Tag: Paul Hodes

• FL-Sen: Word on the street is that Charlie Crist will announce his plans regarding the Senate race on Monday. It sounds like he’s eager to jump in as soon as possible after the end of the legislative session, to keep Marco Rubio from gaining any traction. If Crist’s exalted-sounding riposte to Rubio’s smacktalk yesterday is any indcation, he’s already staking out the post-partisan high ground.

• NH-Sen: Over in what Dean Barker calls “Cloud Hampshire,” Andy Smith of UNH still thinks there are more Republicans than Democrats in the Granite State. That could be why the notoriously unreliable pollster finds John Sununu, Jr. “leading” Paul Hodes 46-41. Take it for what it’s worth – i.e., not very much at all. (D)

• MN-Gov: Ellison Endorses Entenza! Rep. Keith Ellison from Minneapolis lent his support to Matt Entenza, the former state House minority leader (and a friend of Ellison’s from law school).

• OR-04: Republicans have recruited Springfield Mayor Sid Leiken to run against longtime incumbent Peter DeFazio. Don’t be misled into thinking this D+2 district represents a good opportunity for the GOP – DeFazio is very popular (he won with 83% last year). More likely, the GOP is hoping DeFazio will run for the governor’s mansion, leaving this seat open. (D)

• TX-17: GOP candidates once again are lining up for the opportunity to take on Rep. Chet Edwards. But Edwards keeps on finding a way to win in this wildly red district (at R+20, it’s the 19th most-conservative seat in the entire country), and he isn’t even on Frontline this year. Meanwhile, the Republican field is very much unsettled. (D)

• FL-24: State Republican chairman Jim Greer just announced that he won’t take on freshman Dem Suzanne Kosmas this cycle. Yet another recruiting failure for Pete Sessions & the NRCC. (D)

• Mayors: There are two mayoral elections in big cities today: Detroit and Anchorage. Detroit is a Dem-on-Dem duel where there’s not much ideological difference and it’s more of an insider/outsider clash; Kenneth Cockrel, who took over as mayor after Kwame Kilpatrick resigned, is up against businessman (and Detroit Pistons great and NBA Hall of Famer) Dave Bing. Anchorage residents are choosing between Democrat Eric Croft and Republican Dan Sullivan to replace now-Sen. Mark Begich. Anchorage Mayor was an important stepping stone for all two of Alaska’s prominent Dems: ex-Gov. Tony Knowles as well as Begich.

• NY-20 (pdf): This morning’s official tally from the BoE gives Scott Murphy a whopping lead of 268. This new number reflects the addition of all the remaining absentees from Columbia County, where Murphy performed well on Election Day and apparently even better among absentees. There are still 1,200 absentee ballots that haven’t been counted because they were subject to challenge; they’ll be reviewed starting Monday.

Jim Tedisco isn’t waiting around for those ballots, though; he’s already asking the courts to declare him the victor. Wait… what? Isn’t he the one who’s behind? (The Tedisco camp has tried to clarify that they were re-filing a motion that they filed on Election Day, to also have Tedisco declared the winner, as some sort of ‘insurance policy.’ OK, that makes me feel much better.)

• CA-10: BigDust broke the story yesterday in diaries: Lt. Gov. John Garamendi, seeing his gubernatorial campaign sputtering and lured by the siren call of a term-limits-free job, has more-or-less confirmed that the rumors are true and he’s jumping into the 10th District special election, where state senator Mark DeSaulnier had already nailed down the ‘establishment’ candidate mantle. (Unlike other frequent job-hopper Tom McClintock, Garamendi actually has the advantage of living in the district.)

• KY-Sen, SD-Sen: The message can’t get much clearer than this. Mitch McConnell is hosting a fundraiser in the state of Kentucky for his fellow senator… John Thune? That’s right; McConnell would rather help a guy from South Dakota defending a safe seat than help his fellow Kentuckian Jim Bunning, who has already been complaining about how McConnell is sucking up all the fundraising oxygen in the state.

• CT-Sen: Chris Dodd may have raised a million bucks last quarter, but only five donors were from his home state of Connecticut. And before you can say “But what about donations below $200 which don’t require detailed disclosure?”, we’ll just point out that Dodd took in under $2,300 total from that category of donors. Sigh. (D)

On the plus side for Dodd, he got a hearty endorsement and a promise of future help from someone a little more popular than him: Barack Obama. “Chris is going through a rough patch,” says Obama.

• NH-Sen: Paul Hodes raised $225K this quarter, which doesn’t seem like a whole lot, does it? (D)

• NJ-Gov: Governor Jon Corzine, facing a tough re-election, has another problem: his gross income last year was negative $2.75 million. You’ve got to assume that his overall net worth (once estimated at $300 million) has taken a much, much larger hit, so that calls into question his willingness, if not ability, to moneybomb the race as he did with his last two runs for office.

• TX-Gov: I never thought I’d have to say this out loud, but Governor Rick Perry may not have a winning issue on his hands when he makes veiled secession threats. A Rasmussen snap-poll finds that 75% of Texans would prefer to remain a part of the USA. 18% prefer secession, and 7% just aren’t sure. Not coincidentally, a similar percentage of the Texas state senate (71%) just voted, 22-9, to ignore Perry and accept the $550 million in federal stimulus money to keep their state unemployment trust fund from going broke.

• Words: Here’s a fun time-suck: a website that lets you create a word cloud for most-used words in a particular day, week, month, or year in the Congressional Record, or for a particular lawmaker.

• NH-Sen: The scurvy dogs at ARG! take their first reading of the 2010 New Hampshire senate race since Judd Gregg announced his retirement, finding that Rep. Paul Hodes beats ex-Sen. John Sununu 42-36. Hodes leads Sununu 38-31 among independents. (MoE ±4.2%)

• KY-Sen: In the days leading up to 1Q fundraising reports, Jim Bunning has publicly admitted that his fundraising has been “lousy,” although he says “Surprisingly, we’ve had pretty good success the last month.” He’s looking forward to some April fundraisers starring such luminaries as Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, and fellow baseball celeb Tommy Lasorda.

• GA-Gov: Roy Barnes is sounding very interested in another try at the governor’s race. Barnes got bounced by Sonny Perdue after one term in 2002, but populist anger plus demographic changes in Georgia may make a Barnes comeback feasible. (Insider Advantage found earlier this month that Barnes would defeat several of the likely GOP candidates.)

• LA-02: Joseph Cao is signaling he may actually break ranks and vote for the Obama budget this week, telling The Hill that his constituents are “split.” (In the sense that they are likely to “split” his head open if he keeps voting the party line.)

• History: Roll Call takes an interesting look back at the spate of special elections during the 1993-1994 session of Congress, and the structural reasons we aren’t likely to see a repeat of the disastrous 1994 election again.

• NH-Sen, NH-01: Carol Shea-Porter has announced she won’t seek the Senate nomination, giving Paul Hodes a clear path and also preventing us the trouble of holding an open seat.

• PA-Sen: Ed Rendell told a local news affiliate that he, Bob Casey Jr., and Joe Biden have all tried to talk Arlen Specter into switching over to the Democratic Party, but he remains “bound and determined to stay a Republican.”

• NH-02: Stonyfield Farms CEO Gary Hirshberg, a possible candidate to replace Paul Hodes, just wrote his first diary at Daily Kos (on coal power). Is he gearing up to take on a higher political profile? (D)

• TN-Gov: Chris Cillizza fingers Mike McWherter, the son of former Gov. Ned McWherter, as the likely Democratic nominee for Tennessee’s gubernatorial election in 2010 according to “informed insiders”. McWherter, a businessman who has never held elected office, considered running for Senate last year, but ultimately decided to keep his powder dry. (J)

• AL-Gov: Alabama’s AG Troy King plans to run for re-election, rather than pursue the governor’s seat as had been rumored. King may not even survive his re-election, though, what with a gambling-related federal investigation.

• CA-Gov: Got a spare $50 million sitting around? Meg Whitman does, and apparently that’s how much she’s willing to spend out-of-pocket on her quest to become the Golden State’s next governor.

• Demography (warning: big pdf): Ruy Teixeira comes through with yet more demographics-as-destiny wizardry. His new report on the state of the nation sees an America that’s no longer a majority white Christian nation within the next ten years (where four-fifths of growth is non-white), where culture war appeals have diminished force, and where the white working class becomes small enough to lose its iconic swing vote status.

Say hello to two possible new senators in 2011: Robin Carnahan and Paul Hodes. Both confirmed today that they will be running in 2010, Carnahan in Missouri and Hodes in New Hampshire.

Missouri Sec. of State Carnahan will be running for the seat left open by Kit Bond’s retirement; her opponent won’t be known for a while (there will probably be a competitive GOP primary, with Rep. Roy Blunt, ex-Sen. Jim Talent, and ex-Treasurer Sarah Steelman eyeing the race), but a recent PPP poll shows her ahead of all of them. Her announcement video is here.

Rep. Paul Hodes is running for a seat that may or may not be open; it’s still unclear who Gov. John Lynch will appoint to replace Judd Gregg (who will become Commerce Secretary), although sources point to Gregg’s former chief of staff Bonnie Newman. The Union-Leader reports: “She is not expected to run for a full term in 2010.”

Hodes had already been considering an uphill battle against an incumbent Gregg, but with the Gregg’s departure and the expectation that Newman will serve two years and not run for re-election, it looked like too good an opportunity for Hodes to pass up.

The developments surrounding that surprising appointment by President Obama “has sped up his timeline and he will make a formal announcement within the week,” the source said.

Holy shit if true:

The Obama administration has been floating the idea of naming Republican Sen. Judd Gregg (N.H.) to be Commerce Secretary, several Senate sources said Thursday.

The sources, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, said Gregg’s nomination was far from a done deal, but remains a serious possibility. Reached by phone, Gregg, the top Republican on the Senate Budget Committee, said he had no comment on whether he has been in talks with the White House about the post.

At first glance, this move might seem like TEH AWESOME – 60 SEATS0Rz! But believe it or not, I think this is actually bad for a lot of reasons. On the merits, Gregg is a conservative Republican – hardly the kind of guy I want running an important cabinet department. Of course, that’s neither here nor there for the purposes of SSP.

But electorally, it also troubles me. Gov. John Lynch would get to fill the vacancy, and he is very untrustworthy when it comes to matters of partisanship. He’s said ten times as many nice things about John McCain as he has about any Democrat. He’s regularly undermined Dems seeking elective office in New Hampshire, more than once supporting their Republican rivals (like GOP state Sen. Bob Odell). He’s just really not much a Dem.

In short, if there is any sitting Dem governor who might appoint a Republican in circumstances like this, it’s Lynch. At the very least, I think there’s almost no way he’d appoint Paul Hodes, who is our strongest candidate and a proud progressive. Lynch would very likely appoint a wishy-washy Lieberdem, perhaps even 2004 Lieberman national co-chair Katrina Swett (who briefly ran for Sununu’s seat last cycle).

These rumors may well amount to nothing. And even if they do pan out, Lynch could surprise us with a good pick, who with Franken would give us 60 seats in the Senate. But I don’t think the odds of that are high, and really, I’m not loving this.

UPDATE: As Populista points out, though, if this helps us pass the Employee Free Choice Act, then it’s worth it.

New Hampshire Governor John Lynch is probably the most popular Democrat in the state, and seems like the ideal candidate to take on Senator Judd Gregg in 2010. However, today at a press conference he’s taken himself out of the running in pretty definitive fashion:

“I can tell you that although I don’t know what I’ll be doing in 2010, I’m not going to run for the United States Senate. So, that shouldn’t be a distraction as I continue to work on the budget.”

Given that Washington has seemed to be outside of Lynch’s comfort zone, however, his demurral shouldn’t be seen as too much of a surprise. Speculation will continue to focus on New Hampshire’s two Democratic representatives, Paul Hodes and Carol Shea-Porter.

ARG (12/27-29, registered voters):

Paul Hodes (D): 40

Judd Gregg (R-inc): 47

Undecided: 13

Carol Shea-Porter (D): 35

Judd Gregg (R-inc): 54

Undecided: 11

(n=569)

ARG! takes a first look at the prospective matchups in the 2010 New Hampshire Senate race. No one has declared yet, although both of NH’s Democratic representatives have expressed some interest, and it’s not even certain whether Gregg plans to run for re-election, considering that he’s likely to race his first tough race in, well, forever.

Of the two representatives, Paul Hodes fares much better, coming within 7 points of Gregg, which is a pretty good place to be, two years out from taking on an entrenched incumbent. Carol Shea-Porter, who had a shakier 2008 re-election than Hodes, falls short by a somewhat wider margin. Although Hodes and Shea-Porter are the Dems getting the lion’s share of attention right now, it might be interesting to see a poll matchup between Gregg and popular Democratic Governor John Lynch; while Lynch seems comfortable in Concord and doesn’t seem likely to run, maybe he’d change his tune if he saw polls giving him an edge.

After taking a look (here and here, on SSP here and here) to see how our two re-elected reps grew in strength from ’06 to ’08, I thought it might be a good idea to see how they fared compared to Jeanne Shaheen, the next step up on the ticket (NH-Sen). It’s an especially interesting question with the first election behind us in many years without straight-ticket voting.

With very few exceptions (Danville, New Boston, and Rindge), both Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01) and Paul Hodes (NH-02) gained higher vote percentages than Jeanne Shaheen in towns big and small, liberal and conservative, rural and urban.

The following charts track the ten biggest percentage discrepancies between Shea-Porter/Hodes and Shaheen for all towns and cities with more than 2000 votes cast for the congressional race in 2008. For ease of use in plugging the numbers into a spreadsheet (full data available here), I chose the lists at NHPR rather than the SoS.  Any mistakes are my own.

Town	Shaheen %	CSP %	% Diff.	Votes Cast
Rye	44.2	51.4	7.2	3693
Moltnboro	36.2	41.9	5.7	2967
Greenland	50.9	54.9	4	2227
Conway	55.1	59	3.9	5020
Strafford	50.5	54.2	3.7	2310
Seabrook	45.7	49.2	3.5	3988
Portsmouth	64.7	68.1	3.4	12326
N.Hampton	46.9	49.9	3	2810
Lee	61	64	3	2486

And I’ll throw in number 11 on the list, because ManchVegas is where so many of the votes are to be found in CD1:

Town	Shaheen %	CSP %	% Diff.	Votes Cast
Manchester	52.3	55.1	2.8	46268

Now on to CD2 and Paul Hodes.  Even greater discrepancies are to be found in the western half of the state:

Town	Shaheen %	Hodes %	% Diff.	Votes Cast
Newport	50.7	59.4	8.7	2845
Littleton	49.9	57.8	7.9	2699
Claremont	56.8	64.2	7.4	5480
Henniker	52.9	59.8	6.9	2405
New London	47.3	54.2	6.9	2788
Pembroke	51.4	56.8	5.4	3580
Weare	43.4	48.7	5.3	4447
Plymouth	62.7	67.9	5.2	3457
Hanover	73.6	78.7	5.1	6912

I’m going to resist interpreting this data too closely, other than to say that it’s clear that Carol and Paul, despite being lower on the ballot, performed better than Shaheen.  There are so many ways to answer why – and some of them non-exclusionary to others – that I’m not sure what conclusions can be drawn fairly.

Factors to consider: John Sununu was arguably a tougher opponent than Jeb Bradley (NH-01), who in turn was tougher than Jennifer Horn (NH-02).  Sununu and Shea-Porter and Hodes were all incumbents.  Shaheen was on the receiving end of far the greatest deluge of negative ads, followed closely by Carol, and finally Paul.

While I have a hard time drawing conclusions about ’08 from these numbers, I will happily draw from them for 2010.  Carol and Paul, by their strong showing relative to a senate nominee with tremendous name recognition, can both point to their results as ammunition for re-election down he road or even a run at the senate.

(Crossposted from Blue Hampshire, because I like to send my geekier vote analysis posts over here to SSP.)

(From the diaries – promoted by James L.)

I confess it – this was more challenging for me to put together than my earlier piece on Carol Shea-Porter, because in comparing the Charlie Bass (R-inc) – Paul Hodes (D) race of 2006 to the Paul Hodes (D-inc) – Jennifer Horn (R) race of 2008, the numbers tell you over and over again that the two are not really comparable.  Very much apples and oranges.

There are a number of reasons for this.  For starters, Charlie Bass held on to a district for six terms that showed less and less opportunity for the GOP every year, especially given the radicalism of the Bush brand in the final six of them. So the absence of a Bass incumbency factor gave us he opportunity to see the district more as it may actually be. Secondly, freshman class president Paul Hodes has proven to be, unlike the BassMaster, something of a leader in Congress, and has paid excellent attention to the needs of his district.  Third, he’s a capable fundraiser.  And finally, in Jennifer S. Horn-Palin, the GOP chose a standard-bearer who could not be more out-of-touch with CD2.  But let’s listen to what the numbers are saying.

(More below the fold…)

First, the list of towns that flipped from Charlie Bass in ’06 to Paul Hodes in ’08 is – happily – so long it’s not useful even listing, imho.  But just for the record, the total number is forty-five.  And the most important ones, in voter-rich terms, are accounted for in the tables below.

Jennifer Horn, on the other hand, flipped one whole town:  Millsfield. Total votes cast? 15.

Due to the larger number of towns in CD2 v. CD1, and the convincing victory Hodes had (and leaving aside cities with wards for a moment), I thought it would be both more readable and more useful to focus first on those towns with greater than 2000 votes cast for the general election cycle. As in my earlier post on CSP, the following list represents those populous towns where Paul Hodes raised his vote percentage from ’06 to ’08 by three percentage points or more.  The table also lists total votes cast, and Hodes’ 2008 vote percentage, the color of which declares who won that town (blue for Hodes, red for Horn):

Town	’08 Hodes %	’06-’08 +/-% Diff.	Total Votes Cast
Littleton*	57.7%	+16.5%	2699
Newport	59.4%	+9.8%	2845
Plymouth	67.8%	+8.4%	3457
Northfield*	53.9%	+8.0%	2204
Hillsborough	56.9%	+7.5%	2743
Epsom*	51.3%	+7.1%	2397
Pembroke	56.7%	+7.0%	3580
Loudon*	51.8%	+6.2%	2742
Weare*	48.7%	+5.4%	4447
New Boston	45.04%	+5.2%	2982
Jaffrey	56.8%	+5.1%	2766
Charlestown	63.2%	+4.9%	2475
New London*	54.2%	+4.9%	2788
Bow*	53.4%	+4.9%	4645
Allenstown	57.3%	+4.8%	2064
Henniker	59.8%	+4.7%	2405
Enfield	64.6%	+4.6%	2333
Pelham	46.0%	+4.3%	6310
Walpole	61.0%	+4.3%	2143
Hopkinton	60.6%	+4.1%	3744
Litchfield	45.0%	+3.7%	4252
Hudson*	49.1%	+3.3%	11,332

* Flipped to Hodes in 2008.

Now, the next step would be to do the same for those towns of over 2000 votes cast where Paul’s vote percentage decreased by three points or more.  The (happy) problem with that?  There’s only one town that fits the bill, Brookline. With 2,706 votes cast, Hodes won 41.8% of the vote, a decrease of 4.5% from 2006.  And I’ll be generous: neighboring Boston-commute southern tier town Hollis gets honorary mention with a Hodes decrease of 2.9% from the last cycle.

Finally, let’s have a look at how Paul fared from 2006 to 2008 in the major cities of the second district:

City	’08 Hodes %	’06-’08 +/-% Diff.	Total Votes Cast
Berlin	73.0%	+13.0%	4179
Claremont	64.2%	+6.7%	5470
Concord	65.6%	+5.2%	21,128
Franklin	58.2%	+8.9%	3587
Keene	70.2%	+3.4%	12,263
Lebanon	68.1%	+3.4%	6455
Nashua	55.3%	+0.2%	37,995

So. What observations, if any, come from these numbers, aside from the obvious points above about the lopsided nature of this race compared to 2006?

* Check out Littleton, Plymouth, and Berlin on those charts.  Huge increases for all three. North Country Yankee natives are Democrats now.

* The Upper Valley continues to be a dominant – and growing – sector for Democrats.  Not on the chart, and populous enough to have its own wards, Hanover gave Hodes 78.7% of its vote with 6,912 votes cast.

* From the long litany and diverse nature of flipped towns such as Grafton, New London, Milford, Colebrook, and Boscawen, you can feel the grip of the GOP’s too-long grip on CD2 slipping away, perhaps for a good long time. The six term backbencher BassMaster really did hold on to half of New Hampshire longer than was ultimately viable.

* Here’s the biggest surprise of all for me from these numbers.  Take a look at the percent increases for the larger towns, and for all the cities.  What stands out? Nashua.  It didn’t budge.

But guess what else?  With all due respect to the good Granite Staters of Nashua, it didn’t much matter, either.  Despite being by far the most populous city in the district, it simply isn’t enough to focus on Nashua and hope it spreads outwards.  In this sense, NHGOP Chair Fergus Cullen, imho, made a critical tactical mistake in throwing his heft behind Horn (if the rumors and spin are to be believed).  A far-right, socially conservative talk radio show host from the southern tier was not going to cut it with the rest of the district’s demographics. Far better it would have been to have had Bob Clegg as the nominee, if of course Clegg showed himself to be a better candidate (he didn’t), or perhaps the more moderate, Concord area primary spoiler Jim Steiner, if he could have shown a better fundraising presence.

The long and the short of it, though, is that if the GOP ever wants a chance at CD2 again, they’re going to have to stop going to the Massachusetts tax refugee well like flies to honey. They will need to field someone much more moderate.  And someone who understands rural and agricultural issues, alternative energy concerns, the importance of the North Country, and the newly dominant progressive voter in the Upper Valley.

Too bad Paul owns all those areas.  It’s a good day to be a Democrat.