Month: November 2008

Excellent news:

Oh yeah. This brings us to 24 total pickups (25 if you count VA-05, which I think is all but assured right now).

Roll Call:

Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) is reconsidering his decision to turn down a second term as chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee under renewed pressure from a persuasive Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), sources confirmed Friday.

If Van Hollen opts to stay on at the campaign arm, he would step away from a possible leadership battle with another Pelosi ally, Rep. John Larson (D-Conn.), for the chairmanship of the Democratic Caucus.

Van Hollen earlier this week made clear he had no interest in another turn leading the DCCC. “I’m exploring all my options,” he told reporters Wednesday at a news conference to review the roughly 20-seat gain he engineered on Tuesday for the party. “One option I’m not exploring is continuing as chairman of the DCCC.”

But sources say Pelosi is leaning hard on Van Hollen to take on another two-year stint. The move would ease the way for Larson, currently the Caucus vice chairman, to advance a rung on the leadership ladder.

If Van Hollen decides not to take the gig, two of the likeliest alternatives would be Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Artur Davis. I’ll take CVH over those two any day of the week.

In the diaries, longtime SSP member trowaman gives us a nice roundup of Texas election results — up and down the ballot.

And if you’re looking for the latest numbers from the undecided House and Senate races, TheUnknown285 has an extremely handy list of results pages for each race.

UPDATE (David): Some additional stuff:

• Come help us with a crowdsourcing project to compile presidential voting results by congressional district.

• Here’s another group project: compiling state legislature results.

• I think this describes us pretty well. (Hat-tip: MaryNYC)

Roll Call:

With the canvassing process virtually complete in Virginia’s 5th district and attorney Tom Perriello (D) ahead of Rep. Virgil Goode (R) by nearly 750 votes, the Democratic challenger declared victory Friday afternoon.

“It looks like the outcome is now certain. We are going to win this race and pull off the upset,” Perriello said.

Perriello said his campaign would now be moving into a transition phase and in that effort he has enlisted the help of former Rep. L. F. Payne (D-Va.), who held the seat from 1998 until retiring in 1996. Goode, then a Democrat, won the open seat and succeeded Payne.

Payne “will be helping us to make sure that we can hit the ground running,” Perriello said. “We are eager to get to work to try to bring jobs back to the area.”

But in a statement released earlier Friday afternoon, Goode said he is not ready to concede the race.

Perriello is holding onto a 749-vote lead right now, or a margin of 0.24%. Goode is praying for some serious irregularities in Dem-friendly precincts, and he’ll likely ask for a recount (as is the right of any candidate down by less than 0.5%), but this one is looking very good for us.

I would call this win a pretty nice cherry on top of Tuesday’s electoral sundae.

Well, now that the Republican ticket has a lot of free time on their hands, it looks like they’re about to lend an assist to their buddy Saxby Chambliss in his December runoff election against hard-charging Democrat Jim Martin:

U.S. Sen. John McCain will come to Georgia to campaign for Republican U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, the Moultrie lawmaker’s campaign confirmed Friday.

“We just have to work out the dates,” said Chambliss’s spokeswoman, Michelle Grasso.

Grasso said the campaign is also in touch with Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s office about a possible Georgia appearance.

“She wants to come down, but right now we are working with her schedulers to see if that’s possible,” Grasso said.

It’s no secret that Martin’s strategy is to turn out as many Obama fans as possible for the runoff — he’s already airing an ad hitching himself to Obama’s wagon. But will Obama lift a finger? My guess is not likely — especially with the news that McCain will campaign for Chambliss.

Look at it this way: Obama’s already beaten McCain once. I don’t think he wants to turn this race into a proxy war, allowing the pundits to chatter about how McCain “beat Obama” in this contest if Martin lost. No, I have a feeling that Obama will stay on the sidelines here.

Martin’s best hope may be to get Bill Clinton, the last Democratic presidential candidate to win this state, to return on his behalf.

I’ve been searching the internet for a complete (or close to complete) list of the new make-ups of all of the stat legislatures, but so far, I haven’t found any.  Therefore, I thought we might put one together.  Therefore, please respond to this diary with the new make-up of your state’s legislature (and any other you know) and if either party gained seats and if so, how many.  Also note if any seats are still too close to call.

I’ll start off with my own state, Texas.  House: 76R/74D (although one more R seat is going to a recount); D+3 (could be +4 after the recount).  Senate: 18R/13D (plus one more going to a run-off); D+1 (could be +2 after the run-off).

A tale of two candidacies.

Marty Ozinga (IL-11): $1.4 million spent, 34.5% of the vote won.

Carl Mumpower (NC-11): $128,000 spent, 35.8% of the vote won.

Texas went for McCain, big whoop. But the real story is in the margins. George W. Bush carried Texas over John Kerry by a 61%-38% margin. Four years later John McCain has carried the Lone Star state by a comparatively weak 55%-44%. The gap has shrunk by 12% points in the democrats favor.

Here’s the quick scorecard post election day:

US Senate: Cornyn 55%-43%, no change

US House: Dems – 1 for 20 R – 12 D

State Senate: Dems +1 for 18 R – 12 D and 1 outstanding (R defense)

State House: Dems +3 for 75 R – 74 D and 1 outstanding (R defense)

Dallas County moves to hard democratic, from weak democratic

Harris County (Houston) emerges as a purple county from solid republican

Tarrant County (Fort Worth) reflects the state as a whole

Bexar County (San Antonio) has a slight democratic lean

Travis County (Austin) is a liberal bastion of democrats

U.S. Senate

Rick Noriega was underfunded in his campaign. That is the first thing to say in “what went wrong.” However, I have seen some people suggesting that we could have recruited better. Considering the depth of our bench and how well (or poorly) seasoned it is in Texas, I disagree. The results form the senate race almost matched the presidential results, so this was in no way a vote of confidence for Sen. Cornyn. So, where can Rep. Noriega go from here? I have heard rumors that he is interested in more of an executive position. The obvious positions that emerge are Lt. Governor and Harris County Judge (more on that later).

U.S. House

I lost my Congressman. It sucks. More importantly, the loss of Nick Lampson is a body blow for NASA in the next congress as there are no diehard supporters of NASA in the U.S. House who hold any seniority. I’m hoping Rep. Lampson gets an appointment by the administration relating to space and aeronautics. A statewide run is not in his future because in all honesty, his campaign teams from both 2006 an 2008 were not run as the well oiled machines that several other successful campaigns have been.

A quick note on Chet Edwards won re-election against a tier 4 for opponent by a 53%-45% margin. This is a reminder, he will never be safe in the current TX-17 and it is imperative why we need to take control of the state house.

My condolences to Larry Joe Doehrty and Michael Skelly. Both were great candidates but could not overcome their districts’ PVIs, where the dial only moved a few percentage points in their favor.

Pete Sessions won re-election by the exact same margin he did in 2006 and Kenny Marchant lost several points this time around. Keep your eyes on these two, TX-24 and TX-32 may have life in them.

State Senate

WENDY DAIVS (D) WON SD-10!!!! This district is completely confined within Tarrant County and was held by cigar chomper Kim Brimer (R). Brimer spent most of the spring and summer suing Wendy to try and keep her off the ballot, he failed at least three times. I interned for Wendy last spring, and I am so proud of her, she also has the potential and background to go statewide if she wants to. There are more US Congressional district in Texas than there are state senate seats, so I doubt the Congress will be in her future. More importantly, the filibuster line for the Texas Senate was 11 members. There are now at least 12 Democrats. Good news.

Meanwhile, the special election in SD-17 will be finalized in December. Fmr Congressman Chris Bell (D) will finish off Fmr Judge Joan Huffman (R) then. A Republican spoiler filed as a democrat in the special and took 13% of the vote. Her total combined with Bell’s would have been well over 50%. If we win this come December Dems will be at 13 Senators and +2 overall. We’re not done.

State House

We lost three of our own seats, including two incumbents and one open seat. Juan Garcia (D) was elected against a corrupt R in 2006 and Dan Barrett (D) was elected in a special in late 2007. The open seat was in rural areas near College Station (home of Texas A&M). Garcia and Barrett were great guys but they both have a future somewhere in Texas politics if they really want it.

Alright, post-mortem over, we picked up six seats so far. The winners are as follows:

HD-52 (Williamson County, Round Rock) – Maldonado (D) wins an open seat 48.6%-47.4%

HD-78 (El Paso) – Joe Moody (D) wins open seat 51.5%-45.1%

HD-96 (Tarrant County) – Chris Turner beats hard right ideologue Bill Zedler 51.2%-46.6%

HD-101 (Dallas County, Mesquite) Robert Mikos (D) wins open seat 50.6%-49.3%

HD-102 (Dallas) – Carol Kent (D) beats long time incumbent Tony Goolsby 53.0%-47.0%

HD-133 (Harris) – Kristi Thibaut (D) beats Jim Murphy 50.6%-49.4%

Overall theme of the winners? Public education. Kent and Maldonado both have experience in public schools and all the rest had public education as part of their platform. Miklos and Thibaut were both surprising wins even though they were both expected to be close. Moody is 25 years old so expect to hear more from him later on. Chris Turner’s win over Zedler is a victory against partisanship, for those familiar with Virginia politics Zedler was sort of our equivalent to Cuccinnelli. Kent and Moody should be safe from here out due to how their districts are changing in democrats favor.

Meanwhile, Dallas dems have been on such a rise, a candidate who was little more than a name on the ballot may have pulled off an upset pending the recount. Bob Romano (D) is 29 votes behind immigrant hater and school voucher supporter Linda Harper-Brown in Dallas County’s HD-105. If Romano pulls this one out the House becomes a 75-75 tie. Expect Romano to face a stiff primary challenge in 2010 should he win.

Final Result? The odds of Tom Craddick remaining speaker are extremely slim. Expect a new Speaker who will allow members to bring forward legislation that is important to their districts. It’s a good day for Democracy in the Texas House.

Dallas County

Dems won everything by large margins at a county level. Obama finished just shy of 60% and so did many of the judges. Embattled Sheriff Lupe Valdez (Female, Minority, Lesbian) finished with 55%

Harris County

Houston, we have liftoff. All but three, maybe four judges got over the finish line. They are the first democrats elected county wide in Harris county since the early 90s. Joining them are our new County Attorney Vince Ryan (D), County Clerk Loren Jackson (D), and (most importantly) the lead democratic vote getter Houston City Councilman and now, Sheriff-elect, Adrian Garcia. We were 5,000 votes short in winning District Attorney and finished behind in decent margins for County Judge and Tax-Assessor/Collector. All offices should be held by Democrats within 6-8 years.

Tarrant County

No gains, but Tarrant held margins exactly even as the state as a whole. Want to take the state’s temperature? Watch Fort Worth.

Bexar County

A few judges gained in San Antonio, but nothing drastic. This county remains fairly non partisan.

Travis County

Obama won 67% in this Austin based county. Everything else followed.

A Few Other Notes

Galveston Counties is becoming more of a white flight county with margins diminishing. This is very bad news for Galveston where most offices are held by Dems. Dems barely held the open Sheriff seat 50.5%-49.5% against an underfunded, under-qualified republican. I can only hope that it is due to Democrats leaving the island from Hurricane Ike.

Democrats won their first Judge on the 1st Court of Appeals, a 14 county court that includes Harris and Galveston county then stretches out towards Austin. Congratulations Judge Jim Sharp.

Fort Bend County, home of Sugarland is moving Democratic with several 53-47 wins for the republicans. Not bad.

Fort Bend County Commissioner Place 1 has moved to the Democrats. It’s just a low level County Commissioner but I thought you all would like to know due to who won it. Netroots hero and original Dean Dozen candidate, Richard Morrison.

The Future

It’s good. Houston Mayor will be an open seat in 2009 due to term limits and I have only heard Democratic names mentioned.

The state house is 1 or 2 Dems behind from switching over and we got 1 cycle to do it. We did New York’s Senate, time for our House.

Governor. Dems started winning Harris County and that’s the greenlight. Houston Mayor Bill White should be ready to go for us. All eyes are now on Hutchison and what she chooses to do. All of Texas’ Republican politicians are in a holding position, waiting on her and what she chooses to do. Rick Perry has no term limits and wants to keep his job. As for the other offices, Former Comptroller John Sharp is supposably looking at the Senate seat and Noriega may be eyeing Lt. Gov.

Time will tell, but we’re looking good.

Updates

Some more information:

Quickly, I was horribly wrong about Denton county. It went from +40 Bush, to +26 McCain. I am thrilled by this news and personally I am determined to flip this county even if I have to take it over myself, I just graduated from Denton’s University of North Texas, so it is a bit of a vested interest.

1) Bell County. We had a good state house race here, lost it by the same margin Obama did. Very promising change in margins. Perhaps we can try again next year.

2) Major movement in Cameron County (Brownsville)

3) Several Valley districts moved Dem between 10%-20%

4) Nueces County (Corpus Christi) is still red (surprising) but less so by 10%.

5) There is a slow creep democratically across Ron Paul’s TX-14 (Corpus to Galveston). My guess is this is more of an immigration line more than anything consisting of Mexican immigrants moving north.

Back in August of 2007, when primary season was heating up, we asked you guys to look deep into the future, ponder a potential Obama presidency, and think about whom Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich might appoint to replace his state’s junior senator.

Well, that scenario has now come to pass (and the unpopular Blago has managed to hang on to his office). Speculation is already running wild. Here are some of the names under consideration:

Valerie Jarrett (real estate executive & Obama adviser)

Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (IL-02)

Rep. Luis Gutierrez (IL-04)

Rep. Danny Davis (IL-07)

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (IL-09)

AG Lisa Madigan

Comptroller Dan Hynes

Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias

IL Dept. of Veterans Affairs Dir. Tammy Duckworth

Blago himself (barf)

I’m sure there are other names out there as well. So whom do you think Blago might appoint? And whom do you think he should appoint? (Note that this seat is up for re-election in 2010.)

UPDATE by Crisitunity: We also discussed this in June. Other African-American names we discussed there were Senate President Emil Jones (too old and too tied to Blago), Secretary of State Jesse White (too old, but probably a good 2-year placeholder), State Senator James Claybourne (too Downstate), and ex-Senator Carol Mosely-Braun (not too good at getting re-elected).