Month: November 2009

By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

I think we all remember the 2008 Democratic primaries, that exciting and epic battle. In many ways the campaign caused more excitement than the general election, whose result was never really in doubt (especially after the financial crisis).

Both candidates drew upon distinctly different coalitions. In an influential article, Ronald Brownstein analyzes the difference this way:

Since the 1960s, Democratic nominating contests regularly have come down to a struggle between a candidate who draws support primarily from upscale, economically comfortable voters liberal on social and foreign policy issues, and a rival who relies mostly on downscale, financially strained voters drawn to populist economics and somewhat more conservative views on cultural and national security issues.

President Barack Obama assembled a coalition from the former, these “wine-track” Democrats. When most Americans think of liberals, they think of wine-track Democrats. Mr. Obama, then, was the liberal candidate; Mrs. Clinton the “beer-track,” working-class representative.

So candidate won the most liberal place in America?

In fact, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton won the state of Massachusetts (you may have realized this by reading the title of this post). The result wasn’t even close; Mrs. Clinton’s margin was 15.37%.

These results are most strange. Barack Obama supposedly built a coalition upon liberal Democrats – yet he lost Massachusetts, the very image of liberalism. He then proceeded to win the nomination.

I will attempt to explain this puzzling result below.

There are several elements to it. Firstly, the state Massachusetts does not contain as many wine-track Democrats as most Americans tend to think. Rather, it includes a number of working-class, beer-track Democrats. These voters support Democrats based upon economic issues (which is not to say they are socially conservative). The state holds a strong union presence along with a high percentage of Catholics, numbering almost half the population. While in many places Catholics no longer vote Democratic, in Massachusetts they still are loyal to the party. According to exit polls, Catholics (45% of voters) went for Clinton by a 2-1 margin, while union households (27% of voters) supported Clinton 60-35.

Nevertheless, Clinton’s overwhelming victory remains surprising. Taking working-class support for Clinton into account, one still would expect Obama to do relatively well.

Remember, however, that this is Hillary Clinton we are talking about. Hillary Clinton, the champion of women’s rights. Hillary Clinton, the powerful and polarizing First Lady conservatives absolutely hated. Though the memory has dimmed, Hillary Clinton once stood at the forefront of “wine-track” liberalism. In February 5th, 2008 many liberal Democrats still remembered Hillary the feminist. Only later did Hillary the working-class fighter emerge.

Moreover, at that time Barack Obama continued to be a relative unknown, a bolt of lightning who had come out of nowhere. Hillary Clinton, therefore, made substantial inroads into Obama’s coalition, just as Obama took away a central pillar of working-class Democrats (blacks). Exit polls indicated that 62% of women supported Clinton (36% supported Obama); progressive white women probably went for her even more strongly. Throughout the primaries, Jews and gays (both deeply liberal groups) tended to support Clinton.

I am not terribly satisfied with this analysis; it does not seem to fully explain how the most liberal state in the union supported the more conservative candidate. The result perplexes me even today.

Nor did Massachusetts constitute an anomaly; Clinton did well in other liberal areas. She and Obama, for instance essentially tied the San Francisco Bay Area:



Reasonable explanations behind this result also exist. Working-class Latinos gave Clinton strong support; thus her large margins in heavily Latino San Jose and Fresno. Moreover, upper-class Asians – a major Bay Area constituency – supported her 3-1.

Yet the fact remains that, out of the two most liberal regions in the nation, Hillary Clinton won a landslide in one and tied another (if one adds together the Bay Area’s nine metropolitan counties, Obama actually wins by 1.2%). All this against an opponent whose base lay amongst liberal Democrats. It is all very puzzling.

Note: All images are modified pictures taken from the NYT.

Public Policy Polling, 11/13-15, 769 voters

Carnahan (D) 43%

Blunt (R) 42%

Undecided 15%

Blunt 53%

Purgason 16%

Undecided 31%

Carnahan (D) 42%

Purgason (R) 35%

Undecided 23%

More info under the fold

Favorable/Unfavorables

Obama: 43/52

Carnahan: 40/36

Blunt: 30/38

Purgason: 7/14

Congressional Democrats: 27/58

Congressional Republicans: 21/62

“Next year do you think you will vote in the Democratic Primary, the Republican primary, or will you not vote in a primary?”

Democratic 41%, Republican 41%, Not Sure/Won’t Vote 18%

“Do you think that Congressional Democrats are too liberal, too conservative, or about right?”

“Do you think that Congressional Republicans are too liberal, too conservative, or about right?

59% say Dems are too liberal, 29% say Reps are too liberal. 12% say Dems are too conservative, 43% say Reps are too conservative. 29% say that Dems are about right, 28% say that Reps are about right.

During Roy Blunt’s 13 years in Congress do you think he has been part of the problem or part of the solution when it comes to huge deficits and too much government spending?

Problem: 65%

Solution: 35%

If you are a Democrat, press 1. If you are a Republican, press 2. If you are an independent or identify with another party, press 3.

Democrats: 36%

Republicans: 32%

Independent/Others: 33%

How about some internals?

82% of Dems approve of how Obama’s doing his job, 88% of Reps disapprove of Obama’s job performance, Indys split 59/32 unfavorable. Obama’s best demo is 18-29 (46/44) and his worst is 65+ (57/37). 816 (KC area) and 314 (STL) approve of Obama, the rest disapprove by 30 points or more.

53% of Republicans view Blunt favorably, 53% of Democrats view Blunt unfavorably, with 30%+ unsure on both sides. Indies split 44/23 unfavorable. Blunt doesn’t top 32% amongst any age demo. Amongst 417 (SW MO) respondents, Blunt has 38% favorability and 38% of people viewing him unfavorably. Yes, amongst his “base”, for every person who likes him, someone dislikes him.

67% of Republicans view Carnahan unfavorably, 74% of Democrats view Carnahan favorably. Indies split 40/33 unfavorable. Carnahan’s best Demo is 46-65. The least certain demo is 18-29 (37% unsure). Robin has a positive with 314 and 816, and is within 10 with 660 respondents.

82% of Republicans picked Blunt, 83% of Democrats picked Carnahan. Indies split 44/32 Blunt. Carnahan wins 18-29 and 46-65. Carnahan wins 314 and 816, Blunt wins 417, 573 and 636 by 15+. Blunt wins 660 by a 42/35 margin.

10% of McCain voters will vote in the Democratic primary, 5% of Obama voters will vote in the Republican primary. (originally I did McCain/Obama splits before getting to the DRIs and editing. But this is more interesting than the DRI split here)

Blunt beats Purgason, 61/10 amongst Republicans and loses Democrats who got lost and who’d vote in a Republican primary, while winning 37/24 amongst Independents.

60% of Democrats view Congressional Democrats favorably, 94% of Republicans view Congressional Democrats unfavorably. Indies split 66/17 unfavorable. 40% of 18-29 view them favorably, and every other Demo is baaad for the Congressional Democrats. Only 314 respondents view Congressional Dems favorably.

44% of Republicans view Congressional Republicans unfavorably, 38% of Republicans view Congressional Republicans favorably. 79% of Democrats view Congressional Republicans unfavorably. Indies split 68/14 unfavorable. 18-29% is 30% favorable, 65+ is 53% unfavorable, the best showings for the Grand Obstructionist Party. 417 respondents had a 20% net unfavorable, a high for the Republicans.

57% of Democrats think Congressional Democrats are just right. 21% say too conservative. 22% say too liberal. 91% of Republicans say Congressional Democrats are too liberal. 46-65 are the best demo for “just right”.

50% of Republicans think that Congressional Republicans are just right, and 38% think that Congressional Republicans are too liberal. 73% of Democrats say that Congressional Republicans are too conservative. 36% of 18-29s say that Congressional Republicans are too liberal, compared to 35% in that demo..

36% of Republicans think that Blunt’s part of the problem, to go along with 83% of Democrats. But 48% of McCain voters think that Blunt is part of the problem. 74% of Indies think that Blunt is part of the problem.. Around 73% of voters from 18 to 45 think Blunt is part of the problem.

And how about some maps?

Roy v. Robin

Obama’s job approval

Blunt, problem or solution?

Conclusions

1) Robin Carnahan has some room to expand amongst some favorable demographics (18-29).

2) Roy Blunt’s base likes him as much as base Republicans liked John McCain.

3) Nobody know who Chuck Purgason is, but his polling numbers exceed his name recognition.

4) People in the KC and STL areas still like Democrats.

5) Roy Blunt is a Washington Insider who is part of the reason for the problems we’re seeing today, and people at least see his time as a GOP leader as a problem.

6) Independent voters don’t like anybody.

7) Congress isn’t popular. Good luck to any current Congressmen who were Republican leaders on selling themselves as outsiders.

• CT-Sen: Linda McMahon has picked up a major critic in her Senate run: one of her former employees, in the form of 66-year-old former pro wrestler Superstar Billy Graham. Graham is a physical wreck from his days in the WWF, thanks to steroid abuse and a number of hip replacements, with no pension or health care from WWE. He plans to keep dogging the McMahon campaign as McMahon keeps trying to sanitize her previous career.

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist is dropping the smiley above-the-fray approach; he’s promising to step up direct engagements with Marco Rubio, now that it looks like we’ve got a real race on our hands. Crist will go after Rubio for failure to move important pieces of conservative legislation during his time as state House speaker.

• KS-Sen, KS-04: This seems to exist mostly as whispers and rumors, but there’s word that Rep. Todd Tiahrt, not getting much traction in polls or fundraising or endorsements, may drop out of the GOP Senate primary against Rep. Jerry Moran. (Tiahrt’s people pushed back against the idea, saying they’re relying on movement grassroots forces that things like “polls” don’t pick up on. They actually also tried redbaiting Moran over his sponsorship of legislation to allow American travel to Cuba, indicating they won’t go quietly.) The question of Tiahrt running for House instead also presents a conundrum for state Rep. Raj Goyle in KS-04, who’s turning into one of the Dems’ best 2010 challengers — would Goyle be better off running in an open seat, or against the 16-year vet Tiahrt in what’s shaping up to be an anti-incumbent year?

• KY-Sen: There had been some talk about Cathy Bailey (a wealthy Bush Pioneer and W’s ambassador to Latvia), back when the GOP was still casting about for an alternative to Jim Bunning. All of a sudden, she’s back, saying she’s considering the race and sounding none too pleased with Trey Grayson (too “moderate” for her tastes) and Rand Paul (too “extreme”). I can’t see her winning the primary, but with her money, she could conceivably peel away enough mainstream GOP votes from Grayson to flip the primary to Paul.

• MT-Sen: It looks like Max Baucus may have suffered some residual damage from his high-profile role in health care reform; he’s down to 44% approval, from 67% approval at this point two years ago, according to an MSU-Billings poll. He’s lagging all other statewide officials, including Jon Tester (56/25) and Brian Schweitzer (62/20). The problem seems to be that Baucus gets only 67% approval among Dems, compared with 81% for Tester and 82% for Schweitzer; a plurality of Montanans, including 73% of Dems, support a public option, so Baucus’s decline among Dems doesn’t seem hard to diagnose.

• NC-Sen: Former Lt. Gov. Dennis Wicker said he won’t be running for Senate, although he’d strongly considered it. With Rep. Bob Etheridge’s recent “no” also, it’s looking more and more like SoS Elaine Marshall will have a lightly contested path to the Dem nomination (her main opponent is attorney Kenneth Lewis).

• NH-Sen: One other important “no” in a Senate race: RNC member and one-time House candidate Sean Mahoney, who had been making lots of candidate-like noises, said he won’t run in the GOP field. If you look a few moves ahead in the chess game, that’s good news for us, as having Mahoney out of the race means fewer votes split on the field’s right flank, giving right-winger Ovide Lamontagne a stronger shot at taking out establishment fave Kelly Ayotte, which would give Dems a much weaker opponent in the general.

• WI-Sen: Former Gov. (and brief presidential candidate) Tommy Thompson isn’t ruling out a Senate bid, although it seems unlikely; he’ll make a decision “next year.” Thompson’s rather strange statement is that he’s “looking at governor, looking at senator, and looking at mayor of Elroy. One of the three.” Seeing as how this is similar to the NY-Sen-B or ND-Sen races (an unlikely challenge to materialize, but one that would be a hot race if it did), SSP is moving the Wisconsin race back on to the big board, as a Race to Watch.

• WV-Sen: Congratulations to Robert Byrd, who hit an astonishing milestone today: the longest-serving Congressperson of all time. Byrd (a Representative from 1952-1958 and a Senator since 1958) has been in Congress for more than 25% of Congress’s existence.

• KS-Gov: Kansas Dems have finally nailed down a solid candidate to take on retiring Sen. Sam Brownback in the gubernatorial race. Retired pharmaceutical company executive Tom Wiggans will carry the flag for the Democrats in this uphill fight. (H/t Mike Nellis.)

• NY-19: I was tempted to put this story on the FP just so I could run the headline “Ball busted!” Roll Call is sounding pretty pissed off at having gotten initially snookered by Greg Ball and his sketchy poll from yesterday. His internal poll only sampled two-thirds of the district (Westchester, Putnam, and Dutchess Counties), oversampling Republican Putnam County and leaving out Orange and Rockland Counties altogether, counties where Hall won last year. Ball’s backers say they’ll do a more traditional poll soon and are still pleased with their findings.

• PA-10: Good news for the GOP: they’ve found an elected official who’s interested in going up against Blue Dog Dem Chris Carney in the sprawling, red-leaning 10th, where they’ve been struggling with recruitment. The bad news is: Snyder Co. Commissioner Malcolm Derk is 27 (and is hard-pressed to look 17 — check out the photo at the link), and Snyder County, deep in the hills, has a population of 38K and is at the wrong end of the district from the population centers.

• WI-08: A line is forming among GOP challengers to Rep. Steve Kagen, and now there’s a former state legislator among them. Ex-state Rep. Terry McCormick served three terms and then lost the 2006 primary in WI-08 against then-state Rep. John Gard when it was an open seat, and now she’s back for another try. There are a couple county supervisors in the race, but the NRCC seems to like Reid Ribble, a businessman who can bring his own money to the race.

• CA-St. Ass.: Republican Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby finished first in the special election (to replace “Hot Mike” Duvall) in AD-72 last night. His 37% wasn’t enough to avoid a second round. He’ll face Democrat John MacMurray (who finished second at 27%) and a Green Party candidate; two other Republicans, Linda Ackerman and Richard Faher, pulled in 20% and 13% respectively, so if Norby consolidates the GOP votes in this red-leaning seat (which falls within CA-40 in the US House) he’s on track to holding the seat.

• NRCC: Pete Sessions, emulating the Dems’ spread-the-field strategy of recent cycles, says he wants to have 435 districts that Republicans are playing in. He may have missed an important piece of information: the Illinois filing deadline is past, and the Republicans are already guaranteed not to be playing in IL-01 and IL-04. Well, 433 is close.

• Mayors: There are dueling internal polls of the upcoming Houston mayoral runoff, one of the two big mayoral races left on the table (Atlanta being the other one). City controller Annise Parker leads former city attorney Gene Locke, 47-34 in her own poll, while in Locke’s poll, Parker has a narrower 43-39 lead.

• Demographics: NDN, a liberal think tank that spends a lot of time on Latino issues, has done some projecting of 2010 re-apportionment, and likes what it sees. They see Texas gaining four seats, and possibly three of those could be drawn as Hispanic-influence seats in Dallas, Houston, and the Rio Grande Valley. They also see Florida gaining a seat, and recommend creation of a Hispanic-influence seat in central Florida (where much of the state’s growth, both overall and among Hispanics, has been).

• Parties: CNN has a poll that points to the current disparity between the parties: Democrats are a lot more tolerant of the big tent. 58% of Dems prefer to see nomination of candidates who can beat the Republicans, even if they don’t agree on all the issues, while 51% of Republicans prefer to see candidates who agree with them even if they have a poor chance of beating the Democrat.

• Votes: Donkeylicious has an interesting project reminiscent of SSP’s own PVI/Vote Index, looking at Dems and seeing how they match up with their districts’ leans. A lot of the same names show up among bad Dems as we found, but they do some interesting breaking things down by region and by freshman or sophomore status.

PPP (pdf) (11/13-15, registered voters, 1/10-11 in parentheses):

Robin Carnahan (D): 43 (45)

Roy Blunt (R): 42 (44)

Undecided: 15 (9)

Robin Carnahan (D): 42

Chuck Purgason (R): 35

Undecided: 23

(MoE: ±3.6%)

Roy Blunt (R): 53

Chuck Purgason (R): 16

Undecided: 31

(MoE: ±5.5%)

In a sign of how consistently this race has polled, Democratic Secretary of State Robin Carnahan has the same one-point lead over Republican Rep. Roy Blunt today that she did in January, according to PPP. Almost everyone else who has polled the race finds a similar narrow lead for Carnahan or a tie. Carnahan is the only figure polled with positive favorables at 40/36 — not Blunt, at 30/38, not Chuck Purgason at 7/14, and not Barack Obama, at 43/52. Given Obama’s negative in Missouri, it’s impressive that Carnahan is doing as well as she is, but that’s got to be a combination of her respected family name and Blunt’s unlikeability.

The most interesting change to this story is the addition of state Sen. Chuck Purgason, who’s flying the anti-establishment flag for the hard right. PPP had leaked that Purgason was polling in the “double digits” against the insidery Blunt, setting off all sorts of breathless speculation — however, while 16% does certainly qualify as double digits, that really doesn’t put him close to Blunt (although, given the current depths of feeling for many right-wingers, his numbers seem likely to go up as he gets better known). Sarah Steelman, who already has a statewide profile and who’d been anticipating a run earlier in the year, may now be kicking herself for not staying in the race. (She landed some good anti-establishment blows on Blunt, calling him a “white guy in a suit,” but then dropped out prior to the summer’s teabagger ascendancy.)

RaceTracker Wiki: MO-Sen

Kansas Democrats are on their way to presenting the strongest slate of candidates in years with respected businessman Tom Wiggans‘ announcement that he will run for Governor. Wiggans, a native Kansan, will run against career politician, and well known right-wing Republican, Sam Brownback.

From his bio:

Tom Wiggans is committed to applying his vast business experience to Kansas state government as our next Governor. By utilizing his common sense business practices to bring people together and solve problems, Tom will work with both Democrats and Republicans to pull our state out of the economic recession, ensure we have a stable state budget, and create 21st century jobs for our future.

His campaign has also put together a bio video which you can see here.

More about Tom Wiggans and his campaign below the fold.

Tom is exactly what Kansas voters need right now. A successful businessman who isn’t going to let rigid ideology guide his decisions. Our state has been hit hard by these challenging economic times. Tom has the vision and experience to weather the economic storm, create 21st century jobs and improve our schools. If you’d like to learn more, or get involved you can check out his website here.

From his bio, here are some other interesting facts about Tom Wiggans:

Born and raised in Fredonia in Wilson County, Kansas

Tom lives in Olathe, KS with his wife Kathryn and two teenage daughters

Tom is the Chief Executive Officer and Chairman of the Board of Peplin, a bioscience company developing a product for skin cancer and other serious skin diseases

Served as a Page to Representative Clyde Hill

Graduated from the University of Kansas with a Bachelor’s Degree in Pharmacy

Member of the board of Trustees of the University of Kansas Endowment Association

As usual, I will continue to update you on the political scene in Kansas and how you can get involved with the party and campaigns. If you’re interested in helping today, here’s some easy things to do:

Tom’s website launched today and you can get involved by clicking here.

Click here to introduce Tom on Twitter:

Big news: Businessman Tom Wiggans has announced his campaign for Governor. Get involved: bit.ly/3MoU1X (Please RT!)

Click here to introduce Tom on Facebook:

Tell your Facebook friends to get involved with Tom’s campaign for Governor!

Thanks for your continued support.

Full disclosure: I work for the Kansas Democratic Party.

Suffolk University (pdf) (11/4-8, likely voters, 9/12-15 in parentheses):

Deval Patrick (D-inc): 38 (36)

Christy Mihos (R): 20 (17)

Tim Cahill (I): 26 (24)

Deval Patrick (D-inc): 36 (36)

Charlie Baker (R): 15 (14)

Tim Cahill (I): 26 (23)

(MoE: 4%)

This poor poll has been getting kicked down the road behind the scenes here at SSP for half a week now, but let’s give it its due. It sees incumbent Democratic governor Deval Patrick in a weird position: his approvals are upside-down, at 42/51 — worse than many governors currently seen as losing their 2010 races — and he has an even-worse re-elect of 32/55. Nevertheless, he’s somehow still thumping his opposition, winning three-way matchups by 10 points.

Patrick is one of the few endangered Dem governors who seems to be improving his position as the year wears on, and it seems to be all thanks to the presence of Tim Cahill, the Dem-turned-independent state Treasurer who seems to split the anti-Patrick vote, which, if added up, is the plurality of the vote. The state’s few Republicans are sticking with the full-on Rs, while Cahill seems to pick up the Dems who can’t stomach voting for Patrick or a Republican. This can be seen in the polls before Cahill got in, where Patrick trailed his Republican opponents, versus the ones after Cahill’s entry — the most recent of which, Suffolk‘s previous poll and Rasmussen, have Patrick up by double digits.

RaceTracker Wiki: MA-Gov

• AR-Sen: PPP’s Tom Jensen has some interesting crosstabs from their AR-02 poll, which shed some light on Blanche Lincoln’s unique set of problems. Lincoln generates only lukewarm enthusiasm from her base: Barack Obama gets a 78% approval among Dems in the district, Rep. Vic Snyder is at 75%, and Mark Pryor is at 61%, but Lincoln is at only 43%, with 30% of Dems thinking she’s too conservative (although that may be coming to a head right now with her obstructionist role in the health care debate, which may not be much of an issue one year from now). Moving to the left, though, will cause her to lose votes with independents, though, among whom 49% think she’s too liberal.

• CT-Sen, CT-05: Local GOP party poohbahs are sounding eager to push state Sen. Sam Caligiuri out of the Senate race, where he’s rather, uh, underutilized, and into the 5th, for a race against Democratic Rep. Chris Murphy; Caligiuri says he’ll consider it. Problem is, Justin Bernier is already running there, and has had some fundraising success and gotten NRCC “Young Gun” status; as you might expect, Bernier is crying foul.

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist has been trying to hide from his previous stimulus support, but Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson has the goods on him, dragging out an old interview from spring in which Crist says “absolutely” he would have voted for the stimulus had he been in the Senate at the time. Here’s one bit of good news for Crist, though; Marco Rubio‘s once-perfect A rating from the National Rifle Association is about to drop, thanks to Rubio’s compromise (from back when he was House speaker) on the take-your-gun-to-work law that recently became law.

• IL-Sen: Former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman has an internal poll of his own now, and while it doesn’t give numbers for the Dem primary matchup between Hoffman and frontrunner Alexi Giannoulias, it does point to some vulnerabilities for Giannoulias. The poll claims that without message-testing, GOP Rep. Mark Kirk leads Giannoulias 40-37 and leads Hoffman 40-30, but once positives and negatives are read, Kirk beats Giannoulias 47-30 and Hoffman beats Kirk 42-36. The negatives involve the Giannoulias family bank, which apparently has been connected to Tony Rezko. Meanwhile, Kirk took an embarrassing hit from the conservative Chicago Tribune editorial board, whose response to Kirk’s flip-flopping and fearmongering on trying terrorists in New York boiled down to “Give us a break.” Wondering why Kirk is so transparently turning into a right-winger? Kirk’s looking increasingly nervous about erstwhile opponent Patrick Hughes, who is currently seeking out a Jim DeMint endorsement.

• KY-Sen, NH-Sen: The NRSC is claiming it’s not getting involved in primary fights with fundraising, but you can’t make party leadership’s intentions any clearer than when Mitch McConnell hosts a fundraiser in New York on Dec. 7 for Trey Grayson and Kelly Ayotte. With both candidates facing mounting anti-establishment challenges, it seems like the bad publicity back home generated by these appearances — more grist for the movement conservative mill — might outweigh the financial benefit.

• NJ-Sen: Now that recently unemployed TV pundit Lou Dobbs has some time on his hands, he told Bill O’Reilly he’s considering a run for the Senate in New Jersey. There isn’t a seat available until 2012 (when Dobbs will be 67) — he’d be going up against Bob Menendez that year. Dobbs vs. Menendez? Hmmm, you can’t get any more weighed down with symbolism than that.

• SC-Sen: The county GOP in Berkeley County (in the Charleston suburbs) was prepared to have its own censure vote against Lindsey Graham, but they called off the vote after Graham’s chief of staff promised to meet with them first.

• CA-Gov (pdf): Lots of people have taken notice that the Republican field in the governor’s race isn’t a diverse bunch: three sorta-moderates from Silicon Valley. San Jose State University took a poll of those who would seemingly know the candidates the best: Republican likely voters in “Silicon Valley” (Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, plus small parts of Alameda and Santa Cruz Counties). Perhaps thanks to Tom Campbell’s tenure in the House representing much of this area, he has a wide lead, at 39%, compared with 11 for Meg Whitman and 7 for Steve Poizner.

• MI-Gov, MI-08: In case there was any doubt that Rep. Mike Rogers (the Michigan one) was going to run for re-election to his House seat and not for governor, we found a statement from way back in February to that effect. (H/t to Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, a blog devoted to all things MI-08.)

• MN-Gov: Rasmussen looks at the still-coalescing primary fields in the Minnesota governor’s races, and seems to be finding very name-recognition-driven results right now. On the Democratic side, most of the votes are going to former Senator Mark Dayton and Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak; both poll at 30, trailed by state House speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher at 8 and former state legislator Matt Entenza at 6. On the Republican side, ex-Sen. Norm Coleman dominates, with 50%; however, he’s not in the race, at least not yet, and is probably the only name that people know. Among the rest of the rabble, former House minority leader Marty Seifert is doing the best, at 11, with 5 for Laura Brod and 1 for Tom Emmer.

• OR-Gov: Most people have already mentally ruled out Rep. Peter DeFazio from the governor’s race, but he just said that he’s still somewhat interested, and that he won’t be making up his mind on it until… next March? He doesn’t seem too concerned about the delay, as Oregon law would let him transfer over his federal dollars and he alludes to private polling showing him in a dead heat with John Kitzhaber. While I still doubt he’ll follow through, that raises the question of who might fill a vacancy in OR-04; it’s looking less and less like it would be Springfield’s Republican mayor Sid Leiken, who was just fined $2,250 by the state for the phantom poll that may or may not have been conducted by Leiken’s mom.

• TX-Gov: Little-known fact: Kay Bailey Hutchison, despite the seeming overall malaise in her campaign, has a big edge in endorsements from Texas House Republicans. She has the endorsements of 10 of 20 (including Kay Granger, Kenny Marchant, and Michael Burgess), perhaps indicative of Rick Perry’s increasingly strident anti-Washington rhetoric. (Not that that will help much when the actual electorate is in an increasingly anti-establishment mood.) A couple other Dems are looking at the race: hair care magnate Farouk Shami (who’s willing to bring his own money to the race) is officially launching his campaign on Thursday, while El Paso-based outgoing state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh is publicly weighing a run.

• FL-19: West Palm Beach mayor Lois Frankel, who would have been maybe the highest-profile possible primary challenger to state Sen. Ted Deutch in the upcoming special election in the 19th, has decided not to run. Deutch has been endorsed by outgoing Robert Wexler and has an increasingly clear path to the nomination. Meanwhile, the only GOPer looking interested in running in the dark-blue district is Ed Lynch, who lost to Wexler last year.

• IL-06: Here’s a little more information about Benjamin Lowe, who’s the only Dem running in the 6th against Peter Roskam. While he’s something of a political unknown, it turns out he’s well-connected in the religious left community as well as the green jobs movement. He’s a graduate of evangelical Wheaton College (which is in the district) and has been active in the last few years in organizing students at other evangelical colleges on issues of environmental stewardship.

• NY-13: I don’t know if anything can top last year’s NY-13 race for political trainwrecks, but the Staten Island GOP may have gotten switched onto that same track again. Michael Allegretti, a 31-year old who caught attention for raising $200K for the race already, is a lawyer who also owns a share of the family business, Bayside Fuel and Oil — which employed Gambino family capo Joe “Joe Butch” Corrao for several decades. Over $40K of Allegretti’s contributions came from family members working for Bayside. To add to the made-for-TV drama: Allegretti’s potential Republican primary opponent, Michael Grimm, was on the FBI squad charged with investigating said crime family.

• NY-19: Republican Greg Ball — who puts the “Ass” in Assemblyman — is out with an internal poll putting him within single digits of Rep. John Hall. Hall leads the Hall/Ball matchup, 48-43 — although for some reason the poll was taken only in the portion of the district that’s east of the Hudson River. Hall still has strong favorables, at 57/25, while Ball is at 40/28.

• NY-23: Recounting in NY-23 is still on track to see Rep. Bill Owens remain in the House; Doug Hoffman is down 2,951 votes with 6,123 left, so about the best he can hope for is to lose by about 2,000. The Hoffman saga just got weirder when yesterday Hoffman, goaded along by his patron Glenn Beck, unconceded on national TV — yet today, his spokesperson un-un-conceded, not that any of that is legally binding, of course.

• NRCC: If the Republicans are going to make a serious dent in the Democratic edge in the House next year, they’re going to have to refill the NRCC’s coffers, which are still lagging the DCCC. Party leadership smacked down members in a closed-door session, trying to get them to pony up their $15K dues. The Hill also has an interesting profile of CA-22’s Kevin McCarthy, an up-and-comer who’s the NRCC recruitment chair now and likely to head the NRCC at some point in the near future. Turns out that McCarthy is quite the student of Rahm Emanuel.

• Mayors: SurveyUSA polls the runoff in the Atlanta mayor’s race, and they have quite the reversal of fortune for Mary Norwood, who led all polls before November and finished first in the election. State Sen. Kasim Reed, who finished 2nd, now leads Norwood, 49-46. Reed leads 69-25 among African-American voters, indicating that he picked up almost all of 3rd-place finisher Lisa Borders’ support.

• Special elections: Two legislative specials are on tap tonight. The big one is California’s AD-72, a Republican-leaning seat in the OC left vacant by the resignation of Mike Duvall (who resigned in disgrace after bragging about his affair with a lobbyist). It seems to be mostly a contest between two GOPers, Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby and activist Linda Ackerman (who’s been making much of Norby’s four divorces). Since this is California, assuming one of the Republicans doesn’t finish over 50%, it’ll move on to another round where the top Republican faces off against Dem John MacMurray. Also, in Mississippi, there’s a contest in Biloxi-based HD-117, to replace Republican state Rep. Michael Janus; candidates aren’t identified by party on the special election ballot, but the contestants are Patrick Collins (who ran against Janus several times) and Scott DeLano.

• Redistricting: You might want to check out the website called “Redistricting the Nation,” presented by GIS software company Avencia but full of fun widgets. Most interestingly, you can evaluate the compactness of any congressional district by four different criteria, and see the worst offenders in each category.

Susquehanna Polling and Research (R) (11/10-15, registered voters, 4/27-30 in parentheses):

Beau Biden (D): 45 (34)

Mike Castle (R): 40 (55)

Undecided: 8 (8)

(MoE: ±3.4%)

Mike Castle may be rasping to himself, Lloyd Bridges-style, “Looks like I picked the wrong week to run for Senate.” And Beau Biden, who’s been strangely coy about whether or not to run for Senate since his return from Iraq, may suddenly feel motivated to declare his intentions.

Susquehanna does a fair amount of Republican internal polling, so unless they’re trying some weird messing-with-Biden’s-head psy-ops, that makes the finding of a 5-point Biden lead all the more surprising. The last time they looked at the race was April, when Castle had a 21-point lead instead. Between this and R2K‘s findings last month that the race was a dead heat, it may be time for the rest of the punditocracy to re-evaluate whether this is really the GOP’s best shot at a pickup.

UPDATE: The full memo is available now, and Susequehanna attributes this shift in large part to Castle’s “no” vote on health care reform, which occurred shortly before the poll went into the field and apparently didn’t play well with the state’s left-leaning electorate. They also point to Castle polling better among Republicans (72-17) than Biden does among Democrats (65-21), but given Delaware’s sizable Democratic registration advantage and a narrowing Castle edge among indies (42-37, down from 55-28 in April), that’s enough to put Biden over the top.

RaceTracker: DE-Sen

• IA-Sen/Gov: The newest Des Moines Register poll by Selzer & Co. has some appalling numbers for Democrats. In the Senate race, Chuck Grassley leads Democratic challenger Roxanne Conlin 57-30. And in the gubernatorial race, incumbent Dem Chet Culver trails Republican ex-Gov. Terry Branstad by almost as wide a margin, 57-33 (with Culver also trailing conservative GOPer Bob vander Plaats 45-37, although Culver beats several other GOP minor-leaguers). A 24-point beatdown is hard to believe given Culver’s poor-but-not-abysmal 40/49 approval rating, and this is way out of line with R2K‘s polling last month, but this being Iowa, I’d be hesitant to bet against Selzer. (Discussion already well underway in desmoinesdem’s two diaries.)

• IL-Sen: Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who was considered a likely candidate in this race for a long time but eventually backed down, endorsed state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias in the Democratic primary. Giannoulias now has the endorsement of five of Illinois’s twelve House Dems. Also today, Patrick Hughes, the conservative alternative to establishment GOP pick Rep. Mark Kirk, is in DC looking for support from conservative movement poohbahs. The DSCC has a well-worth-seeing video out detailing Kirk’s transparent shift to the right (especially his pleas for help from Sarah Palin) as he seeks to fight off primary challenges.

• MA-Sen: The voter registration deadline to be able to participate in the primary special election to replace Ted Kennedy is this Wednesday. The primary itself is Dec. 8.

• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov (pdf): Siena’s monthly look at the Empire State shows a little improvement for Kirsten Gillibrand, who now narrowly leads ex-Gov. George Pataki, 45-44. She loses 49-43 to Rudy Giuliani; weirdly, while the rumor mill has until very recently had Pataki likelier to make the Senate race than Giuliani, Pataki now seems much likelier to run for President, while Liz Benjamin is now wondering if Giuliani‘s recent bout of national security saber-rattling shows he’s more likely to run for Senate than Governor.

Meanwhile, Siena has yet another installment in the ongoing David Paterson implosion. Paterson’s approval is down to 21/79, 69% would prefer to elect someone else, and he now loses the Democratic primary to Andrew Cuomo by a 59-point margin (75-16) while, in a first, also losing the general to Rick Lazio (42-39) as well as, natch, Giuliani (56-33). Cuomo defeats Giuliani 53-41 and Lazio 67-22. Latest Cuomo rumors involve him trying to assemble a whole slate to run with, and central to that is recruiting outgoing NYC comptroller William Thompson to run for state comptroller. Having the African-American Thompson on a ‘ticket’ with him would take some of the awkwardness out of Cuomo elbowing aside an African-American governor to avoid a replay of the 2002 gubernatorial primary. Cuomo also wants a female AG (possibly Nassau Co. DA Kathleen Rice) and an upstate LG to balance everything out. Still, that would set up a hot Democratic primary between Thompson and incumbent comptroller Thomas DiNapoli; there’s some tension between Cuomo and DiNapoli, though, so that’s another instance of two birds, one stone. Finally, in case there were any doubts, Hillary Clinton confirmed that she has no intention of getting in the gubernatorial race.

• SC-Sen: Lindsey Graham, although not up until 2014, could be going the way of Olympia Snowe. There are leaks of private polls showing that more Republicans oppose Graham than support him, and that his support among independents is dwindling too. I guess that’s what happens when you vote the party line only 93% of the time.

• TX-Sen: Little-noticed in the announcement on Friday that Kay Bailey Hutchison was going to delay her resignation until after the gubernatorial primary election in March means that, unless she does it immediately afterwards, the special election won’t be held until November 2010. Conventional wisdom is that this is good for the GOP, as the seat will be easier to hold as part of a larger election instead of on its own. (Of course, that assumes KBH resigns at all assuming she loses the gubernatorial primary, which somehow I doubt.) The Austin American-Statesman also has a good rundown on what the delay means to all of the potential players in the special election.

• ME-Gov: The Maine governor’s race may well wind up as crowded as the one in Minnesota: we’re up to 21 candidates, although most of them are minor. One more medium-to-big name is getting in today on the Dem side, though: John Richardson, the former House speaker and current commissioner of the state Dept. of Economic and Community Development. Current Conservation Commissioner Patrick McGowan is also looking likely to get in the Dem field.

• WY-Gov: Former US Attorney Matt Mead has formed an exploratory committee to run for the Republican nomination in next year’s gubernatorial race in Wyoming. He joins state House speaker Colin Simpson and ex-state Rep. Ron Micheli in the hunt. Mead, you may recall, was one of the finalists to be picked to replace Craig Thomas in the Senate, but that post went to John Barrasso.

• IL-11: This isn’t the way to get your campaign off on the right foot: Adam Kinzinger, who has the insider backing for the GOP nomination in the 11th, stormed out prior to a debate held by Concerned Taxpayers United against his primary competition when one of them, David McAloon, had a staffer with a video camera present. The base in the district is already suspicious of Kinzinger, and ticking them off this way can’t help.

• NY-25: One race in a swing district that hasn’t been on anyone’s radar is NY-25, held by freshman Dem Dan Maffei. He’s drawn two potential challengers, wealthy ex-turkey farmer Mark Bitz and former Syracuse Common Councilor Ann Marie Buerkle. Bitz hasn’t held office before, but says he’s prepared to loan himself a “substantial amount” of money. He’ll need it, as Maffei has been one of the freshman class’s top fundraisers.

• TN-01: Fans of wingnut-on-wingnt action may be disappointed to hear that it sounds unlikely for ex-Rep. David Davis to take on slightly-more-mainstream Rep. Phil Roe (who knocked out Davis in a 2008 primary) next year. Although he’s been staying visible at local tea parties, Davis is focusing on paying down campaign debt from last time.

• UT-02: It doesn’t sound like Rep. Jim Matheson is going to face a primary over his health care vote after all; state Sen. Scott McCoy said he didn’t intend to go after Matheson, citing the difficulty of a run given the overall composition of the GOP-leaning district.

• Biden Alert: Joe Biden is in the midst of a western swing, doing a Sunday fundraiser for Rep. Dina Titus. Today he’s holding events for Ann Kirkpatrick, Harry Mitchell, Martin Heinrich, and Harry Teague, bringing the total to 26 for vulnerable House Dems he’s campaigned for. Biden will also be in Connecticut next month for a Chris Dodd fundraiser.

• NRCC: To avoid a repeat of NY-23, the NRCC has basically turned the vetting process over to Grover Norquist and friends. Norquist said that at a recent meeting between the NRCC and conservative movementarians, 40 recruits were discussed and they apparently all met the litmus test (although Norquist grudgingly admitted that some of the northeasterners were “as good as it gets”).

• WATN?: Ex-Rep. Bill Jefferson’s going to the big house. On Friday, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison after his August conviction for money laundering and wire fraud; this is the longest sentence ever handed out to a former Congressman.

• Maps: As if electoral junkies didn’t have enough online tools to geek out over, now there’s this: super-helpful step-by-step instructions on how to generate a county-by-county map of the country on, well, whatever topic you want, using only free tools instead of expensive GIS software.

• Site News: We were so busy following the off-year elections that we didn’t notice it at the time, but last month, the Swing State Project welcomed its seven millionth visitor. (Number six million came this past March.) Thanks, everyone! (D)