Month: October 2008

(Proudly cross-posted at C4O)

Nervous yet? I know I am. It’s crazy enough having to follow the Presidential Election 24/7. But for me and my friends & family here in California, we have even more on our minds!

We have a Congressional race to win. We have an evil, discriminatory

ballot initiative to defeat. And of course, we have a community, a county, and a country to take back!

Let me tell you about what I did last weekend to make all of this happen.

On Saturday, I met with some hard-working union friends in Costa Mesa to walk a neighborhood for Debbie Cook. As always, the pre-walk rally was great! Debbie fired up the crowd as she talked about what she would do to actually serve us in the district. Local labor leaders talked about what we can do to translate enthusiasm for Obama into votes for local Democrats. All in all, I felt quite good about what I was about to do to help Debbie win.

I also felt good about going out and talking to voters about Proposition 8. For all of you unfamiliar with California politics, we often govern by initiative because of our dysfunctional state government. Unfortunately, the radical right has used the initiative process to try to pass horrible legislation that wouldn’t otherwise see the light of day in Sacramento. Prop 8 is one of these horrid radical right power plays that would overturn marriage equality in California and reinstate a Plessy v. Ferguson style segregation that treats gay and lesbian couples as inferior to straight couples. The polls on Prop 8 are close now, so we can’t take anything for granted. That’s why I included Prop 8 in my walk.

After the rally, I walked with a friend from the local Young Democrats club in a Republican leaning area near the 405 Freeway in Costa Mesa. At first, I was disheartened by all the “Yes on 8” and “McCain-Palin” signs I saw on the street. But as I began talking to the voters on our list, my experience wasn’t so demoralizing. In fact, I found a few undecided Republicans, two houses with Debbie Cook signs up, and a beautiful 90 year old woman who smiled as she told me she was voting for Debbie Cook and against Prop 8! All in all, that’s not so bad for a “Republican stronghold”!

On Sunday, I shifted to the small southwestern portion of Santa Ana that lies in the 46th Congressional District. Specifically, I walked the neighborhood across the street from mine which has sizable Latino and Vietnamese populations. And while this neighborhood is less Republican than the Costa Mesa neighborhood I walked the previous day, I knew it would still be an uphill battle here. So what happened?

I was in for some pleasant surprises! I met a wonderful 80 year old woman who was glad to hear about Debbie Cook and was already voting no on 8. I met a fantastic 60+ couple who have been volunteering for MoveOn.org, so they were very receptive to what I had to say! I found a couple more undecided Republicans and some young voters who appreciated my last minute reminder to vote. So again, the final results weren’t as bad as I had originally expected.

So what does this all mean? Hopefully, this means that we can win if we work for it! Despite all the talk of whether or not Obama will “win by a landslide!”, we can’t be sidetracked into post-election punditry when we still have an election to actually win! And despite all the talk about California being “safe”, it’s NOT! It’s not safe for marriage equality, but on the other hand it’s also not safe for corrupt Republicans.

So what can we do in the next week? We can donate! We can volunteer! We can do all we can in the next week to win and WIN BIG! So don’t just stand there, but go out & help win this election! 😀  

Bad news:

A judge ruled today that Jon Powers must remain on the ballot as the candidate of the Working Families Party in next week’s 26th District congressional election, dealing a major blow to Democrat Alice J. Kryzan’s hope of securing an additional line.

Acting State Supreme Court Justice Kimberly A. O’Connor in Albany ruled that Working Families’ attempt to substitute Kryzan for Powers after Powers moved out of state to Washington did not meet election law requirements.

“Powers has placed the Working Families Party in the position of having an absentee candidate on the ballot for the election that is to occur in just a few days,” O’Connor wrote. “However, upon his nomination, he accepted the nomination. He did not decline the nomination, nor were there any challenges to his nomination.

“The time for such challenges has long passed,” she added. “While Powers has chosen employment that currently has him working outside the State of New York, the law does not provide for a mechanism to have his name taken off the ballot at this late date.”

Having failed to clear his name from the ballot, Powers is now barnstorming the district for Kryzan. While that’s the good news, and hopefully he’ll be able to minimize his votes on the WFP line, this does make things a bit tougher for Kryzan.

SurveyUSA (10/25-26, likely voters, 10/11-12):

Jeff Merkley (D): 49 (46)

Gordon Smith (R-inc): 42 (41)

Dave Brownlow (C): 5 (7)

(MoE: ±3.9%)

That’s some very nice movement for Merk. Check out the broader trends:

With Merkley pulling ahead in poll after poll, SSP is changing our rating of this race from Tossup to Lean Democratic. Smith’s efforts to present a moderate profile have allowed him to survive in past elections, it increasingly seems like that won’t be enough this year, especially with Democratic voter registration numbers turning this state into a darker shade of blue.

Bonus finding: Obama leads McCain by 57-38 here according to the same poll.

Univ. of Washington (10/18-26, likely voters, 10/22-28/2007 in parentheses):

Chris Gregoire (D-inc): 51 (47)

Dino Rossi (Prefers GOP Party): 45 (42)

(MoE: ±4%)

Here’s another Washington governor’s race poll, this time from the University of Washington, from whom we haven’t heard anything in a year. (Obama’s up in the same sample, 55-34.) Note how consistent the trendlines are, though; more fuel for my argument that people made their minds up about this race 4 years ago. So, to recap, we have this conundrum: the national pollsters (SurveyUSA and Rasmussen) keep seeing this as a 1-2 point race, while the locals (Elway and UW) keep giving Gregoire a comfortable margin.

UPDATE: Promising tidbit: Dino Rossi must undergo deposition before Election Day, regarding the lawsuit attacking the coordinated spending between the state party and the Building Industry Association of Washington.

Ted Stevens was just found guilty of at least one all seven counts of making false statements. No link yet, but that’s the word that I’m hearing. (Update: CNN confirms it.)

What a huge bullet dodged for Mark Begich.

UPDATE: SSP is moving our rating of this race from Tossup to Lean Democratic.

PPP (10/25-26, likely voters, in parentheses):

Kay Hagan (D): 48 (49)

Elizabeth Dole (R-inc): 45 (42)

Christopher Cole (L): 4 (4)

(MoE: ±2.8%)

This week’s PPP poll of the North Carolina senate race shows Kay Hagan dropping from a 7-point lead to a 3-point lead. Considering that Hagan led by only 2 points two weeks ago, last week’s lead was probably on the optimistic side, rather than this drop being suggestive of a major trend. Still, it’s an indicator that this race can’t be taken for granted and needs to be fought to the end.

The presidential race also sees slightly tighter numbers this week, with Obama up over McCain 49-48. Governor’s race numbers will be out tomorrow.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (10/20-22, likely voters):

Becky Greenwald (D): 42

Tom Latham (R-inc): 47

(MoE: ±5%)

We’re still sweeping up from the avalanche of Research 2000 polls that Daily Kos released this weekend, but although this one has been out since Saturday, I’d hate to see it slip through the cracks. IA-04, one of our true longshot races languishing down in ‘Likely R’ and not getting any DCCC love beyond R2B status, looks to be a truly competitive race.

This seems to be one of those happy confluences of a motivated challenger, a coasting incumbent, a Democratic wave year, and a swingy district (D+0). In fact, the presidential results seem odd, pointing to a possible sample problem (unless there’s a lot of ticket-splitting going on) that might suggest an even better IA-04 result: McCain leads Obama 46-42 in this district. But in a D+0 district, Obama should be breaking at least 50, based on his national numbers, and probably more, since he’s overperforming in Iowa in relation to Gore and Kerry numbers.

This is shaping up to be one of the best shots that we have where the DCCC isn’t getting involved with independent expenditures (yet), and it’s a dirt cheap district. Time to strike while the iron’s hot! (Discussion is already underway in desmoinesdem‘s diary from Saturday.)

Survey USA for WCSC Live5 News (10/25-26, likely voters):

Linda Ketner (D): 45

Henry Brown (R): 50

(MoE: ±4.1%)

I suspect this weekend’s Research 2000 poll showing Democrat Linda Ketner within 9 11 points in this very conservative district piqued a lot of people’s interest, but may have gotten shrugged off as too-good-to-be-true. Well, if that didn’t rouse Henry Brown from his seemingly decade-long slumber, this will: we have not just confirmation from another public pollster but an even closer result: SurveyUSA has Ketner back just 5.

The poll’s writeup states that African-Americans comprised 20% of the sample. This seems plausible, as the African-American population of the district was about 21% according to 2006 census estimate. With highly motivated AA turnout, though, we could see an even closer race.

In the list of last week’s DCCC independent expenditures posted by James this weekend, the comments section contains, well, let’s just say “scattered boos” concerning the money the DCCC is spending on incumbent defense instead of long-shot pickups. To give that discussion a little more form and focus, I thought I’d put together a table listing the races that are on SSP’s competitive house ratings chart but aren’t getting DCCC independent expenditures… and order them according to their position on SSP’s Bang for the Buck index, which is an approximate measure of how expensive it is to advertise on broadcast media in that district (smaller numbers are cheaper).

Got a race on there that you like that isn’t getting DCCC IE support? There’s still a week left, so contact the DCCC and ask… or better yet, give directly to the candidate and hope they can sneak a last minute media buy in.

Turning to SSP’s House Ratings, every race where we’re on offense that’s rated Likely D or Lean D is getting DCCC expenditures. Of the tossups, only 2 out of 23 are not receiving DCCC expenditures, and in neither case is that a problem: LA-04, where the primary runoff hasn’t even happened yet and all the action is going to happen after Nov. 4, and FL-08, where Alan Grayson seems intent on self-funding and doing things his way.

Of the 12 races currently rated Lean R, only 1 is not receiving DCCC expenditures: NV-02. This one is kind a puzzle, as Jill Derby has been hanging around within the single digits, and Nevada, especially Washoe County, has been seeing a Democratic surge. This may be one of those cases where both candidate and DCCC agree that a DCCC-branded campaign wouldn’t really fit the district’s still-sagebrushy nature.

When you drop down to Likely R, though, only 4 of the 19 races are receiving DCCC expenditures: SC-01, VA-05, WV-02, and WY-AL. (And bear in mind that some of these four races may get upgraded to Lean R soon… not that we specifically base our upgrades on DCCC decisions; after all, we see many of the same polls that the DCCC does.) The rest of the Likely Rs should be considered the true long-shots, but remember that in 2006 we did score a couple victories out of that pool (Loebsack and Shea-Porter).

Here are the non-DCCC-funded races, in order of expense:

District	Markets	Score
LA-07	Lafayette (220) Lake Charles (94)	314
IA-04	Des Moines (414) Rochester MN (143) Cedar Rapids (negligible) Sioux City (negligible)	557
LA-04	Shreveport (382) Alexandria (93) Lake Charles (94)	569
LA-01	New Orleans (672)	672 *
NV-02	Las Vegas (651) Reno (255) Salt Lake City (811 *)	906
CA-50	San Diego (1,026)	1,026
AL-03	Birmingham (717) Montgomery (245) Columbus GA (205) Atlanta (negligible)	1,167
FL-08	Orlando (1,346)	1,346
OH-07	Columbus OH (891) Dayton (514)	1,405
FL-18	Miami (1,523)	1,523
NC-10	Charlotte (1,020) Greenville SC (815)	1,835
TX-07	Houston (1,939)	1,939
FL-13	Tampa (1,710) Ft. Myers (462)	2,172
VA-10	Washington DC (2,253)	2,253
TX-10	Houston (1,939) Austin (589)	2,528
PA-15	Philadelphia (2,926)	2,926
CA-46	Los Angeles (5,536)	5,536
NJ-05	New York (7,380)	7,380

(* = LA-01 was not researched as part of the original Bang for the Buck index. I’m not sure, but it may also extend into the Baton Rouge market.)