Month: October 2008

http://www.wral.com/news/local…

Democrats have a 31-19 majority in the North Carolina State Senate. Democrats have controlled the Senate for an amazing 130 consecuative years.  Could this be the year that changes?

John Davis, the former president of NCFREE, a non-partisan political research business association, has been tracking legislative races for 23 years. This year, he said, eight Democratic seats are vulnerable, which could shift the balance of power in the chamber.

“If you look at all the competitive districts, most are Republican-leaning held by Democrats,” Davis said. “There’s actually the possibility that Republicans could take over the Senate.”

In addition to the Republican-leaning districts in western North Carolina, some of the incumbents face legal and public relations problems, Davis said.

Not surprisingly, both parties are confident of winning control.

Considering the heavy voter registration in NC this year, which has resulted in a net increase of 200,000 more Democrats than Republicans, I don’t see the Democrats losing 7 seats – and control.  Add in the expected heavy turnout of Democratic voters, losing this many Senate seats would be shocking.

 

The polls are coming to a close in the western-most reaches of Canada right about now, where voters have gone to the polls to decide the fate of the first Conservative (minority) government since 1993.

Canadian PM Stephen Harper figured that he could squeeze out a majority government with this fall election call, but he hasn’t had the smoothest campaign. In his favor, the Liberals aren’t exactly burning down the house, either. If I were a betting man, I’d say he retains his minority — with losses in Quebec and a few modest gains elsewhere. But we’ll see.

Wikipedia has a good list of races to watch here.

Results are available at CBC.ca and Elections Canada.

UPDATE: Yup, it’s another Conservative government — but it’s not yet clear whether he’ll have enough for a majority or not.

UPDATE (12:41AM): Well this is something — in my home riding of Edmonton-Strathcona, the NDP candidate has pulled ahead of the longtime Conservative incumbent by 1 vote with 200 of 223 polls counted. It would be stunning if the Conservatives lost a seat in Alberta.

12:46AM: Wow, NDPer Linda Duncan is up by 164 votes now with 18 polls outstanding.

1:34AM: Duncan wins! Oh man, what an amazing finish. And you have got to love this:

Shortly after Conservative incumbent Rahim Jaffer gave his victory speech Tuesday evening, his campaign handlers yanked him from the party as it became clear the race wasn’t over, that New Democrat Linda Duncan had pulled ahead in the polls.

Haw-haw!

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

Chris Gregoire (D-inc): 48 (50)

Dino Rossi (R): 47 (48)

(MoE: ±4.3%)

Nothing ever seems to budge the numbers in this race: the financial crisis, the implosion of Team McCain (the same sample finds Obama is up 56-40 in Washington, so Obama’s adding to his lead without extending coattails), allegations of illegal campaign coordination between Rossi and the builders’ lobby, nothing. Gregoire maintains her tiny edge from the previous SUSA poll, as the numbers bounce around within the margin of error.

Part of this, as both Matt Stoller and I discussed in our ruminations on what’s the matter with WA-08, is that Washington seems less affected by the economic downturn than most other places, leaving people less eager to dissociate with the Republicans as has happened at a national level. But also, as I’ve said repeatedly, people’s minds were already made up about this year’s race four years ago during the protracted recount, and the long-term hardened attitudes explain why undecideds are always so low in this race.

UPDATE: The GOP just money-bombed this race; the numbers are huge. The BIAW (Building Industry Association of Washington) just pumped in $4 million, and the Republican Governor’s Association put in another $3.5 million. That brings Rossi’s cash haul to date, including all independent expenditures, up to $22 million (compare with Gregoire’s $16 million). The ads are already at a complete saturation point, so I don’t know how much more effective that will be in swaying that last 2-3% of undecideds, but damned if they aren’t going to go all in, trying to do it.

You may remember last month I did a piece on the tipping point counties in all the hotly contested states, as a means of drilling a little deeper into where the real pivot points of this election are. Well, apparently I’m not the only person interested in this level of analysis, as Politico, via Insider Advantage, polled presidential preferences in four key bellwether counties in four presidential swing states.

What they found is extremely heartening, given that all of these counties narrowly supported Bush in the last two elections. Here are the poll results, with 2004 and 2000 results in parentheses:

Washoe County, Nevada (Reno): O 46, M 45 (2004 47 K/51 B, 2000 43 G/52 B)

Wake County, North Carolina (Raleigh): O 50, M 44 (2004 49 K/51 B, 2000 46 G/53 B)

Hillsborough County, Florida (Tampa): O 47, M 41 (2004 46 K/53 B, 2000 47 G/50 B)

Jefferson County, Colorado (Denver burbs): M 45, O 43 (2004 47 K/52 B, 2000 43 G/51 B)

Unfortunately, there’s no information about downballot races here, but the way we’re beating the previous two elections’ spreads should be encouraging to Jill Derby in NV-02, Mark Udall in CO-Sen, and Kay Hagan and Bev Perdue in NC. (As an interesting aside, Hillsborough and Jefferson were actually the tipping point counties in my analysis of Florida and Colorado.)

The vaunted McCain campaign “re-boot” is now in its second day, and at this point it’s looking like they’re just hitting ctrl-alt-delete over and over again as white smoke pours out the back of the computer… and their malaise seems to be dragging down the Congressional ballot too. Perhaps that comes as no surprise to us in the lefty blogosphere, but now mainstream purveyors of the conventional wisdom are starting to move this story to the forefront, such as Politico, with not one but two stories on this front today.

For starters, the NRSC is getting a financial bailout of its own: from the RNC. (Talk about robbing Peter to pay Paul.) The RNC is prepared to tap its $5 million line of credit, not to save McCain but to head off the possibility of a 60-seat Democratic caucus in the Senate with huge ad buys of their own.

And with the House and Senate Republican campaign committees being drastically outspent by their Democratic counterparts, and outside groups such as Freedom’s Watch offering far less help than was once anticipated, Republicans are turning to the national party committee as a lender of last resort.

A decision is imminent because television time must be reserved and paid for upfront, and available slots are dwindling.

This won’t be a direct allocation of funds to the NRSC, since the NRSC and RNC are prohibited by law from coordinating independent expenditures (such as where to run ads or their content). But the RNC can easily deduce from previous NRSC buys and public polling where their advertising help is needed. This money isn’t coming out of funds that were previously designated for McCain, but it’s telling that for the home stretch they’d rather tap their emergency stash for Senate triage, rather than bolstering McCan’t’s fading chances. (As an indication how far we’ve come, I idly speculated on this very possibility back in June, and got laughed out of the building.)

Politico also delves into the corresponding mess at the NRCC, where highly touted recruits like Darren White (NM-01) and Erik Paulsen (MN-03) are apparently being left to fend for themselves in the coming weeks as the NRCC’s meager holdings are divvied up among endangered veterans.

I did a bit of a double-take when seeing the example they gave:

GOP Reps. John B. Shadegg of Arizona, Lee Terry of Nebraska, Henry Brown Jr. of South Carolina and Dan Lungren of California are all fighting for their political lives, a reversal of fortunes that has caught even the most astute campaign observers by surprise.

The GOP is publicly confessing to being worried about the challenges posed by Linda Ketner (SC-01) and Bill Durston (CA-03)? Either this is the most monumental of all head-fakes, or they’re looking up at a tsunami that even we at SSP are underestimating. Other names cited in the article as causes for concern include Lee Terry, Mark Souder (both victims of recent huge DCCC expenditures), Dana Rohrabacher, David Dreier, and Brian Bilbray, all of whom would be well behind a GOP firewall any other year.

Barack Obama need not worry about our 55 electoral votes. House incumbents like Jerry McNerney (CA-11) and Loretta Sanchez (CA-47) that may be vulnerable in other election cycles need not worry this year. So why should we care about California now?

Let me explain it to you.

First, let me start with some bad news. The radical right has bomarded us once again with horrifying initiatives that WE MUST DEFEAT! Mainly, Proposition 4 and Proposition 8 should scare us all. Why?  Because the radical right is willing to endanger teenage girls with Prop 4 to chip away at women’s reproductive rights while they also work to pass Prop 8 and legalize bigotry and discrimination as they take away marriage equality.

Get the picture now? The election in California is just as important as in Nevada or Virginia.

Oh, and here’s another reason to care about The Golden State: Congress! I should know. I live just blocks away from one of the hottest races in SoCal (our slang for Southern California). And guess what? I’m getting to work over here! I know Debbie Cook can win CA-46 if we support her!

And you know what else? It’s not just Debbie Cook in the 46th District. It’s Bill Durston in the 3rd District, Charlie Brown in the 4th District, Bill Hedrick in the 44th District, Julie Bornstein in the 45th District, and Nick Leibham in the 50th District. It’s also people like my good friend’s husband who’s running for State Senate. It’s those competitive Assembly seats that can give us a Supermajority. It’s those local level races that can fill up our bench with great future Democratic leaders!

So please, please don’t forget us here in California! Please help us defend our values and expand our majority! We must act now to keep California blue… And hopefully make it bluer! 🙂

Anzalone Liszt for Jason Altmire (10/6-9, likely voters):

Jason Altmire (D-inc): 53

Melissa Hart (R): 41

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Those numbers are virtually identical to a recent SurveyUSA poll from around the same time showing Altmire leading by 54-42. It looks like Altmire is in the catbird’s seat with three weeks left on the clock.

The full polling memo is available below the fold.

From Nancy Pelosi

How would you like to defeat a Republican who has spent the past six years trying to write discrimination into our Constitution, privatize Social Security, and block affordable health care for millions of American children? We can do just that in Colorado’s 4th District — but only if we act in the next 72 hours.

Every two years, Republican Congresswoman Marilyn Musgrave becomes more and more vulnerable. This year, we have our best chance to finally win this seat behind Democrat Betsy Markey. Recent polls indicate that Betsy has surged ahead, but the race is about to reach a tipping point.

If we don’t act now, in just 72 hours, Betsy will no longer be able to afford television ads, just as national Republicans are moving in to help Congresswoman Musgrave stay on the air.

If you don’t like Nancy, that’s tough. Betsy i an outstanding Democrat and she is on track to beating Marilyn Musgrave. You want to pass that up?

Once again, Public Policy Polling is letting readers pick their next state poll. While there are a lot of good choices, I had to go with Georgia due to its exciting Senate race. Be sure to drop by PPP’s blog and cast your vote.

And speaking of Georgia, we’re only six bucks short of an even $5,000 for Jim Martin on SSP’s Actblue page. Who will push us over the top? We literally just need some spare change that fell in between your sofa cushions to make this happen.