Month: February 2009

Lynch makes it official:

New Hampshire Governor John Lynch officially announced this afternoon that Republican J. Bonnie Newman will replace Judd Gregg in the US Senate if Gregg is confirmed as commerce secretary. […]

Newman, 63, who has not previously held elected office, was an assistant commerce secretary under President Reagan and also worked in President George H.W. Bush’s White House. She also worked for Gregg when he was a US representative and supported Lynch for governor. […]

Lynch said Newman will not run in 2010, and will not endorse any candidate in that race in a state turning more Democratic.

While the merits of the Gregg appointment are pretty troubling (after all, we are talking about a dude who, in the 1990s, voted to abolish the same Department that he is now going to run), this isn’t a bad deal for us. Newman couldn’t possibly be more conservative than Gregg, and she’s promising not to even make an endorsement for her successor.

Paul Hodes has an excellent shot at this next year.

UPDATE: With Gregg exiting the Senate, SSP has moved our rating of this race from “Lean Republican” to “Tossup“. With a competent campaign, though, Hodes should be able to earn himself an edge.

Well, this is surprising:

Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who announced Monday he will seek a sixth term, is mulling a challenge against Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-Conn.) in 2012.

Multiple Connecticut Democrats, speaking on condition of anonymity, say Blumenthal has begun informing influential members of the state’s political class that he will prepare for a run against Lieberman.

Blumenthal has been Connecticut’s AG since forever (well, 1990, to be precise), and it has long been assumed that he’s been looking for an opportunity to move on up. Still, after passing on gubernatorial campaigns time and time again, Blumenthal always struck observers as fairly risk-averse, and he has already committed himself to running for another term as AG in 2010. So it’s fairly surprising that he’s thinking of making a splash against Lieberman:

“My only focus and my sole interest right now is on the race in 2010 and seeking reelection as attorney general,” he said.

Still, serving in the Senate “would be an honor, and it’s always been a career goal,” Blumenthal added. “I’ve said that I look forward to continuing opportunities for public service in the future.”

Should Blumenthal run against Lieberman, it would set up a clash between two well-known Connecticut politicians. “He’s probably the most popular Democrat in the state,” said Quinnipiac University pollster Douglas Schwartz. […]

“I would certainly consider other opportunities that fit the skills I have, the aptitudes. The U.S. Senate would be a huge honor and a great challenge and opportunity,” Blumenthal said Monday. “We have two United States senators who are incumbents, and I would have to see what their plans are.”

If either Dodd or Lieberman retire, you can bet that Blumenthal would finally pounce. But with Blumenthal turning 66 in 2012, perhaps he sees the clock ticking on his ambition to join the Senate — if Dodd sticks around in 2010 (as most assume), a Lieberman challenge could be his last real window to try.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is running radio ads in 28 Congressional districts held by Republicans.

Link:

The ads focus on the Republicans out of step priorities by putting bank bail outs and building schools in Iraq before the needs of the Americans in the struggling economy. The Putting Families First ads begin airing on Tuesday morning during drive time and will run for a week.

In addition to the strategic radio ads in 28 Republican districts, the DCCC will also begin a grassroots initiative which includes targeted e-mails to 3 million voters and nearly 100,000 person-to-person telephone calls.

House Republicans just don’t get it.  They celebrate being the party of no and status quo, while more than 2.6 million Americans have lost their jobs, the stock market has plummeted wiping out nearly $7 trillion stock market wealth and endangering thousands of investors’ nest eggs, and one in 10 homeowners was delinquent on mortgage payments or in foreclosure this fall.

“These are serious times, hard working families are worried about keeping their jobs, health care and homes – they want action, not House Republicans cheering about doing nothing,” said Brian Wolff, Executive Director of the DCCC. “Republicans’ champagne wishes and caviar dreams simply don’t connect with middle class families struggling to make ends meet and furious that their tax dollars are going to bail out banks, build schools in Iraq, or send American jobs overseas.  The Putting Families First campaign is only the first step, we will continue to go district by district to hold Republicans who continue to vote in lockstep with party leaders and against the folks in their districts accountable.”

There are several versions of the ad, all featuring elements of the economic stimulus bill (click here for transcripts). Here is one focusing on the education angle:

Did you know Congressman Thad McCotter opposed over $526 million to modernize crumbling Michigan schools, but supported building new schools in Iraq?  Times are tough, tell Thad McCotter to put American jobs first.

If you’ve heard any of these radio ads, please post a comment or send me an e-mail (desmoinesdem AT yahoo.com) to let me know where you are and what issue it covered.

There is a lot of overlap between the 28 districts where DCCC ads are running and this list of the 20 most vulnerable House Republicans going into 2010, which Crisitunity compiled at Swing State Project last month. However, there are a handful of Republicans on Crisitunity’s list who are not (yet) being targeted by the DCCC’s ad campaign.

Conversely, the ads are running in some districts where the incumbents may not seem vulnerable at first glance. Tom Latham did not make Crisitunity’s list after he won re-election by more than 20 points in November, despite the fact that Barack Obama carried Iowa’s fourth district. However, the DCCC is running ads in IA-04 and clearly has not ruled out making a serious play for this district in 2010.

It’s worth noting that Bruce Braley (IA-01) is now the DCCC’s vice chair responsible for “offensive efforts including recruitment, money, and training.”

Taking out Latham in 2010 would make it highly likely for Iowa Democrats to hold three out of the four Congressional districts we will have after the next census. Even if we don’t beat him in 2010, running a strong campaign against Latham could bring down his favorables and improve our chances of holding IA-03 if that district includes Story County in 2012.

UPDATE: At Daily Kos, brownsox demolishes Fred Hiatt’s criticism of this ad campaign.

Say hello to two possible new senators in 2011: Robin Carnahan and Paul Hodes. Both confirmed today that they will be running in 2010, Carnahan in Missouri and Hodes in New Hampshire.

Missouri Sec. of State Carnahan will be running for the seat left open by Kit Bond’s retirement; her opponent won’t be known for a while (there will probably be a competitive GOP primary, with Rep. Roy Blunt, ex-Sen. Jim Talent, and ex-Treasurer Sarah Steelman eyeing the race), but a recent PPP poll shows her ahead of all of them. Her announcement video is here.

Rep. Paul Hodes is running for a seat that may or may not be open; it’s still unclear who Gov. John Lynch will appoint to replace Judd Gregg (who will become Commerce Secretary), although sources point to Gregg’s former chief of staff Bonnie Newman. The Union-Leader reports: “She is not expected to run for a full term in 2010.”

Hodes had already been considering an uphill battle against an incumbent Gregg, but with the Gregg’s departure and the expectation that Newman will serve two years and not run for re-election, it looked like too good an opportunity for Hodes to pass up.

The developments surrounding that surprising appointment by President Obama “has sped up his timeline and he will make a formal announcement within the week,” the source said.

McAuliffe 18%

Moran 18%

Deeds 11%

http://www.publicpolicypolling…

Huge number of undecideds but check out the approvals.

“Moran has the best favorability marks from likely primary voters, with 34% having a positive opinion of him and just 10% viewing him negatively. McAuliffe is the most well known of the candidates, which cuts both ways. He has the second highest favorable rating, 30%, but also has easily the highest unfavorable rating at 23%. Deeds is the least well known of the trio with 67% of respondents having no opinion of him one way or the other.”

Looks like anything could happen here but I guess McAuliffe has the edge with his financial advantage. Does anybody actually think he could win in November? This is a genuine question and not rhetorical.

Since we now know the presidential results in most congressional districts for 2008, we now possess all the tools we need to calculate the new PVIs.

Charlie Cook’s official results will be out in a few months, but unlike in 2004 (where results from 2000 had to be fitted to the new congressional districts) there’s no reason we shouldn’t jump the gun and have our own figures ready. And there’s every reason to want to know who’s representing their districts and who’s a lot more vulnerable than they used to be.

I’m therefore going to attempt to calculate the new PVIs for the states listed in the diary title. They were picked because we have all the results from districts in those states, and because they represent around 20% of America’s congressioanl districts and I’m too lazy right now to do more than that in a sitting.

My methodology conforms to that given in David NYC’s comment to DGM’s diary. My figures are taken from this spreadsheet. My figures are approximate and you should probably ignore everything beyond the decimal point, because I’m using data rounded to the nearest whole number for the district-by-district results.

Details in the extended entry:

If anybody knows how to render this in tabular form, I’m all ears. There’s a Google spreadsheet with my data here and I’ve given a brief list of the new PVIs below.

The numbers aren’t that great, but that’s mostly because of Obama’s improved performance over Kerry. Expect a lot of these numbers to move back slightly towards the Dems if Obama can perform similarly in 2012, and bear in mind that D+0 is now a lot safer than it used to be. It’s also worth noting that the likes of Arkansas and north Florida were much better territory for Gore than for Obama.

AK-AL: R+15.6

AR-1: R+10.4

AR-2: R+7.0

AR-3: R+18.0

AR-4: R+9.4

AZ-1: R+8.2

AZ-2: R+15.3

AZ-3: R+11.8

AZ-4: D+10.7

AZ-5: R+7.2

AZ-6: R+16.8

AZ-7: D+3.6

AZ-8: R+7.0

CT-1: D+10.0

CT-2: D+3.7

CT-3: D+6.7

CT-4: D+2.8

CT-5: R+0.2

DE-AL: D+4.4

FL-1: R+23.6

FL-2: R+8.0

FL-3: D+15.7

FL-4: R+19.2

FL-5: R+11.5

FL-6: R+15.0

FL-7: R+11.0

FL-8: R+5.0

FL-9: R+9.5

FL-10: R+3.2

FL-11: D+9.0

FL-12: R+8.5

FL-13: R+8.0

FL-14: R+13.5

FL-15: R+9.5

FL-16: R+7.0

FL-17: D+31.8

FL-18: R+5.2

FL-19: D+12.2

FL-20: D+10.1

FL-21: R+7.7

FL-22: R+1.7

FL-23: D+25.8

FL-24: R+7.5

FL-25: R+7.0

GA-1: R+18.4

GA-2: R+1.7

GA-3: R+21.4

GA-4: D+21.7

GA-5: D+23.2

GA-6: R+20.4

GA-7: R+19

GA-8: R+12.5

GA-9: R+30.1

GA-10: R+17.0

GA-11: R+22.6

GA-12: R+1.7

GA-13: D+12.2

HI-1: D+8.5

HI-2: D+11.6

IA-1: D+2.4

IA-2: D+4.6

IA-3: R+1.2

IA-4: R+2.4

IA-5: R+11.6

ID-1: R+20.4

ID-2: R+20.0

IL-1: D+31.3

IL-2: D+33.3

IL-3: D+8.1

IL-4: D+29.2

IL-5: D+16.7

IL-6: R+1.9

IL-7: D+31.8

IL-8: R+2.9

IL-9: D+17.0

IL-10: D+3.6

IL-11: R+3.2

IL-12: R+0.1

IL-13: R+4.0

IL-14: R+4.0

IL-15: R+8.7

IL-16: R+4.5

IL-17: D+1.7

IL-18: R+7.5

IL-19: R+12.8

Here’s something that’s way past due: SSP’s first Open Seat Watch chart of the 2010 cycle. This chart was a recurring feature on the front page here throughout 2007 and the first few months of 2008, and we’ll be sure to keep it updated regularly over the coming months. Just like we did last time, I’ve put together charts tracking confirmed retirements/vacancies, potential retirements, and a new third chart tracking seats that were once considered potentially open, but now are not. Here we go:

So that’s ten open seats right off the bat — although three of these will soon be filled by special elections. A bit of a dog’s breakfast, but the list should soon grow to include some even better pick-up opportunities.

Potential Retirements/Vacancies:

Just to be clear here, “age” refers to the incumbent’s age on election day, 2010. (If I have fudged any birthdays by accident, please let me know in the comments.) And once Charlie Cook bakes some new PVIs, I’ll swap out the old numbers in our chart.

Off the Watch List:

If there are any names that I am missing, please share ’em (and your rationale/sourcing) in the comments. Thank you.

P’co:

Sen. Judd Gregg will be nominated as the new Commerce secretary Tuesday morning, giving President Obama a fresh independent voice in his Cabinet but at a huge cost to Republicans and the larger Senate.

The run-up to the nomination has focused on backroom deals, from New Hampshire’s statehouse to Washington, to preserve the balance of power in Congress. And Tuesday’s White House announcement is expected to be accompanied by one by New Hampshire Gov. John Lynch that will ensure that Gregg’s seat won’t switch to the Democrats before the 2010 elections.

Brian Beutler nails it:

Surely Gregg’s desire to replace himself with somebody who will often oppose his new boss’s agenda is evidence of his deep commitment to the administration, the cabinet, and the agency he appears poised to head.

Can’t wait to see whom Lynch appoints… sheesh.

(Hat-tip: dday)

UPDATE: No, says CNN, we aren’t getting some moderate old-timer:

But state political sources from both parties said Monday that Lynch will name Gregg’s former chief of staff, Bonnie Newman, to replace him.

Newman, most recently the interim president of the University of New Hampshire, also worked in the White House during the first Bush administration and was an assistant commerce secretary during the Reagan administration.

A Democratic president is appointing an arch-conservative senator to his cabinet, and a Democratic governor is going to appoint a replacement senator cut from the exact same cloth. Are we living in bizarro-world? I won’t believe this Newman will serve as a caretaker until the filing deadline passes. (H/t: DTM,B!)

According to The Politico President Obama will nominate Judd Gregg to be his Sectary of Commerce tomorrow. Gregg will almost assuredly be confirmed easily and quickly as he’s well liked by Republicans and Democrats alike.

This now opens up his Senate seat. New Hampshire’s Democratic Governor John Lynch has all but pledged to appoint a Republican to the seat and Gregg said he only would have accepted with that condition. The most commonly mentioned liberal Republican placeholder is Bonnie Newman who served as chief of staff to Gregg but also endorsed Lynch in 2004.

This almost certainly assures that Gregg will at least vote for cloture on the stimulus which makes it likely that it will pass. In addition Newman is likely to be close politically to moderate Republicans like Snowe during her two years.

Also, after two years she is likely to retire rather then run for re-election. This will make the Democratic candidate (likely progressive Rep. Paul Hodes or Rep. Carol Shea-Porter) the odds on favorite. Likely Republican candidates include former Senator John Sununu and other even weaker candidates.

So in short, this moves the Senate slightly leftward for the next two years and will add a very progressive Senator after that. In return Gregg will get to be a member of the cabinet where he can’t do a whole lot of damage and will be useful selling stuff to Senate Republicans.  

When we at SSP first hatched the idea of compiling some numbers for presidential election results for congressional districts, we were thinking we’d be lucky to get to 60 or maybe 100 districts. After all, we couldn’t track down precinct-level data for hundreds of counties, sort out what precinct goes into what district, and pick apart large metro counties with thousands and thousands of precincts… could we?

Well, with the aid of SSP’s crack cadre of some of the brightest and most tenacious elections geeks out there — in particular the relentless number cruncher jeffmd and master BoE cajoler Democratic Luntz — we’re closing in on completing all 435 districts. With another 54 added to the pile today, we’re near the 90% mark, with only 51 remaining incomplete. If you want to see all district percentages so far, the link is here; you can also check out the diaries where we released the numbers in more detail here, here, and here.

District	Obama #	McCain #	Other #	2008 %	2004 %	2000 %
AL-02	101,923	179,326	1,499	36.1/63.4	33/67	38/61
AL-05	115,773	185,640	3,364	38.0/60.9	39/60	44/54
CO-02	171,988	82,594	4,159	66.5/31.9	58/41	52/43
CO-04	168,637	171,690	6,229	48.7/49.5	41/58	37/57
MA-03	175,538	117,708	5,613	58.7/39.4	59/40	59/35
MA-04	197,306	107,459	5,175	63.7/34.7	65/33	65/29
MO-01	246,451	59,911	2,849	79.7/19.4	75/25	72/26
MO-03	189,730	124,537	4,589	59.5/39.1	57/43	54/43
MO-04	114,401	183,167	4,712	37.9/60.6	35/64	40/58
MO-05	198,259	110,057	3,371	63.6/35.3	59/40	60/37
MO-06	148,997	179,074	5,894	44.6/53.6	42/57	44/53
MO-07	114,752	204,246	5,013	35.4/63.0	32/67	36/62
NJ-03	181,004	162,339	3,828	52.1/46.8	49/51	54/43
NJ-05	152,506	179,781	3,428	45.4/53.6	43/57	45/52
NJ-06	149,400	98,959	2,791	59.5/39.4	57/43	61/35
NJ-07	177,471	165,430	4,016	51.2/47.7	47/53	48/49
NJ-08	165,346	93,734	2,098	63.3/35.9	59/41	60/37
NJ-09	158,933	99,144	2,270	61.1/38.1	59/41	63/34
NJ-10	208,151	30,192	1,048	87.0/12.6	82/18	83/16
NJ-11	154,300	182,604	3,253	45.4/53.7	42/58	43/54
NJ-13	155,012	50,369	1,750	74.8/24.3	69/31	72/25
NY-01	165,805	153,419	3,032	51.5/47.6	49/49	52/44
NY-08	184,682	63,769	2,121	73.7/25.5	72/27	74/18
NY-10	205,929	19,677	608	91.0/8.7	86/13	88/8
NY-11	206,656	20,709	999	90.5/9.1	86/13	83/9
NY-13	108,439	112,491	1,558	48.7/50.6	45/55	52/44
NY-15	226,049	14,954	1,522	93.2/6.2	90/9	87/7
NY-16	158,671	8,437	335	94.8/5.0	89/10	92/5
NY-17	172,479	66,027	1,312	71.9/27.5	67/33	69/27
NY-20	167,827	157,879	5,286	50.7/47.7	46/54	44/51
NY-21	179,322	123,378	5,733	58.1/40.0	55/43	56/39
NY-22	168,598	111,896	4,168	59.2/39.3	54/45	51/42
NY-23	133,367	119,943	4,112	51.8/46.6	47/51	47/49
NY-24	139,832	133,277	4,743	50.3/48.0	47/53	47/48
NY-25	177,780	135,931	5,216	55.7/42.6	50/48	51/45
NY-29	146,698	153,432	3,966	48.2/50.5	42/56	43/53
OH-14	168,381	169,131	5,193	49.1/49.4	47/53	44/52
OK-01	114,446	205,329	0	35.8/64.2	35/65	37/62
OK-02	91,481	174,351	0	34.4/65.6	41/59	47/52
OK-03	78,434	210,104	0	27.2/72.8	28/72	34/65
OK-04	101,418	200,192	0	33.6/66.4	33/67	38/61
OK-05	116,717	170,189	0	40.7/59.3	36/64	38/62
PA-03	143,416	143,433	4,066	49.3/49.3	47/53	47/51
PA-04	149,661	185,052	3,385	44.3/54.7	45/54	46/52
PA-05	123,503	152,946	3,944	44.1/54.6	39/61	38/59
PA-06	207,911	148,231	3,516	57.8/41.2	52/48	49/49
PA-07	186,232	142,944	3,845	55.9/42.9	53/47	51/47
PA-09	98,430	176,023	3,368	35.4/63.4	33/67	34/64
PA-10	131,335	155,437	3,721	45.2/53.5	40/60	41/56
PA-13	188,903	130,699	3,009	58.6/40.5	56/43	56/42
PA-19	142,398	187,857	3,698	42.6/56.3	36/64	36/61
UT-01	103,737	197,457	9,452	33.4/63.6	25/73	27/68
UT-02	138,790	202,534	11,552	39.3/57.4	31/66	31/67
UT-03	85,143	196,039	11,361	29.1/67.0	20/77	24/75

Some points of interest to check out in this batch: look at PA-06, with some of the steepest improvement in all of Pennsylvania. Any question why Jim Gerlach may be planning to cash it in and run for governor in 2010? It might be because his district just shot past PA-07 and PA-08 to become the bluest all-suburban district in the Philly area.

We have data for most of upstate New York (except for Erie County, where Buffalo is), and it’s striking that Obama improved on Kerry at a much greater clip upstate than in the NYC metro area. One thing that might give us some optimism heading into the NY-20 special election is the nearly 6-point improvement, as well as the fact that the Dem candidate actually won the district in the first time since, well, probably Barry Goldwater. But this is pretty typical across upstate NY, as we also flipped NY-23 and NY-24, moved NY-25 from swing to pretty safe D, and almost even won in New York’s reddest district of NY-29. Compare this with, say, the whiter urban districts, like NY-08 or especially NY-13 (Staten Island and white ethnic parts of Brooklyn), where Obama lost narrowly while barely improving on Kerry’s numbers, and thus nearly overtaking NY-29 as New York’s reddest district.

The biggest improvements here, as in previous installments are in the Mountain West. This is plain to see in Colorado, not just in the 2nd (where the improvement over 2000 is gigantic, although that may have to do with the huge Nader effect among Boulder’s granola-munching crowd) but also in the 4th, where Obama lost by less than a point where Gore lost by 20. And although we didn’t come even close in Utah, some of the biggest percentage gains were there. Look for UT-03 to lose its worst-PVI-in-the-nation status, as Obama made up 9 points there on Kerry.

Is there any bad news to report here? Well, we came oh-so-close to flipping OH-14 in Cleveland’s suburbs (fewer than 1,000 votes), while not moving the numbers much there. And we lost ground in AL-05, the Appalachian portion of Alabama, and PA-04, which, like PA-12, is in the collar counties around Pittsburgh where the Rust Belt fades into the Appalachians.

Probably least appetizing are the numbers out of Oklahoma, but even it provides some interesting insights into the changes from the old Democratic coalition to the current Democratic coalition. Most of the state stayed in neutral over the decade, but compare OK-02 (rural NE Oklahoma around Muskogee) vs. OK-05 (Oklahoma City). We’re getting absolutely hammered in the 2nd, a traditionally Yellow Doggish area that Gore almost won. On the other hand, we shot up in the 5th, the most cosmopolitan part of the state.

So what’s left to do? Our main task is, at this point, getting data from counties who have been unresponsive or are charging an arm and a leg for it. If you’re interested in helping out, check out this diary for a primer; here’s our database of elections boards to contact. And, as always, here’s our master crowdsourcing database… although, as you might notice, most of those blanks have been filled in! Thanks to you guys, of course.

One final caveat: these numbers are subject to change slightly, as we refine the data. In fact, in a few days I’ll be posting a list of several dozen updated districts. None of these changes should amount to more than a fraction of a percentage point, but caution is warranted where a fraction of a percent would make a lot of difference in how the district is perceived (for instance, PA-03, where a very small revision could make all the difference in terms of McCain’s 17-vote margin in the district).