PA-05: McCracken for Congress — Weekly Update — August 24, 2008

And the Winning Ticket Is — Obama / Biden 08:

Barack Obama made an excellent choice with his selection of Delaware Senator Joe Biden to be his running mate.  On Saturday I spent the day working at the Democratic booth at the Centre County Grange Fair and throughout the day people were asking if the announcement had been made.  Everyone I spoke with expressed positive opinions about the choice.  If this is any indication of the type of qualified people Barack Obama will surround himself with as President, we can all rest assured that our country will be headed in a better direction come January of 2009.

Obama-Biden 08

The daily trivia question at the Democratic booth was “What Pennsylvania town was Joe Biden’s hometown?”  I’m usually pretty good at trivia but Kim Bierly had to tell me the answer was Scranton PA.

Another Busy Week In The Books:

We put quite a few miles on the campaign Jeep this week.  On Tuesday, we were in attendance to hear Governor Rendell speak at the CBICC luncheon in State College.  It was exciting to hear Governor Rendell speak about the alternative fuels projects going on in Clearfield County.  He also mentioned that the BioEnergy project is the single biggest economic development project in the history of Clearfield County at over $250 million.  

On Wednesday, we traveled west in the morning to visit Venango County for several meetings, then, we headed east to State College to attend the Penn Ag Democratic picnic.  Below is a picture from the Penn Ag picnic with L-R Doug Kilgore, Greg Stewart, Rep. Mike Hanna, Mark McCracken, Rep. Scott Conklin and Sec. of Agriculture Dennis Wolf.

Penn Ag Democratic Picnic

On Friday, we attended the opening of the Clinton County Democratic Headquarters.  There was a very nice crowd on hand to hear from Sen. John Wozniak, Rep. Mike Hanna, Commissioner Joel Long, Commissioner Adam Coleman and Mayor Rick Vilello.



Sharing the stage with these leaders who represent Clinton County on the state, county and local level gave me the opportunity to speak about how I want to be a close working partner with other elected officials.  As a county commissioner this is something I feel has been lacking in the 5th district and is something I will change when I’m elected to Congress.  

Saturday at the Centre County Grange Fair was an outstanding day that started off early with the monthly Centre County Democrats breakfast.  We got the chance to speak with people from throughout the 5th district that were at the fair.  Also, WPSU filmed a walk around the fairgrounds segment with me.  We got a lot of great footage that will appear on a program WPSU is doing about campaigning at the fair.  The highlight of the walk around segment was meeting with a lady who told me she just turned 91 and has only missed Grange Fair twice in her life.

The week ended at Treasure Lake in DuBois for an Obama supporter’s picnic on Sunday afternoon.  The folks at the picnic were still excited about the selection of Senator Biden and all Democrats are excited about the convention in Denver.



The Week Ahead:

On Thursday, a representative from the campaign will be attending “Obama Watch Parties” for Obama’s big speech at the DNC Convention.  We will be making stops in Ridgway, DuBois, and Clearfield.  Come for the party and stay for the politics.  We will be handing out literature and campaign signs for supporters.

The big event for the week is the WPSU Town Hall Meeting that will be filmed Tuesday at 5:45 at the Grange Fair.  It will be aired on WPSU on September 4th and will probably be aired several times before Election Day.  If you are at the Grange Fair on Tuesday, plan to stop by and take part in the Town Hall Meeting.



Upcoming Fundraising Event:

Keith Bierly is planning the WE’RE BACKIN’ McCRACKEN GOLF CLASSIC to be held on September 22nd beginning at 8 AM at the Belles Springs Golf Course in Clinton County.  The tournament will feature LPGA TOUR player Jackie Gallagher-Smith.  The entry fee will be $92.00 per player, or, $300.00 for a foursome.  Sponsoring a hole will also be $92.00.  There will be an ongoing cookout throughout the final nine holes.

A brochure with all the details will follow in early September.  The tournament is 4 weeks from tomorrow – Monday – the 22nd.  Belles Springs is conveniently located less than one mile off of Interstate 80 at the Lock Haven Exit.  Make you plans now to attend.  Contact Keith Bierly at keithbierly@yahoo.com for more details and to make your reservation.



Yard Signs Are Now Available:
 

For the time being, we want to concentrate on getting the signs displayed in yards only.  Closer to Election Day we will concentrate on getting signs out in public view.  If you would like a sign for your yard, please email the campaign at mccrackenforcongress@verizon.net, call 765-6821 or speak with members of the campaign staff.

We look forward to seeing out on the campaign trail.



Mark B. McCracken

Your Candidate For Congress

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This diary is cross-posted at McCracken’s campaign blog, PA’s Blue Fifth

Mark McCracken for Congress

ActBlue page

Arizona Pre-Primary Fundraising Reports Roundup

With congressional primaries on September 2nd in Arizona, the deadline for candidates to file their pre-primary reports with the FEC was tonight. SSP rounds up the numbers once again, so you don’t have to:

Note: All figures are in thousands, and cover the period from July 1st through August 13th. Sandra Livingstone has yet to file her report, but if and when she does, you’ll be able to find it here. (Update: Her report has now been filed.)

Some impressive numbers from Ann Kirkpatrick and Gabrielle Giffords, in particular. Despite the hype surrounding Tim Bee, I really like Giffords’ re-election chances.

AL-03: Josh Segall Nipping at Rogers’ Heels — GOP Calls In Cheney

Josh Segall is a great young progressive Democrat running for Congress in Alabama's third district.  He's young, smart, enthusiastic and hard working, convinced that his district can and should be more prosperous than it's been under incumbent Mike Rogers, and he's raised enough money to be a threat.  The district is a favorable one for a Democrat too — it's the second most Democratic district in Alabama with 33% African American population and a high proportion of young voters.  Segall has outraised Rogers in the first and second quarters of this year and the incumbent is worried enough to have already started running television ads attacking him — so Josh is on the right track.  The problem is, he's not just running against Mike Rogers anymore — the Republicans have brought in their big gun, Dick Cheney himself, to raise money for Rogers and other Alabama Republicans.  Josh Segall needs grassroots help to cancel out the big donations Cheney will rake in at the Shoal Creek Country Club from the have-mores — the people George W. Bush likes to call "my base."   

Yeah, Cheney's popularity is hovering somewhere around "dirt" with average Americans but he's still one of the Republican party's most effective fundraisers.  "The base" loves this guy no matter what he's done to the Constitution.  For the Birmingham event, those who still like Dick Cheney will pay $500 for lunch and pony up $2000 for a photo op with Cheney, gun not included.  A photo op with the gun will cost you extra, but I'm sure they're willing to oblige if the monied elite demand it.   Alabama GOP Chairman Mike Hubbard expects 100 to 150 to attend the luncheon which some are predicting will raise $250,000 — as much as Michelle Obama raised on her Alabama visit last month.  Is that crazy or what???

And where are they holding this event?  Shoal Creek Country Club, an extremely posh place with it's own little piece of civil rights history.

Up until 1990, there were no African-American members of the club. Pressure from various groups prior to the 1990 PGA Championship led the club to integrate just nine days before the tournament. This happened in spite of founder Hall Thompson, who said "This is our home, and we pick and choose who we want. We have the right to associate or not associate with whomever we choose."

Very inclusive now, I'm sure, if you can afford the price of entry.

About Josh Segall:  

Segall is a 4th generation Alabamian and a 2001 graduate of Brown University (where he was active with the College Democrats) and the University of Alabama School of Law.  While at Alabama he founded an organization called "Homegrown Alabama" which worked with the university to buy its food from local Alabama farmers.  He worked on Mark Warner's successful 2002 gubernatorial campaign, Russ Feingold's Senate campaign and worked for the late Senator Paul Wellstone in his Washington office. He is currently with the Memory and Day law firm in Montgomery. Josh's father, Bobby Segall, is a past president of the Alabama Bar Association and is on the Board of Directors of the ACLU of Alabama, so you know he comes from good folks.  

Just how progressive is Josh Segall?  I've listed his position on several issues below so you can judge for yourself.  As a longtime Alabama Democrat accustomed to Republican-lite congressional candidates, I just can't tell you how exciting it is to see Segall running as a bona fide Democrat.   Notice I don't call him liberal.  He's to the right of me and might not pass muster as the "best" Democrat in a lot of districts on either coast, but he is in step with his district, progressive in a forward looking way and he's easily the "best" Democrat running for Congress from Alabama this cycle — the best in several cycles, actually.  He's the sort of new Southern Democrat we need to cultivate to replace some of our Blue Dogs who are too often just a pale shade of Republican.  Segall does not expect to get an endorsement from the Blue Dog Coalition — which elevates him considerably in my opinion.

Josh Segall supports:

And he's pro choice, recently telling a reporter "We should have fewer abortions, and I wouldn't advise it for a family member, but I don't think the federal government should decide that for you."  

Unlike incumbent Mike Rogers, Segall also believes a Congressman should listen to his constituents and put his district above everything else—including his political party.  Voting with his party 92% of the time, Rogers has been little more than a rubberstamp for the Bush/Cheney agenda since he got to Washington 6 years ago.  He hasn't built much of a name for himself in Washington either, with a power ranking of 403 out of 435 — he's 44th of the 46 members remaining from the class of 2002.

If you want to know more about him, here's Josh Segall liveblogging at Future Majority, an interview with Segall by Nathaniel Bach, and a Heading Left blogtalk radio interview by Adam Lambert and David Atkins.   There is also an online video called Alabama Roots.

 

About Alabama's 3rd District:  

This seat has only been in Republican hands since 1997 and the white Democrats here tend to be of the populist flavor.  Democrats are not out of favor in the 3rd district — they hold 75% of the locally elected offices.  Manufacturing, agriculture and the military are important industries in the 3rd district which is home to the Anniston Army Depot and has a large number of National Guard members and Reservists.  

Although the often quoted partisan voting index rates AL-03 as just R+4, the district actually has a very Democratic voting history.  The PVI only takes into account presidential voting and it skews Republican in states like Alabama, that have not seen a Democratic presidential campaign in a decade or so.  Let me quote PubliusIX who has made a study of the voting patterns in the 3rd district:

In terms of aggregate Democratic vote, this is the most Democratic district in Alabama outside Artur Davis’s African-American-majority Seventh District.  For only one precise metric, let’s look at the Alabama House of Representative districts nested in the Third.  There are 14 with a majority of the state districts within the congressional.  Of those 14, ten are held by Democrats, and in five of those ten, the GOP didn’t even bother running a candidate in 2006.  The aggregate Democratic vote in those State House seats in 2006 was 65.5%, compared to an aggregate Republican vote of 34.5%.  If you eyeball the courthouse offices, and count sheriffs, circuit clerks and probate judges, the results aren’t going to change much, if any.  Clearly, the majority of the voters in this district tend to vote Democratic most of the time.

Now, about that youth vote.  There are 4 colleges in the 3rd district:  Alabama State University (5500), Jacksonville State University (9000), Auburn University (24,000), and Tuskegee University (3000) with a total student population of about 38,000.  The Segall campaign will have a coordinator on every campus and Segall will be doing a college tour, visiting those campuses, starting in September.  I fully expect there will be an Obama coordinator (probably unpaid) doing voter registration and GOTV for each of those colleges as well.  So look for a big turnout of young voters in AL-03 November 4th. 

What about the "Obama effect" in AL-03?  PubliusIX has some numbers to shed light on that, too:

The presidential race is something of a wild card here.  Will white Democrats deserting Obama impact the congressional race?  Probably not.  First off, Obama did surprisingly well in this district.  Although Obama tanked in a couple of counties with low minority populations (18% in Cherokee County, 20% in Cleburne), he carried some other counties that don’t have African-American majorities (56% Obama in 57% white Talladega County; 61% Obama in 61% white Chambers County).  And to accept that Segall will be hurt by deserting white Democratic primary voters, you have to accept that someone who would vote in a primary for Hillary Clinton would vote for a congressman with a 100% rating from the Christian Coalition.  Yeah, I got a laugh out of that, too.  Even if some of these voters do defect, the downballot domination of Democrats shows they know how to split their tickets.

And that presidential race is a two-edged sword of which Mike Rogers should be very, very afraid.  The district is overall 30% African-American, and anyone who thinks turnout won’t be mind boggling in Macon County (which is in this district) wasn’t paying attention on February 5.  (If you weren’t, Macon County outvoted DeKalb County, a predominantly white, Democratic county with roughly three times its population, that day.)  The further into the 30’s the African-American percentage of the vote goes, the more heavily Rogers has to take a white vote that tends to vote Democratic anyway.  Alabama has enough residual racism to nauseate, but I doubt it has enough to neutralize that kind of turnout.

As you can see, this district is much more Democratic than "R+4" and is actually a very promising district for a Democratic candidate.  

The Bottom Line:

AL-03 is a real opportunity for Democrats — something that would have been unheard of 2 or 4 years ago when we didn't even field an active candidate.  The DCCC has taken notice and put it on their Emerging Races list for possible inclusion in the Red to Blue program.  Meanwhile, Segall has been successfully raising money on his own.  As of June 30 he had raised $552,000 and had $410,000 cash on hand, the most of any Democrat in Alabama.  Incumbent Mike Rogers' fundraising has tanked this year, but he still has a warchest of $1.1 million built up over 3 terms in Washington.  Now Dick Cheney is coming to raise money for Rogers and Josh Segall needs grassroots and netroots help to make sure Cheney's visit isn't the deciding factor in this election. 

The folks at Progressive Electorate have set up a Chase Cheney page for Josh Segall at ActBlue.   I'm asking you to please give whatever you can to cancel out some of the tens of thousands Dick Cheney will raise in Birmingham this Friday.  Help send a good Democrat, Josh Segall, to Congress from Alabama!  Do it for the progressive cause and, almost as important, DO IT BECAUSE THIS IS A RARE CHANCE TO STICK IT TO DICK CHENEY!  In a small way, of course, but you take your opportunities where you find them.  

CA cash power rankings

So following up on the cash-on-hand rankings for House races, I’ve culled just the California ones from that list, and then used the massive fundraising round-up to add in some other California challengers, and then plowed through the FEC database to find the rest.  (I’ve put McClintock as the incumbent because he belongs to the same party as Doolittle.  Same for Duncan Hunter’s son.)

Cash figures are in the thousands of dollars.  Fundraising table after the fold.





































































































































































































































District Challenger Party Q2 CoH Incumbent Party Q2 CoH Cash
Power
Index
CA-04 Brown D $355 $675 McClintock R $1,269 $117 577%
CA-50 Leibham D $246 $267 Bilbray R $210 $528 51%
CA-11 Andal R $174 $663 McNerney D $416 $1,376 48%
CA-03 Durston D $125 $189 Lungren R $173 $615 31%
CA-45 Bornstein D $96 $122 Bono Mack R $336 $421 29%
CA-52 Lumpkin D $129 $54 Hunter, Jr. R $338 $198 27%
CA-46 Cook D $110 $97 Rohrabacher R $86 $388 25%
CA-49 Hamilton D $18 $27 Issa R $158 $120 23%
CA-44 Hedrick D $49 $36 Calvert R $174 $319 11%
CA-41 Prince D $3.6 $91 Lewis R $161 $952 9.6%
CA-26 Warner D $161 $125 Dreier R $247 $1,904 7%
CA-48 Young D $68 $9.7 Campbell R $252 $408 2.4%
CA-02 Morris D $8.5 $8.6 Herger R $204 $474 1.8%
CA-42 Chau D $34 $12 Miller R $130 $950 1.3%
CA-25 Conaway D $1.26 $0.3 McKeon R $127 $300 0.1%
CA-21 Johnson D $3.0 $0.9 Nunes R $206 $972 0.09%
CA-24 Jorgensen D $0.54 $0.075 Gallegly R $141 $841 0.009%
CA-40 Avalos D ??? ??? Royce R $151 $2,431 ???

Then I decided to look at some of our own incumbents that are deemed “safe”, just for comparison’s sake.  There are some incumbents missing from this list because their Republican challengers have raised so little, they haven’t even filed FEC fundraising reports.  I believe I’ve gotten every single race where the challenger has an actual FEC report for Q2.  Unlike above, which is ranked by the Cash Power Index, these are arranged by congressional district.













































































































































































































District Challenger Party Q2 CoH Incumbent Party Q2 CoH Cash
Power
Index
CA-05 Smith R $0 $0.5 Matsui D $157 $270 0.17%
CA-06 Halliwell R $7.4 $0.02 Woolsey D $106 $102 0.02%
CA-08 Walsh R $129 $45 Pelosi D $581 $455 10%
CA-08 Sheehan I ??? $3.7 Pelosi D $581 $455 0.8%
CA-10 Gerber R $6 $27 Tauscher D $157 $453 6%
CA-12 Conlon R $30 $4.5 McNerney D $336 $570 0.8%
CA-23 Kokkonen R $1 $26 Capps D $158 $423 6%
CA-27 Singh R $6 $7.4 Sherman D $183 $1,835 0.4%
CA-29 Hahn R $5 $5 Schiff D $154 $1,583 0.3%
CA-34 Balding R $3 $3 Roybal-Allard D $78 $62 4.9%
CA-35 Hayes R $5.9 $1.8 Waters D $110 $90 2%
CA-36 Gibson R $1.8 $0.6 Harman D $217 $429 0.15%
CA-39 Lenning R $0.5 $2 Sanchez D $74 $200 0.99%
CA-43 Roberts R $14 $24 Baca D $203 $101 24%
CA-47 Avila R $13 $12 Sanchez D $161 $558 2.1%
CA-53 Crimmins R $7.1 $3.2 Davis D $96 $507 0.6%

* Hayes’ Q2 number is actually Q1 and Q2 combined.

Notes: That’s not a misprint, Marta Jorgensen (D) has a total of $75 cash on hand.  And that’s not a misprint either, in CA-05, Paul Smith (R) officially raised a total of $0 in his challenge to Doris Matsui (D).

Christina Avalos (D) is a tricky matter.  I finally found her in the FEC database after quite a bit of searching.  But it doesn’t help that the last listed contribution to her is from the year 2002, and that her page doesn’t list anything after her statement of candidacy… in 2001.  Trying to search by her candidate ID to get fundraising numbers yields an SQL error 100 for some reason.

I almost feel a little embarrassed by listing some of those races in the first list on there.  It may be one of those cases where we’re almost better off not knowing just how bad the disparity is.

I was a bit surprised at how little money McClintock has left after the primary.  But beware, he was a fundraising monster in Q2, bringing in over $1.26 million.  What happened with the spending limits here?  There’s people like the Bloom family that gave McClintock $6,900 each.  Looks like Doug Ose triggered the Millionaire’s Amendment when he gave himself a whopping $2.8 million loan for his failed campaign.  But that was for the primary.  Now that we’re in the general, is McClintock only allowed to get a maximum of $2,300 from those people?  If so, hopefully we’ll see those Q3 numbers for McClintock drop significantly.  Because raising $1.2 million in one quarter for a House race is sick.

For those wondering about Cindy Sheehan’s independent bid against Pelosi, she never filed a final Q2 report, and whoever filled out that last report wrote that it goes through December 31, 2008.  It looks like they meant 2007, but their filings seem pretty disorganized.  They also got a stern letter from the FEC for not filing their Q1 report properly, and then another one for having several discrepancies in their filing.

As for Diane Watson, what’s going on with her fundraising?  Her Q2 report says that while she has a little under $18,000 in cash on hand, her campaign committee owes over $25,000 in debts and obligations.  WTF?

If you want to go by just the fundraising numbers, John Roberts (no, not the CNN anchor) would seem about as competitive against Joe Baca as Debbie Cook is against Dana Rohrabacher.  Of course, we’ve got the big advantage with the DCCC being able to spend much more than the NRCC.

SSP Cash Power Rankings: House Open Seats (2Q)

In our series of SSP Cash Power Rankings, we previously looked at House challengers running against incumbents and the most competitive Senate races. Now it’s time to close the triangle and look at the cash-on-hand competitiveness of candidates running in open seat House races.

The one race that we’ve left out is MO-09. Due to a large primary field without a clear front-runner on both sides, that race would be difficult to place on our chart. In other races with undecided primaries, we’ve either included multiple candidates (e.g. WY-AL, NY-26, LA-04), or have decided to go with the clear front-runner only. The top-ranked race here is a special case, as Jamshad Wyne is the only GOP candidate to file a fundraising report in NY-13 so far — we don’t consider him to be the front-runner of anything (except for the loser’s sweepstakes, perhaps), but he was our only choice.











































































































































































































































































































































Cash
Power
Rank
District Challenger Party CoH Defender Party CoH Cash
Power
Index
1 NY-13 McMahon D $471 Wyne R $10 4710%
2 NJ-07 Stender D $1,200 Lance R $81 1481%
3 WY-AL Trauner D $702 Gordon R $69 1017%
4 NJ-03 Adler D $1,464 Myers R $155 945%
5 NY-25 Maffei D $962 Sweetland R $108 891%
6 CA-04 Brown D $675 McClintock R $117 577%
7 AL-02 Bright D $281 Love R $91 309%
8 WY-AL Trauner D $702 Lummis R $247 284%
9 AZ-01 Kirkpatrick D $668 Hay R $257 260%
10 LA-04 Carmouche D $389 Thompson R $200 195%
11 OR-05 Erickson R $400 Schrader D $231 173%
12 OH-16 Boccieri D $531 Schuring R $349 152%
13 IL-11 Halvorson D $917 Ozinga R $670 137%
14 OH-15 Kilroy D $1,163 Stivers R $880 132%
15 LA-04 Carmouche D $389 Gorman R $352 111%
16 LA-04 Carmouche D $389 Fleming R $359 108%
17 NY-26 Powers D $489 Lee R $636 77%
18 MD-01 Kratovil D $454 Harris R $609 75%
19 NM-02 Teague D $75 Tinsley R $112 67%
20 MN-03 Madia D $738 Paulsen R $1,124 66%
21 NM-01 Heinrich D $354 White R $634 56%
22 IL-18 Callahan D $155 Schock R $299 52%
23 NY-26 Kryzan D $247 Lee R $636 39%
24 OH-07 Neuhardt D $108 Austria R $361 30%
25 CA-52 Lumpkin D $54 Hunter R $198 27%
26 VA-11 Connolly D $275 Fimian R $1,039 26%
27 AL-05 Parker R $73 Griffith D $352 21%
28 PA-05 McCracken D $8 Thompson R $84 10%
29 KY-02 Boswell D $45 Guthrie R $661 7%

KS-HD-15: Hilarious xkcd homage to raise $$

Sean Tevis is running for state representative in Kansas, and he’s used an incredibly funny homage to webcomic xkcd to get his name out online.  And boy, has it worked!



More after the fold.

I mean, a verbal Rick Roll??  Heady.



Oh yeah, he went there.  A 300 parody.

So just how well did it go?  Well, a mere 37.25 hours after posting that comic on his webpage, they did it.

He’s now got almost 5,300 donors.  This has become so popular online, he’s had to post a message asking people overseas NOT to contribute (because they’re not allowed to) unless they’re U.S. citizens living abroad.  He’s already had to return $1,800 worth of donations to non-Americans who felt inspired enough by the comic to contribute.  ðŸ™‚

On Reddit, Tevis stopped by to respond to quite a few comments (even to trolls) about him breaking the 3,000 donor mark.  And as the comic shows above, no person running in the history of the Kansas state legislature had ever had more than 644 donors.  Until now.

Tevis points out that his opponent receives almost nothing but PAC money.  And just who is this opponent he’s trying to kick out?  Republican Arlen Siegfreid.  This is what’s actually written on his “Meet Arlen” page.  Check out the number of spelling errors.  Wow.

CNN Money Magazine announced Olathe as #13 in the Top 25 Best Plces (sic) in America to Live — 2006. Kudos to not only the city government and elected officials, but to Olathe’s wonderful citizens that have continued, year after year, to perosnally (sic) commit, build, and establish a city of pride.

Olathe has been my home for the past 35 years. During that time, I have raised five children and appreciated the safety and excellence of our public schools. Although having the distinction of the most rapid (?????) of any city in the state, Olathe continues to maintain an utmost quality of life embraced with traditional family values. I am proud to call Olathe my home, and you, my friend and neighbor.

The greatest privilege of my life is being your elected State Representative for the 15th District. I am committed to forging ahead in helping build an economic development and business environment that will guarantee good, high paying jobs for our citizens. Improvements, or problems, can be remedied temporariliy (sic) or for the long term. I will continue to make decisions based on what is best not only for today, but also for the future. If our children and generates (sic) to come cant’ (sic) trust us, whom can they trust?

It’s our move. We can do it together.

A real winner there.

Senate Guru On Strike for Red State Democrats

Senate Guru is on strike!  What are the Guru’s demands?  To get the Guru back to blogging, we need to raise seven twenty-dollar bills each for red state Democratic Senate candidates Jim Martin, Jim Slattery, and Ronnie Musgrove on the Expand the Map! ActBlue page.  Your Andrew Jacksons will go toward a great cause: dislodging Shameless Saxby Chambliss, Bush-cover-up-artist Pat Roberts, and ethically questionable Roger Wicker from the U.S. Senate.  So, please, this weekend, send your twenties to these competitive Democrats in red states via the Expand the Map! ActBlue page and get the Guru back to blogging!

SSP Cash Power Rankings: 2Q Senate Edition

Just as we did for the House race scene (and as we did last quarter), we present our rankings according to the SSP Cash Power Index for competitive senate races. The main difference is that we include open seats in this chart; where there is no incumbent senator, the incumbent party candidate is used as a stand-in.

Note that the number of races on this list is a lot smaller than last time; that’s because some folks have lost primaries, and also because we’ve left off the races which, at this point, are not competitive. So while it might look like Rick Noriega, say, has jumped a bunch, that’s at least in part because the likes of Greg Fischer and Tony Raimondo aren’t around anymore. Also, Tom Udall was previously ranked twice because he faced two primary opponents at the time.

UPDATE: Chart updated to reflect inclusion of KS-Sen.


Cash
Power
Rank
1Q
Rank
State Challenger Party CoH Incumbent Party CoH Cash
Power
Index
1 1 VA Warner D $5,103 Gilmore R $117 4,362%
2 2/3 NM Udall, T. D $2,889 Pearce R $533 542%
3 4 CO Udall, M. D $3,958 Schaffer R $2,817 141%
4 5 ME Allen D $3,129 Collins R-inc. $5,133 61%
5 6 MN Franken D $4,216 Coleman R-inc. $7,209 58%
6 9 LA Kennedy R $2,706 Landrieu D-inc. $5,515 49%
7 13 AK Begich D $804 Stevens R-inc. $1,681 48%
8 18 NC Hagan D $1,214 Dole R-inc. $2,706 45%
9 8 NH Shaheen D $2,158 Bununu R-inc. $5,105 42%
10 12 NE Kleeb D $454 Johanns R $1,247 36%
11 (n/a) NJ Zimmer R $411 Lautenberg D-inc. $1,291 32%
12 11 OK Rice D $748 Inhofe R-inc. $2,459 30%
13 15 MS Musgrove D $716 Wicker R-inc. $2,953 24%
14 (n/a) ID Rammell I $244 Risch R $1,022 24%
15 10 ID LaRocco D $242 Risch R $1,022 24%
16 19 KS Slattery D $599 Roberts R-inc. $2,870 21%
17 22 KY Lunsford D $1,341 McConnell R-inc. $9,136 15%
18 20 OR Merkley D $569 Smith R-inc. $4,452 13%
19 26 TX Noriega D $916 Cornyn R-inc. $9,368 10%
20 21 GA Martin D $330 Chambliss R-inc. $4,055 8%
21 (n/a) GA Jones “D” $150 Chambliss R-inc. $4,055 4%

SSP Cash Power Rankings: 2Q House Edition

It’s time. Just as we did after the first quarter, we’ve rounded up and ranked the top 75 non-open seat House races according to the SSP Cash Power Index — a metric designed to measure cash-on-hand competitiveness. We divide a challenger’s cash-on-hand by the size of the incumbent’s war chest to gauge the financial gap between candidates.

Let’s have a look at where we stand after the second quarter. You’ll notice that eight of the top ten challengers are Democrats, and the top-ranked Republican is Deborah “The Defrauder” Honeycutt. 47 of the top 75 challengers are Democrats while 27 are Republicans. A lone independent makes the chart for the first time:

















































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































































Cash
Power
Rank
1Q
Rank
District Challenger Party CoH Incumbent Party CoH Cash
Power
Index
1 (n/a) LA-01 Harlan D $554 Scalise R $211 263%
2 9 GA-13 Honeycutt R $290 Scott D $119 244%
3 2 TX-07 Skelly D $1050 Culberson R $550 191%
4 1 ID-01 Minnick D $444 Sali R $250* 178%
5 4 WA-08 Burner D $1248 Reichert R $916 136%
6 28 IL-14 Oberweis R $547 Foster D $443 123%
7 8 FL-24 Kosmas D $936 Feeney R $795 118%
8 14 IN-03 Montagano D $352 Souder R $323 109%
9 6 MI-07 Schauer D $929 Walberg R $855 109%
10 3 NY-29 Massa D $652 Kuhl R $619 105%
11 16 MO-06 Barnes D $962 Graves R $936 103%
12 7 OH-02 Wulsin D $378 Schmidt R $393 96%
13 11 VA-10 Feder D $812 Wolf R $849 96%
14 31 AK-AL Berkowitz D $399 Young R $461 87%
15 12 CT-04 Himes D $1444 Shays R $1698 85%
16 26 KY-03 Northup R $819 Yarmuth D $1002 82%
17 (n/a) LA-06 Cassidy R $195 Cazayoux D $271 72%
18 21 FL-16 Valeche R $829 Mahoney D $1172 71%
19 23 WI-08 Gard R $649 Kagen D $927 70%
20 38 FL-25 Garcia D $701 M. Diaz-Balart R $1045 67%
21 13 NH-01 Bradley R $475 Shea-Porter D $749 63%
22 (n/a) AK-AL LeDoux R $289 Young R $461 63%
23 15 VA-05 Perriello D $520 Goode R $834 62%
24 39 FL-21 Martinez D $1079 L. Diaz-Balart R $1755 61%
25 44 VA-02 Nye D $409 Drake R $682 60%
26 30 MI-09 Peters D $1082 Knollenberg R $1891 57%
27 (n/a) NY-24 Hanna R $409 Arcuri D $727 56%
28 19 KS-02 Jenkins R $489 Boyda D $892 55%
29 48 KS-03 Jordan R $616 Moore D $1140 54%
30 27 NC-10 Johnson D $219 McHenry R $411 53%
31 42 TX-10 Doherty D $260 McCaul R $489 53%
32 18 AZ-03 Lord D $707 Shadegg R $1354 52%
33 58 PA-15 Bennett D $354 Dent R $687 52%
34 25 CA-50 Leibham D $267 Bilbray R $528 51%
35 20 FL-09 Dicks D $323 Bilirakis R $643 50%
36 46 CO-04 Markey D $580 Musgrave R $1156 50%
37 33 CA-11 Andal R $663 McNerney D $1376 48%
38 29 OH-01 Driehaus D $631 Chabot R $1312 48%
39 45 NY-20 Treadwell R $1269 Gillibrand D $2803 45%
40 (n/a) AK-AL Parnell R $208 Young R $461 45%
41 36 FL-08 Stuart D $415 Keller R $935 44%
42 68 IL-13 Harper D $300 Biggert R $680 44%
43 (n/a) NV-03 Titus D $553 Porter R $1277 43%
44 50 IL-10 Seals D $1176 Kirk R $2857 41%
45 24 NJ-05 Shulman D $258 Garrett R $649 40%
46 57 PA-04 Hart R $625 Altmire D $1574 40%
47 (n/a) PA-12 Russell R $250 Murtha D $644 39%
48 37 FL-16 Rooney R $451 Mahoney D $1172 38%
49 34 AZ-05 Schweikert R $521 Mitchell D $1372 38%
50 59 CT-05 Cappiello R $711 Murphy D $1901 37%
51 (n/a) FL-08 Grayson D $345 Keller R $935 37%
52 41 FL-13 Jennings D $579 Buchanan R $1573 37%
53 64 AL-03 Segall D $411 Rogers R $1120 37%
54 73 NV-02 Derby D $353 Heller R $984 36%
55 49 GA-08 Goddard R $489 Marshall D $1372 36%
56 32 NH-01 Stephen R $257 Shea-Porter D $749 34%
57 63 PA-06 Roggio D $260 Gerlach R $762 34%
58 43 TN-09 Tinker D $247 Cohen D $727 34%
59 (n/a) MS-01 Davis R $54 Childers D $161 34%
60 (n/a) OH-02 Krikorian I $131 Schmidt R $393 33%
61 53 AZ-08 Bee R $688 Giffords D $2078 33%
62 54 IN-09 Sodrel R $379 Hill D $1160 33%
63 (n/a) CO-05 Bidlack D $77 Lamborn R $237 32%
64 (n/a) SC-01 Ketner D $432 Brown R $1340 32%
65 (n/a) MN-01 Davis R $377 Walz D $1211 31%
66 (n/a) CA-03 Durston D $189 Lungren R $615 31%
67 10 TN-04 Lankford R $140 L. Davis D $461 30%
68 56 CA-45 Bornstein D $122 Bono Mack R $421 29%
69 40 FL-08 Smith D $269 Keller R $935 29%
70 51 WV-02 Barth D $353 Moore Capito R $1237 29%
71 55 IN-04 Ackerson D $178 Buyer R $629 28%
72 (n/a) CA-46 Cook D $97 Rohrabacher R $388 25%
73 22 KS-02 Ryun R $223 Boyda D $892 25%
74 69 NJ-04 Zeitz D $125 Smith R $504 25%
75 71 FL-18 Taddeo D $457 Ros-Lehtinen R $1893 24%

*Estimate.

MO-09 Judy Baker #1 for ActBlue House fundraising this week!

In yet another sign that Democrats are enthusiastic about taking over a long held Republican seat in the MO-09 house race, Judy Baker lead all US House candidates in the nation and was 3rd among all candidates (behind senate race candidates Noriega and Hagan) for ActBlue donations last week! (Also interestingly Steve Gaw another Democratic candidate from the 9th district squeaked into the top 10).  

http://campaignnewswire.blogsp…

In a race where Republican frontrunner Bob Onder has already mistakenly released his Q2 fundraising numbers and raised only 89K, Judy Baker and Steve Gaw are posting strong numbers on ActBlue. Given that Judy Baker has raised approximately 100K on ActBlue alone she is almost certain to come in ahead of Onder’s numbers for the second quarter.