Month: November 2009

The Fix:

North Carolina Rep. Bob Etheridge has decided against running for the Senate in 2010, according to informed sources, a choice that hands Democrats another setback in their recruiting efforts against Sen. Richard Burr (R). […]

Attorney Cal Cunningham, who also drew some interest from the DSCC, announced earlier this week he also would not run, although it’s likely that national party strategists will make another run at him in the wake of the Etheridge decision. Secretary of State Elaine Marshall is also running.

The writing for this one was pretty much on the wall ever since we got word that the DSCC wanted Etheridge to bury his announcement at the end of the week. Perhaps Cal Cunningham’s decision to pull the plug was a tad premature — but now he’ll have what appears to be the undivided interest of the DSCC. Will he have a change of heart, Kay Hagan-style?

RaceTracker Wiki: NC-Sen

Quinnipiac (11/3-8, registered voters, 9/10-14 in parens):

Chris Dodd (D-inc): 38 (39)

Rob Simmons (R): 49 (44)

Undecided: 11 (15)

Chris Dodd (D-inc): 41 (NA)

Linda McMahon (R): 43 (NA)

Undecided: 12 (NA)

Chris Dodd (D-inc): 42 (40)

Sam Caligiuri (R): 42 (36)

Undecided: 14 (20)

Chris Dodd (D-inc): 40 (40)

Tom Foley (R): 47 (38)

Undecided: 13 (18)

Chris Dodd (D-inc): 42 (42)

Peter Schiff (R): 41 (36)

Undecided: 15 (19)

(MoE: ±2.8%)

Chris Dodd (D-inc): 55 (56)

Merrick Alpert (D): 22 (13)

Undecided: 21 (25)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Rob Simmons (R): 28 (43)

Linda McMahon (R): 17 (NA)

Tom Foley (R): 9 (5)

Peter Schiff (R): 5 (4)

Sam Caligiuri (R): 4 (2)

Undecided: 36 (43)

(MoE: ±5.4%)

Democrats had been seeming more confident about two Senate races, in Connecticut (where Chris Dodd seemed to be climbing back up to contention, as various controversies like the AIG bonuses and his mortgage that had buffetted him earlier in the year faded from view) and Ohio (where polls had shown the Democrats leading ex-Bushie Rob Portman). Yesterday, though, Quinnipiac threw a splash of cold water on both of those races.

In Connecticut, Republican ex-Rep. Rob Simmons, with whom Democratic incumbent Chris Dodd had pulled within 5 in September, now opens up an 11-point lead. Simmons also still looks on track to win the nomination, despite the splashy entry of wrasslin’ impresario Linda McMahon. Dodd had 42/49 favorables — actually a slight improvement from last time’s 40/48. Instead, Dodd seems dragged down by the economy, which respondents see as the biggest issue (at 33%) and which, for better or worse, the Democrats are starting to own. Simmons has a squeaky-clean 40/10 favorable (better than McMahon, at 20/13), so it may be time for Dodd to open up a Corzine-style can of slimy whoopass on Simmons — maybe starting by asking him what’s the deal with that teabag attached to his pocket constitution.

One other lowlight from the Connecticut poll: they find Joe Lieberman more popular than Chris Dodd, with 49/44 approval and a 46/45 re-elect. This despite 51% saying his views are closer to those of the Republican Party and 25% saying Democratic.

Quinnipiac (11/5-9, registered voters, 9/8-10 in parentheses):

Lee Fisher (D): 36 (42)

Rob Portman (R): 39 (31)

Undecided: 24 (26)

Lee Fisher (D): 38 (41)

Tom Ganley (R): 34 (29)

Undecided: 27 (27)

Jennifer Brunner (D): 34 (39)

Rob Portman (R): 38 (34)

Undecided: 27 (25)

Jennifer Brunner (D): 35 (39)

Tom Ganley (R): 32 (31)

Undecided: 30 (27)

(MoE: ±2.9%)

Lee Fisher (D): 24 (26)

Jennifer Brunner (D): 22 (17)

Undecided: 51 (55)

Rob Portman (R): 26 (27)

Tom Ganley (R): 7 (9)

Undecided: 64 (61)

(MoE: ±4.9%)

The economy may also be weighing on voters’ minds in Ohio, where Quinnipiac finds even Barack Obama in net-negative territory, with a 45/50 approval (although, compared with his national approvals, that may point to this as a slight outlier rather than an indication of particular disgruntlement in Ohio — recall this was the same sample that found a 40-40 tie in the gubernatorial race). The result is a pretty big turnaround in the Senate race, where Lt. Governor Lee Fisher was beating ex-Rep. Rob Portman by double digits in September but now falls into a slight deficit. Fisher beats teabagging auto dealer Tom Ganley, but there looks like little hope of Ganley getting out of the primary.

These numbers also indicate why SoS Jennifer Brunner is sticking around, despite the wheels having fallen off her campaign (and subsequently having been sold for food). Regardless of her fundraising situation, she’s still coming pretty close to Fisher in the primary, and performing about the same against the Republicans as Fisher. That, of course, may change once the ad wars begin.

RaceTracker Wiki: OH-Sen | CT-Sen

You may remember that in the wake of the 2008 elections, I tried out a new quantitative project, developing an index for predicting vulnerability for House members based on a mix of PVI and previous House election performance. (It turned out to be pretty useful, in that 2006 numbers were pretty predictive of who actually got knocked off in 2008.)

I included, of course, what the index would predict for 2010, but with the caveat that things would change as we became aware of more open seats. With a number of open seats in key races now known — and with SSP Labs gearing up to issue a Competitive House Race Ratings table — it’s time to re-crunch the numbers. Two other important modifications are being included here, too: back in January, we were still relying on 2000-04 Cook PVIs, but now we have 2004-08 PVIs. This can help us more accurately pin down where some of the races are headed, in view of accelerating pro-Democratic trends in, say, California or Illinois and pro-Republican trends in Arkansas and Tennessee. And rather than using 2008 margins in NY-20, NY-23, CA-10, CA-32, and IL-05, I’m using the narrower 2009 special election margins in each of those cases.

Here’s a quick recap of how it works. Check out the chart of vulnerable Democrats below, which indicates that Bobby Bright is in the worst shape. Bobby Bright had the 3rd narrowest margin of victory of any Democrat (0.6%, behind only Tom Perriello at 0.2% and Scott Murphy at 0.4% in the NY-20 special), and he’s in the district with the 4th worst PVI of any Democrat (R+16, behind only Chet Edwards, Gene Taylor, and Walt Minnick). Add them up for a raw vulnerability score of 7, the worst of any Democrat. Slightly below him you might notice that LA-03 gets a margin of 0 (despite that Charlie Melancon won unopposed in 2008); that’s the tweak that I perform for all open seats. With PVI alone (R+12, 13th worst of any Dem-held seat), the raw score is 13, good for 3rd place.

I can already anticipate all the objections: it doesn’t take into account the quality of the opposition, it doesn’t take into account fundraising, it doesn’t take into account whether a candidate is uniquely appealing or unappealing or campaign-savvy or rusty, and it doesn’t take tough votes into account. That is all true. This is just a simple yardstick for getting the conversation started. And at any rate, if you want something more nuanced, Tom Schaller over at 538 recently put together a chart incorporating some of these other elements and still got… well… some weirder results (Gerry Connolly in VA-11 the most vulnerable? Doesn’t seem likely.)

Rather than the 20 I featured in January, I’m expanding the Dem list to 50, as it looks like Democratic vulnerabilities may extend well beyond 20. Not to say that we’re definitely looking at anything close to a 1994-sized event next year — we don’t have anywhere near the number of open seats up next year (yet) as in 1994, which was where the GOP did the most damage — or that Democratic House losses in 2010 will exceed 20, but simply acknowledging that the NRCC has been successful in “spreading the field” by recruiting solid candidates in rarely-challenged Dem-held red districts, and some of the losses may come from seats outside the currently most likely suspects.

District	Rep.	Margin rating	PVI rating	Total
AL-02	Bright	3	4	7
ID-01	Minnick	6	3	9
LA-03	Open	0	13	13
MD-01	Kratovil	5	11	16
TX-17	Edwards, C.	21	1	22
AL-05	Griffith	11	12	23
MS-01	Childers	28.5	7	35.5
VA-05	Perriello	1	38	39
NY-29	Massa	7	36	43
NY-20	Murphy, S.	2	53	55
VA-02	Nye	17.5	40	57.5
GA-08	Marshall	42	16	58
PA-10	Carney	38	20	58
PA-03	Dahlkemper	9	50	59
NC-02	Open?	0	60	60
PA-04	Altmire	34	29	63
MI-07	Schauer	8	56	64
AZ-05	Mitchell	25	43	68
FL-08	Grayson	14	54	68
NM-02	Teague	36	34	70
TN-04	Davis, L.	61	9	70
NY-24	Arcuri	14	57	71
CO-04	Markey, B.	37	35	72
OH-16	Boccieri	30.5	48	78.5
AZ-01	Giffords	35	44	79
OH-15	Kilroy	4	75	79
NY-23	Owens	14	66	80
AZ-01	Kirkpatrick	49	32	81
ND-AL	Pomeroy	67	15	82
OH-18	Space	59	24	83
IN-09	Hill	57	27	84
WI-08	Kagen	22	62	84
NJ-03	Adler	16	70	86
TX-23	Rodriguez	40	47	87
NC-08	Kissell	30.5	59	89.5
UT-02	Matheson	85	5	90
NH-01	Shea-Porter	20	72	92
CA-11	McNerney	28.5	64	92.5
FL-24	Kosmas	48	45	93
SC-05	Spratt	68	25	93
OH-01	Driehaus	17.5	78	95.5
NH-02	Open	0	97	97
FL-02	Boyd	65	33	98
NC-11	Shuler	70.5	28	98.5
PA-07	Open	0	99	99
KS-03	Moore, D.	50.5	49	99.5
FL-22	Klein	23	77	100
MO-04	Skelton	95.5	6	101.5
NV-03	Titus	19	84	103
NY-19	Hall	52	51	103

Again, some of these names may not be in much danger, because of a combination of their entrenchment and the lack of much of a GOP challenge so far (Chet Edwards, Marshall, Carney). And there are a few names who aren’t on the list because they faced token or no opposition last year who are facing potentially worrisome challenges this year (Snyder, Tanner). Finally, bear in mind that some of these might still turn into open seats and get bumped much higher up the list, as some of the oldsters (Skelton, Spratt) might get tempted to say “Screw it” and throw in the towel a few years earlier than planned.

Now let’s turn to the vulnerable GOP seats. The good news is: the Democrats start out with 4 pickups likely in their pockets, more vulnerable than any Democratic-held seat, which is a solid bulkhead against GOP gains elsewhere. The bad news is: after that, the pickings get pretty slim.

District	Rep.	Margin rating	PVI rating	Total
DE-AL	Open	0	2	2
IL-10	Open	0	3	3
PA-06	Open	0	4	4
LA-02	Cao	5	1	6
WA-08	Reichert	16	5	21
MI-11	McCotter	17	11	28
CA-50	Bilbray	11	23	34
MN-03	Paulsen	22	12	34
FL-12	Open	0	41	41
OH-12	Tiberi	34	8	42
IL-13	Biggert	28	15	43
NJ-07	Lance	24	20	44
CA-44	Calvert	3	48	51
FL-25	Diaz-Balart, M.	18	34	52
CA-03	Lungren	15	38	53
IL-06	Roskam	44.5	9	53.5
CA-26	Dreier	33	24	57
NE-02	Terry	7	53	60
MI-02	Open	0	62	62
MN-06	Bachmann	6	58	64
PA-15	Dent	58	6	64
CA-46	Rohrabacher	26	39	65
NV-02	Heller	29	37	66
MI-08	Rogers, M.	52	16	68
MN-02	Kline	39	29	68

For comparison purposes, the January charts are over the flip…

District	Rep.	Margin rating	PVI rating	Total
ID-01	Minnick	5	1	6
AL-02	Bright	2	5	7
MD-01	Kratovil	4	10	14
TX-17	Edwards	19	2	21
VA-05	Perriello	1	26.5	27.5
AL-05	Griffith	10	20	30
MS-01	Childers	25.5	8.5	34
NY-29	Massa	6	29.5	35.5
VA-02	Nye	15.5	22	37.5
CO-04	Markey	34	11.5	45.5
PA-10	Carney	35	14	49
GA-08	Marshall	39	13	52
FL-08	Grayson	12.5	44	56.5
MI-07	Schauer	7	49.5	56.5
NM-02	Teague	33	23.5	56.5
WI-08	Kagen	20	38.5	58.5
OH-15	Kilroy	3	58	61
AZ-05	Mitchell	23	38.5	61.5
PA-03	Dahlkemper	8	54	62
OH-16	Boccieri	27.5	40	67.5

As you can see, Bright and Minnick have flipped places, thanks to ID-01’s Democratic shift and AL-02’s continued reddening. The same goes for VA-05, where Tom Perriello slipped down a few spots thanks to strong presidential performance in Virginia (although last week’s gubernatorial results in rural Virginia indicate Perriello is far from out of the woods). Also, notice Scott Murhpy’s high entry on the new chart, although that doesn’t have anything to do with trends in his district, only with the paper-thin margin of his special election victory.

District	Rep.	Margin rating	PVI rating	Total
LA-02	Cao	5	1	6
PA-06	Gerlach	9	6	15
IL-10	Kirk	13	4	17
WA-08	Reichert	16	5	21
MI-11	McCotter	17	16	33
MN-03	Paulsen	22	12	34
NJ-07	Lance	24	13	37
OH-12	Tiberi	34	14	48
CA-50	Bilbray	11	40	51
MN-06	Bachmann	6	46.5	52.5
FL-25	Diaz-Balart	18	37	55
CA-44	Calvert	3	55	58
AL-03	Rogers	25	34	59
LA-04	Fleming	1	60	61
FL-15	Posey	31	30.5	61.5
MN-02	Kline	39	23	62
CA-26	Dreier	33	30.5	63.5
MO-09	Luetkemeyer	4	60	64
NY-26	Lee	38	27	65
PA-15	Dent	58	8	66

By contrast, a few Republicans (Fleming, Luetkemeyer, and Alabama Mike Rogers) fall off the list thanks to strong McCain performances in 2008 in their districts. Even Michele Bachmann looks a little safer, thanks to little presidential movement in her district (although she’s a prime example of how this formula can’t account for the quality of a challenger or the insanity of an incumbent).

• NY-23: There was a brief moment of collective “Holy crap!” earlier today when people realized that the race in the 23rd wasn’t quite over. The Bill Owens lead over Doug Hoffman shrank considerably (down to 3,176 votes currently, compared to 5,335 at the end of election night) after recanvassing, including discovery of some errors in Hoffman-leaning Oswego County. There remain 5,600 absentee votes to be counted, so for the election results to actually change, Hoffman would need to win about 80% of those votes (many of which were sent in while Dede Scozzafava was still in the race). Hoffman’s camp is admitting that the results of the race aren’t about to change, but they say they might not have conceded so quickly on Election Night if they’d known it was going to be so close — meaning that the big story here is that they could have stopped Bill Owens from being sworn in and providing one of the decisive votes on health care reform in the House.

• FL-Sen: Every day now seems to bring a little more bad news for Charlie Crist, and today’s bit is that members of the Florida state GOP are demanding an “emergency closed door meeting” with the state chair, Jim Greer. The meeting-demanders seem to be Marco Rubio supporters, and they’re particularly exercised about Crist’s relationship with sketchy financial backer Scott Rothstein.

• IL-Sen: Rep. Mark Kirk’s pronounced turn to the right has been unsubtle enough that even NARAL is noticing, and calling him out on it. They’re no longer considering him “pro-choice” after his Stupak amendment vote, and say they’ll be working toward his defeat next year.

• ME-Sen: We weren’t the only ones to take notice of Olympia Snowe’s terrible approvals among Republicans according to PPP. The Family Research Council is now saying that if a conservative candidate shows up to run against Snowe in 2012, the FRC will back them.

• NC-Sen (pdf): PPP’s newest poll of North Carolina finds more of what they’ve been finding all year: people are lukewarm about Richard Burr (with an approval of 40/31) and he only narrowly leads a Generic Dem (44-40). However, Burr does better against named Democrats, including Rep. Bob Etheridge (45-35), SoS Elaine Marshall (45-34), and former Lt. Gov. Dennis Wicker (45-33).

• NV-Sen: There’s yet another hapless-seeming Republican entering the GOP Senate field: former Nevada Board of Education member Greg Dagani. Dagani is probably best known for resigning from the Board of Education after getting caught making out with his wife during a public meeting. Wait… his wife, and not a staffer (or someone he met in Argentina and/or the men’s room)? Are we sure he’s a Republican?

• UT-Sen: Here’s a little more information on the two new guys scoping out the GOP field in the wake of AG Mark Shurtleff’s departure, suggesting that they both have the potential to be formidable opponents to Bob Bennett. In fact, these two might do better at gaining the favor of the teabaggers, in that Shurtleff (who was running to the conservative Bennett’s right) was somehow considered not conservative enough in some circles (mostly owing to his immigration stance). Wealthy businessman Fred Lampropoulos was a gubernatorial candidate in 2004, almost forcing Jon Huntsman to a primary. And while lawyer Mike Lee hasn’t run for office before, he’s the son of Mormon leader and former BYU president Rex Lee, which means a lot in Utah (although Bennett’s family’s role in the Mormon church also looms large).

• CO-Gov: Is Scott McInnis about to get Scozzafavaed? The law of unintended consequences seems to point that direction. After ex-Rep. McInnis’s establishment moneybags supporters thought they were being smart by hounding state Senate minority leader Josh Penry out of the GOP primary, that just seemed to tick off the anti-establishment base. And now a much higher-profile (and much less palatable in the general) candidate with a national following to draw on is emerging to take Penry’s place. Yes, it’s ex-Rep. Tom Tancredo, who’s saying that he’ll file to create an exploratory committee in the next few days.

• MN-Gov: Another Republican fell by the wayside in the overstuffed Minnesota gubernatorial race. State Sen. Mike Jungbauer dropped out, citing fundraising troubles and a weak showing in a recent straw poll.

• WI-Gov: People have treated Republican Milwaukee Co. Exec Scott Walker as a strong contender in the Wisconsin gubernatorial race, but he seems to have a certain tone-deafness about him: he met with Sarah Palin during her Wisconsin visit to try to secure an endorsement from her… in a state where Barack Obama won 56-42.

• DE-AL: Republicans managed to lure somebody into the open seat race to replace Rep. Mike Castle, despite that this race may be the Republicans’ likeliest House loss in 2010. Fred Cullis, who owns an industrial sales company, said he’d be an “independent voice” for Delaware a la Castle.

• FL-08: I don’t know if this is an indicator of the NRCC having settled on Bruce O’Donoghue as its consensus pick, or a case of Rep. Alan Grayson having yet more success with his voodoo doll, but yet another prospective Republican challenger is turning tail and running. First-term state Rep. Eric Eisnaugle made public his decision not to run.

• FL-16: St. Lucie County Commissioner Chris Craft has previously sounded some moderate notes as he takes on freshman Republican Rep. Tom Rooney in this R+5 district, but he’s not playing it safe on health care. He came out yesterday saying that he’d have voted for the House health care reform bill and against the Stupak amendment.

• PA-17: Republican state Senator David Argall batted down rumors that he’d challenge long-time Rep. Tim Holden in this GOP-leaning Harrisburg-based seat, saying he was “99% sure” he wouldn’t run. Blue Dog Holden seems on track to receive his usual free pass.

• Nassau Co. Exec: Republican Ed Mangano’s lead over incumbent Dem Tom Suozzi expanded to 497 in the recount of the Nassau County Executive race on Long Island. Suozzi also waxed philosophical in an interesting interview with Ben Smith, pointing to a public exhaustion with civic engagement and a return to “self-interest” on tax issues.

• Mayors: Endorsements from the 3rd place finishers were handed out in the runoff elections in both the Atlanta and Houston mayoral races. In Houston, city controller Annise Parker got the endorsement of city councilor Peter Brown, who surprisingly finished behind Parker and former city attorney Gene Locke. (Locke is African-American, Parker is white and a lesbian, and Brown is a straight white guy.) And in Atlanta, city councilor Lisa Borders endorsed state Senator Kasim Reed, consolidating the African-American vote against white city councilor Mary Norwood, who finished first.

• Vote By Mail: Washingtonians are getting pretty tired of watching their elections drag on (the Seattle mayoral race this time). There’s a renewed move afoot in Washington to change election laws to match the mail-in ballot law in better-organized Oregon, where ballots must be received by Election Day instead of postmarked by Election Day. The movement is getting a boost with Gov. Chris Gregoire’s support.

This is the first in a series of posts examining the future of Texas Politics that I hope to write. I intend to examine ongoing demographic and political shifts in detail, and look to the future of statewide elections, Congressional and State Legislature elections, and redistricting.

Texas is the second largest state in the Union, after California.

Texas has been, for several years, a majority minority state.

Texas has 34 electoral votes, which will increase to 37 or 38 for the 2012 Presidential Election.

On the Presidential level, Texas has been one of the primary pieces (if not the primary piece) in the Republican Electoral College puzzle for years.

On the State level, Texas has not voted for a Democratic candidate for anything Statewide since 1994.

Yet if we can extrapolate from current trends, at some point in next decade Texas will become a bona fide purple swing state. Then it will become a blue state. Then it will become a linchpin of the Democratic electoral coalition, and as Texas flips, modern Conservative Republicanism as we know it will face mortal danger.

Contemporary Republican Dominance

A casual (Democratic) observer could be forgiven for thinking that Texas politics is nothing but bad news. After all, Texas seems to have produced plenty of bad news in recent years:

A) No Texas Democrat has won Statewide office since 1994.

B) Since 1976, Texas has consistently cast its ever increasing number of electoral votes for Republicans, constituting the key base of the GOP electoral college coalition.

C) There was the mid-decade redistricting in 2003, through which the GOP picked up 6 Congressional seats.

D) Even in a year when Democrats won a national landslide and Obama even won North Carolina and Indiana, he lost Texas by 12%, even with McCain having lost any home-state edge that Dubya might have claimed.

E) Rick Perry.

F) Of course, Texas is the adopted residence of that noted Northeastern Republican, George W. Bush.

I’ll stop the tedious litany there. Enough with the present, let’s look at the past.

A Brief History of Texas Politics

In order to understand Texas future, it is helpful to start with at least a basic familiarity with a story book version of Texas past. No, this is obviously not anywhere close to comprehensive, but very briefly:

1. Starting after the end of Reconstruction, Texas was a solidly Democratic state, much like the rest of the American South. Actually, it was a one party State for up until the latter quarter of the 20th Century. The Texas Democratic Primary was THE election in Texas.
2. Actually, that is false – there were in reality two “parties” – factions within the so-called “Democratic Party.” They were the Conservative Democratic Party (the socially dominant Bourbon Democrats), and the Progressive Democratic Party (including Populists, Liberals, and later on, racial minorities). In truth, these were the two political parties in Texas.
3. After World War Two, new people began moving to Texas. They came from other States, like George H.W. Bush coming from Connecticut, and did not seem to realize that it was not proper to be a Republican in Texas, or that Texas had a two Party system under the umbrella of one Political Party. They moved to the booming suburbs of Dallas and Houston, as well as Midland, and started what was effectively a third party movement – the Republican Party.
4. Gradually, the Texas Republican Party began winning the occasional election. Whenever the occasional Republican State Representative or Congressman sprouted from Texas soil, the Democratic Party did everything it could to rid the State of Texas of the blight of Republicanism. At first, when Republicans began popping up in the Dallas, Houston, and West Texas, Democrats were able to redistrict them out of power. But over time, it became unavoidable that Republicans would win some seats, both in the Texas House/State Senate and in Congress. Faced with this reality, Democrats packed Republican voters as densely as possible into strongly GOP districts, in order to limit the number of Republicans that could be elected.
5. At the same time, voting rights were gradually granted to racial minorities, who began to support the Progressive Democrats.
6. Seeing this, the Republican Party began to pursue the Southern Strategy, casting the Democrats as the party of Minorities. This was succesful in winning over the Conservative Democrats, mostly in more rural areas of Texas.
7. This trend towards the Texas Republican Party reached its greatest height under the Governorship and then the disastrous Presidency of one George W. Bush. The Republican Party and the Conservative Democratic Party were as fully united as they have ever been, and they merged into one mass. In 2002 (aided by an ambitious State House gerrymander they were able to draw because of their dominance of statewide races), for the first time ever, the Republican Party won total control over the Texas government.
8. The GOP set itself an ambitious goal – to destroy the last vestiges of the former 3 Party State, and “permanently” entrench the Republican Party in power, not just in Texas but in the Country as a whole. To accomplish this, they sought to defeat every last Anglo Democrat through mid-decade Congressional Redistricting. If the Anglo Incumbent’s district was voting GOP on the statewide level, they were thrown into a district designed to elect a Conservative Republican. If the Anglo Incumbent’s district was voting Dem on the statewide level, the GOP sought to change the district so that the Anglo Democratic incumbent would lose to a Hispanic or African American Democrat in the Democratic Primary. Jim Turner, Ralph Hall, Charlie Stenholm, Max Sandlin, Nick Lampson, Ralph Hall, and Chet Edwards were drawn into heavily GOP territory they had not previously represented.  Chris Bell, Lloyd Doggett, and Gene Green’s districts minority percentages were increased in an effort to ensure they would lose in Democratic Primaries to minority candidates. Martin Frost was a special case – his Democratic, majority-minority district was dismembered into a collection of districts that would all (and did) elect Anglo Republicans. Just as once no young (Anglo) Texan had grown up thinking it was acceptable to be a Republican, the GOP sought to ensure that no young (Anglo) Texan would grow up thinking that it was acceptable to vote for a Democrat. Texas was now a 2 Party State in line with the national norm, with an ascendant GOP pitted against a moderate to liberal Democratic Party. With the exception of an ever-dwindling number of old line rural stragglers, the Democratic Party was dominated by representatives from urban and minority areas – chiefly Dallas-Fort Worth, Houston, Austin, San Antonio, and the Rio Grande Valley. Texas was no longer a 3 Party State: the Conservative Democrats had merged with the Republicans into one united Republican Party. Texas was now a 2 Party State, with one Party (The Republican Party) holding hegemonic power.
9. But nearly as soon as GOP predominance was put in place, the Bush Administration gradually collapsed into abject failure. Texas Democrats began making gradual gains in the State House, almost entirely in Urban/Suburban areas. In a bizarre 4-way Gubernatorial race in 2006, Incumbent Republican was re-elected with only 39% of the vote. In 2008, after a Presidential primary that energized Democratic voters, Texas voted solidly for John McCain, though much less solidly than it had voted for Bush.

This narrative of the past is necessarily incomplete and biased in what I included and what I left out – but that’s my story and I’m sticking too it.

Back To The Future

That ever-dwindling number of old line rural Conservative Democratic stragglers dwindles further still. The latest example came only last week, when rural East Texas State Representative Chuck Hopson switched from the Democratic Party to the Republicans. He now faces a difficult GOP primary fight. Ironically, many of those GOP Primary voters who may vote against him have much more historically in common with the one-time Bourbon Democrats than with the Post-WW2 Sunbelt Suburban Republicans of Dallas and Houston.

Kay Bailey Hutchison (a Dallas Republican) and Rick Perry (a Conservative Democrat until 1990) face off in a monumental GOP Gubernatorial primary. This primary cuts down a fault line in the contemporary Texas GOP. On the one hand stand the rural Rick Perry Conservative Democratic-Republicans, openly speaking of secession and other madness, as did their forebears in 1860. On the other hand stand the traditional Republicans of Sunbelt Suburbanism. As their own Northeastern forebears (like the Bush’s of Connecticut and Maine) were, the old line Republicans are more than a bit skeptical of neo-Jefferson-Davisism.

One could analogize the present day Texas Republican Party to an insane asylum. In that analogy, the inmates would be the rural Conservative Democrats, and the wardens would be the suburban Republicans who (once?) dominate(d?) the Party, heirs to the great Sun Belt Republican migration to the Dallas/Houston suburbs (The Tom Delays and Pete Sessionses of the world) and to Midland (The Tom Craddicks of the world). The outcome of that primary will be in some ways a test of just how much the “inmates” (rural Conservative Democrats) have taken over the asylum (the Republican Party) from the suburbanites who once pulled the levers. Admittedly, though this split is real, it is not absolute, and Kay Bailey Hutchison is much more the moderate Rockefeller Republican in image than in fact. But I am more than tempted to wonder whether we are coming full circle – a Conservative Democratic Party (renamed as the Republican Party) up against a Progressive Democratic Party (the Democratic Party).

Meanwhile, it is at least conceivable that a Democrat could win the governorship if, Scozzafavalike, GOP primary ruptures the fault between the two factions of the GOP – the old GOP, and the Conservative Democrats. It is also possible that Bill White could win a seat in the US Senate. But Democrats have had many shattered hopes in statewide races in Texas over the past number of years. And redistricting looms just over the horizon.

PBI or Party Brand Index is a concept I developed (with some much appreciated help from pl515) as a replacement for PVI.  PVI (Partisan Voting Index), which is measured by averaging the percentage of the vote from the last two presidential elections in each house district, and comparing it to the nation as a whole, is a useful shorthand for understanding the liberal v. conservative dynamics of a district. But PVI in my opinion it falls short in a number of areas. First it doesn’t explain states like Arkansas or West Virginia. These states have districts who’s PVIs indicates a Democrat shouldn’t win, yet Democrats (outside of the presidency) win quite handily. Secondly why is this the case in Arkansas but not Oklahoma with similar PVI rated districts?

Lastly PVI can miss trends as it takes 4 years to readjust. The purpose of Party Brand Index is to give a better idea of how a candidate does not relative to how the presidential candidate did, but compared to how their generic PARTY should be expected to perform. I’ve tackled IN, NC, CO, VA, MO, OK, AR, WV, NH, OH, and Florida. Now I will look at the fast becoming a purple state of Arizona

Like always I would like to post the data, then I will offer some analysis. My basic pattern is to work my way “out” from the “Purple States” to the more Blue and Red ones. (Although once in a while I like to skip my normal pattern of working out from purple states.  I’m often curious on how my model would work in states like that are deeply blue at the local level, but deeply red at the presidential level.) As a reminder a negative number indicates a Republican bias to a district, while a positive number indicates a Democratic bias.

Let’s examine the fast becoming a purple state of Arizona.

ANALYSIS

Arizona’s number are masking some trends. John McCain was basically unchallenged in 2004, his large victory margin has skewed the numbers in most districts PBI by about 2-3 points. Also there are a number of other trends working in team blue’s favor.

47% of Arizona’s voters had a college education. Obama carried all 14 states (and DC) that had higher college educated electorates. In fact of the 23 states plus DC that were over 44% Obama carried everyone except Arizona, North Dakota, and Texas.

Latinos grew from 12% to 16% of the electorate, but Obama had one of the smallest increases in their support levels of any state. They supported Kerry over Bush in 2004 at 56% to 43%, Obama was at 57% to 41%. Consider this a home state advantage.

The biggest obstacle to a Democratic victory in the future is the party registration numbers. Republicans outnumber Democrats by about 7% state wide, Obama only carried one state where Republicans outnumber Democrats (Indiana). Since GOP voters tend to be more partisan than Democrats (they almost always vote at higher rates for the GOP candidate than Democrats do for the Dem) this lead to a major obstacle. In many ways this is the mirror image of the GOP’s problems in New Jersey. Every 4 years looking at NJ demographics they decide to target it, but the huge Democratic registration edge makes it their “Great White Whale.”

Ideologically Obama won 6 states that were less liberal than Arizona (based on the percentage of self describe liberals) including Colorado, Florida, North Carolina, and Ohio. Colorado had a 17% liberal, 46% moderate, 36% conservative breakdown, Arizona’s numbers are 21% liberal, 42% moderate, 36% conservative. Arizona’s numbers fall roughly in the middle of the average swing state. * the demographic information cited above comes from Chuck Todds’ book “How Obama Won”

My best advice to the party would be to focus on party building in Arizona. Get more people registered at Democrats. Focus party building on the young people moving into Arizona’s college towns. This is in addition to the obvious tactic of getting Latinos to register and vote at higher rates.

One final note, as I alluded to earlier, after I come across a few “conservative” Democrats, I run a “correction” factor to account for them being Blue Dogs. The general idea is that the distance they are able to maintain from the national party may help them win over voters who are more reluctant to vote for Democrats. I want to examine another swing state before I “recompute” Ohio’s and Florida’s (my last two states) Blue Dogs.

As a recap, here are the first “batch” of Blue Dogs, and rural Democrats (West Virginia’s Democrats aren’t members of the Blue Dogs) that I examined correcting for partisanship and ideology.

FOUR BLUE DOGS

THREE BLUE DOGS

As a reminder ranking a members ideology is a somewhat subjective decision. Potentially what’s one person “liberal” position, is another person “conservative” ones, remember the wingers developed a model that ranked the Sen. Obama as more liberal than Bernie Sanders or Russ Feingold. But partisanship, how often a member votes with their party is an absolute number. A Democrat who represents a “republican district” would be expected to “break with their party” on votes that don’t reflect their districts values.

I couldn’t find a website that ranks all the districts based on their PVI (I only could find list of them by state not rank, help please anyone), therefor I substituted a PVI ranking with where each member ranked in the Democratic caucus. In the 110th Congress the average Democrat had an ideological ranking of 170 (by the way this is a result of several members being tied, this is the medium not the midpoint). The average of members towards the center was 191, former Daily Kos celeb Ciro Rodriguez fell at exactly 191. The average of members towards the liberal side was 121, which falls between Rep. Larson of Conn. and Rep. Eshoo of CA. As or partisanship in the 110th Congress the average Democrat voted with their party 92.3% of the time.

As a clarification in Adjustment #1, I used a deviation factor based on how far each member was from the center of the Democratic caucus. Adjustment #2 was based on how far each member was from outside the standard deviation of the caucus. In Adjustment #3 I removed the partisanship factor to see what effect it would have. As I explained a few diaries ago I will use ADJUSTMENT FACTOR 2 in all subsequent corrections.

Because there are “only” 50 states (as opposed to evaluating 435 house members), I will at a later date have all the states ranked by PVI so I can adjust the Senator’s rankings. I developed Senate factors for the four states the four blue dogs came from. In the interest of full disclosure, my source for ideological rankings is Voteview, and for partisanship it was the Washington Post. This is still a work in progress, I’m making adjustments, and continuing to crunch numbers for more states. I also will use the adjustment factor on a liberal member of congress to see what effect that will have.

Anthology:

PBI (Party Brand Index) Part 8 Florida

PBI (Party Brand Index) Part 7 Ohio

PBI (Party Brand Index) Part 6 WV and NH

PBI (Party Brand Index) Part 5 Nevada and Iowa

PBI (part 4) MO, AR, OK

Party Brand Index (part 3) North Carolina

Party Brand Index (part 2) Colorado and Virginia (updated)

Introducing PBI, Party Brand Index (Updated)

• FL-Sen: There’s probably no good way to spin the firing of the head spinner: after weeks of unending bad press, Charlie Crist has decided the solution is to fire his long-time communication director, Erin Isaac. (Isaac contends that she left on her own, and the timing has nothing to do with Crist’s collapse.)

• IL-Sen, OH-Sen: Two little-known, never-been-elected rich guys are going on the air with TV spots in their respective Senate primaries: Democratic attorney Jacob Meister in Illinois, and Republican auto dealer Tom Ganley in Ohio. Meister may not have much hope in a field with three prominent candidates, but Ganley is trying to gain traction among the anti-establishment right against consummate insider pick Rob Portman in a two-way GOP primary fight. (Ganley’s buy is reportedly only for $60K, so it seems more oriented toward generating media buzz than actually reaching lots of eyeballs, though.)

• NC-Sen: Rep. Bob Etheridge still sounds genuinely undecided about whether to get into the Senate race or not, but he’s now promising a decision by the end of the week. The DSCC is actively courting Etheridge, despite the presence of SoS Elaine Marshall in the race. Meanwhile, two other possible contenders are circling, watching, and waiting: former Lt. Gov. Dennis Wicker says he may run if Etheridge doesn’t, and outgoing Chapel Hill mayor Kevin Foy is still considering the race, saying he’ll decide by the end of the month.

• SC-Sen: Ouch! Lindsey Graham just got a pretty strong repudiation from the local GOP in one of the state’s largest counties, Charleston County. They unanimously voted to censure Graham over his cooperation with Democrats and moderate GOPers. Graham isn’t up until 2014, but it certainly doesn’t bode well for his next primary.

• CO-Gov: Josh Penry’s jump out of the Colorado governor’s GOP primary may have been more of a push. Big-time GOP funder Phil Anschutz is reported to have personally contacted Penry to let him know that he’d be on the receiving end of the 501(c)(4) that he’d created to target anyone opposing establishment candidate ex-Rep. Scott McInnis. (Of course, with news of this having leaked out, that seems likely to just further enrage the teabaggy right and lead them to find a hard-right replacement who, unlike Penry, isn’t worried about having his brand besmirched for future runs. Could Tom Tancredo be that man?)

• CT-Gov: For about the zillionth time in his career, Democratic AG Richard Blumenthal decided not to run for a promotion; he says he won’t get involved in the newly-minted open seat gubernatorial race. However, Blumenthal did nothing to quash rumors that he’s waiting to take on Joe Lieberman in 2012, saying “stay tuned.” Meanwhile, Paulist financial guru Peter Schiff, currently running for the GOP Senate nod, confirmed that he won’t be leaping over to the gubernatorial race, either.

• SC-Gov: Fervently anti-tax state Rep. Nikki Haley has been a key Mark Sanford ally in the legislature, but she’s been lagging in the GOP gubernatorial primary race. A Mark Sanford endorsement would be poison at this point, though, so the Sanfords paid her back with a slightly-less-poisonous endorsement from Jenny Sanford instead. Still doesn’t really sound like the kind of endorsement you want to tout, though.

• FL-08: Republican leaders are increasingly sour on the candidacy of 28 year-old businessman Armando Gutierrez Jr., who is “pissing people off a lot” with his bare-knuckle style. The NRCC is still hoping to recruit a solid challenger to go up against “colorful” Dem Rep. Alan Grayson after months of recruitment mishaps, and the current batch of names being bandied about include businessman Bruce O’Donoghue, state Rep. Eric Eisnaugle, and state Rep. Kurt Kelly. Gutierrez, however, seems to be doing all he can to make the GOP primary an unpleasant proposition. (J)

• FL-19: The Democratic primary in the upcoming special election to replace Robert Wexler is shaping up to be a real snoozefest. Former State Rep. Irving Slosberg, who lost a bitter 2006 state Senate primary to Ted Deutsch, announced yesterday that he won’t be running and that he’s endorsing Deutch. (Slosberg probably has his eye on Deutch’s soon-to-be-vacant Senate seat.)

• ID-01: With state Rep. Ken Robert’s dropout in the 1st, Vaughn Ward had the GOP field to himself for only a couple hours before another state Rep., Raul Labrador, said that he’ll get in instead. Meanwhile, ex-Rep. Bill Sali has been speaking before conservative groups and is still considering an attempt at a rematch with Democratic Rep. Walt Minnick, and says he’ll decide by the end of the month.

• NJ-03: Democratic freshman Rep. John Adler has been seemingly running scared despite the Republicans not having recruited anyone in this swingy R+1 district, probably helped along by Chris Christie’s huge numbers last week in Ocean County. Republicans think they have the right guy to flatten Adler: former Philadelphia Eagles lineman Jon Runyan. Runyan isn’t retired but not on any team’s roster either, and is “considering” the race.

• NY-24: He lost narrowly in 2008 to Democratic Rep. Mike Arcuri, and now businessman Richard Hanna is making candidate-type noises again, with a press release attacking Arcuri’s health care reform vote. Hanna is thinking about another run; Republicans don’t seem to have any other strong candidates on tap in this R+2 district.

• SD-AL: Republican State Rep. Shantel Krebs decided against a run against Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin in 2010. She was facing a cluttered field, with Secretary of State Chris Nelson and state Rep. Blake Curd already in the GOP primary.

• Nassau Co. Exec: So I was wrong about the Seattle mayor’s race being the last one to be called: the Nassau County Executive race is now in mid-recount, and Republican challenger Ed Mangano has a paper-thin (24 votes) lead over Democratic incumbent Tom Suozzi. Democratic Nassau County Legislator Dave Meijas (who you might remember from NY-03 in 2006) is also in a recount.

• VA-St. House: The last House of Delegates race in Virginia was finally called; Republican Ron Villaneuva was certified the victor in the Virginia Beach-based 21st over incumbent Dem Bobby Mathieson by a 13-vote margin, although the race is likely to go to a recount by Mathieson’s request.

• WA-St. Sen.: Democratic State Sen. Fred Jarrett was picked by new King Co. Executive Dow Constantine (who defeated Jarrett in the primary) to be the Deputy Executive. Jarrett will need to resign from the Senate to do so, creating a vacancy in this Bellevue-based, historically Republican but recently very Democratic seat. In Washington, though, legislative vacancies are filled by appointment by the county council (Democratic-controlled in King County, as you might expect), so there won’t be a special election, and the appointee will serve until (his or her probable re-election in) Nov. 2010.

• Generic Ballot: Everyone in the punditsphere seems abuzz today that Gallup suddenly shows a 4-pt GOP edge in the generic House ballot, a big swing from the previous D+2 edge. (Most other pollsters show a mid-single-digits Dem edge, like Pew at D+5 today.) Real Clear Politics points out an important caveat: the last time the GOP led the Gallup House ballot was September 2008, and you all remember how that election played out. Another poll today is perhaps more interesting: Winthrop University polled just the Old South states, and finds a 47-42 edge for the Republicans in the generic House ballot in the south. Initially that may not seem good, but remember that most of the state’s reddest districts are contained in the south, so, after accounting for the heavily-concentrated wingnuts, this probably extrapolates out to a Dem edge still present in southern swing districts.

• Public option: With the prospect of an opt-out public option looming large, the topic of whether to opt out is poised to become a hot issue in gubernatorial races in red states next year. Several states already have opt-out legislation proposed, although it remains to be seen whether any would actually go through with it (when considering how many states turned down stimulus funds in the end despite gubernatorial grandstanding… or how many states have decided to opt out of Medicaid, as they’re able to do).

• WATN?: Congratulations to Charlie Brown, who has accepted a position in the Dept. of Homeland Security. Unfortunately, this means Brown won’t be back for another kick at the football in CA-04.

Quinnipiac (11/5-9, likely voters, 9/8-10 in parentheses):

Ted Strickland (D-inc): 40 (46)

John Kasich (R): 40 (36)

(MoE: ±2.9%)

There’s been a lot of up and down in the Ohio governor’s race, as pollsters don’t seem to have this race in sharp focus yet; today’s Quinnipiac poll seems to be a down day, with incumbent Dem Ted Strickland falling into a tie with ex-Rep. John Kasich after having posted a 10-point lead last time. The overall Pollster.com regression line gives Strickland a 48-45 edge.

The numbers seem driven by lukewarm feelings toward Strickland, whose approval rating is 45/43. By contrast, few people seem to remember Kasich, with a favorable of 23/7; he seems to benefit by virtue of not being an incumbent governor in today’s climate. The state’s two Senators are still putting up tolerable approval numbers: George Voinovich is at 47/36 while Sherrod Brown is at 46/31.

RaceTracker Wiki: OH-Gov

The very off-topic derailment in this week’s open thread forced me to do something I’d never done before on this site – close comments on a post. I really, really did not enjoy doing that. It also made me wary of posting the summary chart of how the healthcare vote went. People did manage to stay on topic and remain civil for the first couple hundred comments. But I was very disappointed that in the end, a few people wound up derailing the thread yet again.

So we’re giving one-week suspensions to certain users. I’m not going to name names, but I’m posting this as a diary since we do not maintain contact information for our users. If, starting today, you logged in and found you can’t comment or post diaries, you’ve been affected. You’ll be able to participate again in a week. Consider this a serious warning.

I’m also going to say this once more: It’s a big Internets. If you want to gripe about policy or simply act uncivilly, there are tons of places you can do that. But not here.