Month: March 2009

Siena College (PDF) (3/25-26, likely voters, 3/9-10 in parentheses):

Scott Murphy (D): 47 (41)

Jim Tedisco (R): 43 (45)

Eric Sundwall (L): 2 (1)

(MoE: 3.2%)

If I had a Drudge siren, I’d be breaking it out right now. There’s been blogosphere whispers for the last few days of various leaked polls showing Murphy within a point or two or even up by a point, but nothing quite of this magnitude: Scott Murphy has turned a four-point deficit from two weeks ago into a four-point lead in a public poll. Before we start dancing in the end zone, though, we have to remember that this is a low-turnout special election, and whatever happens is going to be decided by GOTV and ground game. Even if we’re peaking at the right time, the key is going to be actually getting those Murphy voters to the polls.

The GOP registration edge in the district isn’t helping Tedisco much. Part of the problem is that Murphy has the support of 84% of the Democrats, while Tedisco has the support of only 64% of the Republicans. The poll also has crosstabs of the regions within the district: while Murphy is remaining steady in the region he’s from (Essex/Warren/Washington Counties), he’s gained 8% since last poll in Rensselaer/Saratoga Counties (to 43%) and 7% in the Hudson Valley (to 46%). Combined with his 58% in the north, that’s enough to put him over the top.

There’s still one wrinkle in this poll: it includes Libertarian candidate Eric Sundwall, who got kicked off the ballot yesterday for not having enough valid petition signatures. While I’d expect more of Sundwall’s votes to migrate to Tedisco than Murphy, some of his would-be voters may simply stay home, and at any rate, Sundwall’s share in this poll is still smaller than the Murphy/Tedisco margin.

UPDATE by James L.: A new DCCC poll has Murphy leading Tedisco by a 43-41 margin. No details are available yet on its sample size or the name of the outfit that conducted the poll.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (3/23-25, likely voters, no trendlines):

Chris Dodd (D-inc): 45

Rob Simmons (R): 40

Chris Dodd (D-inc): 51

Sam Caligiuri (R): 30

Chris Dodd (D-inc): 53

Larry Kudlow (R): 31

Ned Lamont (D): 30

Joe Lieberman (I-inc): 25

Jodi Rell (R): 42

Dick Blumenthal (D): 28

Joe Lieberman (I-inc): 25

Jodi Rell (R): 43

(MoE: 4%)

After the extended flap about what his role was in allowing payment of the AIG bonuses, conventional wisdom on Chris Dodd seemed to turn on a dime in the last week, as he suddenly went from being considered relatively safe to being considered a lame, if not dead, duck. Research 2000 acted quickly to get into the field in Connecticut and get the first post-AIG-gate poll of CT-Sen, and it looks like the CW may be overreacting a bit in sticking a fork in Dodd.

Dodd’s favorables are still in positive territory, clocking in at 47-40. Dodd is also beating all his GOP rivals, including ex-Rep. Rob Simmons (who edged Dodd out by a point in a recent but pre-AIG Quinnipiac poll) by a 5-point margin. He’s in the below-50% danger zone against Simmons though, and he’s also uncomfortably close to 50 against little-known state senator Sam Caligiuri. (R2K also polls CNBC bobblehead Larry Kudlow, who last night ruled out a run.)

While it looks like we can put the fork back in the drawer, Dodd’s position is still precarious enough that Swing State Project is downgrading CT-Sen to “Lean Democratic.” AIG might be starting to recede in the nation’s rear-view mirror, but in his position as the Senate’s lead Dem on banking issues, he’s in a highly-visible hot seat for any further Wall Street scandals and crises… and if his last week is any indication, he’s gotten kind of rusty at dodging incoming fire. Simmons also remains a popular figure with a lot of upside; his favorables are 41-18.

This poll’s also a two-fer, as we look ahead to 2012. The good news is: Joe Lieberman fares poorly against both AG Dick Blumenthal and 2006 candidate Ned Lamont, narrowly trailing each of them. The bad news is: this is a three-way race, and if Republican governor Jodi Rell decides to jump in, she beats all of them handily. (Rell has favorables in the Mother Theresa/Joan of Arc realm, at 71-20.) It’s way too early to tell if Rell is interested in taking this route, though, and she certainly shouldn’t be considered “generic R,” as there’s a pretty steep falloff to whatever else is on the GOP’s bench.

Kind of a strange mash-up of topics in one post, but I think it makes sense, as sort of a roundup of Republican moderates in the news. On the one hand, you have a governor thinking about a senate seat and on the other hand you have an ex-senator thinking about a governor’s seat.

“The point was that I am not running for anything, so no one could threaten me, because I’m not running for Senate, I’m not running for Congress, I’m not running for another term as governor,” Schwarzenegger said.

Arnold Schwarzenegger gave his Shermanesque statement to the Sacramento Bee today, in the context of defending unpopular policy choices he seems about to make (probably involving tax hikes). This leaves Barbara Boxer with a pretty clear road to re-election (not that Arnold posed much of a threat anyway).

As Lincoln Chafee celebrates his 56th birthday today, a source tells WRNI that he has decided to run for governor in 2010, and will soon begin to assemble a campaign organization.

On the other hand, Lincoln Chafee seems ready to officially jump into the Rhode Island governor’s race as an independent, according to WRNI. As we discussed last week, both the Dem and GOP fields are unsettled right now as likely frontrunners David Ciccilline (for the Dems) and Steve Laffey (for the GOP) both bowed out… so this may actually begin with Chafee in the driver’s seat.

UPDATE (DavidNYC): With Arnold saying hasta la vista, baby to a senatorial run, we’re taking CA-Sen off of our Races to Watch list.

Suffolk University (PDF) (3/17-20, registered voters, no trendlines):

Deval Patrick (D-inc): 30

Tim Cahill (D): 35

(MoE: 4.9%)

It’s become pretty clear in the last few months that the nation’s governors have become the least popular people in the country, as they bear the brunt of decreased revenues and become the public face of tough service cuts/tax hikes choices. Add Deval Patrick to near the top of the list of unpopular governors. Suffolk takes the temperature of Massachusetts, and people there are even surlier than usual: Patrick’s job approval rating is 40-49, and on the question of whether he deserves re-election, the response is 34-47. (On the broader question of favorability, people still like Patrick as a person; his favorables are 44-43.)

Buried deep in the poll is also the interesting bit that I’ve blockquoted above: Patrick is so unpopular that he loses a hypothetical primary to treasurer Tim Cahill (who has previously expressed some interest, but is reportedly not running). Nevertheless, things aren’t so bad that Bay Staters are willing to consider a Republican for governor (they say ‘no thanks’ 52 to 34; the poll doesn’t name a specific GOPer). So if there’s going to be any action in this seat in 2010, it’s going to be in the primary.

There are some other provocative odds and ends in the poll’s fine print; people are both strongly supportive of both keeping gay marriage and legalizing casino gambling. Also, when presented with a list of more than a dozen possible names for the rather morbid topic of succeeding Ted Kennedy, nobody even clears 10%. The top vote-getter is his nephew, ex-Rep. Joe Kennedy (at 8%). AG (and Aqua Teen Hunger Force arch-enemy) Martha Coakley is second, at 6%.

• NY-20: Lots going on in the Empire State today, as we enter the home stretch. Perhaps most significantly, the GOP finally succeeded in getting Libertarian candidate Eric Sundwall kicked off the ballot, on the grounds that he didn’t have enough valid petition signatures. Siena found Sundwall polling at only 1% (Benenson gave him 4%), but there have been multiple rumored internal polls floating around within the last few days that have it as a 1 or 2-point race, so Sundwall’s votes (which seem likelier to migrate to Jim Tedisco’s column) may make a big difference. (Siena promises a new public poll to be released tomorrow.)

Joe Biden also jumped into the special election, cutting a radio ad touting Murphy and his own sort-of-local ties (he’s a Syracuse Law alum). The NRCC is continuing to work the faux-populist angle, rolling out a new ad criticizing Murphy for being on the board of an Internet company that paid bonuses to workers while losing money. (I assume that company wasn’t receiving hundreds of billions on the government dole, though.)

• CA-10: There’s already an internal poll of the race to replace Ellen Tauscher in the East Bay suburbs, commissioned by assemblywoman Joan Buchanan. In a bit of a surprise, Buchanan leads the pack, slightly edging presumptive frontrunner state senator Mark DeSaulnier. Buchanan is at 21, DeSaulnier at 18, with two Republicans, San Ramon mayor Abram Wilson and former assemblyman Guy Houston, at 14 and 13. (It’s polled that way because in a California special, like in CA-32, all candidates run in a multi-party primary, and if no one breaks 50%, the top person from each primary advances to a general, which according to this poll would be Buchanan and Wilson.) Buchanan and DeSaulnier both are waiting for Tauscher’s resignation to announce; it’s not clear whether either of the GOPers will get involved.

• NH-01: Manchester mayor Frank Guinta looks pretty serious about taking on Carol Shea-Porter in 2010; he met a second time with the NRCC about the race. He’s still likely to face a primary battle against John Stephen, who barely lost to Jeb Bradley in the 2008 primary and seems to be planning to try again.

• OR-05: Buried deep in a CQ article about how the parties are turning more to self-funders is a delightful tidbit about Mike Erickson, last seen getting flattened by Kurt Schrader in the 2008 open seat battle. Despite his last campaign collapsing into a horror show of Cuban junkets and abortion hypocrisy, he’s “actively considering” a third try for the seat in 2010. We could only be so lucky.

• CT-05: It’s been telegraphed for a number of weeks, but today it’s official: Justin Bernier, former Rob Simmons aide and former director of Connecticut’s Office of Military Affairs, will be running against Chris Murphy in the 5th. Murphy had little trouble defeating a state senator, David Cappiello, in 2008.

Roll Call:

State Senate Minority Leader John McKinney (R) is considering challenging freshman Rep. Jim Himes (D) in 2010, according to Washington, D.C.-based Republican sources.

If he decides to run, McKinney would enter the race with a name-identification advantage. McKinney’s father, former Rep. Stewart McKinney (R), held the 4th district seat for 17 years until his death in 1987. …

In addition to McKinney, state Senate Deputy Minority Leader Rob Kane (R) has also been mentioned as a possible candidate for the seat. Kane could possibly fund some of his own bid – a major plus for the district, which includes part of the most expensive media market in the country, in New York City.

McKinney would be a strong challenger, especially if the gov races goes largely uncontested and Chris Dodd acts as an anvil at the top of our ticket. However, according to SSP’s analysis, Obama surged to a punishing 60-40 margin in this district (Kerry won just 52-46), even though Connecticut was not targeted at the presidential level, making CT-04 tough sledding for any Republican.

Are Dems finally lining up a challenger to take on GOP Sen. David Vitter? Roll Call reports that state Sen. Eric LaFleur may be close to making a decision:

LaFleur said this week that he’s been in touch with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee about the race and “we are going in that direction.”

However, LaFleur said he doesn’t expect to make a final decision on a Senate bid until after the state legislative session ends.

This is the first time I’ve ever heard LaFleur’s name tossed around for this race — and if the DSCC is asking him out to this dance, it might mean that some of the bigger names (Chris John, Charlie Melancon, Don Cazayoux, and self-funder Jim Bernhard) are taking a pass. Whatever the case, “we are moving in that direction” is about the most exuberant statement we’ve heard from a prospective Democrat about this race so far.

Meanwhile, Republican Secretary of State Jay Dardenne is neither shitting nor getting off the pot:

While the names of other would-be primary challengers to Sen. David Vitter (R) have come and gone, Secretary of State Jay Dardenne (R) said this week that he remains on the fence about a 2010 Senate bid.

“I’m continuing to get a lot of encouragement from a lot of people,” Dardenne said Tuesday. “I have not decided to run, nor have I ruled out the possibility that I may run.”

Maybe this jerkweed just likes the free press.

(From the diaries – promoted by DavidNYC)

None of you asked for Maryland, but I wanted to redraw a state in which I couldn’t use townships and incorporated municipalities as a crutch. Four of Maryland’s five largest communities are unincorporated – Columbia, Silver Spring, Ellicott City and Germantown.

Plus, having lived in Maryland for quite awhile, I wanted to do a state that I actually had a local feel for. Lastly, Democrats control both the General Assembly and the Governorship, so no quips about this map being “unrealistic”!

I apologize for the title ahead of time – I’ve seen tourist gear with that slogan one too many times flying out of BWI….

My goals:

• Strengthen Kratovil (1st)

• Pack Republicans into Bartlett (6th)

• Keep all other Democrats at their previous levels or 65%, whichever is lower.

(When you have this many Democrats to protect….)

Anyways, here’s the map (click for full-size version):

Update: I realized I mis-merged some shapes in my GIS and this lead to a misrepresentation of the 1st and 5th in Anne Arundel County. Fixed.

So normally, there’d be a nice map of the state broken up by municipalities and colored in based on McCain/Obama performance. In Maryland, this was harder: I consolidated precincts to match up with Census 2000’s voting tabulation districts (VTDs). Sometimes, in cases where precincts changed significantly, I consolidated some VTDs, too. I’ve creatively named these consolidated VTDs “CVTDs”.

Also, tabulating data by CVTD is a pain in the ass. Seriously. So I only created CVTDs for counties that had a chance of being split. So here’s the map, colored by CVTD for some counties (I wasn’t going to split Calvert, St. Mary’s, the Eastern Shore, or the Panhandle).

District-by-district, here goes (numbers are: Population, Voters, %African American, Obama%, McCain%):

This is the district we were all wondering about, Frank Kratovil’s 1st. Before, the 1st took in all of the Eastern Shore, a chunk each of Anne Arundel, Harford, and Baltimore counties. Those parts were absolutely brutal, so I removed the the BaltCo (35% Obama)/Harford (33% Obama) parts completely. Additionally, instead of taking in the Republican pats along the North Shore, the district runs through the city of Annapolis proper and into PG County. Yes, the district reaches across the bay, but the old district did this too. Plus now, I can use the Bay Bridge as an excuse, as both ascents to the bridge are in this district now. Obama lost the AA part of the district 39-59, but he won the reconfigured part of Anne Arundel 56-42. We weren’t going to more artfully draw Baltimore, so for Democratic strength, the new 1st looks to Prince George’s County – Obama’s 88-11 performance there anchors this district. Overall, Obama scored 56% here – up a whopping 16%.

Dutch Ruppersberger’s district doesn’t change much – still the southern half of Harford, an arm across Northern BaltCo, and a section of the city. However, there’s no awkward arm across the Patapsco into Anne Arundel this time. The Harford section is a tad less Democratic, the BaltCo section a bit more, and Baltimore City a bit less. However, the removal of Anne Arundel bumps this district to 60%, up about 0.5%.

Surprisingly, I think this incarnation of the 3rd is less gerrymandered than before – there’s no one-block wide sliver connecting to distinct sections. The major change from before is the placement of almost all of Howard County into this district, which had been located mostly in the 7th. Instead of making a westward facing loop through Baltimore as before to hit Towson, this district makes an eastward facing U. Obama got 61%, up 2% from before.

Donna Edwards’ district also isn’t changed much. A large section of upcounty MontCo and Prince George’s along the DC line. With the 8th shifted northward, the 4th is a bit more Montgomery-heavy, but stays majority African-American. This shift drops Obama’s performance by about 3%, but this is still the most Democratic district in Maryland at 82%.

Steny Hoyer’s district, again, experiences some minor shifts. It still contains all of the Southern Maryland trifecta of Charles, Calvert, and St. Mary’s. I had thought about cracking Charles to tap its population growth and Democratic trend, but ultimately decided against it. A large chunk of PG is taken by the 1st, so this district expands farther into Anne Arundel. At 64%, this is about a 1% drop.

We took some Republicans out of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd districts, and this is where they go. I cut out Democratic-trending and sububanizing southern Frederick County and just packed as many deep-red VTDs in here as possible from Harford and northern Baltimore County. The Panhandle and Carroll County remain in their entirety. This drops Dem performance to 35%, down 5%.

Before, this district took in a large chunk of Howard County, before reaching into Western BaltCo and West Baltimore. We took the extremely Republican parts of Anne Arundel County out of the 1st, and this was the safest place to deposit them. The anchor of the district stays Baltimore City, which also maintains the 56% African-American composition of the district. At 73% Obama, this is a drop-off of 6%, but again, no cause for concern.

It was tempting to make this district solely Montgomery County, but that’d well, be too clean. (It’d also abandon some strong Democratic votes in Frederick City.) Thus, this takes a bite out of Southern Frederick along 270, and then takes in the western half of Montgomery County and ventures east into Silver Spring. Frederick is nowhere as Democratic as downcounty Montgomery County, resulting in a 5% drop in Obama’s performance to 69%. Even if Frederick’s shift was a one-time thing for Obama, the vast majority of the district is still in Montgomery County.

So I’m pretty sure my map of Maryland is not only better – resulting an improvement for the three most marginal Democratic districts and negligible drops in the other 4 Democratic districts – but less gerrymandered, I dare say. Questions, comments, witty descriptors for what the districts look like, and suggestions always welcome.