degree, in my opinion, speaks to his character more than anything else.  

When Bob was 21, his father suddenly passed away.  In order to help support his mother and the rest of his family, he dropped out of college to work full time.  In addition, he joined the Army Reserves.  During this time, Bob began working at Zenith Products Corporation.  Over a 30 year career, he became a vice-president and a principal owner, all without receiving his college degree.  At the end of his career, he and the rest of the owners of Zenith sold the company in 1994.  At this time, Bob could have just retired, but he didn’t.  First, he went back and got the degree he gave up on so early in his life.  Then, he expanded the dedication to public service that had been a part of his life all along.

In 2004, he was a critical part of the effort to deliver Philadelphia, and thus Pennsylvania, for John Kerry.  In 2006, he was called upon to help send Bob Casey to Washington.  And today, he is answering that call to public service once again by running against Jim Gerlach in the PA-06.

Many of you may be saying, “That’s all well and good, but where does he stand on the issues?”  I can honestly tell you that he is right on the issues as well.  He wants to bring our troops home and knows that the invasion of Iraq was a mistake.  He wants to develop alternative energy sources and help us to become independent from foreign oil.  He believes that everyone deserves health care they can afford.  He believes in a woman’s right to choose.  He also believes that we need to spend money on our crumbling infrastructure so that we can have more and better jobs again.

So there we are.  This is Bob Roggio in a nutshell.  I’ll write more about him once I get back to the district full time.  I’m still recovering, so it might be a while.  Until then, please stop by Bob’s website.  And if you believe that the PA-06 deserves progressive leadership as much as I do, please visit this Act Blue page.  Thanks for stopping by!

Thanks to Benawu, it’s pretty easy to make a list of Republican seats sorted by Cook PVI scores.  (The information is also available at Wikipedia, btw, but I trust Benawu).  FEC reports are also pretty accessible at www.fec.gov so it’s a nice research project.

Well, to keep things manageable I looked up the cash on hand balances of all Republican incumbents and the leading money raising challenger for Republican seats that are open this cycle.  Excell allows for some comparisons.

The average cash balance for these 78 seats is $720,059.  The average for the 55 incumbents is $819,234; the average for the 13 open seats is $224,184.  There’s the value of incumbency in dollars and cents.  Republicans in Democratic territory, those with a PVI of D+1 or higher, were a bit better funded but incumbency trumped everything else.  The 13 Republicans averaged $838,144 with ten incumbents in these seats at $1,031,027 and three open seats averaging $195,201.

An analysis of each of the Lean D sistricts and competes on particularly weak Republicans follows below the fold.  I’d include the entire spreadsheet but I don’t know how to import it.  

Republicans in D Land

D+7 is Delaware and Mike Castle.  Castle is sitting on $1,547,493.  Somebody, Jerry Northington, Dennis Spivack, Beau Biden, needs to make a run at him.  Ine run will probably cut this down to manageable and beatable size.  Yes, this is a sore spot.

D+5 is Chris Shays.  Shays scores well on Progressive Punch but he is not only a proponent of the Iraq War but is one of the most outspoken proponents of torture.  Even though the latest figures (April 20 from my notes) give him  $1,247,000 and a $200 K lead on Jim Himes we are in the ball park.  He won’t have Joe Lieberman’s coat tails this time.  We need to take him out this time.

D+4 leaves us with the well heeled Frank Lo Biondo (NJ-2) and the even heelier Mark Kirk.  Moderate Republicans but Kirk had the fight of his life last cycle and Dan Seals is back for more.  A lot of people talk about Obama’s coat tails.  Well, if it shows up anywhere this is it.  LoBiondo has had a series of free rides.  Time to give him a tussle.

D+3 gives us two races both open seats with a financial edge to the Democrats.  Yeah. baby.  In NJ-3, John Adler has $1,003,551 while the Republican is at $288,100.  Srick a fork in him?

In NY-25, Dan Maffei’s “opponent” has yet to show a $1 in the bank.  Maffei has $675,660.  I honestly think that the NY State GOP is conceding this House seat.

D+2 has four House seats held by Republicans with one, NM-1, open.  Looking good.  The lead Republican has $297,499.  Nice but not overwhelming.  Look for McCain to slurp up a lot of outside funding and for the GOP to leave this seat to fend for itself.  (you did see those Udall polls up-ticket)  The other three seats show one with an incumbent being outraised (WA-8) where Darcy Burner appears to have the edge (finally) on Dave Reichert.  Two others, both in PA, give the early money lead to the Republican incumbents.  Neither Gerlach in PA-6 ($714,580 to $168,259) nor Charlie Dent in PA-15 ($182,830) is home free by any means.

D+1 has only three seat including the weakest incumbent Republican on the board.  That’s Vito Fossella.  Fossella has only $248,100 in the bank and that’s after a vigorous fund raising campaign in the first quarter that rescued him from a pathetic $50 K cash on hand.  He’s cancelling fund raisers, enmeshed in scandals (plural, the DUI, the mistress, the child).  And he’s outraised by Recchia with new candidates from both parties chomping at the bit.  One has to go all the way to R+6 to find an incumbent Republican running for re-election with a smaller bank account than Vito Fossella (Ken Calvert of CA-44 and Tim Johnson of IL-15).

As for the other D+1 Republicans, Jon Porter has $1,083,693 in NV-3 and he will need it against Dina Titus.  Bill Young may get a vigorous challenge for once.  He was my congressman in the 70’s (and 80s) and is still there with $555,655 in the bank.  The GOP plan appears to be for Young, who has been in the House since 1970, to take it to re-districting. I haven’t seen it written anywhere but it makes sense.  In four years they hope to draw more friendly lines.  This seems to be our best chance before 2012.

Speaking of low hanging fruit, here come the underfunded and open seats:

NY-23 McHugh $261,698 (O, actually R+0.2)  Oot (not a typo)is seriously underfunded as his opponent but McHugh could be the victim of a late charge if the DCCC has money in its coffers.

NJ-7 Open, R+1.  Linda Stender has a serious cash lead ($845 K) as former firsr daughter Kate Whittman ($307 K) takes on Leonard Lance ($255 K)and others in a primary.  The district has already rejected another first child, Tom Keane, Jr., in a recent GOP primary duel.  We lost this seat by 2.000 votes last time with the Out of Iraq Now party or some such pulling 3,000.  Should win here.

MN-1 Open, R+1.  Jim Ramstad is gone but Ash Madia seems to be facing a money gap against Erik Paulsen.

MN-2, Kline, R+3.  This may be the sleeper of this cycle.  Kline is clearly conservative.  Ramstad and Bachmann’s districts will get the attention and Kline is sitting against Steve Sarvi with just $375 K in the bank.  Attack everywhere and someplace will be open (see Lincoln re: New Orleans capture).

OH-15, Open, R+1.  Mary Jo Kilroy came close last time and is a local official.  In some ways we may have the incumbency factor here.  Steve Stivers has done a great job of fund raising for the Republicans with $599,689.

VA-11, open, R+1.  Feels the same as OH-15.  Again, the GOP has raised cash here: $742,045.

AZ-1, open, R+2.  Scandal plagued Rick Renzi leaves this seat.  Ann Kirkpatrick has a 2-1 fund raising edge over “cowgirl” (not) Sydney Hay in a likely all-female faceoff.

CA-45, Bono Mack, R+3.  New husband (Connie Mack of FL-14) 3,000 miles away may cause Mary Bono Mack to leave this Palm Springs district a little unattended.  At $344,123 she’s one of the most poorly funded incumbents on this list.

NC-8, Robin Hates, R+3.  Self-funder Robin Hayes is loaded with $987 K against Larry Kissell.  No surprises this time, Larry.  Got to beat his pampered butt for real.

FL-15, open, R+4.  Nobody has really geared up to take Dave Weldon’s seat.  Why not us?

IL-18, open, R+5.  Aaron Schock is a loud mouthed kid who the GOP has annointed as a golden boy.  Only he has little cash advantage (only $188 k vs. over $100 K) vs. media savvy Coleen Callahan.  Save us from another one of these congressional brats.  Please.  We have a real good chance, here.

VA-10, Wolf, R+6.  Yes he’s got $715 K but Judy Feder can raise the green stuff, too.  The district is shading more blue.  Is this the time?

OH-7, open, R+6.  Their candidate has $51,819.

CA-44, Calvert, R+6.  Give it a whirl at $222 K.

CA-46, Rohrabacher, R+6.  $331 K in the bank.  Less than half the national average; 40% what the average incumbent carries on this list.

IL-15, Tim Johnson, R+6.  $106,759.  Johnson is a) principled, b)lazy, c)one heck of a poker player d) stupid/”lucky”.  Don’t know bur gee is that a tempting number to cause problems.

Lake Research Partners for Steve Cohen (4/21-24, likely voters):

Steve Cohen (D-inc): 63

Nikki Tinker (D): 11

Joe Towns (D): 5

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Damn, is that lead ever huge.  Also of interest: Cohen enjoys a massive 87% favorability rating among both white and black primary voters.

It looks like Memphis area Democrats will be returning this solid progressive to the House once again.

Primary: August 7th

Rasmussen (5/12, likely voters, 3/27 in parens):

Christine Gregoire (D): 51 (47)

Dino Rossi (R): 41 (46)

(MoE: ±4%)

I have a feeling that Dino Rossi may come to regret picking 2008 as the year he decided to launch his political comeback.

Rasmussen (5/14, likely voters, 4/1 in parens):

Tom Allen (D): 42 (38)

Susan Collins (R-inc): 52 (54)

(MoE: ±4%)

Finally, some good movement here for Allen.  While Collins’ sky-high favorables will be a tough obstacle here, there’s still plenty of time for this race to heat up.

The same round of polling shows Barack Obama crushing McCain by a nice 51-38 margin here, which certainly doesn’t hurt Allen’s chances.

SSP currently rates this race as Likely Republican.

Update: It’s very heartening to see that Tom Allen is stepping up his attacks on Collins over her pitiful performance as chair of the Homeland Security Committee from 2003-2007.

Two years ago (almost to the day), David brought me on board the Swing State Project as a contributing editor.  The past two years have been an absolute blast, which is why I’m very pleased to announce a couple of important milestones in SSP history:

1) Earlier this month, we received our four millionth visitor since David began publishing this site in 2003.

2) This diary marks our 2000th post since we moved over to Soapblox from Movable Type in November 2006.

I’d like to take this opportunity to thank everyone who visits and reads the Swing State Project for your valuable insights in the comments and user diaries sections.  It is you guys who have really made this site a success.  Take a well-deserved bow.

Depending on who you talk to, it sure sounds like John Boehner and crew want to send Tom Cole’s sorry ass packing — and fast.  From The Hill:

Speculation continued to swirl that some members of the leadership team want to remove Cole and install Rep. Tom Davis (R-Va.), a former NRCC chairman, as his replacement. One former senior GOP leadership aide close to the leadership team said there have been  “quiet conversations” with Davis about taking the NRCC chairmanship, and that GOP leaders believe he will do so if asked.

Finding an appropriate way to get rid of Cole, though, remains the primary obstacle, the source said.

“Leadership can’t fire Tom Cole,” the former staffer said. “If they could, yes, they would. It doesn’t appear that the conference wants to self-initiate, but people at the leadership table think he needs to step down and he needs to step down soon.”

Thursday afternoon, the source said, leaders were trying to find a way to pressure Cole to make several changes at the party committee that he may not be able to stomach, such as firing staff and accepting new hires of the leaders’ choosing. Leaders want the change at the top to occur before the Memorial Day recess, sources said.

You may recall that, last September, Cole threatened to resign after Boehner attempted to force some personnel changes at the NRCC.  So this would be a roundabout way of showing Cole the door.

How long do you give Cole?  Two weeks?  Or another six months?

SurveyUSA (5/12-14, registered voters, 11/16-18 in parens):

Tom Udall (D): 60 (54)

Steve Pearce (R): 36 (40)

Tom Udall (D): 61 (56)

Heather Wilson (R): 35 (41)

(MoE: ±2.3%)

This race is really starting to look like a lost cause for Republicans.

Here’s the primary head-to-head between Pearce and Wilson:

Steve Pearce (R): 49 (37)

Heather Wilson (R): 46 (56)

(MoE: ±4.8%)

Pearce has surged somethin’ fierce since December, but his lead is within the margin of error.  I think we’d be better off facing Pearce in November, so I’ll cheer him on.

SSP currently rates this race as Leans Democratic.

Primary: 6/3

(Hat-tip: ChadinFL)

1Q, 2Q, 3Q, 4Q: First Quarter, Second Quarter, etc. Refers to the quarterly periods at the end of which campaigns must submit fundraising reports to the FEC. Note: Some organizations must file reports more frequently. Also, campaigns usually have to file additional reports around election time, including primaries.

DCCC: Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee.

DNC: Democratic National Committee.

DSCC: Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

FEC: Federal Election Commission. Tasked with ensuring compliance with our nation’s election laws.

GOP: Grand Old Party – i.e., the Republicans, aka the enemy.

IE: Independent Expenditure. An expenditure “expressly advocating the election or defeat of a clearly identified candidate” made by an outside group. IEs may be made in unlimited amounts. (Though groups making them have to comply with the relevant laws that govern their fundraising.) Crucially, groups which make IEs are prohibited by law from coordinating with the campaign they are supporting. IE reports can be found here.

MoE: Margin of Error. A statistic expressing the amount of random sampling error in a survey’s results. Used in describing polls. The larger the margin of error, the less confidence one should have that the poll’s reported results are close to the “true” figures. See also “N.”

N: Mathematical notation used to denote sample size, i.e., the number of respondents contacted for a particular poll. The greater the n, the lower the margin of error. See also “MoE.”

NRCC: National Republican Congressional Committee.

NRSC: National Republican Senatorial Committee.

PVI: Partisan Voting Index. A measure created by the Cook Political Report that compares the presidential vote in each congressional district to the presidential vote nationwide. A PVI of D+5, for instance, means the district voted five points more Democratic than the nation as a whole; R+5 means it voted five points more Republican.

RNC: Republican National Committee.