Tag: maps

• LA-Sen: David Vitter may get a serious primary challenger after all (Family Research Council honcho Tony Perkins and ex-Rep. John Cooksey have declined, and SoS Jay Dardenne has been laying low). It’s someone we haven’t seen in a while, though: former state Elections commissioner Suzanne Haik Terrell, who let her interest be known last week. Terrell’s last appearance in the spotlight was the 2002 Senate race, where she lost narrowly to Mary Landrieu. Terrell is the only Republican woman to have ever held office in Louisiana.

• NY-Sen-B: Like a giant game of Whack-a-mole, Kirsten Gillibrand jammed a couple potential primary challengers back into their holes last week, but now a new one popped up: Rep. Jose Serrano. The Bronx-based Serrano might be able to make a lot of hay out of the immigration issue, but he may not have the cash to make a race of it (although as an Appropriations cardinal, he’s well-connected). Meanwhile, Gillibrand nailed down endorsements from three other Reps. — John Hall, Mike Arcuri, and Scott Murphy — as well as Nassau County Dem party chair Jay Jacobs (important because he has a lot of sway over Rep. Carolyn McCarthy).

• PA-Sen: Roll Call tried to pin down the Democratic House members from Pennsylvania on whether or not they’d endorse Arlen Specter in a potential Democratic primary with Rep. Joe Sestak. Interestingly, PA’s most liberal Dem, Chaka Fattah, was probably the most enthusiastic and unconditional endorser of Specter, while its most conservative Dem, Jason Altmire, was most reluctant to offer an endorsement one way or the other, although more out of admiration for Sestak than on ideological grounds. Tim Holden also endorsed Specter and Bob Brady came as close as possible to it, while Patrick Murphy took a “wait and see” attitude and the others simply punted the question.

• AR-Sen: State Senator Kim Hendren (having recently shot himself in the foot by calling Charles Schumer “that Jew”) is now vacillating and may not run in the GOP Senate primary after all, despite having announced his candidacy.

• IL-Sen: Here’s some confirmation on what we speculated last week: Rep. Mark Kirk isn’t lost in space; he’s just deferring any decisions on the Senate race because he’s waiting to see what AG Lisa Madigan does. He reportedly won’t run for Senate if Madigan does.

• FL-Gov: Ag Commissioner Charles Bronson will announce today that he won’t run for the open governor’s seat, leaving an unimpeded path to the GOP nomination for AG Bill McCollum. Bronson is term-limited out of his job in 2010 and looking to move up, but couldn’t buck the pressure from state chair Jim Greer — I mean, the guy doesn’t have a Death Wish.

• CO-Gov: Ex-Rep. Scott McInnis officially filed yesterday to enter the Colorado governor’s race, amidst sniping that he started soliciting funds before filing his campaign paperwork. State Senate minority leader Josh Penry also launched into an oblique attack on McInnis, suggesting he might be interested in a primary battle.

• CA-Gov: Dianne Feinstein, occasionally rumored to be interested in what has to be the least desirable job in America (California governor), has said that she “might” run for governor next year, depending on her assessment of the other candidates’ plans for dealing with California’s seemingly perpetual budget crisis. Polls that have included Feinstein have shown her dominating the race if she got in.

• IL-13: 71-year-old Rep. Judy Biggert just confirmed that she’ll be running for re-election in 2010, despite a return engagement with Scott Harper, who held her to 54%, and the district’s shift to only R+1. (Of course, her inclusion in the first round of 10 in the NRCC’s Patriots program Tuesday showed her hand already.)

• AL-02: Republicans have at least one candidate lined up to go against Rep. Bobby Bright as he seeks his first re-election in this R+16 district: 32-year-old Montgomery city councilor and attorney Martha Roby. GOP State Rep. Jay Love, who narrowly lost to Bright last time, may also try again.

• MI-13: Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, who narrowly won a 3-way primary in 2008, may have to face off against both of the same challengers again in 2010: state Sen. Martha Scott and former state Rep. Mary Waters. Former interim mayor Ken Cockrel also is mentioned as interested. Kilpatrick may be less vulnerable in 2010, though, as the brouhaha surrounding her son (former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick) recedes in the distance.

• Maps: Here’s another interesting map for the geography nerds out there. It’s a map of which party controls all the state House seats throughout the South. (It’s a lot bluer than you might initially think.)

• CA-45: After years of letting California’s 45th district (the most Democratic-leaning district in California still represented by a Republican, where Obama won 52-47) lay fallow, the Democrats actually seem to have a top-tier (or close to it) challenger lined up. Palm Springs mayor Steve Pougnet just started a campaign committee for a face-off against Mary Bono Mack. The openly gay Pougnet has been mayor of the city of 40,000 since 2007.

• KY-Sen: Dr. Dan may get some company in the primary. 39-year-old Attorney General Jack Conway has announced “there’s a good chance” he’ll run for Senate in 2010. Subtexts in other quotes suggest that he’s been negotiating with Rep. Ben Chandler and Auditor Crit Luallen, who may be stepping aside for him.

• CO-Gov: Now this seems unexpected. Ex-Rep. Scott McInnis, after butting heads with more conservative elements in the state GOP and studiously avoiding the 2008 and 2010 senate races in Colorado, has chosen a much more uphill battle: he’s running for governor against Democratic incumbent Bill Ritter. He may still face a primary battle against up-and-coming state senator Josh Penry (who used to be McInnis’s press secretary).

• PA-Gov, PA-06: Jim Gerlach acknowledged in an interview that people have been soliciting him to run against Arlen Specter in the 2010 senate primary (which would turn it into moderate/moderate/fiscal wingnut/religious wingnut chaos). However, he’s still charging full speed ahead on his gubernatorial bid instead.

• MI-12: Here’s one of the least likely places you could imagine for a heated primary, but it may happen. State senator Mickey Switalski will challenge 14-term incumbent Sander Levin in this reliably Dem (65-33 for Obama) district in the Detroit suburbs. (To give you an idea how long Levin has been around, he’s Carl Levin’s older brother.) This doesn’t seem to be an ideological challenge as much as Switalski is term-limited out of the state senate in 2010 and needs somewhere else to go.

• CA-10: San Francisco city attorney analyst (and former political editor for the San Francisco Examiner) Adriel Hampton has announced his candidacy for the open seat being vacated by Ellen Tauscher. What may be most memorable about this is that his may be the first ever candidacy announcement made by Twitter; he faces long odds against state senator Mark DeSaulnier (who won’t announce until Tauscher’s resignation is official).

• New Dems: One other musical chairs item left in the wake of Tauscher’s resignation is who takes over as the chair of the New Dems. The New Dems have five vice-chairs, but it looks like the hyper-ambitious Joe Crowley has enough support nailed down to take command bloodlessly. The CW is wondering whether this will complicate Crowley’s efforts to join House leadership (he lost a caucus vice-chair bid in 2006), but my question is what the heck is a New Dem doing in NY-07 (which went for Obama 79-20)?

• FL-20: Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz told the Miami Herald on Saturday that she successfully battled breast cancer over the past year. We wish her good health as she continues her recovery. (D)

• Maps: For those of you who enjoy seeing maps breaking things down by congressional districts, here’s a new one from real estate site hotpads.com: which CDs have the highest foreclosure rates.

It’s been quite a while since I crunched some political numbers, so I thought I’d check back in with a series of diaries.  Today, the latest edition of the Bush approval map.

Click to enlarge.

My, that’s pretty!

Memo to Democrats:  this is an anvil for the falling Republicans.  Please use it.

For perspective, at the time of the 2006 Democratic electoral wave, this is what the map looked like:

Click to enlarge.

So why am I posting this on Swing State Project?  As I wrote many times before the 2006 election, low approval ratings represent an opportunity for Democrats, not a guarantee.  As it turned out, those who did not approve of Bush in 2006 voted for their Democratic House incumbent.  And those who did approve of Bush voted for their Republican House incumbent.  If a similar dynamic plays out this year, it means almost all Democratic House incumbents are safe, while almost any Republican could be unseated by the right candidate running a good, well-funded campaign.

So Bush approval represented, in 2006 at least, a minimum performance level for incumbent Republicans.  We can see a similar sort of effect in this year’s presidential race.  McCain does not poll worse than Bush’s approval in any state, but he comes close in a few places (Hawaii and Wyoming).  Here’s a map that shows the difference between McCain’s numbers (from Nate Silver’s trend-adjusted polling averages, captured last week) to Bush’s approval ratings:

Click to enlarge.

Note that this map does not show which states are most competitive.  Instead, it shows where McCain is more popular than Bush.  People who say they will vote for McCain but do not approve of Bush could do so for a number of reasons, and the numbers don’t tell us why or whether they’re different in different regions of the country.  It’s probably safe to say that there’s a home state effect in Hawaii, though.  McCain does best in comparison to Bush’s approval in Appalachia and the Northeast, and worst in the West and the Deep South.  It is suspiciously familiar to the Democratic primary maps.

Tomorrow, the series continues with a look at the biggest issues: the economy and Iraq.  After that, party approval, identification, and some House numbers.  And finally, if the FEC gets its numbers out, some fundraising numbers.

Cross posted at DailyKos and Open Left.

The changes in voting behavior in recent years have a distinct geographic flavor.  In 1988, George H. W. Bush won with 53% of the vote; 16 years later, his son got 51% nationwide, pretty close to the same.  We should be able to figure out something from the comparison, as both Democrats in the race were ‘Massachusetts liberals’ and both Republicans were Bushes, although the son has a very different persona than the father.  If George H. W. Bush had run against Dukakis again in 2004, that would give us the most information about changes in voting behavior, but let’s take a look at what we do have:  

Click to enlarge.  Below, more on trends in voting and population growth in recent years.

Cross-posted at Open Left and DailyKos.

Despite similar nationwide vote percentages in 1988 and 2004, the maps above show striking and not-too-surprising changes.  Just like in the distribution of the House seats, there is a widening gulf of increasing polarization, although this is likely in part an artifact of the definitions we are using (percent vote for President).  In general, the Northeast and Midatlantic, Southwest, and the industrial Midwest trended towards Democrats.  The Plains states and the Mountain West trended towards Republicans.  Intriguingly, the South generally stayed about the same. 

Let's look at change by county (voting data available here):  the maps below show the intensity of a shift towards Republicans or Democrats (from 0 to 30 points between 1988 and 2004).  This doesn't mean Kerry won the blue counties, it means he did better than Dukakis; the darker the blue, the greater the shift.  The lightest color for each represents an increase of 0-5%. 

Click to enlarge.

Kerry increased in performance over Dukakis solidly in the Northeast and down the East Coast to Virginia.  Ohio, Michigan, Florida and South Carolina also show some consolidated increases.  There's a checkerboard through the South and Southwest.  The Plains show almost uniform increases for Bush II with a very solid pattern in the Mountain West and much of the Midwest and Ohio River valley.  Texas, which had a horse of a different party in each race (Lloyd Bentsen in 1988), has the most dramatic changes, although note it is not uniformly red. 

What portion of the changes we see can be attributed to the persona of Bush the Texas Rancher versus Republicans in general can't be sorted out.  For now, it appears that Bush's fake cowboy swagger has infected the entire Republican brand, so the information may be relevant for the short term at least.

But this is not much of a story: if we are interested in voting behavior changes, we have to know how many votes we're talking about.  So let's look at cartograms of the counties, using the method of Gastner and Newman, where the size of the counties are proportional to their populations instead of their areas (thanks to BentLiberal for the suggestion).  The US map ends up looking strangely like Asia:

Click to enlarge.

Again, these maps show change in support, not who won.  The pattern familiar from conventional wisdom now becomes clear: urban versus rural.  Not only are urban areas generally Democratic strongholds, they have become even more so in recent years.  There are some exceptions: rural New England, and some urban areas in the Plains and Appalachia, for example.

This still isn't the whole picture: we're looking at change, so we want to know how fast these counties are growing. 

Click to enlarge.

If growth patterns were exactly the same between 2004-2014 as between 1990-2000 (an assumption which probably isn't reasonable), and voting patterns remained the same in every county as in 2004, the political split would still be about the same – the Republican vote would increase by 0.6 points for a hypothetical 2014 election in this hypothetically growing country.  We do know, however, that since 2004 the number of people that identify as Republicans has decreased, indicating they're probably less likely to vote for a Republican for president; that alone throws off the entire hypothetical scenario.  We might be able to think of it as a worst-case scenario, however. 

So what can we take away from these maps?  Well, one thing is to look at extremes in growth.  First, those counties that lost population; the map on the left shows Bush's performance in 2004; the map on the right shows the change from 1988-2004, where blue indicates an increase in Democratic performance, and red an increase in Republican performance.

Click to enlarge.

The vast center swath of the country that looks so large on an area-based map has aligned with Republicans on the presidential level even more closely since 1988.  But it doesn't have many people and is in the process of losing them.  There's also a fair number of strongly Democratic and Democratic-trending urban centers that have lost population.  Another interesting note, the Appalachian region increased its Republican support to a draw, more or less, as it lost population. 

Next, only those counties that grew by 25% or more between 1990 and 2000. 

Click to enlarge.

The high growth counties show us a bunch of circles in the South, Midwest, and West.  These are the exurbs: they vary mostly from strong to very strong Republican support, but they are not all places of unbridled Republican growth.  In a fair number of exurban counties – outside Chicago and Northern Virginia, for instance – Republican support actually decreased from 1988 to 2004.

Where do we go from here?

At this point let me reiterate the cautions necessary in interpreting these changes:  they are based on presidential vote, which can be quite different from local politics, and may have much to do with the individual candidates involved.  And past behavior is no guarantee of future behavior.

Because populations don't just grow, they also change.  We all die, and young people start voting, and people who move somewhere don't necessarily act like those who are already there, and communities change.  And, both individuals and populations change their attitudes.  All these factors favor Democrats on the national level over the long term; in the short term, the Republican brand is in the doghouse. 

First, according to Pew's surveys, not only is the country as a whole – even Republicans – becoming less socially conservative, but each successive generation is less socially conservative than the last, and each generation itself is becoming less socially conservative over time.  Pew measured this as the average number of socially conservative responses on six questions.  Pew also found a recent increase in support for various government programs.

Communities change as well.  Over the long term, exurbs and suburbs are becoming more like urban central cities in their problems and concerns, and, one might think, more like urban centers in politics as well.  The housing crisis may very well accelerate this transformation.

Young people are far more progressive than the older voters they are replacing at the polls, as mentioned above.  Republicans cannot use fear of non-Christian gay brown people to get them to vote Republican, because they and their peers are increasingly non-Christian, non-white, and openly gay themselves.

Finally, the population increase in this country is 5-15 times higher for Democratic-trending minorities than non-Hispanic whites, translating to a stunning 4 out of every 5 new residents.  By focusing on appealing mainly to rural and exurban white Christian voters, Republicans may well write themselves into irrelevance over the long term.

(From the diaries. What’s your take? – promoted by James L.)

As we all watched in amazement last year, the Blue Wave in 2006 was so strong Republicans almost lost House districts in Wyoming and Idaho – two of the most conservative districts in the country (only 10-20 districts gave Bush a higher percentage of the vote in 2000 or 2004).  Not one Democratic seat was lost.

It couldn’t get better than that, could it?

Could it?

As the latest Democracy Corps memo puts it, “If Americans have ever been angrier with the state of the country, we have not witnessed it…”  And that anger is directed mostly at Republicans. 

Now, the numbers – first up, the Master Indicator – the Generic Ballot question.  The graph show the net Democratic advantage:

Click to enlarge.

Join me on the flip for a fourteen ways to look at the 2008 House races – and, in some cases, the mood of the country in general. 

Cross-posted at Open Left and Daily Kos.

Note: If I haven’t linked to polling data directly, you can find it at pollingreport.com. Unless I forgot to put in the link. 

The Vote

1.  Generic Ballot (+)  (The plus sign means an improvement from 2006 for Democrats)
The generic ballot question really has done a great job predicting the actual nationwide vote in congressional elections recently, when the results of all polls are averaged together.  The actual Democratic advantage has ended up about 3-4 points less than what the polls say in the final week for the past four elections in the Bush era.  So far, despite increasing unhappiness with Congress, Democrats continue to have a stunning advantage on the generic ballot. 

2. Battleground Districts (+)
Democracy Corps has once again been busy polling the House races in key areas of the country.  The Mountain West favors Democrats slightly more than they did in 2006, but the amazing numbers are in the 35 most vulnerable Republican districts.  Their poll numbers are lousy.  No wonder so many have decided to retire (more on that later).  The 35 most vulnerable House Democrats, on the other hand, are not so vulnerable at all, polling well ahead of generic Republicans (55 to 37). 

Party preference in key districts. Click to enlarge.

The Parties and Approval

3.  Bush Approval (+)
Bush’s approval continues on a downward trajectory, overall, and he is making sure Republicans go down with him.  In 2006 Bush’s approval was related to Republicans’ performance in House elections; there’s no guarantee for 2008, but lower approval ratings for Bush are worse for Republicans than higher approval ratings.  Note the map below for districts is from July 2007, when Bush’s approval was a few points lower than today.  (An archive of old approval ratings maps is now available on dKosopedia.)

Bush’s approval by state (10/07) and district (7/07).  Click to enlarge.

4.  Party Approval (-)
The Republican brand is trashed.  Democrats have a net approval that is less than November 2006, but still positive, and not unusually low.  Republicans remain way, way in the negative.

Net favorability of Democrats and Republicans.  Click to enlarge.

5.  Congressional Approval (=)
Nobody likes Congress, we’ve heard, but people like Congressional Republicans a fair amount less than they like Congressional Democrats.  According to ABC/Washington Post polls, people are most likely to blame Bush and the Republicans for blocking Democrats from doing what the people elected them to do.  The difference between the parties’ approval is still about the same as last year.

Approval of Democrats and Republicans in Congress, and who is to blame for Congress not getting things done.  Click to enlarge.

6.  Party ID (+)
Republicans and Democrats are at about the same levels as 2006 according to Rasmussen, but when you include Independents who lean towards Democrats, Pew shows the leftward shift continuing into this year.

Two measures of partisan identification.  Click to enlarge.

The Issues

7.  Party Trust (+)
The public continues to swing to the Democratic side of issues, part of a longer-term trend.  Republicans used to be the party of Fiscal Discipline, but last July, an NBC/WSJ poll showed Democrats have advantages on Reducing the Deficit (+25), Controlling Government Spending (+16), and Taxes (+9).  Well, so they’re left with God, Guns, and Gays, right?  No…. Rasmussen asked about Abortion (+7 average this year), and Newsweek about Guns (+2) and Same-Sex Marriage (+8).  And White Evangelical Christians are abandoning the party in droves – some to become Democrats, but mainly to become Independents or apolitical.  Then what about Terra, Terra, Terra, 9/11?  Still no…at best, Republicans come out even on questions about National Security and the so-called War on Terror.  On the issues voters claim are most important to them, Democrats have increased their advantage since 2006, and two issues that are among the most favorable for Democrats (health care and the economy) have gained prominence.  There is one sour note in this symphony: a decrease in the Democratic advantage when it comes to corruption and ethics in government.

Democratic advantage on key issues and importance of key issues in recent elections.  Click to enlarge.

8.  Iraq (+)
The public continues to think the war in Iraq simply isn’t worth it, to a greater extent than a year ago, although opinion was more pessimistic mid-year.  More and more people also think the number of troops should be decreased.

Opinion on whether Iraq is worth it and troop withdrawal.  Click to enlarge.

9.  The Economy (+)
As we saw above, the public trusts Democrats much more on the economy, and the economy is coming to the fore in terms of important issues this election season.  People think things aren’t very good and they’re getting worse, despite all the rosy numbers the Bush administration keeps putting out.  And when the Republicans try to talk up the economy, it really pisses people off (see Page 7.)  One reason, of course, is because Real People actually buy things like milk and gas, and the prices keep going up while wages are not.  Over Bush’s presidency, gas has been increasing at 13% per year (log plot here), while wages have been increasing at about 3% per year.  Up until about 2004, the public perception of the economy’s future seemed to be tied strongly to the stock market; after that, it appears gas prices are key.  For more and a much better analysis, see How to hide a recession.

Public perception on the current state of the economy, direction of the economy, milk and gas prices, and how gas and the Dow influence public opinion.  Click to enlarge.

10.  Health Care (+)
Health care availability and cost are both increasing problems, and surely related to perceptions of the economy.  The percentage of Americans without insurance has been rising steadily through the Bush presidency, and the number now stands at 47 million. Those who have health care plans through work have seen premiums almost double, while benefits dwindle and copays multiply.

Percent of Americans who are uninsured and premium prices.  Click to enlarge.

The Campaigning

11.  Fundraising (+)
Any way you slice it, Congressional Democrats and Democratic challengers are beating the pants of the Republicans in the money race.  The bad news is where a lot of this money is coming from.  The new members of Congress are raising a ton of cash, and Republican challengers are not.  Data for the first six months of 2007 and previous years are available from the FEC.

Total and median funds for incumbents, median funds for challengers, and number of challengers.  Click to enlarge.

12.  Recruitment (+)
As BENAWU has tirelessly documented, there are more districts with Democrats running now than at this time in 2005.  Part of this, of course, is that we started out with a few extra seats in the House filled with incumbents!  Nonetheless, Democrats are having a great recruitment season.

Number of districts with Democrats running, and district status as of mid-October.  Click to enlarge.

13.  Retirement (+)
Democrats are keeping their behinds tightly plastered to their seats and Republicans are fleeing for the exits, as covered by many of Steve Singiser’s diaries.  The Cook Political Report has tracked retirements over the past few cycles, and based on the numbers, it looks like we can expect another wave of Republican retirements in the new year, possible making it up to 30.  Democrats, on the other hand, have far fewer retirements or even potential retirements compared to the 2004 or 2006 cycles. 

Republican and Democratic retirements, and Republican and Democratic potential retirements.  Click to enlarge.

14.  Coattails (-)
In 2006, we had no national Democrat for Republicans to run against in House races.  In 2008, we will, and whoever it is will have high negatives after the right-wing slime machine is done with them. 

The good news is, right now, 74% believe that Clinton will be the nominee, and her most recent NBC/WSJ ‘very negative’ ratings were 26%.  No, really – this is good news, because it means the current excellent Generic Ballot numbers (which recently have had a good relationship with the actual vote) must therefore already have substantial negative coattails built in.  We still should assume the effect will increase.  Below are Kerry’s numbers from 2004 and the generic ballot numbers (note that approval of Democrats in general was also falling at the end of the campaign).

Kerry’s disapproval and the generic ballot, 2004.  Click to enlarge.

Summary:

Out of 14 factors, there are only two that are worse now compared to the 2006 cycle.  The generic ballot favors Democrats to an amazing extent.  This will be affected by local campaigns, of course, and here the Democrats are also excelling, with outstanding fundraising, recruiting, and retention.  Broader factors such as the economy and presidential approval ratings are also trending towards Democrats.  The public trusts Democrats more, and approves of Democrats more, even as they are unsatisfied with what Congress is doing.  As of now, Democrats are in an excellent position for the 2008 elections, despite the shortcomings of Democratic leaders over the past year.