Month: July 2008

Yet another Colorado poll to add to the heap, this one by Frederick Polls (7/16-22, likely voters):

Mark Udall (D): 48

Bob Schaffer (R): 39

(MoE: ±3.7%)

And now, for the Maine event: Critical Insights (6/1-27, registered voters, 10/17-30 in parens):

Tom Allen (D): 37 (34)

Susan Collins (R-inc): 51 (54)

(MoE: ±4%)

That’s pretty much in-line with what we’ve seen happen in this race over the past year: a slight tightening, but plenty of ground left that Allen has to play catch-up on. This race is tough but doable, and if Democrats can pry this one out of Susan Collins’ cold fingers, they’ll hold it for a long, long time.

UPDATE: When the Maine poll’s sample is narrowed to likely voters, Collins’ lead shrinks to 50-40. Check out the polling memo for more details.

In today’s Times of Trenton, Josh Zeitz published a powerful op-ed piece on the crisis of energy prices facing American families this summer. Josh is the Democratic candidate for the House in New Jersey’s 4th district, and is challenging long-time Republican incumbent Chris Smith.

Josh rightly calls out Rep. Smith for a series of votes that have contributed to ridiculously high gas prices, in particular his vote to create the Enron loophole in 2000 and, even worse, against closing the loophole earlier this year.

More after the jump.

Josh didn’t pull any punches in going after Smith’s voting record and his acceptance of money from big oil.

These votes illustrate a disappointing pattern: big business first, New Jersey second. I have made it a policy not to accept any corporate PAC (political action committee) money from big oil companies.

Rep. Smith, on the other hand, has accepted more than $57,000 in campaign contributions from big oil companies such as ExxonMobil, Getty, Amoco, Conoco, Texaco and Shell. If our congressman is beholden to big oil companies, how can he possibly lead the way to energy independence?

Josh also offered his own four-point plan for dealing with the energy crisis.

1) Crack down on price-gouging by the oil-companies and investigate price-fixing by OPEC.

2) Increase the tax credit for buying fuel-efficient hybrid cars so that all families can afford to do so.

3) Pass a “use it or lose it” law so that oil companies either commit to actually using the public land on which they hold leases (75% of which is not being utilized right now) or lose the leases

4) Invest in renewable energy sources so that we can not only increase fuel efficiency but also create jobs in the green economy that we all know is going to be a growth area in this new century.

Josh recognizes that we have to both address gas prices today and reduce consumption of fossil fuels in the long run. Doing so is crucial for our economy and our national security.

Please visit Josh’s website, consider making a contribution and becoming a volunteer. To volunteer please email ian_at_joshzeitz_dot_com.  

Now in addition to Cook’s Political Report and others, Congressional Quarterly is jumping on that band wagon.

CQ Politics today is changing the race ratings in 14 congressional districts in 10 states to reflect changing political circumstances that mean brighter prospects for the Democrats, who are expected to augment their 236-199 majority in the U.S. House in the November elections.

Twelve of the 14 race rating changes favor the Democrats, compared to two that favor Republicans, who are trying to limit their losses this year after suffering a net loss of 30 House seats in the 2006 election.

CQ Politics bases its race ratings changes on a variety of factors, including polling and fundraising figures, demographic and political data and conversations with political analysts and party officials. The race ratings are better described as snapshots than as election predictions, and they are subject to change at any time.

snip

• West Virginia’s 2nd(New Rating: Leans Republican. Previous Rating: Republican Favored). Four-term Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito is well-liked and has some centrist leanings, but her election victories also have been aided by underfunded or flawed Democratic opponents. She may face her toughest challenge yet from Anne Barth, a longtime West Virginia-based aide to Democratic Sen. Robert C. Byrd who entered the race after Democratic state Sen. John Unger withdrew just before the January candidate filing deadline. With $636,000 in campaign receipts through the end of June, Barth has already raised more than 2006 Democratic nominee Mike Callaghan raised for the duration of a campaign in which he won 43 percent of the vote against Capito.

Double-talking Shelley Moore Capito

Republicans are dropping money on Capito that was raised to expand the Republican majority and in their desperation are using it to protect an incumbent.

My guess is Capito has seen internal polling that is panicking her. She’s been too afraid to meet with constituents to answer their questions because she’s so out of touch with the people of WV-02 she doesn’t know what to say to them.

Capito has painted herself into a corner. She clearly wants to distance herself from the wildly unpopular George W. Bush so that she doesn’t lose “independents” yet at the same time she can’t distance herself too publicly without alienating the mouth-breathing part of her base that still supports him. The same with the Iraq war. At the end of the 2006 campaign, she signalled she was for withdrawing the troops from Iraq just as she expected the Iraq Study Group report to recommend, but then she reversed herself again on the issue, proving she’s no independent. Her “centrist” leanings fail to show on key votes that matter.

Meanwhile Barth is one of the most attractive – in many ways – candidates we’ve ever had run for WV-02. Her experience at getting the job done for Byrd in West Virginia would be a great asset in the House of Representatives, particularly in a district where Capito has consistently been in the the bottom half of the power rankings at the nonpartisan Congress.org. Even when the Republicans held the majority, Democrats Nick Rahall and Alan Mollohan had much higher ratings for effectiveness than Capito.

This election is simple if we want to put someone in to get the job done for us. Anne can. Capito can’t.

It’s time. Just as we did after the first quarter, we’ve rounded up and ranked the top 75 non-open seat House races according to the SSP Cash Power Index — a metric designed to measure cash-on-hand competitiveness. We divide a challenger’s cash-on-hand by the size of the incumbent’s war chest to gauge the financial gap between candidates.

Let’s have a look at where we stand after the second quarter. You’ll notice that eight of the top ten challengers are Democrats, and the top-ranked Republican is Deborah “The Defrauder” Honeycutt. 47 of the top 75 challengers are Democrats while 27 are Republicans. A lone independent makes the chart for the first time:

*Estimate.

Buncha statewide (sen & gov) polls that we haven’t gotten to yet around here at SSP, so we’ll fire them off all at once in abbreviated fashion (trendlines in parens):

• CO-Sen (Quinnipiac): Udall 44 (48), Schaffer 44 (38)

• CO-Sen (Rasmussen): Udall 47 (49), Schaffer 43 (40)

• MN-Sen (Quinnipiac):  Coleman 53 (51), Franken 38 (41)

• MN-Sen (Rasmussen): Coleman 44 (42), Franken 43 (44)

• NC-Gov (Civitas): Perdue 43 (43), McCrory 40 (41)

• NC-Sen (Civitas): Dole 47 (48), Hagan 38 (38)

• NJ-Sen (Monmouth): Lautenberg 45, Zimmer 37

• VA-Sen (PPP): Warner 57 (59), Gilmore 32 (28)

All yours.

On August 5th, congressional primaries will be decided in Kansas, Missouri and Michigan. The FEC requires candidates in these states to file fundraising reports covering the extended period of 4/1 through 7/16 by midnight tonight. We’ve rounded up all the numbers of interest in a handy chart below (which we’ve inserted into our 2Q round-up chart):

All numbers, of course, are in thousands.

You might notice that our numbers for Kay Barnes don’t jive with the figure reported for her by the Politico’s Josh Kraushaar. Our chart pegs Barnes’ pre-primary fundraising at $463K, while Kraushaar reports that Barnes raised $601K. I’m not sure where Josh is getting his numbers from, but if you look at the actual filing, you’ll note that Barnes’ net contributions line matches our figure, and her total receipts for the quarter were still well under the Politico’s number.

In the wake of Republican candidate Carl Mumpower’s suspension and resurrection of his campaign, the Republican organizations of three counties in North Carolina’s 11th district are formally severing ties with the “unique” candidate:

Party officials in Polk and Jackson counties made public Wednesday that their organizations had voted to sever ties with the controversial Republican candidate.

The news comes in the wake of Henderson County’s announcement Tuesday that the county party was no longer coordinating with Mumpower’s campaign. […]

Jackson County Republican Party Chairwoman Dodie Allen said she and her party have been upset with Mumpower for weeks, prompting them to vote unanimously to sever ties. The county’s GOP leaders were particularly incensed when Mumpower said he would support the impeachment of President Bush for not enforcing immigration laws, Allen said.

“We were much opposed to that method of disagreement to chop his head off,” Allen said. “You might as well shoot him in the head with a .45.”

The response was classic Mumpower:

“Angry, wounded elephants tend to run in circles,” a defiant Mumpower told the Times-News in a phone interview Wednesday. “One cannot effect change if one is not willing to take the heat. These counties are giving me heat, and I can take it.”

Say, I wonder: Is our good friend Ken Spain over at the NRCC still “excited about him winning the nomination”? I’m sure he’s thrilled. After all, the NRCC has put together “one of the best Republican recruitment classes in quite some time”, and Democrat Heath Shuler was one of their top targets at the start of the cycle.

SSP currently rates this race as Safe Democratic.

Over at my old stomping grounds, TPM EC, Eric touches base with Republican state Rep. Todd Brinkman, who recently mounted an unsuccessful primary challenge against longtime SSP favorite Jean Schmidt. Brinkman still has a few bones to pick with Mean Jean, and he’s not about to go away quietly:

The issue? GOP State Rep. Tom Brinkman, who founded an anti-tax government watchdog group, is charging that Schmidt’s House staffers frequently work on her campaign for re-election.

“You can quote me anywhere you like. Jean Schmidt is a lying b—-,” said Brinkman, who lost his primary challenge to her this year by a 58%-40% margin, in an interview with Election Central. “She would sell her mother to promote herself. She is a despicable person. She will go any length possible to win, to get what she wants.”

Keep the hits coming, Todd!

Y’know, sooner or later Jean Schmidt will find herself in the dustbin of political history, and when that day comes, I think I’ll miss having her to kick around.