Month: September 2008

EMILY’s List gets creative against Vern Buchanan:

Update: Episode II is available here.

Anzalone-Liszt for Paul Hodes (9/14-18, likely voters):

Paul Hodes (D-inc): 50

Jennifer Horn (R): 32

Chester Lapointe (L): 4

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Horn, a disingenuous, unaccomplished radio host, recently released an internal poll of her own showing her trailing Hodes by a mere 43-39 margin. Yes, we’re looking at the results of two partisan pollsters, but I’ll take an Anzalone survey over a cheapo Public Opinion Strategies poll any day of the week.

Here are some bonus numbers: Jeanne Shaheen holds a 55-38 lead over John Sununu in the district, and Obama is leading by 52-39.

The full polling memo is available below the fold.

UPDATE: And yeah, I saw that new Rasmussen poll showing Shaheen trailing Sununu by a whopping seven-point margin. This one has “funky outlier” written all over it.

Rasmussen has just released a new poll showing John Sununu defeating Jeanne Shaheen 52-45 (9/23).

I don’t have access to Rasmussen internals, so I don’t have any insights into any of the details.

http://www.rasmussenreports.co…

This is a dramatic reversal from their last poll of this race approximately a month ago (8/19) that showed Shaheen ahead 51-40. It is also at odds with the ARG’s poll last week that showed it a 52-40 Shaheen lead. (Although a UNH poll – with lots of problems – showed only a 4 point Shaheen lead and an NRSC/Sununu internal showed it at 2% ahead for Shaheen).

(According to Pollster, the only other poll of the last 1 1/2 years that has shown Sununu in front was one from Republican pollster ARG in Dec 07)

We know that Rasmussen tends to over-represent Republicans in their samples, but this seems like an real outlier even for them. Nothing in NH has happened that would produce a 12 point increase for Sununu (or a 6 point drop for Shaheen).

Also makes one question their last presidential result in the state, where they showed McCain gaining and ahead of Obama by 2% (at a time when Obama has been consistently going up nationally).

I’ve always expected this race to tighten up before election day, but this kind of dramatic shift seems way off base.

Cross-posted at Blue Jersey.

Congressman Frank Pallone and I hosted a conference call earlier today to discuss what the war in Iraq has cost New Jersey and why New Jersey can’t afford another four years of the failed Bush policies in Iraq that Chris Smith and John McCain want to continue. To see exactly what the war in Iraq has cost New Jersey, go to National Priorities.org.

On the call I emphasized the following:

· I support a responsible end to the war in Iraq so that we can invest in America’s urgent domestic priorities like renewable energy, and break our addiction to foreign oil as well as lower gas and electricity costs.

· Chris Smith and John McCain have supported George Bush every step of the way on Iraq, from believing faulty intelligence, to believing we would be greeted as liberators, to believing the war will pay for itself with Iraqi oil.

· Each month, the United States spends $10 billion a month in Iraq – money which could be used to address domestic priorities like ensuring affordable health care, rebuilding our infrastructure or hiring more teachers or public safety officers.

· Incredibly, Iraq is right now holding onto $79 billion in excess oil revenues. We’re spending $10 billion a month to rebuild Iraq instead of using that money to create jobs here in America.

· The citizens of the 4th Congressional district have paid $2.2 billion for the war effort. That money could have been used to provide every home in the 4th Congressional District with Renewable Electricity, with enough money left over to help provide affordable health coverage for our residents.

That $2.2 billion could:

· Provide 203,137 People with Health Care for One Year

· Power 3,096,562 Homes with Renewable Electricity for One Year

· Hire 37,775 Public Safety Officers for One Year

· Provide 724,756 Children with Health Care for One Year

· Provide 28,856 Port Container Inspectors for One Year

· We can’t keep doing what we’re doing. We need change at all levels of government.

· Chris Smith and John McCain have no plan to bring our troops home.

· We need to elect a Democratic President and a Democratic Congress to bring our troops home and invest in our country’s future.

The campaign is entering a critical phase and I need your support. You can contribute at my ActBlue page. If you’d like to volunteer, please contact ian_at_joshzeitz_dot_com. Please visit Josh’s website to learn more about what I stand for.

It’s no secret that Democrats are posting a big voter registration surge in Florida. According to estimates from the Florida Democratic Party, Dems have added 287,770 new voters this year to the GOP’s 112,290 (and 90,000 independents). While Republicans have been publicly brushing off suggestions that this trend is at all worrisome to their party, their actions suggest otherwise. So here’s the latest ploy from Florida’s GOP to tip the scales back in their favor:

The Florida Department of State, backed by Gov. Charlie Crist, is rushing to implement a new law that could block thousands of those voters’ ballots. And turn Election Day 2008 in Florida into a catastrophe akin to the hanging-chads debacle of 2000, if legions of disenfranchised voters step up with lawsuits.

Here’s what’s happening:

With six weeks before the Nov. 4 elections, Florida Secretary of State Kurt Browning last week began enforcing what’s known as the “No Match, No Vote” law.

Passed by the GOP-dominated Legislature as an anti-fraud measure, No Match, No Vote bars citizens from voting if their driver’s license or Social Security number don’t match information from government databases.

Stopping voter fraud is a fine idea, but the databases are error prone.

Simple glitches such as clerical typos toss out voters’ applications, and unusual spellings of names of new voters could cause “no match” results.

With no time for troubleshooting the system, that could falsely disenfranchise many who’ve done nothing wrong.

Florida’s elections officials are already swamped with the processing of the many thousands of new voter registrations being turned in. They may not have time to contact new applicants and get any discrepancies sorted out.

Consider this just another friendly reminder that Republicans will do everything in their power to game the system in their favor.

Blocked predatory lending crackdown, wants more giveaways to Wall Street

A devastating week for the U.S. financial sector has underscored the danger of congressional candidate Kirk Schuring’s economic policies for working families in the 16th Congressional District and across America.

Democratic candidate John Boccieri said today:

“Kirk Schuring’s economic philosophy is as bankrupt as Lehman Brothers. He is not offering the change that middle class families need to bounce back from this economic crisis.”

Schuring is staking his campaign on the same failed policies that caused the crisis by constantly siding with Wall Street over Main Street. His policy stances will actually worsen the impact of economic instability for middle class families.

FACT: Schuring blocked crackdowns on predatory lenders in the state legislature. In 2001, he helped push through a sham reform bill supported by predatory lenders in order to prevent Ohio’s local communities from regulating out-of-control predatory mortgage loans. HB 386; “Home Security,” The Columbus Dispatch, 9/21/05

FACT: Schuring’s top economic priority is giving more tax breaks to the Wall Street firms that created this financial mess. Corporate tax giveaways are the very first item in Schuring’s “jobs plan” – but he has not proposed a single tax cut directed at the middle class. www.schuringforcongress.com/issues, accessed 9/24/08

FACT: Schuring’s response to the crisis focuses only on helping Wall Street. In an interview on WHBC this morning, Schuring did not once call for direct assistance to the innocent homeowners at the heart of this crisis.

FACT: While Schuring claims to oppose out-of-control spending in Washington, he insists on an open-ended commitment to spending $5,000 per second in Iraq, which has already led to the largest budget deficit in American history, forced the government to borrow billions from nations like China, and left us with limited resources to stabilize our struggling economy. “16th District Notebook,” The Canton Repository, 9/21/08

FACT: Schuring has said “I think everything should be on the table” when it comes to Social Security. “Kirk Schuring on Social Security/Medicare,” accessed 9/24/08 Schuring’s Republican allies in Washington have been trying for years to turn Social Security over to Wall Street, and Schuring’s stunningly anti-senior record in the state legislature makes clear that he can’t be trusted to look out for older Americans in Congress. “Boccieri Calls for Protecting Social Security on 73rd Anniversary“

Let the facts speak for themselves; Kirk Schuring’s policy positions are not what the working families of Ohio’s 16th Congressional District need in the United States Congress.

SurveyUSA (9/21-22, likely voters, 9/5-7 in parentheses):

Chris Gregoire (D-inc): 50 (47)

Dino Rossi (R): 48 (48)

(MoE: ±3.8%)

I’ll file Washington’s governor’s race in the “good news” column: after a period in the post-GOP convention afterglow when Dino Rossi nosed ahead of Chris Gregoire (or shot ahead by 6, in the case of that sketchy Rasmussen poll), we may be returning the old stasis, with a tiny edge for Gregoire, who remains deeply dependent on Obama coattails to get her over the finish line. In the same sample, Obama leads 54-43, again, much more plausible than his +2 in the last Rasmussen. (H/t mikeel.)

UPDATE: Here’s an amusing little aside. The Washington Democratic Party is suing Secretary of State Sam Reed (a Republican, but a highly ethical one) to force him to change Rossi’s self-selected ballot line (from “GOP Party” to “Republican”). I don’t think the Dems have a legal leg to stand on, but it makes sense for them to try, in wake of last week’s Elway poll giving Gregoire a 4-point lead when Rossi is identified as “prefers GOP Party” and a 10-point lead when he’s identified as “Republican.”

PPP (9/17-19, likely voters, 9/9 in parentheses):

Bev Perdue (D): 44 (41)

Pat McCrory (R): 43 (40)

Michael Munger (L): 6 (6)

(MoE: ±3.0%)

Civitas (R) (9/17-20, registered voters, 9/6-10 in parentheses):

Bev Perdue (D): 41 (40)

Pat McCrory (R): 43 (39)

Michael Munger: 3 (2)

(MoE: ±4.0%)

I’ll file North Carolina under “mixed bag,” as PPP gives Perdue another small edge (this is the same sample that showed Obama and McCain tied at 46 and Hagan up by 5). Civitas gives McCrory a two-point edge, up from a one-point deficit before (this sample showed Obama/McCain tied at 45 and Dole up by 2). This one clearly will go down to the wire.

Research 2000 for St. Louis Post-Dispatch (9/15-18, likely voters, 7/7-10 in parentheses):

Jay Nixon (D): 50 (52)

Kenny Hulshof (R): 43 (35)

(MoE: ±3.5%)

I’ll file this under “bad news,” but this is the kind of bad news that I’ll gladly take. Jay Nixon still leads Kenny Hulshof by a comfortable margin in the race for the open governor’s seat in Missouri, except Research 2000 (working for the St. Louis newspaper rather than Daily Kos on this one) shows that Hulshof has closed within high single digits instead of the showy double-digit margins Nixon has mostly been posting. Rasmussen gave Nixon a 15-point spread last week, so there’s not much cause for alarm, though. (McCain leads in this sample, 49-45.)

No, not the King of Pop. I’m talking about state Rep. Michael Jackson (“D”), who’s running as an Independent with an official campaign strategy of taking as many African-American votes away from Democratic Rep. Don Cazayoux as possible. Jackson insists that such a strategy will allow him to sneak up the middle and win in November, but at only 9% in the polls, such a scenario is beyond dubious.

As of August 17th, Jackson only had $12,600 on-hand. That’s peanuts. But it’s still worth asking: who’s giving him the peanuts?

Well, a significant share ($6,900) came from developer Lane Grigsby, a man who spent tens of thousands of dollars on his own attack ads and mailers against Cazayoux in May, and from two of his relatives. Grigsby’s motive for bankrolling Jackson is pretty sickeningly transparent — he doesn’t want Jackson to win; he just wants to satisfy his desire to see Cazayoux lose.

That sort of thing is messed up, but it’s not as messed up as this contribution that Jackson collected on July 26th. Yes, you read that correctly: Democratic Congressman G.K. Butterfield (NC-01) sent Jackson a $500 check from his campaign committee two weeks after he entered the race as an independent. Let me repeat this: G.K. Butterfield, a Democrat in the House of Representatives, donated $500 to help defeat Don Cazayoux, a fellow Democrat.

Pardon me for saying so, but that’s pretty fucked up.

Races to Watch:

Today’s ratings changes:

CA-26 (Dreier): Likely Republican to Safe Republican

It’s time to separate the wheat from the chaff, so to speak. We held out hope for quite a while that Democrat Russ Warner would be able to make a race in this R+4 district — one of the very few plausible targets for Democrats in California — but this contest has never really climbed that far up the heat index. Despite running his campaign for over a year and a half, Warner has only been able to cobble together $651K and ended the second quarter with just $150K in the bank.

Incumbent GOP Rep. David Dreier bucked the nationwide trend in 2006 by spending some serious cash ($2.5 million) and scoring a 57-38 win over his unknown opponent — a significant improvement over his 53-43 margin in 2004. Dreier had $1.9 million on hand at the end of July — well more than he’ll need in order to swamp out Warner’s message this fall. Based on the nationwide dynamics, it’s not hard to imagine Warner climbing to as high as the mid-40s on election day, but it’s pretty tough to imagine him hitting 50% on his budget, barring some fabulous divine intervention.

CA-46 (Rohrabacher): Likely Republican to Safe Republican

I’m sorry to say it, but here’s the Swing State Project’s new Mendoza Line of the Swing: If you aren’t even listed on the DCCC’s Races to Watch list alongside the likes of Rob Hubler (IA-05) and Steve O’Donnell (PA-18), what chance do you really have? Many Dems started the cycle with high hopes for Huntington Beach Mayor Debbie Cook. Like they used to say in Brooklyn, wait ’till next year!

CT-04 (Shays): Lean Republican to Tossup

There are a lot of words that describe Chris Shays: weenie, flip-flopper, Bush booster, and out-of-touch are a few of my personal favorites. But you can also call him “survivor”. Despite occupying a D+5.4 seat, Shays is the sole remaining House Republican in New England, and he has beaten back fierce challenges from Democrats before. However, many indications point to this year being his most challenging yet.

Shays faces Jim Himes, a progressive businessman who has spent the past several years as an executive at an affordable housing non-profit organization. Himes has been raising some serious dough, has kept pace with Shays in the money race, and has the benefit of a cash-flush DCCC to help tip the scales here. But more than that, we feel pretty confident in predicting that Connecticut’s 4th will not be a McCain-friendly district in November, and we also feel that Barack Obama’s candidacy will help energize the Democratic performance in Bridgeport — a Democratic area with a large black population that typically has seen underperforming voter turnout.

Recent unanswered internal polling for the Himes campaign suggests that this race is tied, and the DCCC has just begun exploiting Shays’ hopelessly deluded comments that “our economy is fundamentally strong” in this new ad. In a district heavily dependent on the financial services sector, Shays is particularly vulnerable in a time of economic turmoil. Hefty expenditures by the National Association of Realtors on his behalf, coupled by his perceived “moderate” image, will keep this race close.

FL-08 (Keller): Likely Republican to Lean Republican

Ric Keller is unloved in the 8th District of Florida. If his surprisingly close 53-47 primary win earlier this month wasn’t proof enough, his Democratic opponent, attorney Alan Grayson, released a poll showing Keller trailing by four points. While we’re not yet convinced that that margin paints an accurate portrait of this race, we do believe that Keller has a lot of reasons to be sweating bullets in this R+3 Orlando-based district.

The biggest? The district’s Democratic voter registration surge. Dems cut the Republican voter registration advantage here from 14,400 in 2006 to 2,100 at the end of July — and things keep getting bluer (and more ethnically diverse) by the week. Grayson was a surprise primary winner here, and he still has a lot to prove in terms of fundraising (he has relied almost exclusively on his own coffers so far), but this match-up looks to be a real race.

GA-12 (Barrow): Likely Democratic to Safe Democratic

Under the rubric we use, a “Safe” rating means that we’re ruling out the possibility of an upset, even a remote one. While Barrow’s incredibly weak performance in 2006 kept this race on our big board for quite some time, it’s hard to imagine how a guy like John Stone, who had all of $8000 on-hand at the end of June, can pull off what Max Burns wasn’t able to do in 2006. Barrow will be aided by an uptick in African-American voters (this district is 45% black) who are energized to vote in the Presidential race for well-discussed reasons. To put an exclamation mark on how safe Barrow is, the National Rifle Association just endorsed him yesterday — something that the group rarely does for federal Dems.

IA-04 (Latham): Safe Republican to Likely Republican

While incumbent Rep. Tom Latham has to be considered favored in his bid for re-election at this point, at a PVI of D+0.4, this district is prime swing territory, and recent polls are showing a rather stark Obama surge in Iowa. Democrat Becky Greenwald’s fundraising could be stronger, but between her recent EMILY’s List endorsement and the state’s blue turn, we feel that there’s an outside chance of something interesting developing here.

ID-01 (Sali): Likely Republican to Lean Republican

See David’s post for our detailed rundown on this change. The bottom line: Bill Sali is the most collossally perfect fuckup the Republicans have on their roster, and Dem Walt Minnick is poised to take advantage of that.

IL-06 (Roskam): Likely Republican to Safe Republican

The prospect of Barack Obama’s home state coattails dragging Democrat Jill Morgenthaler kept this race alive on our list of long shots, but we no longer see such a scenario playing out. Peter Roskam held back an extremely well-funded Democratic challenge here in 2006, and Morgenthaler hasn’t been able to scrape together enough chump change to make this one interesting. Her role as apologist-spokesbot for the Army during the Abu Ghraib scandal made Morgenthaler toxic to many liberals from the get-go. And her ties to the hated Gov. Rod Blagojevich remain easily exploitable if Roskam should choose to “go there.”

IL-08 (Bean): Likely Democratic to Safe Democratic

Republicans fantasized that businessman Steve Greenberg could at least force another opportunity to make Democrat Melissa Bean sweat in this R+5 district. The only problem is that Greenberg hasn’t opened up his own pockets like the NRCC had hoped, and his fundraising has been anemic. It also sounds like Greenberg’s campaign has a few management issues. At the end of the day, Bean is an incumbent whose skills have been tested in the crucible of several close elections — she’s not liable to make a mistake in the final six weeks of the campaign. And with Obama at the top of the ticket, the Presidential headwind will be less of a factor for Bean to deal with. This race moves off the board.

IL-18 (Open): Likely Republican to Safe Republican

Oof. It pains us to make this change, but we feel that we have little choice. Regular SSP readers know that we love to torment Aaron Schock. Schock’s harebrained rants against Jimmy Carter and Barack Obama, as well as his widely-panned (and eventually retracted) idea to sell nukes to Taiwan leave us with no doubts that he’s little more than a glorified college Republican pissant. But in a conservative R+6 district, you need a solid Democratic campaign in order to win, and we haven’t seen one from Colleen Callahan, who continues to lag badly in both money and polls. Her only hope was to get on the air early and drive up Schock’s negatives to the point of unelectability. The problem is, the reverse seems to have happened. Callahan’s recent foot-in-mouth comments regarding reinstating the draft leave us unimpressed and disappointed in this race.

KY-02 (Open): Likely Republican to Lean Republican

Multiple polls released over the past several months have shown Democrat David Boswell, a three-decade veteran of Kentucky politics, with a small lead over Republican Brett Guthrie for this R+13 open seat. The only problem is that, up until recently, Boswell hasn’t given much indication that he was willing to do the necessary grunt work of dialing for dollars. Case in point: he ended the month of June with only $45K in the bank. However, the DCCC has grown interested enough in this race to both add Boswell to its Red to Blue program and to reserve $840,000 in ad time for this race. Additionally, Boswell has gathered enough resources to begin airing his own ads. Boswell still has a lot to prove, but the DCCC’s heavy involvement here tells us that he has a fighting chance.

MD-01 (Open): Likely Republican to Lean Republican

Democrat Frank Kratovil made a crucially huge score when he snagged the endorsement of moderate GOP Rep. Wayne Gilchrest, the district’s incumbent who was unceremoniously defeated in the Republican primary by state Sen. Andy Harris. Kratovil still faces some stiff challenges in this R+10 district, but the most recent poll shows a tied race. Kratovil, a prosecutor from the district’s Eastern Shore, will have to in part make this a race about geography (Travis Childers-style), using Harris’ western base against him in the rest of the district.

NY-19 (Hall): Likely Democratic to Safe Democratic

In these troubled economic times, are the voters of suburban NYC really gonna turf their freshly-minted Democratic incumbent in favor of some punk wingnut? We don’t think so. Hall’s brief career has been all but flawless, and his fundraising has been exceptional. Lalor has a few coins to rub together, but not enough scrilla to make a difference.

PA-06 (Gerlach): Likely Republican to Safe Republican

The good news: The latest GOP poll here showed that Bob Roggio doubled his name recognition. The bad news that says it all: He’s now at 10%. If something was going to happen here, we’d already be seeing it. If this election was going to be 1932-sized monster wave, Roggio would be a logical choice to get swept along. But we’re not counting on a miracle here.