Month: August 2008

Polls have closed in Georgia as of about 20 minutes ago. We’ll be using this thread to follow the results as they come in.

RESULTS: Associated Press (7/15 county baselines) | GA SoS

10:03PM: Here’s DSCC Chair Chuck Schumer’s statement on Jim Martin’s victory:

“Georgians chose an impressive candidate today who has the experience and vision to change the direction of our nation.  As a public servant under both a Democratic and a Republican Governor, Jim has a proven record of working across party lines, and he will be an effective and independent voice for Georgia families.  This is a winnable race.”

9:10PM: With 78% of precincts reporting, Martin leads by 59-41. Like many of you in the comments section, the Swing State Project is calling this race for Jim Martin! Hooray!

8:54PM: With 66% of precincts in (according to the SoS), Martin is leading by 61-39. Looks like he’s on pace to deliver a major league spanking to the Bush-voting train wreck that is Vernon Jones.

8:45PM (David): According to the SoS, Jones is getting crushed in his home county, DeKalb, by better than a 2-to-1 margin.

8:34PM: Martin is also crushing in Fulton County (Atlanta proper), by roughly 5200 to 1600 votes with under 27% of the county’s precincts reporting. Jones won the county by 38-37 in July.

8:21PM: Martin crushes Jones by almost 70-30 in Gwinnett, a big improvement for Martin, who lost the county by 36-30 to Jones in July. (H/T: TheUnknown285)

8:09PM: Reading from the AP’s tally, Martin is up by 62-38 with 663 of 3148 precincts reporting.

8:02PM: As you may have noticed, there’s some disparity between the SoS’ numbers and the AP’s, with the AP consistently showing Jones missing around 2000 votes compared to the SoS’ tally. I’m not sure what the issue is, but in this topsy-turvy world, I just don’t know who to trust.

7:59PM: 337 precincts in, and Martin is up by 56-44. He’ll need to bank as many votes as possible before the metro Atlanta area reports in full.

7:45PM: With 76 precincts counted (of 3148, mind you), Martin is up by 59-41, including a very early lead in Gwinnett County, a populous area that went to Jones by a 36-30 plurality in July.

7:31PM ET: Martin has the early 54-46 lead so far, but with only a scant 18 precincts reporting, we aren’t seeing any numbers from the state’s major population centers (DeKalb, Fulton, Cobb, and Gwinnett counties) yet.

(Proudly cross-posted at Clintonistas for Obama) 

And we’re listening. Last weekend, I asked for you to help us at Clintonistas for Obama create the perfect ActBlue list. And guess what? Thanks to your help, I think we’ve created something quite remarkable!

Please follow me after the flip to see the full results…

These are our new C4O All-Stars! These are the candidates who we think:

1. Best embody Barack Obama’s message of change

2. Best represent Hillary Clinton’s strong progressive values

3. Have a terrific shot of winning this fall

We listened to your suggestions on which races we should pay attention to. We did our own research on which races are truly winnable. And today, we’ve come up with a list of terrific candidates who we think will make great additions to the 111th Congress! While I don’t have enough time to talk about all of these candidates, I’d like to highlight some of our new additions.

Martin Heinrich is an awesomely progressive Albuquerque City Council member who has a great shot at turning this red New Mexico district blue once and for all. Glenn Nye knows what real patriotism looks like, and he’s a true patriot who will make Southeast Virginia proud. Linda Stender nearly upset the entrenched far-right GOP incumbent in this moderate New Jersey district in 2006, and she has what it takes to finish the job in 2008. Ann Kirkpatrick has changed people’s lives for the better in the Arizona Legislature, and she’s looking to make more positive change as Northern Arizona’s representative to Congress. And finally, I must mention proud veteran Gary Peters in Michigan and smart businesswoman Suzanne Kosmas in Florida.

I can guarantee you that if we support these & all our other fantastic C4O All-Star Democrats, we’ll see real change for the better in Congress next year. I’m doing all I can for Debbie Cook here in Southern California because I know she’s a true-blue agent of change. I urge all of you to support your local Democratic candidates as well.

Take a look at our list, and see if we have a candidate listed near you. Donate. Volunteer. Just go out and get active! You told us who to love, so let’s all work together to make sure they win! 🙂

There’s time for one last TV spot before Thursday’s primary in TN-09, so here’s the closing statement released yesterday by Nikki Tinker, who’s challenging incumbent Steve Cohen in the primary in this Memphis-based district.

As you’ll recall, Steve Cohen is a white Jewish man, and a solid progressive, who represents the mostly-African-American 9th, having won the 2006 primary to succeed Harold Ford Jr. via a split black vote. Tinker (who lost to Cohen in 2006) is running to his right, but challenging him on the basis of race, gender, religion, and everything but the issues.

Apparently, Cohen, while a member of Memphis’ Center City Commission, voted against removal of a statue of Confederate General (and KKK founder) Nathan Bedford Forrest from a city park. The ad features a local pastor criticizing Cohen’s decision… while running unrelated stock footage of a KKK rally in the background.

Memphis’ major paper, the Commercial-Appeal, rightly took Tinker to task for her last-minute appeal, which can’t even be described as lowest-common-denominator since it’s mathematically impossible to divide something by zero:

Beyond all that, it’s unfortunate that the Tinker campaign would evoke the KKK image in Memphis. Many residents still have lingering resentment over a 1998 Klan rally Downtown that turned violent when anti-Klan protesters were tear gassed by police and several windows were broken.

Apparently, none of that has stopped Tinker supporters from framing Thursday’s election as a black-white contest or a division between African-Americans and Jews.

The candidate’s desperate efforts to paint Cohen with the broad brush of racist imagery may win a few votes to her cause. Those who know Cohen will see through the smear.

SSP will be busy tonight, with hot primaries in four states:

• GA-Sen (D runoff)
• KS-02 (R)
• MI-13 (D)
• MO-Gov (R)
• MO-09 (D & R)

Crisitunity gave us a thorough look at all of these races on Friday.

In the comments, feel free to post your predictions for these races. Whoever posts the closest numbers gets free bragging rights until the TN-09 primary on Thursday.

Internal polling for Caddo Parish District Attorney Paul Carmouche shows that he has a big advantage over his three challengers in the Shreveport-based, R+7 open seat. How big an advantage? Well, 13 to 19 points… but the release of the poll doesn’t give specific percentages of votes or tell which margin applies to which GOP challenger. Here’s what we know:

When paired with each of these three opponents on a trial heat, Paul Carmouche defeats all three, with leads ranging from 13 to 19 points.  Also, Independent candidate Chester “Catfish” Kelley holds 5% of the vote in all three match-ups.

The poll gives Carmouche very high name recognition (60%) and a 4-to-1 favorable ratio. The same poll also goes into some more detail about the Republican primary, which has three credible candidates (physician John Fleming, trucking company executive Chris Gorman, and former Bossier Chamber of Commerce president Jeff Thompson).

Kitchens Group for Paul Carmouche (7/16-21, likely voters):

John Fleming (R): 27

Chris Gorman (R): 20

Jeff Thompson (R): 14

(MoE: ±4%)

Result-wise, this matches Fleming’s own polling (although Fleming gives himself a much bigger margin of victory):

Southern Media & Opinion Research for John Fleming (7/25-27, likely voters):

John Fleming (R): 43

Chris Gorman (R): 17

Jeff Thompson (R): 15

(MoE: ±5%)

SSP currently rates this race as Lean Republican.

Elway Research (7/27-31, registered voters, 6/8-12 in parens):

Chris Gregoire (D-inc.): 52 (47)

Dino Rossi (R): 36 (39)

(MoE: ±5%)

The new Elway poll on the Washington governor’s race gives Gregoire her largest lead of any poll this cycle, although it’s pretty consistent with previous Elway and Rasmussen polling.

Strategic Vision (R) (7/25-27, likely voters, 10/5-7/2007 in parens):

Chris Gregoire (D-inc.): 47 (47)

Dino Rossi (R): 45 (45)

(MoE: ±3%)

SurveyUSA and Strategic Vision have been presenting a much closer picture of the race, although they’ve also been extremely consistent from poll to poll. (In fact, Strategic Vision gets exactly the same result as the last time they polled the race nine months ago.) As I’ve commented before, this is a race where almost every mind has been made up for four years, and we’re mostly just seeing differences in pollsters’ models.

The Elway poll also polled some downballot issues (albeit with huge undecided numbers), including the suddenly-hotly-contested race for Commissioner of Public Lands. Former Agriculture Director (and 2006 candidate in WA-05) Peter Goldmark (D) is leading two-term incumbent Doug Sutherland (R) 31-30. (Sexual harassment allegations against Sutherland recently came to light.)

In the Attorney General’s race, incumbent Rob McKenna (R) leads Pierce County Executive John Ladenburg (D) 41-30. And the highest-profile initiative on the ballot, I-1000 (to allow physician-assisted suicide), is favored 39-26.

Even though just about every Republican Senator up for re-election this year is treating indicted GOP Sen. Ted Stevens’ campaign donations as if the dollar bills themselves were infected with anthrax, one Senator is standing strongly by his side:

Stevens also said that Senator Daniel Inouye, the Democrat from Hawaii who Stevens refers to as his “brother,” was in Alaska with his wife, to join Stevens while he campaigns across the state (Inouye didn’t join Stevens at this rally). Inouye is scheduled to appear with Stevens in Anchorage at the Alaska Federation of Natives’ Leadership Roundtable Partnership for Affordable Energy at the Hotel Captain Cook Tuesday morning and at the dedication of the Opinsky Mail Center at 4141 Postmark Drive Tuesday afternoon.

Stevens said he would fly to Fairbanks today to join President Bush and meet U.S. troops at Eielson Air Force Base, and return to Anchorage this evening.

I realize that the Alaska-Hawaii bond is strong in Congress, but it’s quite telling that the only other prominent figure standing by Stevens’ side is George W. Bush. The Senate is truly a messed-up place.

Cross-posted at Blue Jersey.

Josh Zeitz is the Democratic nominee in New Jersey’s Fourth Congressional district. He is running against Republican Chris Smith, who has backed George Bush’s ecnonomic and foreign policies and who serves as the chair of the anti-choice caucus in the House.

Chris Smith says that he wants to run on his record in Congress. Unfortunately, there are parts of his record that voters may find less than appealing, namely his vote to deny our troops bankruptcy protection.

More after the jump.

In 2004 and 2005 Smith voted against protecting our servicemen and servicewomen from bankruptcy. In 2005, George Bush signed into law harsher bankruptcy rules for American facing heavy levels of debt. Chris Smith voted against measures against extending special bankruptcy protections to deployed servicemen and servicewomen. (Vote # 107 2005, Vote #9 2004)

This year, roughly half of New Jersey?s National Guard is being actively deployed to Iraq. According to recent data, over forty percent of Guardsman and Reservists lose income when they leave their civilian jobs for active duty. Many reservists left thinking they would be deployed for 6 months and have ended up staying for a year or even longer and may be shipped out again. Additionally, many military families face difficult financial challenges. Over 20% of military families report having received WIC aid or food stamps from the government. (Los Angles Times 5/16/05; Washington Post/Kaiser Foundation Military Families Survey March 2004)

Instead of offering reasonable protections to members of the military, Chris Smith voted to raise his salary by $32,600 since 1999. (CRS: Salaries of Members of Congress Updated January 8, 2008; 1999 Vote #300; 2000 Vote #419; 2001 House Vote #267; 2002 House Vote #322; 2003 House Vote #463; 2004 House Vote #451; 2005 House Vote #327; 2006 vote #261; 2007 Vote #580)

“While Chris Smith was busy raising his own salary he was also denying bankruptcy protection to servicemen and servicewomen who are taking a pay cut to fight for their country. They deserve an explanation,” said Josh Zeitz campaign manager Steve D?Amico.

If you’d like to volunteer, please contact ian_at_joshzeitz_dot_com. Please visit Josh’s website to learn more about what he stands for.

Tulsa World has the latest Sooner Poll of Oklahoma’s Senate race (7/19-23, likely voters, 12/16-19/07 in parens):

Andrew Rice (D): 30 (19)

Jim Inhofe (R-inc): 52 (60)

(MoE: ±3.7%)

The gap has closed a bit, but we’re not seeing anything remarkable here yet. However, as the Rice campaign points out, it’s worth noting that this poll was conducted just before Rice began his TV advertising campaign (his latest ad, released today, is available here) and before he won his primary.

On another interesting note, Roll Call takes note of the Rice campaign hiring some former DSCC staffers for key positions:

Rice, a state Senator who remains a heavy underdog in the race, announced some staff additions, including hiring Phil Singer as a communications consultant.

Singer recently served as a communications strategist on Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s (D-N.Y.) presidential campaign and last cycle was communications director at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee.

Rice has also hired Geri Prado, former deputy national political and field director for Clinton’s presidential team, as campaign manager. Last cycle, Prado was deputy political director for the DSCC.

Despite Rice’s underdog status, DSCC Chairman Charles Schumer (N.Y.) has been high on the candidate’s potential. The hiring of Singer and Prado could signal that the committee is taking a special interest in this race as the fall approaches.