Month: January 2011

This is the first part of two posts analyzing patterns in the 2010 Senate midterm elections. The second part can be found here.

The 2010 congressional midterm elections constituted, by and large, a victory for the Republican Party. In the Senate Republicans gained six seats. While this was somewhat below expectations, it was much better than Republican hopes just after 2008 – when many expected the party to actually lose seats.

The Senate results provide some interesting fodder for analysis. The table below indicates which Republicans Senate candidates did the worst in 2008. It does so by taking the Republican margin of victory or defeat in a given state and subtracting this by the Cook PVI of the state (the Cook PVI is how a state would be expected to vote in a presidential election in the event of an exact tie nationwide). Given that Republicans won the nationwide vote this year, the average Republican candidate would be expected to do better than the state’s PVI. A bad Republican candidate would actually do worse than the state’s PVI.

Let’s take a look at this table below the flip.

State	Republican Margin	Cook PVI	Republican Overperformance
South Dakota	100.00%	8.9%	91.10%
North Dakota	53.91%	10.4%	43.51%
Kansas	43.72%	11.5%	32.22%
Iowa	31.05%	-1.0%	32.05%
Idaho	46.25%	17.4%	28.85%
Oklahoma	44.50%	16.9%	27.60%
Florida	28.69%	1.8%	26.89%
South Carolina	33.83%	7.8%	26.03%
New Hampshire	23.22%	-1.6%	24.82%
Arizona	24.14%	6.1%	18.04%
Alabama	30.47%	13.2%	17.27%
Ohio	17.44%	0.7%	16.74%
Georgia	19.31%	6.8%	12.51%
Arkansas	20.96%	8.8%	12.16%
Missouri	13.60%	3.1%	10.50%
Illinois	1.60%	-7.7%	9.30%
Louisiana	18.88%	9.7%	9.18%
Utah	28.79%	20.2%	8.59%
Indiana	14.58%	6.2%	8.38%
North Carolina	11.77%	4.3%	7.47%
Wisconsin	4.84%	-2.4%	7.24%
Pennsylvania	2.02%	-2.0%	4.02%
Kentucky	11.47%	10.4%	1.07%
Washington	-4.73%	-5.0%	0.27%
Alaska	11.94%	13.4%	-1.46%
Colorado	-1.63%	0.2%	-1.83%
California	-10.01%	-7.4%	-2.61%
Nevada	-5.74%	-1.3%	-4.44%
Connecticut	-11.94%	-7.1%	-4.84%
Delaware	-16.58%	-7.0%	-9.58%
Oregon	-17.98%	-4.0%	-13.98%
New York (S)	-27.84%	-10.2%	-17.64%
Maryland	-26.44%	-8.5%	-17.94%
West Virginia	-10.07%	7.9%	-17.97%
Vermont	-33.41%	-13.4%	-20.01%
New York	-34.10%	-10.2%	-23.90%
Hawaii	-53.24%	-12.5%	-40.74%
Total/Average	5.54%	2.3%	8.08%

(Note: The data in Alaska and Florida refer to the official candidates nominated by the parties, not the independent candidates – Senator Lisa Murkowski and Governor Charlie Crist – who ran in the respective states).

This table reveals some fascinating trends. There is a very clear pattern: the worst Republican candidates ran in the bluest states – and the bluer the state, the more the Republican underperformed. This does not just mean that these Republicans lost, but that they lost by more than the average Republican was supposed to in the state. Republican candidates did worse than the state’s PVI in thirteen states; nine of these states had a Democratic PVI.

There seems to be a PVI tipping point at which Republicans start underperforming: when a state is more than 5% Democratic than the nation (PVI D+5). Only one Republican in the nine states that fit this category overperformed the state PVI (Senator Mark Kirk of Illinois ).

Something is puzzling about this pattern. It is true that states like Connecticut or Maryland will probably vote Democratic even in Republican victories. The Cook PVI predicts that Democrats will win by X% in the event of a national tie in the popular vote. One would thus have expected Republican candidates to do better than this in 2010, given that 2010 was the strongest Republican performance in a generation.

Yet this did not happen. In a lot of blue states Democrats actually did better than the Cook PVI would project them to do – that is, said blue states behaved like the Democrats had actually won the popular vote, which they certainly did not in 2010. The bluer the state, the stronger this pattern.

There are a couple of reasons why this might be. The first thing that comes to mind is the money and recruiting game. The Republican Party, reasonably enough, does not expect its candidates to win in places like New York and Maryland . So it puts less effort into Republican candidates in those states. They get less money – and therefore less advertising, less ground game, and so on. Nobody had any idea who the Republican candidate in Vermont was, for instance. That probably contributes to Republican underperformance in deep-blue states.

The second factor might be a flaw in the model the table uses. Democratic and Republican strongholds, for whatever reason, behave differently from “uniform swing” models. In almost all the counties President Barack Obama won, for instance, he improved upon President Bill Clinton 1992 and 1996 performance – despite the fact that Mr. Clinton won by similar margins in the popular vote. This holds true from San Francisco to rural Mississippi . In the 2010 Massachusetts special Senate election, the most Democratic areas of Massachusetts swung least towards Republican Senator Scott Brown. The fact that the worst Republican candidates ran in the bluest states fits the pattern.

The table presents another startling pattern, which will be discussed in the next post: there are surprisingly few Republicans who did worse than they were supposed to in red states.

–Inoljt

Now that it’s 2011, the redistricting games will soon begin in earnest, with more detailed Census data expected in February or March and some states holding spring legislative sessions to deal with drawing new maps. Long ago I planned to do state-by-state rundowns of the redistricting process as soon as 2010 election results and Census reapportionment were clear. Now that time has arrived, and it’s time to look at Florida, Georgia, and Hawaii.

Previous diary on Alabama, Arizona, and Arkansas

Previous diary on California, Colorado, and Connecticut

Extend a thought today to Rep. Giffords, her family, and the families of those killed yesterday in Arizona.

The rest below the fold…

Florida

Districts: 27, up from 25 in 2002

Who’s in charge? Republicans

Is that important? Yes, but how important?

To date, Florida’s map has been one of the most effective Republican gerrymanders in the country, with Democrats packed efficiently into six ultra-safe seats: the VRA-protected black-majority 3rd (stretching from Jacksonville to Gainesville to Orlando), 17th (in north Miami), and 23rd (in Palm Beach/Broward), and three liberal, mostly white, urban districts: the 11th (Tampa Bay), 19th (Palm Beach/Broward), and 20th (mostly Broward). There are two seats you could call swing districts – the 8th, around Orlando, and the 22nd, on the north end of South Florida’s wealthy Gold Coast, and at the moment they are both represented by Republicans (Dan Webster and Allen West, respectively).

With the state gaining two seats, the GOP should superficially be primed for more gains, but 19-6 is a pretty lopsided majority in a state that voted for Obama and closely matched nationwide margins in 2000 and 2004. Worse for the Republicans, voters passed referenda in 2010 aimed at curtailing gerrymandering in the state. The language of the initiatives – using terms like “compact” and “existing political/geographic boundaries” – was definitely open to interpretation, but if GOP legislators preserve monstrosities like the 16th, for example, they are likely to face lawsuits on the basis of Amendment 6 (whose own validity is being questioned in court right now by Reps. Brown and Diaz-Balart). Even if Amendment 6 is struck down by the district court, though, it is hard to imagine Republicans carving out another two seats. My guess is they will seek to protect their 19 incumbents, add a new GOP seat along the Gulf Coast, and add a new Dem seat in Central FL (near Orlando or Kissimmee, perhaps) to soak up liberal-leaning voters currently represented by Sandy Adams or Dan Webster.

I have mapped Florida multiple times on DRA and have tried to create a 21-6 GOP majority. As I usually draw the new central district, it could potentially be won by a moderate Republican with appeal in the Hispanic community. But it would be a strong Obama ’08 seat and good territory for a Dem legislator like Darren Soto. Really, 20-7 is about the best any party can hope to do in a swing state, even one that tilts its own way.

Georgia

Districts: 14, up from 13 in 2002

Who’s in charge? Republicans

Is that important? Sort of

Republicans should have no trouble adding a new GOP seat in the Atlanta suburbs (most likely around Gwinnett, Rockdale, Walton, and Newton Counties), but from there it gets more complicated. Most observers agree they will make Sanford Bishop’s district VRA-protected, adding mostly black areas of Macon to protect Austin Scott from competition in the 8th, but we seem to be divided over whether they will target John Barrow for defeat. Arguments for: he’s white, it’s not a VRA-protected district, and his bases of support in Augusta and Savannah could easily be lumped with neighboring safe Republican districts to ruin any chances he had for reelection. Arguments against: a VRA lawsuit would be inevitable because black voters currently hold sway in the district’s Democratic primaries, Jack Kingston and Paul Broun don’t particularly want a bunch of new Dem-voting constituents, and there are a lot of rural African-Americans in eastern and east-central Georgia who have to go somewhere and will comprise a large portion of the district however it is drawn.

Personally, I don’t think they will target Barrow much; they may attempt to dilute his black % a little bit, or they may do the opposite to make serious primary competition more likely. Either way, there are too many Democrats in that part of the state for mapmakers to crack the district very effectively.

Hawaii

Districts: 2

Who’s in charge? Nonpartisan commission

Is that important? No

Well, this is the snoozeville of congressional redistricting right here. Dem incumbents Hirono and Hanabusa are already fairly safe and native son Barack Obama will be on the ballot in 2012. The commission will very slightly tinker with the lines and it should mean nothing for either woman’s reelection prospects.

Later: Idaho, Illinois, Indiana, and Iowa!

UPDATE 3: Huffington Post reports that a surgeon is “very optimistic” on Giffords’ chances of recovery. Sadly, at least one patient taken in from the shooting, a child, has died. Altogether, six people have died, including a Giffords aide.

UPDATE 2: Politico says that Giffords’ office is saying she is not dead.

UPDATE: NPR is now saying Rep. Giffords has died. Several others as well.

---

My god:

U.S. Rep. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona was shot outside a grocery store in Tucson while holding a public event, Arizona Public Media reported Saturday.

Giffords, who was re-elected to her third term in November, was hosting her first “Congress on Your Corner” event at the Safeway in northwest Tucson when a gunman ran up and started shooting, according to Peter Michaels, news director of Arizona Public Media.

At least five other people, including members of her staff, were hurt. Giffords was transported to University Medical Center in Tucson. Her condition was not immediately known.

Giffords was talking to a couple when the man ran up firing indiscriminately, and then ran off, Michaels said. According to other witnesses, the was tackled by a bystander and taken into custody.

This is just beyond, beyond, beyond horrible. All I can do is just hope everyone is okay.

Following dramatic gains in the House of Representatives, I think most state legislatures controlled by the Republicans will try to be aggressively maximize their seats.  After 2008, we were proposing 28-0 maps of New York and assuming anything that went even slightly for Obama would be ours in perpetuity, so the Republicans are likely having similar thoughts now.  With that preface, I present my map of Pennsylvania.

The whole State

PA-05, Gold, 52%M 46%O

G.T. Thompson (R)

The 5th takes half of Erie, becoming more Democratic, but it had some room to spare.

PA-09, Cyan, 54%M 44%O

Bill Shuster (R) vs Mark Critz (D)

Johnstown is severed from the 12th district a lumped in with the more conservative 9th.  Critz may choose to run in the new 12th instead.

Southeast

PA-01, Blue, 85%O 14%M

Bob Brady (D)

This district shifts to the North some, losing the tentacle to Chester while grabbing white liberal areas in Delaware and Montgomery counties, but retails its Black plurality (43%).

PA-02, Green, 91%O 9%M

Chaka Fattah (D)

Still a Black majority district but less so (52%).  Gains some of the Hispanic parts of Philly, while losing some of West Philly to the 1st district.

PA-13, Salmon, 64%O 35%M

Allyson Schwartz (D)

Little known fact: The current 13th was drawn to be winnable by a Republican.  Not any longer.  The new form is quite sinuous, picking up as many dem areas in the Philly burbs as possible.  

PA-06, Teal, 51%O 48%M

Jim Gerlach (R)

While this district bears rather little in common with its former self, it is significantly more Republican than the old 6th which went 58% for Obama.

PA-07, Gray, 50%O 50%M

Pat Meehan (R)

We trade urban parts of Delaware county for some rural parts of Chester and Lancaster, making the district safer. It now went for Obama by only 127 votes.

PA-08, Periwinkle, 52%O 47%M

Mike Fitzpatrick (R)

Still a Bucks County centered district, it does some precinct swapping with the 13th to become marginally more Republican.

PA-16, Lime, 52%M 46%O

Joe Pitts (R)

The 16th now stretches from South Philly to Chambersburg.  Pitts will have to introduce himself to a lot of new voters, since most of his former territory has been moved to other districts.

PA-18, Yellow, 53%M 46%O

Todd Platts (R)

This district is actually a good fit for the moderate Platts, giving him the rapidly Bluing cities of York, Lancaster and Lebanon as well as some Conservative rural areas connecting them.

Northeast

PA-17, Indigo, 53%M 46%O

Open or Tim Holden (D)

In attempt to get rid of Holden, his home county (Schuylkill) is removed from the district and more conservative territory to the West is substituted.  He may choose to run here anyway or he may run in the 11th.

PA-15, Orange, 56%O 43%M

Charlie Dent (R)

The 15th is not strengthened or significantly changed since Dent rather effortlessly survived both ’06 and ’08.  If it ain’t broken, don’t fix it.

PA-11, Chartreuse, 51%O 48%M

Lou Barletta (R) vs Tim Holden (D)

This district is made significantly more Republican, but it may not help if Barletta gets tossed in front of the legendary Holden steamroller.  Of course Holden hasn’t had serious challenge in years so he may be rusty and Barletta may be able to ride anti-immigrant sentiment to victory.  Holden may also choose to run in the 17th.  Even then Barletta may not be completely safe, but I did warn you that this map was a reach.

PA-10, Pink, 51%O 48%M

Tom Marino (R)

Marino better hope 2012 is good year for the GOP because adding Scranton makes this an Obama district and he doesn’t have much time to get established.

Southwest

PA-03, Purple, 53%M 45%O

Mike Kelly (R)

Losing part of Eire makes this district safer.

PA-04, Red, 55%M 44%O

Jason Altmire (D) vs Timothy Murphy (R)

Here we try to eliminate narrow 2010 survivor Altmire by setting up a dogfight between him and long time rep Murphy.  While the district is not any more Republican than the current 4th, The territory just over half from the old 18th and he would be up against a fellow incumbent.

PA-14, Olive, 68%O 31%M

Mike Doyle (D)

Not much change here.

PA-12, Cornflower Blue, 55%M 43%O

Open or Mark Critz(D)

If Critz tries to run here rather than the 9th, he’ll find it more Republican than his old district, where he only narrowly survived 2010.

It ain’t no sin to be glad you’re alive.

• ND-Sen: This may be the earliest the air wars have ever been launched, especially in a Senate race, but there’s already a major ad duel going on in the tiny (and dirt cheap) state of North Dakota, probably with an eye toward goading Kent Conrad into retirement (or backing him up so he doesn’t get any ideas). On the GOP side, mysterious Iowa-based IE group American Action Forum fired the first shots (worth only $60K), hitting Conrad over TARP and HCR; Dem group Commonsense Ten fired back (for $30K, all radio), defending his fiscal hawkishness. And now comes word that Conrad himself is also going to dip into his war chest starting next week, also hitting back against AAF. NWOTSOTB, but it’ll be a 60-second radio ad that runs all week. The bright side to the Conrad early alarm bells: that doesn’t seem like the action of a man contemplating retirement.

• KY-Gov: In Kentucky, incumbent Dem Gov. Steve Beshear just filed his papers for re-election, coming up in November. As expected, his running mate will be former Louisville mayor Jerry Abramson, rather than Dan Mongiardo. Beshear is sitting on $3.5 million for the race; while that’s a lot more than the $624K that the GOP David Williams/Richie Farmer ticket has, note that Williams only started raising in the last quarter of 2010 and pulled in $753K. Williams’ tea-flavored GOP primary rival, businessman Phil Moffett, has only an $8K balance after raising $20K last quarter but spending $30K. (UPDATE: Here’s one other breaking bit of news that’s an interesting consideration: GOP Secretary of State Trey Grayson has sped up his getting-the-hell-out-of-Kentucky timeline, resigning shortly to take a job at Harvard’s Institute of Politics. That means Beshear gets to appoint a Dem to the SoS position, increasing the chances of holding the position in 2011. Beshear just announced that Bowling Green mayor Elaine Walker will get the position.)

• MT-Gov: Also on the financial front, ex-Rep. Rick Hill is in pole position among the various contestants for Montana’s open gubernatorial seat. He’s raised $103K so far (Montana, of course, is a small and cheap state), compared with fellow GOP rival Corey Stapleton’s $86K so far. The only Dem who has declared, state Sen. Dave Wanzenried, has raised a grand total of $2K, leaving me to wonder if insiders expect AG Steve Bullock to get in shortly. (Bullock has raised $73K, although that could be used for either a gube or AG bid.)

• GA-08: Add ex-Rep. Jim Marshall to the growing list of Dems interested in trying to fight their way back into the House two years from now, saying he’s not sure but “won’t preclude” another run. With the GOP controlling redistricting in Georgia, though, Marshall might find himself with an even-more-unfriendly 8th in 2012.

• OH-06: And here’s one more to add: Charlie Wilson says “I would like to run again,” but with one big caveat: that there’s a district drawn that’s “somehow fair” for him. The GOP also controls the process in Ohio but will probably also need to chop at least one GOP-held seat, which may well come out of the state’s depopulated southeast quadrant. A mashup of the swingy 6th and the more-reddish 18th would be less favorable to Wilson than the seat he just lost.

• California: Finally, here’s another interesting data dump from Greg Giroux, looking at how California’s gubernatorial and Senate races from 2010 broke down according to congressional district. If you’re looking for an indication of how polarized (and/or expertly gerrymandered for incumbent protection) California’s districts are, there was almost no deviation between how the House races broke and the statewide races broke. The only deviations: Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina both won in Jerry McNerney’s CA-11, while Jerry Brown eked it out in Dan Lungren’s CA-03.

Public Policy Polling (1/3-5, Pennsylvania voters):

Bob Casey, Jr. (D-inc): 51

Charlie Dent (R): 31

Undecided: 18

Bob Casey, Jr. (D-inc): 49

Jim Gerlach (R): 33

Undecided: 18

Bob Casey, Jr. (D-inc): 48

Rick Santorum (R): 41

Undecided: 10

Bob Casey, Jr. (D-inc): 47

Mark Schweiker (R): 34

Undecided: 18

Bob Casey, Jr. (D-inc): 50

Marc Scaringi (R): 27

Undecided: 22

(MoE: ±4.2%)

PPP’s first look at the 2012 Pennsylvania Senate race finds Bob Casey Jr. in, superficially, very good shape, leading most of his potential challengers by substantial double digits. He also sports a robust 41/29 approval rating (the best rating for any of the statewide politicians polled). I say “superficially,” though, because his mondo leads seem to be based mostly on the sheer unknown-ness of most of his opposition and the fact that he’s still only hanging around the 50% mark. Charlie Dent and Jim Gerlach, for instance, seem little known outside their districts and aren’t getting the benefit of the doubt from those who don’t know them, sporting 6/18 and 9/17 favorables respectively.

I’d expect those numbers to tighten quite a bit over the course of a real campaign, if only because the one candidate Casey isn’t dominating is probably the weakest candidate the GOP could put up against him but is, if nothing else, the best-known option: Rick Santorum, who lost to Casey 59-41 in 2006 and hasn’t done anything to rehabilitate his image since then. The numbers against Santorum seem consistent with the ones Quinnipiac found a month ago running Casey against Generic R (where Casey won 43-35, based on 39/29 approval). At any rate, even before this poll it seemed highly unlikely that Santorum, Dent, or Gerlach runs… not that there’d be much utility right now in polling somebody like state Sen. Jake Corman who’ll probably wind up the eventual candidate but for now is utterly unknown (as seen in the numbers for Marc Scaringi, a former Santorum aide who’s the only announced candidate so far).

As you may know if you haven’t been under a rock, Washington State will be receiving ten districts next year, up from nine this past decade. this is my effort to read the minds of the 5 men responsible for drawing those districts.

In no particular order:

District 2 (green) All four northern counties along with most of Snohomish (Rick Larsen might not quite live here, if so, minor adjustments would resolve this)

District 8 (blue-gray) I could have sworn more people lived in eastern King and Pierce. Because they don’t, this district now extends all the way to the Pacific Ocean, not my best work. Lewis County should let Reichert sleep better on election nights.

District 3 (purple) Basically a dumbbell anchored by Vancouver and Yakima. I’d have liked to add a few more rural Central Washington counties so Rep Beutler could claim she represented Hispanics other than herself but this district is only 11%.

District 6 (pink) If you know the colors of Dave’s App, you’ll noticed that I screwed up. Apparently, though he’s long represented it, Rep Dicks does not live in Tacoma. He’ll be fine here though. I had the opposite problem to Dist. 8, more people live in the Olympic than I was aware of so I had to split Grays Harbor County, nonetheless, with all of Kitsap County and the Olympia area added, Rep Dicks should be quite content.

And now to some districts I’m not ashamed of.

District 1 (blue) North suburbs. This district loses its salient across the sound and gets beautifully compact and solidly Democratic. Inslee doesn’t live here but he’s running for governor. If he doesn’t, hey he already moved once, he can do it again.

District 7 (grey) Seattle, Vashon, Mercer. Nuff said. (I think this is limited to dead girl, live boy would still get McDermott re-elected).

District 9 (teal) South and west suburbs. Contained in King County. Mr. Smith stays in Washington, DC that is.

District 10 (dark greenish something) Tacoma apparently never had its own district. That’s changed. I’m sure locals will tell me which up-and-coming local pols will want it.

District 4 The southern portion of Eastern WA. Tri-Cities, rural Yakima County, some other counties that are no doubt very important to their residents. The Doc stays in the US House.

District 5 Spokane… and some other stuff (eastern Washingtonians will begin sending me hate mail) CMR is all set.

In summary, all the incumbents should be comfortable and the new district goes to Pierce County, the second largest in the state and to the Democrats. 6-4 is actually a little generous to the GOP but hey, Dems could have taken two more if they really wanted to. e.g. beating Reichert once in 3 tries and holding WA-3.

• NE-Sen: After a few months in exploratory committee purgatory (and after screwing up many of the documents associated with said committee), Republican AG Jon Bruning has made it official. He’s now upgraded to Candidate, against Ben Nelson in the 2012 Senate race.

• TX-Sen: Local insiders seem to think that Kay Bailey Hutchison is increasingly moving toward another run for Senate in 2012 (after having postponed her resignation a number of times amidst the gubernatorial race, and then having dropped the subject altogether). That speculation seems based mostly on her sheer silence on the issue, though.

• IA-Gov: On his way out the door, outgoing Gov. Chet Culver talked up state Sen. majority leader Mike Gronstal as a possible 2014 gubernatorial candidate for the Dems. Culver said Gronstal won’t suffer for his reluctance to put gay marriage up for a statewide vote, which seems to be one of the state’s big flashpoints right now.

• WA-Gov, WA-08: This is very unexpected, considering that GOP AG Rob McKenna has had the 2012 gubernatorial nomination staked out for about six years now, but Rep. Dave Reichert is publicly expressing some (or at least not ruling out) interest in a gubernatorial run (a race he’d been encouraged to run in 2004 back when he was King Co. Sheriff, although he ran for House instead). I’m sure local GOPers would prefer he run for Senate, where no viable GOP nominee seems to be on the horizon, rather than creating a fractious gubernatorial primary that might hobble their best shot in decades at winning the governorship. Actually, I’m sure they’d prefer he continue to hold down WA-08 rather than open up the 8th while embarking on a fool’s errand against Maria Cantwell, and with redistricting likely to give him a safer district in Seattle’s southeastern exurbs while opening up a solid-blue WA-10 on the true Eastside, that’s probably what he’ll keep on doing.

• CO-03: New Gov. John Hickenlooper just appointed recently-defeated Rep. John Salazar as the state’s agriculture commissioner. Salazar has already said he was open to a rematch with Scott Tipton; the question is whether this makes a rematch less likely or if it’s designed to keep him in the public spotlight. (Speaking of Hickenlooper, if you haven’t read the NYT Magazine section’s long profile of him, it’s worth a read.)

• FL-25: Add one more mysterious bit of financial information to the mounting pile of sleaze that’s engulfing David Rivera in his first week on the job: he sold a condominium to his mother’s marketing company (the same company that’s under criminal investigation for its relationship to the Flagler Dog Track) in November, shortly before he paid off $137K in undisclosed loans… also to that same marketing company.

• IA-03: Buried in an article on the Iowa redistricting conundrum, which will see the state compacted to four House districts, is an important piece of unexpected news: septuagenarian Democratic Rep. Leonard Boswell, who’s been a prime candidate for retirement for a number of cycles now, tells Roll Call that he will be running again in 2012, regardless of what district he gets stuck into. Tom Latham, Bruce Braley, and Dave Loebsack all plan to “plow ahead” as well; only Steve King didn’t comment, although his district, by virtue of geography (having the state’s western half pretty much to itself) seems least likely to get messed with. A collision between Des Moines-based Boswell and Ames-based GOPer Latham seems likeliest to me, but with a commission making the decisions, almost any configuration seems possible.

• NC-07: Rep. Mike McIntyre — already in the news today as one of only two Dems who voted against HCR to also say that he’d go ahead and support Republican repeal efforts — is now about to draw a Democratic primary challenger from the left, although one who seems kind of on the Some Dude end of the spectrum. Business counselor Del Pietro says he’ll take on McIntyre.

• California: This piece is mostly about House redistricting in the Golden State, but has some thoughts about potential retirements too, given the possibility that redistricting via commission may result in less incumbent protection and various House members getting stuck together (and also given the advanced age of many of California’s long-timers). Jerry Lewis and Pete Stark are listed as most noteworthy possibilities, along with Elton Gallegly (who’s waffled about retirement before), Lois Capps, Gary Miller, and Howard Berman… and Bob Filner is mentioned as a possible San Diego mayor candidate in 2012.

• House: This Roll Call piece is mostly a grab-bag of vague quotes and speculation (of course, what article in the Beltway press isn’t), but it does do some useful handicapping on which sought-after House members are likely or unlikely to make the jump to running for Senate in 2012. New York’s Peter King says “I really don’t expect it,” Pennsylvania’s Charlie Dent says he hasn’t “been actively pursuing it,” and Ohio’s Jim Jordan is “leaning against it.” Wisconsin’s Paul Ryan didn’t comment, but has repeatedly said he isn’t looking for higher office anytime soon (and here’s some further confirmation on that from today), while Florida’s Connie Mack IV seems to be moving definitely moving in a Senate direction and Montana’s Denny Rehberg remains studiously vague.

• DCCC: DCCC head Steve Israel announced his team of lieutenants for the 2012 cycle, which includes the two other likeliest chairs who got passed over, Joseph Crowley (in charge of fundraising) and Debbie Wasserman Schultz (incumbent retention and redistricting). Also on board are Allyson Schwartz (recruitment), Keith Ellison (community partnerships), and Puerto Rico’s Pedro Pierluisi (constituency mobilization).

• Mayors: State Sen. Anthony Hardy Williams (last seen barely hitting the double-digits in the Democratic gubernatorial primary) has a new gig in mind: he’s publicly expressing his interest in running for Philadelphia mayor, one of the many mayoral races up in November. The only other person to have actively looked into challenging fairly-popular incumbent Michael Nutter is wealthy businessman Tom Knox, who also made a brief appearance in last year’s governor’s race Dem primary.

• Twitter: We made it over the 4,000 mark on Twitter; thanks to all our new followers. We’re still taking new applications, though, so we encourage any other fans of microscopic bits of political wisdom to sign on, too.

Public Policy Polling (1/3-5, Nevada voters):

Shelley Berkley (D): 45

John Ensign (R-inc): 42

Undecided: 13

Oscar Goodman (D): 45

John Ensign (R-inc): 35

Undecided: 20

Catherine Cortez Masto (D): 44

John Ensign (R-inc): 42

Undecided: 14

Ross Miller (D): 40

John Ensign (R-inc): 39

Undecided: 21

Shelley Berkley (D): 38

Dean Heller (R): 51

Undecided: 11

Oscar Goodman (D): 38

Dean Heller (R): 45

Undecided: 16

Catherine Cortez Masto (D): 37

Dean Heller (R): 46

Undecided: 16

Ross Miller (D): 34

Dean Heller (R): 46

Undecided: 21

(MoE: ±3.2%)

Want to make sure Democrats win the 2012 Senate race in Nevada? Find a way to make sure that John Ensign is the GOP nominee. Conversely, want to make sure Democrats lose? Find a way to make sure that Dean Heller is the nominee. At least that’s the initial takeaway from today’s PPP poll. The general electorate seems to loathe Ensign, giving him 35/50 approvals (way below those of Harry Reid, who’s at 46/50), and 56% say he shouldn’t run again in 2012 (compared to 29% who say he should). Heller, by contrast, has 46/23 favorables; the only Dem who competes with that is Oscar Goodman, at 45/21. Shelley Berkley, generally thought to be the Dems’ strongest contender here, has the narrowest fave/unfave spread of any Dem, at only 34/29.

You might remember that in November PPP came out with a poll of the GOP primary, showing Ensign surprisingly far ahead of Heller (and Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki as well), 45-37. So, we might be able to hope for Ensign salvaging his primary (and thus boosting Dem hopes for the general). The primary, of course, still has several ways to not happen… Heller has sent many a conflicted message, happy with his new committee assignments in the House, but on the other hand, many with their finger on the local political pulse seem sure that Ensign won’t even bother trying to run. Jon Ralston, in fact, is out with another piece today predicting just that; his scenario is that midway through the year Ensign is likely to announce he won’t run again, Heller will run to replace him, and the biggest fireworks will be in the NV-02 primary to replace Heller, potentially pitting Krolicki against Sharron Angle.