Tag: MS-01

You already know the basics: Travis Childers supports withdrawing our troops from Iraq in 12 to 18 months, a timeframe that every serious analyst acknowledges is safe and reasonable. Large majorities are in favor of withdrawal, so it’s especially heartening to see a Democrat in a red district embrace this stance. And it’s one of the many reasons we’re supporting him.

But a Childers win will reverberate far outside MS-01 when it comes to Iraq. Other potentially vulnerable Democrats in conservative areas will be able to look at this race and conclude that if Childers can succeed in an R+10 district running (at least in part) on Iraq withdrawal, they can, too.

This is crucial because Dems are planning to vote on withdrawal once again this year. I think we know Bush won’t budge, but DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen says nuts to that:

“There are some people who would say, ‘OK, why are you going through this exercise again, if the president is going to veto this?’ We have a responsibility to do everything we can to follow through on the changes we say we want made,” Van Hollen said. “I think it is a question of demonstrating where you stand, and what you will do, and continue to push to do, if you are elected in November.”

Van Hollen gets it – it’s about sending the right message. Childers can help send that message with his own vote, but just as importantly, he can also help make it a lot louder by giving fellow Democrats the courage to take the right stand on Iraq. Remember, only six Democrats hold seats as red or redder than MS-01. A Congressman Childers would offer a whole lot of Dems a whole lot of breathing room.

What’s more, I think Childers has figured out a devastatingly effective way to sell his position to voters:

He said he’s amazed more people on the campaign trail haven’t asked about a national debt of more than $9 trillion.

“We’re spending our money, folks, in Iraq. We need to be spending our money in America.

“We need to help young people get homes. We need to address the mortgage crisis.”

By linking withdrawal from Iraq with a populist appeal that addresses deep concerns about the economy, Childers knocks Republicans back on their heels with a one-two punch. This goes right at core GOP weaknesses, and I think it’s an approach that can play in many districts.

But all of this only matters, of course, if Childers gets elected – which is why we need to do everything we can to help him. Thanks to the generosity of the Swing State Project community, we’ve raised an impressive $1,300 so far. That puts us an even $1,000 away from original goal. But we really have very little time here. The election is only two weeks away, and money received by a campaign in the final week is more difficult to deploy strategically.

So I would really like to see us hit our target by Monday, May 5th. Can we add another $200 today? Let’s do it for Childers – and for our troops.

Update (James): Actblue seems to be have had a few server issues this morning, although things seem to be working fine now.  If you have trouble accessing our fundraising page, please try again a little bit later.

The NRCC has posted their independent expenditures for the day:

• MS-01: $260,000 on media buys against Democrat Travis Childers, and $15,000 on producing the ads.
• LA-06: $53,000 on direct mail against Democrat Don Cazayoux, and $8800 on another poll in this district.

The new expenditures in MS-01 add up to $570,518 spent by the NRCC, with $276,588 of that spent during the runoff period.  The NRCC’s total bill in LA-06 is $312,206 — but they’ve also been aided by huge infusions of cash by Freedom’s Watch and the Club For Growth.

Here at SSP, we’re not sitting idly by while the NRCC smears and distorts the truth in an attempt to cling to life in deep red districts like these.  You’ve helped us raise over $1000 for Travis Childers in barely over a day.  If you haven’t done so already, please help give Childers the resources he needs to win.

Update: The DCCC just posted a few expenditures of their own, including $2900 on field organizing, $16K on direct mail, and $9K on ad production in LA-06.  They also spent $13K on media production in MS-01.

We had a good haul yesterday in our efforts to “max out” to Travis Childers: twelve donations, $656 raised. That puts us about a quarter of the way toward our $2,300 goal.

What I’d like to see SSP do today is increase our number of donors by half – so, six more contributions by the end of the day. I usually prefer donor goals rather than dollar goals, but with the run-off less than three weeks away, it’s really the almighty dollar (rather than building up donor lists) that matters most.

But for today, at least, let’s focus on donations, not total amounts raised. After all, if Childers wins next month, he’ll still have a fierce race on his hands come November – and a big list of small donors will be invaluable. So please consider contributing today, no matter the size. The DCCC is stepping up, and so that means we need to put our money where are mouths are, too.

Update (Trent): Perhaps we underestimated y’all; we’ve already met today’s fundraising goal and it’s not even lunchtime. We’ve now raised over $900 from 18 folks; let’s try to make it to $1000 by day’s end. Every little bit helps get us closer to a Democratic majority in Mississippi’s congressional delegation (how sweet that would be!).

Update (Trent): Once again we’ve cleared the bar, having raised over $1000 for Travis Childers in little more than a day. Let’s all give ourselves a pat on the back, but we’ve got a ways to go before reaching our ultimate goal of $2300, the equivalent of one maxed-out contribution.

The DCCC just came in big in Mississippi tonight, dropping $219,234 on a media buy against GOP candidate Greg Davis.  The new expenditures bring their total tab in this district to $360K.

The DCCC is in to win, but let’s help Travis Childers seal the deal.  Can we raise $2300 to help give the Childers campaign the resources they need to win on May 13th?

The Swing State Project is doing something that we haven’t done since the early days of Jon Tester’s race in Montana — independently of any other blog, we’re laying our cards down on the table and offering our endorsement and fundraising support to a congressional candidate: Democrat Travis Childers, who is running in the special election to replace Roger Wicker in the House of Representatives.

We’ve had our eye on MS-01 for some time, giving it a competitive rating before any other major prognosticator did so. Travis Childers bore out our projections and then exceeded them, coming just 400 or so votes shy of outright victory in the special election on April 22nd. Now he faces a two-candidate run-off on May 13th. This is a very winnable race, but only if Childers gets all the help he needs.

Childers, the Chancery Clerk of Prentiss County for nearly two decades, is a serious economic populist with true-blue small town Mississippi roots.  He supports S-CHIP, opposes CAFTA and wants us to withdraw our troops from Iraq in 12 to 18 months.  And he holds these populist positions in a heavily red district: MS-01’s PVI is R+10, and it gave Bush 62% of its vote in 2004.  If Childers can win this seat, it will be a crippling blow to the NRCC, who have spent nearly $300,000 against Childers, only to come up short last Tuesday.  But we can be sure that they’ll be back in full force, doing all they can to hang on to this seat in May.  And that’s why we have to step up and fight back.

Our goal: $2300 for Childers.  In other words, that’s the equivalent of one “maxed out” big dollar donation.

Together, we can do this.  So please support Travis Childers today with whatever you can manage.

Last week, the Blue Dog Coalition of conservative House Democrats offered their endorsement to Travis Childers, who has been running a hard-charging campaign for the R+10 open seat left behind by Roger Wicker.

That was awfully nice of them, but how meaningful is their endorsement? Let’s take a look at Childers’ fundraising so far and see how many Blue Dogs have sent donations to Childers:

District	Member	MS-01 Donation
NY-24	Mike Arcuri	$0
CA-43	Joe Baca	$0
GA-12	John Barrow	$0
IL-08	Melissa Bean	$0
AR-01	Marion Berry	$0
GA-02	Sanford Bishop	$0
OK-02	Dan Boren	$0
IA-03	Leonard Boswell	$0
FL-02	Allen Boyd	$0
CA-18	Dennis Cardoza	$0
PA-10	Chris Carney	$0
KY-06	Ben Chandler	$0
TN-05	Jim Cooper	$0
CA-20	Jim Costa	$0
AL-05	Bud Cramer	$0
TN-04	Lincoln Davis	$0
IN-02	Joe Donnelly	$0
IN-08	Brad Ellsworth	$0
IL-14	Bill Foster	$0
AZ-08	Gabrielle Giffords	$0
NY-20	Kirsten Gillibrand	$0
TN-06	Bart Gordon	$0
CA-36	Jane Harman	$0
IN-09	Baron Hill	$0
PA-17	Tim Holden	$0
NY-02	Steve Israel	$0
TX-22	Nick Lampson	$0
FL-16	Tim Mahoney	$0
UT-02	Jim Matheson	$0
LA-03	Charlie Melancon	$1,000
NC-07	Mike McIntyre	$0
ME-02	Mike Michaud	$0
KS-03	Dennis Moore	$0
PA-08	Patrick Murphy	$0
MN-07	Collin Peterson	$0
ND-AL	Earl Pomeroy	$0
AR-04	Mike Ross	$0
CO-03	John Salazar	$0
CA-47	Loretta Sanchez	$0
SD-AL	Stephanie Herseth Sandlin	$0
CA-29	Adam Schiff	$0
NC-11	Heath Shuler	$0
GA-13	David Scott	$0
OH-18	Zack Space	$0
TN-08	John Tanner	$2,000
MS-04	Gene Taylor	$2,000
CA-01	Mike Thompson	$0
OH-06	Charlie Wilson	$0

And no donations from the Blue Dog PAC, either. With the exceptions of Reps. Melancon, Taylor, and Tanner (the latter of which actually took the time to campaign with Childers), this is a pretty pathetic show of support from the Blue Dogs in an extremely winnable race, especially when you consider just how flush with cash the Blue Dogs are.

When Blue Dogs and their allies keep telling us that Democrats need to compete in the South to succeed as a party, how can we possibly take them seriously if they won’t even put their money where their mouths are? Here we have an extremely viable race with an economically populist, socially conservative candidate in Travis Childers leading the charge. Yet, the Blue Dogs have mostly ignored him. What gives?

Granted, several members of the Blue Dog Coalition are facing tough re-election fights, and I wouldn’t expect them to be parting with any cash-on-hand at this point in time. But the vast majority of these members are not facing daunting re-election campaigns, and I would hope that they would loosen their purse strings and contribute $2000 (the maximum allowable amount from a member’s campaign account) or more if they have a leadership PAC to help Childers replenish his war chest. As he gears up to take on Republican Greg Davis one more time in the face of what will likely be fierce NRCC and 527 opposition, he’s going to need all the help he can get.

Blue Dogs: it’s time to step up to the plate.

462 of 462 Precincts Reporting

Candidate	Party	Votes	Percent
Travis Childers	(D)	33,138	49%
Greg Davis	(R)	31,066	46%
Steve Holland	(D)	782	1%
Glenn McCullough	(R)	957	1%
Wally Pang	(I)	724	1%
John Wages	(G)	397	1%

RESULTS: Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal | Columbus Dispatch | WCBI | Clarion-Ledger

11:09PM: Ladies and gentlemen — give it up for SSP’s Trent Thompson!  With all the votes in, Childers is sitting at 49.39% and short 409 votes of an outright victory tonight — awfully close to his projection at 10:45.

10:54PM (Trent): With a little more help, Childers could have put this race away tonight. Let’s help make sure we don’t have the same regrets on runoff night.

10:45PM: SSP’s Trent Thompson: “If the other Prentiss boxes come in at the county’s percentages, Childers gets 49.367 and would have needed 400 more votes to top 50.”

10:42PM: Wow, we came SO CLOSE to winning a seat in Mississippi tonight, but the AP just called this as going to a runoff on May 13th.  So close, yet so far.

10:31PM: NOTE — The Dispatch has 100% of the Clay County numbers in, and they split 65-29 (1,609-722) for Childers.  These are NOT reflected in the numbers above.

10:25PM: NOTE — The Clarion/AP numbers don’t count Clay county yet, but the Columbus Dispatch shows Childers carrying the county with 63%.

10:23PM: Childers has pulled ahead by 300 votes!

10:14PM: It’s close — 47% Childers, 48% Davis.  There’s probably not enough votes out there to put Childers above the top, but the good news is that the votes likely aren’t there for Davis, either.

9:59PM: 47% Childers, 49% Davis.  This is gonna be tight.

9:42PM: Check the Clarion-Ledger for the best results.  DeSoto is ALL in, so there’s a chance that Childers will force a runoff here.

9:31PM: Damn!  Davis has pulled ahead.  Are we seeing DeSoto come in?

9:06PM: A word of caution — I don’t know if Davis’ homebase, GOP-heavy DeSoto county, has started to report yet.  I suspect that it has not.  Brace yourselves for it, though.

9:03PM Eastern: In Lowndes County, Childers only trails Davis by 4.  This is a pretty Republican county, so I take that as good news for Childers.

---

Polls close at 7PM Central/8PM Eastern in Mississippi’s 1st Congressional District.  We’ll be tracking the returns above as they come in.

Feel free to use the grace period to post your predictions in the comments.

For what it’s worth, here were the vote totals from the April 1st primary runoff:

Candidate	Votes
Travis Childers	20,729
Steve Holland	15,439
Greg Davis	16,830
Glenn McCullough	16,305

While the rest of the blogosphere has its attention fixed on the Pennsylvania presidential primary, there are a few other races worth keeping an eye on tonight:

• MS-01: The main event.  Voters in north Mississippi go to the polls for the third time today in order to fill the seat of appointed Sen. Roger Wicker.  Despite the district’s R+10 lean, Democrat Travis Childers, a Prentiss County Chancery Clerk, is running a hard-charging race against the GOP nominee, Southaven Mayor Greg Davis.

  Davis waged a scorched earth campaign against his primary opponent, former Tupelo Mayor Glenn McCullough, and he has extended the same negativity against Childers in the special election.  Might it backfire?  From a New York Times profile on the race:

  Even Republicans acknowledge that the race appears to be close. The party has turned to advertisements questioning, among other things, care at a nursing home owned by Mr. Childers, a campaign style that has disconcerted some Republicans more used to the genteel politicking of candidates who have long known one another in a largely rural, close-knit district.

  “It could go either way,” said Alan Nunnelee, a Republican state senator in Tupelo. “People are frustrated with the aggressive campaign tactics that have been used, particularly on the Republican side. The Republican camp has been much more aggressive than people in northeast Mississippi are used to.” Mr. Nunnelee said he was nonetheless sticking with his party.

  Not so one of the state’s Republican eminences, Jack Reed Sr., who once ran a credible race for governor and led the Mississippi Economic Council. A businessman in Tupelo, he is supporting Mr. Childers, citing “the personal appeal of the candidate” and “dissatisfaction with the Bush administration.”

  As a sign of just how seriously national Republicans are taking this race, the NRCC has spent $292,000 on media and mail against Childers, while the DCCC has spent $141,000 against Davis.  I get the sense that Democrats are operating in a wait-and-see mode here, and if Childers performs well enough to force this race into a runoff on May 13th, we just might see the DCCC amplify their efforts here.  Recent comments from DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen seem to back this up:

  “We have been very creative in using the funds that we’re allowed to coordinate with the other side … which has greatly boosted the TV buy that Childers did,” DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) said Monday. “This is a two-step process. If nobody gets over 50 percent of the vote tomorrow, you go to the next round.”

  With voter fatigue and voter confusion likely high in this district, expect this one to be a very low-turnout affair.  As to who that benefits, that’s anyone’s guess at this point.

  SSP will be liveblogging the results as they come in tonight.  Check back with us later for the score.

• PA-03:  GOP incumbent Phil English once looked like a ripe target for defeat this cycle.  His 2006 performance (54%) against a no-profile Democratic challenger and his district’s R+1.6 PVI seemed alluring for a strong challenger.  Alas, the current crop of Democratic candidates here have yet to impress.

  Erie City Councilor Kyle Foust, once highly touted by the DCCC, has turned out to be a fundraising dud — only raising $61K in the first quarter of 2008 and sitting on $43K cash-on-hand.  His primary opponents, faith-based activist Mike Waltner, labor lawyer Tom Myers, and Lake Erie Arboretum director Kathy Dahlkemper have fared a bit better in the money race, but not overwhelmingly so.  There’s still a chance that this one could turn into a real race, but the primary winner will have to step up his or her efforts big time.

• PA-05:  A longshot’s longshot, this R+9.7 open seat has drawn three Democratic contenders: Iraq War vet and former Senate aide Bill Cahir, Clearfield County Commissioner Mark McCracken, and Lock Haven Mayor Rick Vilello.  Vilello picked up the endorsement of Gov. Ed Rendell, while Cahir (who has the backing of Rep. Patrick Murphy), has been the clear leader in the money race so far, bringing in $121K during the first quarter of 2008.

  The GOP primary has been a huge mess, with nine candidates on the ballot and no clear front-runner.  Matt Shaner (the Club For Growth’s pick), Derek Walker, Jeff Stroehmann and Glenn Thompson seem to be the front-runners, but Walker recently suffered some bad news when he was busted on burglary and criminal trespass charges.  Oops.

• PA-10: Frosh Dem incumbent Chris Carney must be enjoying the GOP fratricide here between businessmen Chris Hackett and Dan Meuser.  Hackett has enjoyed the full-throated support of the nutters at the Club For Growth, but his campaign has also come under fire recently due to allegations that he held pro-choice views last year.  This one has been expensive and bloody.
• PA-18:  Similar to PA-03, this one looked like a compelling target earlier in the cycle, but none of the Democratic candidates have caught on fire yet.  Businessman Steve O’Donnell has self-funded to the tune of $260,000, and he faces off with consultant Beth Hafer and businessman Brien Well for the Democratic nod.  Hafer, the daughter of Barbara Hafer, the state’s former treasurer and auditor general, will have a name recognition advantage here.

Not long after racking up the endorsement of MS-01’s biggest newspaper, the Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, Democrat Travis Childers was endorsed today by the Columbus Commercial Dispatch in the special election to fill the seat of now-Senator Roger Wicker:

Travis Childers, of Booneville, is the best man for the job. The Prentiss County chancery clerk has a broader understanding of north Mississippi’s needs than opponent Greg Davis and two others on Tuesday’s special-election ballot.

Childers has business experience, tenacity and proven political skills, all qualities that make him more suited for the job than Davis, who is Southaven’s mayor and a former state House member.

[…]

Childers, a Democrat, is a consensus-builder who’s shown he’s not a strident partisan. Davis, a Republican, has proved to be a negative, anything-goes campaigner.

Childers also stands right on one of the most compelling political issues of our times: what the U.S. should do about the war in Iraq. He wants to pull our troops out within a year or so. We must extract our troops from this bloody and costly quagmire that has killed more than 4,000 American soldiers and wasted billions of federal dollars.

Davis apparently wants to defer to Army generals to judge when, or if, the U.S. should conclude its occupation of Iraq. This is clearly a decision for politicians to make in accords with our system of civilian control of the military. The American people clearly want a halt to this debacle.

Columbus is the population seat of Lowndes County, which supported Davis’ primary challenger, Glenn McCullough, by a 62-38 margin.  Hopefully this endorsement might help Childers narrow the edge in this Republican-friendly county.  I have yet to see any publication of note in Mississippi give its endorsement to Davis.

Davis and the NRCC are throwing the kitchen sink at Childers, so the results on Tuesday night will be worth watching to see how effective their money is in an R+10 district like this one.

Special election: 4/22; runoff (if necessary): 5/13.

(Tip o’ the hat: Cotton Mouth)

The NRCC’s expenditures for the day:

MS-01: $18,054 spent on phone banking against Democrat Travis Childers.

Total spent to date: MS-01: $292,194 | LA-06: $120,194

The DCCC’s expenditures for the day:

MS-01: $14,809 on producing and airing an ad against Republican Greg Davis.

LA-06: $2,230 on field organizing for Democrat Don Cazayoux, and $6,175 on producing an ad against Woody Jenkins.

Total spent to date: MS-01: $141,386 | LA-06: $331,213