Month: June 2008

Polls close in New Mexico at 9pm Eastern.  We’ll use this thread to follow the results in a number of hot congressional primaries:

• NM-Sen (R)
• NM-01 (D & R)
• NM-02 (D & R)
• NM-03 (D)

Results: Associated Press

4:34AM: Pearce wins. Time for sleep. What a great evening.

3:42AM (James): 99% in, and Pearce still holds a 2300 vote lead. The AP still hasn’t called it, but with 11 precincts outstanding, I see no way for Wilson to make up the difference.

3:05AM (James): Harry Teague pulls this one out of the fire with a 53-47 win according to the AP (95% reporting). Pearce has a 2350 vote lead over Wilson with 97% in.

2:14AM (James): 92% of the vote is in now in the 2nd CD, and Teague has expanded his lead to 53-47 (1800 votes).

2:13AM (James): 96% in, and Pearce is holding on to a 2400 vote lead over Wilson.

1:36AM (James): This could be bad news for Harry Teague. According to Heath Haussamen, results from Doña Ana County are being delayed due to problems with a rental truck.  The ballots won’t be counted for “some time”, according to local officials. Doña Ana is the home base of one Bill McCamley, who is a county commissioner there. As Samuel L. Jackson would say, hang on to yer butts.

12:53AM (James): Tinsley wins with 31%, according to the AP. In the Senate race, Pearce is holding on to his 52-48 lead with 91% reporting.

12:38AM (James): With 89% in, Pearcey is sitting at 52-48. In the 2nd CD, Teague is up by the same margin with 87% reporting.  And the AP has called NM-03 for Lujan.

12:35AM (James): The AP calls NM-01 for Martin Heinrich! I would expect a similar call for Ben Ray Lujan in the 3rd CD soon.

12:23AM: With 85% reporting, Pearce has moved back out to a 52-48 lead. It may not sound like much, but it is – Wilson would need 60% of the remaining votes to pull into a tie. That’s almost 24% better than what she’s been garnering all night. Meanwhile, in NM-02 (D), Bill McCamley also trails Harry Teague by 52-48, but faces an almost identical situation to Wilson’s.

12:03AM (James): With 80% in, Pearce is still up 51-49.  COME ON, PEARCEY!  Teague is clinging to a 51-49 lead with 83% in.

11:48PM (James): With 71% in, Pearce is up by 51-49. In the 2nd CD, with 76% reporting, Teague is clinging to his 52-48 lead, while Tinsley enjoys a 10% lead on his closest competitor. In the 3rd CD, Lujan has surged ahead big-time: he now leads Wiviott by 41-28 with 85% in.

11:22PM (James): With 55% in, we’re at 52-48 for Pearce. In the 2nd CD, Teague is also up by only 52-48.

11:07PM (James): With 44% in, Pearce is holding onto his 52-48 lead.  Heinrich is holding comfortably, but Teague only has a 53-47 lead over McCamley in 59% lead. Tinsley has some breathing room, and Wiviott has pulled to a 5% lead in the 3rd district with 60% in.

10:45PM (James): With 30% in, Pearce leads by 52-48. In the 2nd CD, Teague leads McCamley by 56-44 with 42% in. In the GOP primary, Tinsley has a slight lead. In the 3rd CD, Lujan has taken a 10% lead over Wiviott with 26% in.

10:31PM: With 17% in, Pearce has a 57-43 lead.

10:02PM (James): With 8% in, Wilson leads Pearce by 53-47. In the 2nd CD, Newman has taken a small lead over Tinsley and Dunn with 20% in, and Teague has a big lead in the Democratic race. In the 3rd CD, Wiviott leads by 2% over Lujan with 2% of precincts reporting.

9:50PM: Fifty minutes after polls have closed, and very few precincts have reported in. (Remember the problems NM had in tallying its presidential primary results?) Anyhow, with just a handful of votes in, Wilson leads Pearce 61-39. In the 1st CD, Heinrich has a sizable early lead over Vigil-Goron and Grisham. In the 2nd CD, Teague has a twenty-point lead over McCamley on our side, while there is a tight battle for first place between Tinsley and Dunn for the GOPers. Other results are either not in or too minimal to be worth relaying.

Polls close in Alabama and New Jersey at 8pm Eastern.  We’ll use this thread to follow the results in a number of hot congressional primaries.

Haw haw!

In a major embarrassment to Republican leaders in Massachusetts and in the U.S. Senate, Jim Ogonowski, the party’s anointed candidate to challenge Democratic Senator John F. Kerry, failed by a razor-thin margin today to qualify for the GOP primary ballot.

With Ogonowski’s stunning blunder, the only GOP name on the primary ballot will be Jeff Beatty, a little-known security expert from Harwich.

According to Secretary of State William F. Galvin’s office, Ogonowski’s campaign delivered just 9,970 certified voter signatures to its election division today just before the final deadline, 30 short of the 10,000 he needed.

His only options now are to seek relief in the courts by saying some local officials lost his signatures, as he claimed late today, or to mount a write-in campaign for the September primary.

This leaves MA GOPers in an awkward spot: Do they support Ogonowski’s faint hopes of making the ballot, or do they start to rally around the other choice, Jeff Beatty?

This cycle has been an absolute litany of fuck-ups for the GOP.

Over the past few months, I continuously pinched myself as the race for the House of Representatives developed. Recruitments, polls and Republican primary results against incumbenets such as Indiana’s Dan Burton sent signal after signal that we could be in for another big year. Now, a Democracy Corps poll as reported at Talking Points Memo indicate to pollster Stan Greenberg that we could be in for an even bigger year than 2006.  

Are House Democrats on the verge of an unprecedented second “wave election” in a row — one that could win them up to another 45 House seats?

That’s the astonishing finding of a new survey by the Democracy Corps, the Democratic polling firm run by Stan Greenberg and James Carville.

The new survey polled 1,600 people across 45 GOP-held districts, ranging from the competitive Tier 1 to harder-to-reach Tier 2 with the named incumbents and their opponents used instead of generic match-ups. The aggregate results showed the Democratic candidate winning the Tier 1 races 51%-42%, and the edging out the GOP 48%-45% in the Tier 2 match-ups, though they trailed 43%-51% in the “rural/small town” category.

During a conference call with reporters, Greenberg was bullish on the Dems’ chances this Fall, predicting a second wave on top of the one from 2006: “It’s certainly reasonable to think that of these 45 seats, half these seats could go to the Democrat if the trend holds.”

In June I think it is a  stretch to be so bulling and cling to my prediction of about 20-21 seats, but I am doing so in the face of evidence to the contrary. Certainly we have the money, candidates and energy to blow this election wide open. Let’s make it happen.

[UPDATE]

In my excitement, I missed where Greenberg suggested HALF of the 45 could flip. Regardless, we’re in for a big year.

(From the diaries with a few light edits. Be sure to bookmark Jonah’s NY-13 Blog for the latest news on this race. – promoted by James L.)

All signs point to a McMahon vs. Harrison primary on the Democratic side of this race.  Today brings us news that we might also have a primary on the Republican side.  Dr. Jamshad Wyne (R), GOP Finance Chair in Staten Island has indeed entered the race;

The Todt Hill resident, who has gone back and forth on the race over the last two weeks, announced yesterday he would challenge Frank Powers, a Metropolitan Transportation Authority board member and retired Wall Street executive, for the GOP congressional nod.

Wyne had stated after Frank Powers won the Richmond County GOP endorsement that he likely would vote for the Democrat Mike McMahon.  There is a lot of frustration on the GOP side among ranking members with their party’s choice.  If Wyne does follow through and challenges Powers in a primary that would be even better news for us.  My guess though is we will see the party get him out, whether offering him the nomination for another office or just removing him from the party leadership.

Also interesting is the possibility that the Conservative Party will break with the GOP nomination and support their own candidate, possibly Paul Atanasio.  If this happens this seats even further to a likely pick up for us. Primaries are scheduled for September 9th.

UPDATE: Domenic Recchia withdraws:

As Democrats, we have an incredible opportunity before us, to turn a red seat blue and bring true change and real leadership to the residents in Staten Island and Brooklyn. That will not happen if we are not united as a party.

Therefore, I am withdrawing my bid for the 13th Congressional district, and will support our party’s nominee, Mike McMahon.

Thank you to all of the people who believed in me, worked for me and fought for me over the last year – especially those who encouraged me to stay in the race despite the altered political landscape.

Most of all, I would like to thank the voters of the congressional district, who welcomed me with open arms and believed in my message.

I have not made any decisions about my political future and have no further comment at this time.

IVR Polls (6/2, likely voters):

Larry Joe Doherty (D): 46

Michael McCaul (R-inc): 52

(MoE: ±4.3%)

While this district does have a PVI or R+13, it’s been trending in the right direction: Al Gore won 34% of its vote in 2000, while John Kerry won 38% four years later. The real eye-opener came in 2006, when McCaul’s performance sagged dramatically against an underfunded challenger:

Mike McCaul (R): 55

Ted Ankrum (D): 41

Michael Badnarik (L): 4

This time, McCaul is up against a fairly well-funded challenger, lawyer and local TV celebrity Larry Joe Doherty.

We’ve had our eye on this race for a while, but this is the first poll we’ve seen that actually suggests McCaul could be in trouble. In fact, it’s the first poll of any kind that we’ve seen of this race. The same survey shows Sen. Cornyn leading Rick Noriega by 54-44, and McCain leading Obama by 55-41 in the district.

In the diaries, the pollster has more:

Historically, turnout in this district doesn’t include large numbers of Latinos or African-Americans. In this poll, both groups went with Doherty, Latinos by 2-1 and African-Americans by 7-1. If Obama at the top of the ticket increases African-American general election turnout as he has in the primary, and these additional voters follow through on the down-ballot races, Doherty could close the gap even further. Increased Latino turnout in the primary was mainly a reflection of Clinton’s popularity, but there is a possibility that Noriega could also increase Latino turnout for the general, further benefiting Doherty.

Interesting (and exciting) stuff.

Cross-posted from OH-16: John Boccieri for U.S. Congress:

The drumbeat about where Ohio State Senator Major John Bocceri lives started in the Democratic Primary Race for the United States House of Representative for Ohio’s 16th Congressional District. It was the only plank his Democratic Primary opponent could find to use against him and it didn’t stick. The Major won by nearly a 2-1 margin in all four counties of the 16th, Ashland, Medina, Stark and Wayne, in the March 4th Primary.

As if by some stroke of political genius, this drumbeat was supposed to stick through November as the big isssue. And, almost like a Rovellian tantric chant, it seems to keep popping up. John was actually hoping that “the carpetbagger” issue would remain a central theme to the campaign against him. The Major’s response to the issue has never changed:

“They are worried about where I lay my head down on the pillow at night, but I’m more worried about where people go to work in the morning.”

How historically hypocritical can they get? That would be a thing of beauty coming from a Republican opponent, but it seems the Democratic constituency in Ohio’s Fighting 16th are a more sophisticated voter than that!

So, without further adieu, thank you, GARY SCHERER of PERRY TOWNSHIP, you make this writer’s job so easy! He said:

But all that aside, let’s look at the final authority on this matter, the U.S. Constitution, which states in Article 1, Section 2, on the House of Representatives:

“No Person shall be a Representative who shall not have attained to the Age of twenty five Years and been seven years a Citizen of the United States, and who shall not, when elected, be an Inhabitant of that State in which he shall be chosen.”

As you can see, there is no requirement that a member of the House reside in the district he or she represents, only the state. And since Sen. Boccieri lives in Ohio – except when he has been called upon to serve in Iraq, which he has done numerous times – the residency issue appears to be a dead one.

Man, that just about makes me giddy! I swear I’ve already read that four or five times before I posted it. That draws on a huge distinction between the Democratic voter and the Republican voter in a generic comparison. It is this writer’s experience, Democratic voters tend to be logically issue driven and Republican voters tend to be passionately value driven. The smoke screen quietly drifts away into oblivion.

Over this past weekend, volunteers spread out across Ohio’s 16th Congressional District. Before it was over with they had knocked on some 500 doors talking to potential voters about State Senator Major John Bocccieri and the issues that are most important here; jobs and the economy, the War in Iraq, Health care, gas prices, the rising cost of groceries, and home heating/cooling prices.

In a bit of irony, the John Boccieri for U.S. Congress campaign won the “Most Patriotic” award for our entry in the Bethlehem Township parade. We had a decorated Ford truck and handed out flags. John walked in the parade with about five or six staff members and supporters. This is Ralph Regula’s home area. Pretty cool, indeed!

So, I sit here somewhat stymied after all of this exercise. A series of questions keep rolling through my mind. What do you want to debate Senator Schuring? The War in Iraq and The 100 year McCain Doctrine? The 21st Century GI Bill? Making immediate use of alternative energy solutions? Creating and keeping jobs in the 16th Congressional District? Health care for every child, woman or man in the 16th District? The outrageous cost of fuel at the pump? How about the Mortgage Crisis? Constitutionally funding our childrens education? It’s time to start speaking up; November 4th is closer than you think!

(HT: Ian & Chris)

In 2004, George Bush took 62% of the vote in Texas’ 10th Congressional District. In 2006, Michael McCaul was held to 55% by a poorly funded Democrat and a relatively well funded Libertarian. My own polling a week before the election found 7% undecided, but the challengers had no funds to close the deal and undecided stayed with the incumbent. As a disclaimer, and an illustration of the funding issue, I did $90 in robocalls for the challenger, Ted Ankrum, in the closing days.

For the 2008 race, in polling on June 2, 528 likely voters gave McCaul a 5.4% lead over Democratic challenger Larry Joe Doherty. McCaul received 51.7% to Doherty’s 46.3%, with 2.0% undecided.

TX-10 is described as a ‘barbell district’ due to having a large chunk of the district in Travis County (Austin), a large chunk in Harris County (Houston) and a thin strip of highway frontage in between. In 2006, Harris went 71-26 for McCaul and Travis went 56-38 for Ankrum. In this poll, McCaul takes Harris 63-33 and Doherty takes Travis by the same 63-33. Travis is the slightly larger end of the TX-10 barbell, but the ‘bar’ in between went 70-30 for McCaul, resulting in a McCaul lead.

Of note, I also polled Obama-McCain and Cornyn-Noriega in this district and found those races to be more favorable to the other Republicans than they are to McCaul. Cornyn leads Noriega 54-44 and McCain leads Obama 55-41. Statewide, my past results have been more in line with Baselice than SurveyUSA or Rasmussen on these races, but I do not have current statewide numbers to report.

Historically, turnout in this district doesn’t include large numbers of Latinos or African-Americans. In this poll, both groups went with Doherty, Latinos by 2-1 and African-Americans by 7-1. If Obama at the top of the ticket increases African-American general election turnout as he has in the primary, and these additional voters follow through on the down-ballot races, Doherty could close the gap even further. Increased Latino turnout in the primary was mainly a reflection of Clinton’s popularity, but there is a possibility that Noriega could also increase Latino turnout for the general, further benefitting Doherty.

There is no significant gender gap in these results, but age is a factor. Voters under 40 go with the Democrat in each race. Voters from 40-59 go with the Republican by small margins. Voters over 60 go Republican in all cases, but margin is much larger in races for President and Senator.

528 likely voters polled 6/2/2008, margin of error 4.3%

 

As James detailed last week, there are a ton of important primaries tonight. Here’s when the polls close, state by state, along with the key races in each (all times Eastern):

8pm:

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp Alabama (AL-02 D & R; AL-05 R)

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp New Jersey (NJ-Sen D; NJ-03 R; NJ-07 R)

9pm:

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp New Mexico (NM-Sen R; NM-01 D & R; NM-02 D & R; NM-03 D)

10pm:

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp Iowa (IA-03 D)

11pm:

&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp&nbsp California (CA-04 R)

Please post your predictions in the comments!

We’d also be very grateful if you could give us links to good sites which will carry the results. Thanks!

(Poll closing times courtesy The Green Papers.)