Tag: Linda Chavez-Thompson

Public Policy Polling (9/2-6, likely voters, 6/19-21 in parens):

Bill White (D): 42 (43)

Rick Perry (R-inc): 48 (43)

Undecided: 12 (14)

(MoE: ±4.2%)

PPP’s switch from a registered to a likely voter model gives Rick Perry a six-point lead. Interestingly, that switch only translated into a 52-41 McCain sample from a 51-41 sample in June. However, the sample is significantly more Republican (47R-30D from 43R-37D in June) and whiter (70% from 66%).

Despite Perry’s edge, Tom Jensen calls White, along with Colorado’s John Hickenlooper, “one of the two strongest new Democratic candidates in the country this year”. That’s evidenced by White’s promising 44-29 favorable rating, especially when stacked up against Perry’s 36-49 approval rating. More:

The race is confounding the major trends we’re seeing in most contests across the country. White is winning independents 53-34. Republicans have the lead with them most everywhere else. White’s winning 82% of Democrats while Perry’s getting 77% of Republicans. Republican voters are more unified than Democrats most everywhere else. But there are a lot more GOP voters than Dems in Texas so Perry’s still ahead anyway.

PPP also tested the Lt. Governor’s race, and finds incumbent David Dewhurst up by 54-34 on his spirited Democratic challenger, Linda Chavez-Thompson. That Bill White is poling competitively while the lower-ticketed races look like Solid R affairs is both a testament to White’s strength – and Perry’s weakness.

Meanwhile, PPP’s Dustin Ingalls takes a look at an issue that may have some resonance in Texas this year (much as it did in 1994): term limits.

Busy night in Texas last night, although both sides in the gubernatorial race turned out being pretty anticlimactic. Incumbent Republican Rick Perry just barely managed to cleared the 50% hurdle and avoid a runoff; he got 51 to Kay Bailey Hutchison’s 30 and Debra Medina’s 19. Medina’s 19 is higher than anyone would have imagined a few months ago, but it also may reflect there’s a ceiling on what teabaggers can accomplish, and she may have reached that; that’s confirmed with the range of teabagger challenges to Republican incumbents in the House and the state legislature. Challenges to Ron Paul (81%) and Pete Sessions (84%) barely made a ripple, and while self-funding teabagger Steve Clark racked up 30% in TX-04, that’s mostly by virtue of running against the mummified remains of Ralph Hall rather than a vigorous opponent. In what seems like the two most competitive House races in November, the Republicans are headed to runoffs: Quico Canseco vs. Will Hurd in TX-23, and Bill Flores vs. Rob Curnock in TX-17. (Considering how uncontroversial incumbent Railroad Commissioner Victor Carrillo surprisingly lost a one-on-one to an underfunded unknown with an Anglo surname, I wonder if Canseco and Flores should be worried going into the runoffs.)

Bill White doesn’t get the advantage of a facing a runoff-addled Rick Perry in the general, but he’s coming into it with a head of steam, racking up 76% in the Dem primary to 13% for Farouk Shami. He’s likely to get a boost from Latino turnout as he’s backed up by two Latino ticket-mates who won last night: Lt. Governor candidate Linda Chavez-Thompson and Land Commissioner candidate Hector Uribe (who ended at 52% after trailing most of the night). (He’ll also be backed up by a non-annoying Ag Commissioner candidate, in the form of Hank Gilbert, who narrowly defeated Kinky Friedman.)

Further down the ballot, in what many considered the most important race of the night, in the GOP primary for District 9 of the state Board of Education, incumbent wingnut Don McLeroy lost narrowly to moderate Thomas Ratliff. Moderate Geraldine Miller lost in a surprise to George Clayton, though (although he says he wants books to be “agenda-free”). The balance of power between creationists and “moderates” (by Texas standards) on the SBOE may yet come down to a runoff in one other race, between Marsha Farney and Brian Russell.

Two other states had special elections in their state House of Representatives, with the Dems and GOP each holding seats they’d previously occupied. It was a nail-biter in Virginia’s HD-41 in suburban Fairfax County, where Democrat Eileen Filler-Corn prevailed by 42 votes over Republican Kerry Bolognese to keep the seat vacated by now-state Sen. Dave Marsden. (Theoretically, that was close enough for a recount, but the GOP won’t request one and Filler-Corn is being seated today.) In Connecticut, Republican Laura Hoydick defeated Democrat Janice Anderson to keep in GOP hands the seat vacated by Stratford’s new mayor John Harkins; the two will face off again in November.

• AR-Sen: Blanche Lincoln seems like she’ll take a lifeline from anyone who’ll throw her one these days, and she got a big one today — although it’s not a surprise who’s doing it. The nation’s most famous Arkansan, Bill Clinton, authored a fundraising e-mail on Lincoln’s behalf.

• CA-Sen: The war of words between Chuck DeVore and the NRSC keeps flaring up; DeVore keeps claiming the NRSC won’t meet with him. DeVore’s camp claims they got an offer to meet with the NRSC’s executive director rather than John Cornyn, which he turned down… but that came after e-mailing the NRSC once and then faxing them follow-ups twice. I must admit I share in the incredulity of NRSC spokesbot Brian Walsh, who said “Remarkably, every [other of the 60 GOP candidates who’ve met with the NRSC] knew how to set up a meeting with the exception of Chuck DeVore who apparently believed sending a fax to Senator Cornyn’s official government office was the most direct route. That alone might demonstrate a lack of seriousness, or at least raise questions of competency, by a statewide Senate campaign.” The Hill’s Aaron Blake looks at this brouhaha in the context of GOP outsider campaigns in general, with a subtext wondering if DeVore’s camp is intentionally miscommunicating as a means of burnishing outsider credentials (seeing as how the way to lose your Seal of Good Teabagging is by becoming one of the NRSC’s golden children).

• FL-Sen: Those Rasmussen numbers on the Florida Senate general election finally showed up. Like last time, and contrary to conventional wisdom, they actually show Marco Rubio overperforming Charlie Crist, vis a vis Kendrick Meek. Rubio beats Meek 49-35, while Crist beats Meek 42-36. Seems strange, but Florida pundit Mike Thomas speculates that Crist is losing ground not among conservatives (whom he never really had to begin with) but rather among indies and moderates, simply by virtue of his empty-suit opportunism, which might explain why the blank-slate Rubio is overperforming. Meanwhile, Rubio keeps trucking along on the fundraising front, as the Club for Growth has bundled $100K in contributions for him in the last month.

• CT-Sen: CQ highlights one more way that price is no object for Linda McMahon; she’s paying her campaign manager David Cappiello a $280K salary, which is at least double what the Rob Simmons and Chris Dodd managers make. Who’s the lucky guy? It’s former state Sen. David Cappiello. If that name sounds familiar, he’s the guy who got spanked by 20 points by then-freshman Rep. Chris Murphy in CT-05 last year… which I’d think might be a bit of a red flag if you were a savvy businessperson looking to hire someone based on campaign skills.

• NH-Sen: The fault lines are remarkably clear in the Republican primary in New Hampshire. GOP establishment candidate Kelly Ayotte was busy hitting a $1,000 per individual Washington DC fundraiser sponsored by telecommunications lobbyists yesterday, at around the same time conservative primary challenger Ovide Lamontagne was getting the endorsement of radio talk show host and Coulter-wannabe Laura Ingraham.

• CA-Gov (pdf): The Public Policy Institute of California has a full poll of the California gubernatorial race (they’ve previously polled on approval ratings, but not the horserace). They see a race between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman that’s a little tighter (43-37 for Brown) than most pollsters have seen (although, of course, better than Rasmussen’s 41-41 tie). Brown makes short work of his other Republican opposition, Tom Campbell (46-34) and Steve Poizner (47-31). Whitman also has an edge in the GOP primary, at 32 with 12 for Campbell (who’s mulled moving over to the Senate race) and 8 for Poizner.

• GA-Gov: Rasmussen has numbers for the Republican gubernatorial primary (sorry, no numbers for the general, which I don’t think has ever been polled). This race looks pretty stable: they find Insurance Comm. John Oxendine with a sizable lead, as usual. He’s at 28, doubling up on SoS Karen Handel at 14. Rep. Nathan Deal is at 13, followed by Jeff Chapman, Eric Johnson, Ray McBerry, and Austin Scott, all at 2. I wonder if this might tarnish Oxendine a little, though: it was just revealed that he took a trip to the 2007 Oscars on the tab of a major campaign contributor who was also asking, at the time, for Oxendine’s intervention in an insurance dispute against Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

• MI-Gov: Democratic Lt. Gov. John Cherry has been lagging his Republican opponents in the polls lately, and a new poll from EPIC-MRA shows why: no one knows who the heck he is, and those who do don’t like him. Cherry is unknown to 39%, which is greater than any of his main Republican opponents. AG Mike Cox, for instance, has an unknown of 16%. (The release doesn’t mention any head-to-head numbers, at least not yet.)

• NE-Gov: The Democrats may actually get a good-sounding recruit in the Nebraska gubernatorial race? That probably doesn’t change Republican incumbent Dave Heineman’s “Safe R” status, but it’s still good news. Mike Boyle (who says he’s “considering” the race) was mayor of Omaha from 1981 until a recall in 1987; he’s currently in his third term as a Douglas County Commissioner. Boyle also ran for governor in 1990, losing the Democratic primary to now-Sen. Ben Nelson.

• OR-Gov: Former NBA player Chris Dudley officially embarked on his question to become the nation’s tallest governor, announcing his candidacy in a speech that didn’t give potential supporters much to judge where on the Republican spectrum he falls, other than the usual boilerplate on jobs and taxes. (He did mention in an interview, on the abortion issue, that he was “comfortable with [abortion laws] where they are now.”) At least he won’t have to deal with state House minority leader Bruce Hanna in the primary, who yesterday turned down conservative entreaties to get into the race.

• SD-Gov: PPP threw in some gubernatorial questions in its SD-AL poll, and it looks like Republicans have a generic edge here that should keep the state house in their hands, despite nobody knowing much of anything about any of the candidates. The good news for Dems is that their candidate, state Senate minority leader Scott Heidepreim, is better known than any of the GOPers (although 57% have no opinion of him). The bad news is that Heidepreim still loses to all four GOPers, even Some Dude Ken Knuppe (although only 32-30). He also loses to Lt. Gov. Dennis Daugaard 42-29, Senate majority leader Dave Knudson 39-29, and Brookings mayor Scott Munsterman 35-30.

• KS-03: Dems look to be getting closer to having a solid candidate for the open seat race in the 3rd. Kansas City, Kansas mayor Joe Reardon says he’s giving it “serious consideration,” and his mayoral predecessor, Carol Marinovich also said she’s not ruling out a run. Hopefully only one will run, at least giving the Dems smooth sailing into what’s likely to be a difficult general election.

• PA-11: The NRCC has to be pleased with Hazleton mayor Lou Barletta’s recently-announced third whack at vulnerable Rep. Paul Kanjorski in the 11th, and they just added him to their “Young Guns” program. He still starts on their lowest tier for now, though (“On the Radar”).

• PA-12: Septuagenarian Rep. John Murtha, who was briefly hospitalized this week for gall bladder trouble, is saying via his spokesperson that he has no intent to retire and will run again in 2010. This comes despite leaks of a memo written in October to the DCCC asking for legal advice on how to deal with his reelection funds if he decides to retire. (The request apparently originated with a constituent’s question.)

• Blue Dogs: The Blue Dogs added three new members yesterday: Scott Murphy (who I thought had been a member all along), Betsy Markey (not a surprise, given her tough district, although she’s taken some courageous votes like cap-and-trade), and Kurt Schrader. The decision by Schrader — who’s near the middle of the Dem caucus, in a slightly Dem-leaning district, and usually a good vote although a bit of a budget hawk — may raise a few eyebrows, but Blue Oregon’s Kari Chisholm offers a good defense of him.

• Texas: Lots to talk about as Democrats try to assemble a full slate of candidates to go with top gubernatorial recruit Bill White. Most notably, they have a former AFL-CIO executive VP interested in running for the all-important (in Texas, at least) Lt. Gov. spot: Linda Chavez-Thompson. They have another candidate interested in running for Comptroller (which ex-Rep. Nick Lampson has also scoped out): former Republican comptroller and then independent gubernatorial candidate Carole Strayhorn, who says she wants to run as a Dem this time. Finally, people are wondering whether Kinky Friedman even qualifies to run for Agriculture Commissioner. State statute requires actual agricultural experience, and Friedman is claiming that a ranch he owns with relatives has enough cattle on it for him to qualify.

• Pennsylvania: The Hill points to an interesting academic research paper that examined what’s going on with people who’ve participated in the widespread Republican-to-Democrat party switch that’s remade politics in suburban Pennsylvania in recent years. As one might expect, these are affluent people for the most part (with one-third making more than $80K). Unexpectedly, though, only 53% say they were driven out by “extremism” in the GOP’s positions, and they span the ideological spectrum (although with a plurality calling themselves “moderates”). Many, in fact, (over 40%) were at one point Democrats who had switched to the GOP and were now switching back.

• Votes: Yesterday’s House vote to lift the debt ceiling was another closely orchestrated one, passing 218-214. As might be expected, most of the most vulnerable members voted no… and also a few center-left types running for Senate who don’t want to get tarred with the ‘debt’ brush (Kendrick Meek, Paul Hodes). They were generously given some cover by three of the retiring Blue Dogs — Dennis Moore, John Tanner, and Bart Gordon — who all voted ‘yes,’ since their seats in the lifeboat weren’t needed (same with some of the other Blue Dogs facing lesser challenges this year, like Jim Marshall and John Barrow).