Tag: DCCC

As you’re probably now aware, the DCCC has reserved $28 million worth of ad time to help shore up the re-election campaigns of 40 incumbents (and one open seat campaign) this fall. While we don’t know how much money will be spent everywhere, the Hotline has a partial list of dollar figures for a few select districts. Let’s look at the fab forty-one in chart form (click on the table headers to sort):

(†Special election margins)

Note that the DCCC does not necessarily need to use these reservations. (For example, the DCCC reserved $2.1 million in 2008 to beat up the Republican nominee in NY-13’s open seat race, but ultimately didn’t spend a dime against Bob “The Wiener King of Manhattan” Straniere.) Also note that the DCCC has yet to reserve time in any open seats (aside from Dennis Moore’s) or Republican-held districts.

The scary thing is that I can think of a few dozen more Democratic incumbents whom the DCCC might feel compelled to drop some significant coin on defending.

There’s a tuppeny hapenny millionaire – looking for a fourpenny one. Here are the June fundraising numbers for the six major party committees (May numbers are here):

Just a quick note on the Dem vs. GOP cash disparities: In March, it was $21.5 mil, then $18.6 mil, then $18.0 mil, and now it’s down to $16.1 mil $18.1 mil.

UPDATE: I made a mistake and misreported the cash-on-hand totals for both the DSCC and NRSC. Both sets of numbers were in fact higher than I reported, the DSCC moreso than the NRSC, meaning the Dems added more net cash overall.

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov: There’s no shortage of pollsters looking at California, and now Canadian firm Ipsos (on behalf of Reuters) piles on. They find, like most pollsters, single-digits leads for the Democrats in both major races: Jerry Brown leads Meg Whitman 45-39 in the gubernatorial racer, while Barbara Boxer leads Carly Fiorina 45-41. They also find the proposed ballot initiative legalizing marijuana failing but by a close margin, 48-50.

• CO-Sen: The endorsement that seemed to blow everyone away yesterday was Bill Clinton’s unexpected backing of Andrew Romanoff, who’s mounting a primary challenge to appointed incumbent Michael Bennet in the Senate primary. It may not be that surprising, though, given Clinton’s willingness to go to bat for lost causes who backed Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign in 2008, which Romanoff did. It sounds like Clinton’s intervention will be limited to fundraising e-mails, though, rather than stumping with Romanoff.

• FL-Sen: The criminal case against former state GOP party chair Jim Greer is interesting enough on its own. But it could get even more interesting if Charlie Crist gets called to testify as a witness, which could happen, as his name is on a list of potential witnesses that’s being circulated.

• IL-Sen: Mark Kirk, having offered some weak excuses (“I wasn’t thinking”) at his public appearance yesterday to apologize for his resume embellishments, tried to get back on the offensive against Alexi Giannoulias, rolling out two ads. That includes one that tries to get back to the whole “mob banker” meme. Giannoulias, however, isn’t letting the resume flummery issue die; he rolled out his own attack ad today keeping Kirk’s misrememberments front and center.

• KY-Sen: Charming: Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo, who narrowly lost the Democratic primary to AG Jack Conway, isn’t going to endorse anyone in the Senate race. Also, he said he isn’t planning to run for Governor next year. (Steve Beshear is running for re-election, but dropped Mongiardo from the ticket in favor of Louisville mayor Jerry Abramson, perhaps assuming that Mongo would already be Senator by 2011.)

• NC-Sen (pdf): SurveyUSA (6/23-24, likely voters):

Elaine Marshall (D): 40

Richard Burr (R-inc): 50

Mike Beitler (L): 6

Undecided: 5

(MoE: ±4%)

We haven’t been intentionally ignoring this poll from last weekend, just kept dropping the ball on getting it onto the front page. At any rate, this is one of those weird instances where Rasmussen sees a better race for the Dems than does SurveyUSA, although that may have to do with Rasmussen’s odd tendency to see huge post-primary bounces.

• NV-Sen: Last night’s title heavyweight bout was between Sharron Angle and Jon Ralston on Ralston’s public affairs TV show. Angle tried to emphasize her softer side, walking back earlier vague threats about armed insurrection, but still voiced support for Social Security phaseout and, maybe even more fatal for Nevada, support for the Yucca Mountain nuclear waste site.

• WV-Sen: Don’t get too comfortable in assuming that the West Virginia election to replace Robert Byrd won’t be held until 2012. There are vague rumblings that, despite the SoS’s decision, there might be a legislative special session this year to move the election date to November 2010. Bear in mind, though, that Dems thoroughly control the legislature so they’d be doing it only if they thought there was an advantage to doing it now instead of ’12. As Aaron Blake points out, Joe Manchin is not only the heir apparent to the Senate seat but also the Governor, who has the power to move the special session agenda, so the whole thing is really up to him. (Manchin might figure his heavy popularity is more of an advantage in a shortened election season, instead of a multi-year ramp-up to 2012.) At any rate, Manchin seems content to take his time, wanting to wait until after Byrd’s funeral next week to make any moves.

• MN-Gov: Mark Dayton is flying in the face of conventional wisdom (conventional wisdom that ignores the success of recent pro-tax ballot measures in Oregon and freakin’ Arizona) by making tax increases for the wealthy a cornerstone of his gubernatorial campaign. Dayton also just landed endorsements from 2006 gubernatorial candidates Mike Hatch, and ex-Rep. Bill Luther.

• ID-01: Raul Labrador, the gift that just keeps on giving. Labrador, who just had to walk back criticisms of John Boehner, is now facing reports that he recently tore into John McCain at a pre-primary appearance and voiced his support for J.D. Hayworth. On a related note, the NRCC just promoted 16 more Young Guns to the top tier of their fundraising pyramid, but despite having won the primary here, Labrador‘s name is still nowhere to be seen on the list.

• KS-04: Here’s some trouble for Wink Hartman, the businessman competing with Mike Pompeo for the GOP nomination in this Todd Tiahrt-held open seat. Pompeo’s camp is making hay out of reports that Hartman, whom they’ve accused of carpetbagging in from Florida, is still taking a valuable homestead exemption on his expensive house in Florida, which would require that to be his primary residence.

• LA-02: State Rep. Cedric Richmond seems to have a big advantage in his quest to win the Democratic nomination in the 2nd; he’s released an internal poll taken by Zata|3 (which you might remember polling the Arkansas primaries on behalf of Arkansas Business Journal), giving him a 53-13 lead over fellow state Rep. Juan LaFonta. No general election numbers for the battle against Republican Rep. Joe Cao were released.

• VA-05: Rep. Tom Perriello is out with what might get my vote for the best candidate TV ad of the cycle so far. (Well, the best ad not featuring Dale Peterson, I suppose.) It’s attention-grabbing and light-hearted enough to break through the clutter, while still staying on-message on the issue of jobs.

• WA-02: Talk about an utter polling fail. John Koster, the Republican challenger to Rep. Rick Larsen, is touting a poll with a lead over Larsen but isn’t giving the name of the pollster or even the specific numbers (saying he’s “in the neighborhood of 53 to 47 percent” – wow… no undecideds?). Larsen’s camp is saying the poll is crap, and they have a little more than the usual platitudes to back that up: Larsen was actually one of the persons polled, and he helpfully jotted down all 12 questions the poll asked. One of them identified Larsen as… a Republican.

• DCCC: Here’s some good news; now that they’re down to the final day of the quarter, the DCCC is actively twisting some arms to get recalcitrant House Dems to cough up their DCCC dues. So far, through the end of last month, House Dems have given $19.5 million over the cycle to the DCCC… but deadbeats still abound.

A penny saved is a penny earned. Here are the May fundraising numbers for the six major party committees (April numbers are here):

For the first time this cycle (and for a very long time before that as well), the NRSC now has more money in the bank than the DSCC does. And the RNC is very close behind the DNC.

CA-Sen: Biden alert! The VPOTUS will do a fundraiser for Barbara Boxer next month in Silicon Valley, followed by a next-day affair in the City of Angels. President Obama’s already done several events for Boxer, but of course, CA is damn enormous and expensive.

FL-Sen: We often criticize candidates for making phony ad buys which are really just pure media plays – but usually they aren’t this obvious about it. Zillionaire asshole Jeff Greene, ostensibly running for senate in Florida, is running ads on cable television… in Washington, DC. Greene is trying to goad the House Ethics Committee into investigating some earmark activity on Kendrick Meek’s part. I doubt this is going to work. Oh, and of course no word on the size of the buy. I mean, why even bother?

SC-Sen: The South Carolina Democratic Party turned back Vic Rawl’s challenge to Alvin Greene’s shocking primary win, citing a lack of evidence that would mandate an attempt to overturn the election results.

AL-Gov: If Tim James really wanted to stop a Republican from winning an election, he should have given that $200,000 to me. Instead, the money that he’s blown on a statewide recount has actually cost him ten votes so far, with 59 of 67 counties (representing 94% of the state’s population) having finished their second count. James trails second-place finisher Robert Bentley by 177 votes now, as opposed to 167 after election night. I really wonder who advised him on this move.

OH-Gov: Despite his repeated claims that he wasn’t very involved in Lehman Brother’s business operations, John Kasich still felt threatened enough by his connection that one of his staffers engaged in a little sideline duty – he advised Ohio’s largest public pension fund on how best to spin its nine-figure losses attributable to the Lehman debacle. Ah, who doesn’t love some nice shady commingling?

NC-02: Civitas hired SUSA to conduct a snap poll of the NC-02 race, in the wake of Bob Etheridge’s videotaped spazz-out the other day. They find Republican Renee Ellmers at 39, Etheridge at 38, and, weirdly, libertarian Tom Rose at 13. (Note that Ellmers has $5K on hand and Rose hasn’t filed a report.) Tom Jensen offers a note of caution, though, pointing out that a poll PPP did immediately after Joe Wilson’s “You lie!” embarrassment also showed the incumbent down a point – but it’s extremely unlikely the race looks anything like that today. Of course, SC-02 is quite a bit more GOP-friendly than NC-02 is Dem-friendly.

DCCC: The Hill has a follow-up piece on the shameful state of DCCC dues payments. Even at this late date, retiring members Brian Baird, Vic Snyder, Dennis Moore, Bart Gordon, and John Tanner (who is a member of leadership) are still way behind on their dues, and some have even contributed nothing, despite huge warchests. Of course, this is only a very partial list of deadbeats.

Moose Lady: For those of you who like to keep track of Sarah Palin’s endorsements, well, she’s backing Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (WA-05), Star Parker (CA-37 – I know, very lulzy), and Rep. Mary Fallin (OK-Gov).

Facebook: We’re currently at 480 fans on SSP’s Facebook page. We’d really, really like to get to 500 – and you also know we ain’t too proud to beg – so won’t you please “like” us?

I knew this was bullshit when I read it in February:

Lawmakers with direct ties to Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) operations say more members than usual are clinging to every dollar instead of paying their dues.

“The pressure will definitely ramp up in the spring,” a senior Democrat said. …

Leadership aides said the DCCC is right where it needs to be….

We’re days away from summer, and:

House Democratic lawmakers are holding onto their campaign cash despite pleas from the campaign committee for money to help the party, a reflection of the nervousness among incumbents.

Only 16 of the 254 members of the Democratic caucus have paid their full obligation to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, according to a report obtained by The Associated Press. Of those, dozens have outstanding balances of at least $125,000.

Same old shit, except now we’re less than five months away from election day. And the DCCC is still pretending like nothing’s wrong – “A spokesman for the group played down the debts,” relates the AP – but I’d bet good money they are the very ones responsible for leaking their own dues spreadsheet to the media. Of course, what they won’t do is share that list with activists, who would actually put direct pressure on members of Congress to pay their dues. I guess they’d rather just be passive-aggressive about it.

Personally, I feel like we’ve seen an insufficiently partisan spine over at the D-Trip, ever since Chris Van Hollen took over last cycle. SSP readers are well aware of the treachery perpetrated by Red-to-Blue chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz in 2008, which Van Hollen permitted under his watch. This cycle, Van Hollen’s apparent refusal to engage in bare-knuckled tactics to shake money out of his caucus is inexcusable. Rahm Emanuel would never have abided this.

Or maybe they should be calling it “Keeping Blue Blue”. The list:

In their first batch of Red to Blue endorsements, the DCCC only snuck in two blue seats into the program. This time, only four GOP-held seats made the cut, including the one held by freshly-minted Hawaii Rep. Charles Djou. It’s interesting that the DCCC chose not to include Steve Raby (AL-05) and Matt Zeller (NY-29) just yet. Can you spot any other omissions?  

Oh, we ain’t got a barrel of money. Here are the April fundraising numbers for the six major party committees (March numbers are here):

Our House & Senate committees got crushed last month, and now the NRSC is at parity with the DSCC. While the DNC numbers look good at first blush, they spent as much as they took in. I’m not really sure why the DNC has been burning so much lately – they spent over $9 million in March, too. I’m posting a little table of all their expense categories over $100K (which acounts for almost all of their April spending):

AR-Sen: Americans for Job Security, a shadowy group deservedly under fire for racist ads attacking Bill Halter, has now followed suit with an equally if not more disgusting mailer (click to see for yourself).

FL-Sen: So Charlie Crist’s gone and hired himself an interim campaign manager… who just happens to be his sister. It’s not surprising that Charlie’s having trouble finding staff. Dems are loyal to Kendrick Meek and will risk getting blackballed by the DSCC if they work against him. And the Republicans – you can bet they will fucking fry anyone who crosses them. Crist is definitely going to wind up with some slim pickins’, though if the Jeff Greene thing doesn’t work out, I’m sure Joe Trippi will be available.

NC-Sen: Former Rep. Eva Clayton, the first woman elected to Congress in North Carolina and a prominent backer of third-place finisher Ken Lewis, gave her endorsement to Elaine Marshall. Will Lewis himself follow suit?

AL-Gov: Is Artur Davis’s plan to win the war causing him to lose the battle? Ron Sparks just picked up the endorsement of two historically black political groups in Birmingham, which seem to have established a mutual shunning society with Davis thanks in large part to his vote against healthcare reform. Even if Davis does win the primary, will he kill the enthusiasm of black voters for the general?

CT-Gov: The Democratic state convention is the same weekend as the GOP meetup (see CT-04 item below). My understanding is that Dan Malloy has the nomination locked up, but Ned Lamont and his millions are only hoping to score the 15% they need to avoid petitioning to get on the ballot.

SC-Gov: Moose Lady in the Palmetto State today, endorsing Mark Sanford protégé Nikki Haley.

ME-Gov: Heh – it’s a poll, of sorts. Portland-based Critical Insights asked 600 likely voters if they could name any of the gubernatorial candidates, I assume by pure recall. Republican Les Otten was best-known, with 30% naming him, while Peter Mills was at 16%. Among Dems, Libby Mitchell scored 16% and Steve Rowe 11%. Everyone else was in single digits.

CT-04: Some Dude Will Gregory is bailing on the race, following Rob Russo, who quit a couple of weeks ago. Russo endorsed state Sen. Dan Debicella, but Gregory isn’t backing anybody. The GOP will gather next weekend (May 21st) for its convention, where a simple majority gets you the party’s endorsement, which Debicella is expected to pick up easily. However, 15% gets you on the primary ballot, and failing that, so will 2,000 signatures. The other three Republican hopefuls are all more or less saying they plan to fight on regardless of what happens at the convention.

DE-AL: This is either some unbelievable oppo or the product of an amazingly lucky Google search: A letter to the editor in a Jamaican newspaper written by businesswoman/heiress Michele Rollins has somehow surfaced, and it’s given developer Glen Urquhart a fat opening. In the letter, Rollins advocates that Jamaica – which she refers to as “our” country – develop itself as an international banking center (aka offshore tax evasion haven) to rival the Cayman Islands. Not only does this raise the weirdest dual-loyalties question I’ve ever seen, but given that Delaware is a big banking center, it’s causing Rollins extra grief. Also of note: The DE GOP will hold its convention this Saturday. Candidates need 60% to get the party’s endorsement (which is expected to go to Rollins), but it’s non-binding, and both Republicans plan to fight on to the September primary no matter what happens.

FL-08: Former state Sen. Dan Webster, like so many of his brethren, also seems ensnared in the burgeoning Republican Party of Florida Amex scandal. He spent $9K over a two-year period, pretty much entirely at restaurants, and isn’t apologizing for it. That’s a lot of pizza.

FL-25: Joe Garcia is hammering state Rep. David Rivera for a “political stunt” which cost taxpayers several hundred thousand dollars. Rivera supported a law which required travel agencies arranging flights to Cuba to post six-figure bonds. The agencies successfully fought the law in court and were also awarded their legal costs, which amounted to $365K. This is a clever hit, and it also shows that Garcia isn’t afraid to challenge anti-Castro fanaticism.

HI-01: AFSCME funneled $100K back in April to a group called Workers for a Better Hawaii, which has since spent about $75K on radios ads against Charles Djou and Ed Case. Perhaps the scariest thing is that the NRCC hasn’t spent a dime on this race (thought the RNC transferred some $94K to the Hawaii GOP back in March).

ID-01: Remember back in 1997, when George Lucas re-released Star Wars? Yeah, he shoulda stopped there. GOP candidate Vaughn Ward shouldn’t have even bothered with the re-release: He tried to re-trot-out an endorsement from the American Conservative Union in order to bolster his wingnut bonafides… but he put out a press release about this all the way back in November. That is sad. Even sadder is the Bill Sali-esque excuse making from Ward’s campaign manager, who – when called on it – claimed, “I just got a new Mac and I’m still trying to figure it out.” Oh god.

IN-08: I like it: The D-Trip is already going up on the air with an ad bashing Republican Larry Buchson on a tried-and-true theme: social security privatization. No word on the size of the buy, though apparently it will go up for a week in Evansville, which is not a costly market.

MA-05: So Niki Tsongas demurred on whether or not she’d want Barack Obama to campaign with her. While Scott Brown did win this district 56-43, I’m really not sure Tsongas wants to be playing cringe politics. However, the NYT – which seems to think she’s in real trouble – cutely points out that her best-funded GOP challenger has not raised “as much” as Tsongas has. The truth: Tsongas $863K, Jonathan Golnik $177K. P.S. I note that Rep. Brian Higgins (NY-27) was eager to get a photo op with Obama yesterday.

NY-14: Hah – Reshma Saujani almost does something I might approve of, except I don’t. She’s berating Carolyn Maloney for not supporting President Obama and the DCCC because she didn’t raise money for last night’s fundraiser (see item below). Ordinarily at SSP, we’re the loudest when it comes to demanding incumbents support their party committees – but this is ridiculous bullshit. The D-Trip always goes easy when incumbents face serious races, whether primaries or generals. But in any event, Maloney points out that she has in fact raised over a quarter mil for the DCCC this cycle. I guess Saujani has a lot of credibility when it comes to supporting the D-Trip and Obama, though: She’s donated $0 lifetime to the DCCC and was a big Clinton backer.

PA-12: SEIU just dropped a cool $200K on TV ads to go after Tim Burns. Let’s just hope those recent polls are right…. Meanwhile, Scott Brown is coming to campaign for Burns, while Sen. Bob Casey will be doing the same for Mark Critz.

DCCC: Barack Obama was in NYC last night, doing a fundraiser for the D-Trip at the St. Regis hotel. He raked in $1.3 million (tickets started at $15K a pop).

The DCCC has been telegraphing this for most of a week (ever since Colleen Hanabusa’s press conference to announce that she wasn’t dropping out), but it’s official today:

The DCCC is pulling out of the race to replace ex-Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), effectively ceding the heavily Dem seat to the GOP as intra-party feuding splits the vote.

“The DCCC will not be investing additional resources in the HI-01 (Abercrombie-open) special election. Local Democrats were unable to work out their differences,” DCCC communications director Jennifer Crider said in an emailed statement. “The DCCC will save the resources we would have invested in the Hawaii special election this month for the general election in November.”

It had been at least a week since the Dems invested any money in this race, but they’d spent $314K on anti-Charles Djou advertising (as well as sending around a Barack Obama robocall advising a vote “for a Democrat”). With about one in five (60K out of 317K) of the election’s mail-in ballots already returned (the deadline is May 22 for the all-mail election), the die is already looking pretty well cast, meaning the outcome could be set even with a last-minute NY-23 bombshell where one candidate bails out.