Tag: Mark Critz
Yet another reflection on PA-12 and what it means for 2010
I sincerely hope that you are not getting sick over analysis of the special election to replace the late Jack Murtha. Because I have taken some time to look over the race and what I think it means for 2010 as a whole.
When I first heard the tragic news of Congressman Murtha I felt sorrow for the loss of a veteran Congressman and ex Marine but at the same time I couldn’t help but think in the back of my mind about the possible loss of the seat. I was somewhat perplexed at the time on why we chose his former district director rather than an ex Governor or ex State Treasurer who both appeared at first glance to be far superior candidates than the highly unheard of Mark Critz.
This race was instantly thought to be a highly competitive and would be a potential look ahead at the upcoming 2010 elections. The district had the oddity of being the only one that was won by Democrat John Kerry in 2004 but lost by Barack Obama in 2008. While it appears to be Democrat on a local level it is obvious to me that the district is slowly trending away from us. I think Murtha would have likely retired in 2012 if he would not have passed away.
Now to the fun part actually putting some analysis to this race. Critz ran a GREAT campaign. He was a fairly likeable candidate and was able to create a good message of being a populist with a clear independent streak in terms of social issues which played well with the many social conservatives in the district. He knew the district; what the district was like and what he would have to do to get elected. He knew residents were upset at national Democrats and HCR and pretty much anything that had to do with Washington DC. He was able to all of this even when national Republicans poured A LOT of money into this district.
He was a GOOD candidate. Thank gosh someone was able to see it in him during the selection process. I think the overall lesson we can take from this to put towards the midterms is quality of candidate. I do believe a Democrat who knows what he or she is doing can win an R+5 district and a Republican a D+5. It’s all about the candidate. If a candidate knows what is popular and what is not in the district and knows how to play on these issues then they have a great shot of winning despite party label. For example I don’t think anyone honestly believed the Republicans had any shot whatsoever of winning Massachusetts when Ted Kennedy died. However little did they know the sacrificial lamb they put up turned out to be a great candidate who related to the people and knew his stuff while his opponent took a relaxing vacation and probably measured the drapes for her Senate office. Brown won, and he won not because of hatred of the President or Democrats in general but rather the voters attraction to him, who they could relate to as being the outsider who drove a truck.
Critz knew just how hard hit the district was on an economic level so he ran a campaign focused on job creation and stressing his difference from national politicians which are all popular things in his district. It is all about the candidate and how they introduce themselves to the voter. If Democratic incumbents in tough districts talk about all the positive popular things they have done then I don’t think 2010 will be nearly as bad as everyone seems to think. Run as someone who voted for tougher sanctions on Wall Street who has fought for job creation and economic development. Assuming they voted in favor of Health Care Reform talk about the positives it has and how it will help the people and paint the opponents of it as being pro insurance companies and against the highly popular aspects of reform like treating pre-existing conditions and letting children stay on the family policy until they are 28. If all candidate can do what Critz did and run a good campaign then we will do great in 2010.
The point of this diary is a good candidate should not be written off just because it’s a tough district or state in a seemingly Republican year. We should not be scared of 2010 but excited. We have many great pickup opportunities and should not just do defense but a little offense as well. I know not every one can run a campaign similar to that of Brown and Critz but we should not write any race off just yet. Anything can happen after all. It just depends on the campaign someone runs.
The Meaning of PA-12
By: Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/
On Tuesday night Pennsylvania’s 12th congressional district held a special election, pitting Democratic candidate Mark Critz against Republican Tim Burns.
Mr. Critz won solidly: a nine percent margin of victory off 53.4% of the vote. Several polls had predicted a very close, photo-finish election; this result contradicted that assumption.
This victory constitutes good – very good – news for Democrats.
More below.
His district, PA-12, was one of the few countrywide that voted more Republican from 2004 to 2008, as the rest of the nation shifted substantially left. Districts such as these are prime targets for Republicans in 2010.
Indeed, PA-12 constituted the only seat in the entire nation that supported Senator John Kerry and then switched its vote to Senator John McCain. For reasons such as this, I wrote a week ago that:
It will be a minor miracle if Democratic candidate Mark Critz wins. [Almost] no Democratic candidate has ever done better than Mr. Obama since his election. Mr. Critz will have to do that, given that the president lost PA-12 (the only seat in the nation to support Kerry and the McCain). In a district with double-digit disapproval ratings of Mr. Obama, this constitutes an arduous task.
As it turned out, Mr. Critz did far better than Mr. Obama. Indeed, his victory constitutes the first time a Democratic candidate has improved on the president’s performance since December of 2008, when Democrat Paul Carmouche barely lost LA-4 to Congressman John Fleming.
Mr. Critz won by appealing to local issues, emphasizing his independence from the president, and sounding like a fiscally liberal, socially conservative Democrat – the type of Democrat places like PA-12 have traditionally voted for.
This is a strategy that Democrats have long used, to great success, in winning congressional districts that they should not be winning. It is how both Mississippi and Arkansas elect three Democratic versus one Republican congressional representative, and how Texas elected more Democratic than Republican congressman right until 2004. It is partly how the party won such great congressional victories in 2006 and 2008.
There has been much fear amongst Democrats that, in light of Mr. Obama’s presidency, this strategy will no longer work. State Senator Creigh Deeds tried running a rural-style candidacy for Virginia’s governorship; he failed quite miserably.
Mark Critz, on the other hand, succeeded where many – including this individual – thought for sure he would fail. His performance certainly does not mean that Democrats are in for an easy time come November, but it does give the party something to work with in the tough days ahead.
SSP Daily Digest: 5/20 (Afternoon Edition)
• AR-Sen: Labor seems quite keen to finish the job against Blanche Lincoln in the runoff; the AFSCME just anted up $1.4 million for the coming weeks. This includes not just an IE blitz on the state’s inexpensive airwaves, but also 30 staffers on the ground, with a particular emphasis on driving up African-American turnout. Meanwhile, Mark Blumenthal took an in-depth look at the AR-Sen poll released yesterday by DFA giving Bill Halter the lead; he had some of the same issues with question order that we did.
• KS-Sen: Rep. Jerry Moran is out with an internal poll from POS that gives him a dominant lead over fellow Rep. Todd Tiahrt in the GOP primary for the open Senate seat. Moran leads 53-27, including a similar 51-33 among those who are “favorable” to the Tea Party movement (despite Moran being somewhat more moderate than the social conservative Tiahrt… Moran’s appeal to them may be that Tiahrt is one of those pork-hugging Appropriators).
• KY-Sen: Quickest post-primary implosion ever? Rand Paul, after getting bogged down by questions yesterday over his feelings about the Civil Rights Act, dug his hole even deeper on the Rachel Maddow show last night. He tried to walk that back today on safer turf on Laura Ingraham’s show, saying that he would have voted for it in 1964 and wouldn’t support repeal of anti-discrimination laws today, although he also said that it was a political mistake to go on a liberal talk show in the first place. Democrats like John Yarmuth and Jim Clyburn are still going on the offensive, while Republican leaders like Jim DeMint and John Cornyn are busy mumbling “no comment.” Even Jeff Sessions is backpedaling. Nate Silver is circumspect about how much damage this may have actually caused Paul in Kentucky, but casts some very suspicious eyes in the direction of Rasmussen’s new poll of the race today.
• NV-Sen: Busgate seems to be the second half of Sue Lowden’s quick one-two punch to her own nose. Having been called out that her name is on the donated campaign bus’s title (despite previous contentions that it was leased), she’s now admitting that she “misspoke” about her bus. The FEC is starting to take up the matter.
• PA-Sen: Biden alert! Looks like the White House is eager to move past that whole Arlen Specter endorsement, as the Vice-President (and Scranton favorite son) is gearing up to campaign on behalf of Joe Sestak.
• WA-Sen: I’m just getting more and more confused about the state of the Republican field, as Sarah Palin, out of pretty much nowhere, gave an endorsey-supporty-type thing in favor of Clint Didier today. Is this a shot across Dino Rossi’s bow to keep him from jumping in (which is locally rumored to be imminent), an endorsement after finding out that Rossi isn’t getting in (which competing local rumors also assert), or just Palin marching to the beat of her own off-kilter drum? Didier, in case you’ve forgotten, is a long-ago NFL player turned rancher who, of the various GOP detritus in the race right now, has been the one most loudly reaching out to the teabaggers. The Rossi-friendly Seattle Times must see him as at least something of a threat, as they recently tried to smack him down with a piece on the hundreds of thousands of dollars in federal farm subsidies Didier has enjoyed.
• AL-Gov: A little more information is surfacing on that shadowy birther group, the New Sons of Liberty, that’s been promising to dump seven figures in advertising into the Republican gubernatorial field. The group has a website up now, and it lists a real-world address that’s the same as Concerned Women for America, a group who’ve been supportive of Roy Moore in the past.
• GA-Gov: Insider Advantage has another look at the Republican gubernatorial primary in Georgia. They don’t see much of note, other than a bit of a Deal uptick: Insurance Comm. John Oxendine is at 23, followed by ex-Rep. Nathan Deal at 15, ex-Sos Karen Handel at 14, Eric Johnson at 5, Jeff Chapman at 2, and Ray McBerry at 2. (April’s poll had Oxendine at 26, Handel at 18, and Deal at 9.)
• MA-Gov: Grace Ross, the other Dem in the primary (and the 2006 Green Party candidate), has had to pull the plug on her candidacy, lacking the signatures to qualify. Incumbent Deval Patrick, whose political fortunes seem to keep improving, has the Dem field to himself now.
• NY-Gov: Suddenly, there’s a fourth candidate in the GOP gubernatorial race. In a year with no Mumpowers or Terbolizards, this guy may be the winner for this cycle’s best name: M. Myers Mermel. He’s a Westchester County businessman who had been running for Lt. Governor and reportedly had locked down many county chairs’ support in that race but inexplicably decided to go for the upgrade. This comes on top of word that state GOP chair Ed Cox, worried that the Steve Levy thing may have blown up in his face, has been trying to lure yet another guy into the race: recently-confirmed state Dept. of Economic Development head Dennis Mullen. Frontruner ex-Rep. Rick Lazio is undeterred, naming his running mate today: Greg Edwards, the county executive in tiny (by NY standards) upstate Chautauqua County.
• AL-07: Terri Sewell, the one candidate in the race with money, is out with an internal poll from Anzalone-Liszt showing a three-way dead heat. Sewell is tied with Jefferson Co. Commissioner Shelia Smoot at 22 apiece, with state Rep. Earl Hilliard Jr. at 20. Attorney Martha Bozeman is at 7. By contrast, a Smoot poll from April had Smoot in the lead, at 33, to Hilliard’s 28 and Sewell’s 9. The intervening event? Sewell hit the TV airwaves; she’s likely to be the only candidate able to do so.
• AR-01: This is charming: when a state Rep., Tim Wooldridge (one of the two contestants in the Democratic runoff in the 1st) proposed a bill changing the method of execution in Arkansas to public hanging. Now, granted, several other states do allow hanging as alternate method (both blue states, oddly enough), but public hanging?
• LA-03: Hunt Downer, the former state House speaker, has been acting candidate-like for a while, but is finally making it official, filing the paperwork to run in the Republican primary in this Dem-held open seat. Downer seems like the favorite (in the primary and general) thanks to name rec, although he’ll need to get by attorney Jeff Landry in the primary, who has a financial advantage and claims an internal poll from April giving him a 13-point lead over Downer.
• NY-15: There’s one more Dem looking to take out long-long-time Rep. Charlie Rangel, who’s looking vulnerable in a primary thanks to ethics woes. Craig Schley, a former Rangel intern, announced he’s running (he also ran against Rangel in 2008). With the field already split by Vince Morgan and Jonathan Tasini (UPDATE: and Adam Clayton Powell IV), though, that may just wind up getting Rangel elected again.
• PA-12: PPP has more interesting crosstab information from PA-12, showing the difference candidate quality, and appropriateness for the district, can make. Tim Burns had 27/52 favorability among self-declared “moderates,” while Mark Critz had 67/27 favorables. (Guess who won?) Compare that with Scott Brown in Massachusetts, who had 62/31 favorability among moderates. And here’s an interesting tidbit: the NRCC spent fully one-tenth of its cash on hand on PA-12. (In order to get spanked.)
• VA-02: A lot of Republicans who’ve lent support to Scott Rigell in the primary in the 2nd may be wondering what they’re getting themselves into, as more detail on his contributions record comes out. Not only did he give money to Barack Obama in 2008 (as has been known for a while), but he also contributed to Mark Warner and in 2002 gave $10,000 to a referendum campaign that would have raised sales taxes in the Hampton Roads area. If he hadn’t already kissed Tea Party support goodbye, it’s gone now.
• Turnout: The WaPo has interesting turnout data in Arkansas and Pennsylvania. Arkansas turnout, juiced by the competitive Senate campaigns, was actually higher than the 2008 presidential primary.
• House GOP: That highly-touted ban on earmarks imposed on its members by the House GOP leadership? Yeah, turns out that’s just kind of more of a “moratorium” now. One that’s set to expire in January, so they can resume appropriating away once the election’s over.
PA-12: Breaking Down the Only Kerry-McCain District
So, the PA-12 special election is tomorrow, occurring in the Kerry-McCain district. Ironically, despite the failure of the Pennsylvania dummymander (the GOP having lost the 3rd, 4th, 6th, 7th, 8th, AND 10th since the 2002 remap and 2004 readjustment), this is yet another district where the GOP’s intentions fell significantly short.
It’s no secret that the 12th is quite the gerrymander, winding its way from Greene and Fayette County in the Southwest, through Washington County, with an arm through Somerset County, a large section of Johnstown and Cambria County (site of John Murtha Johnstown-Cambria County Airport, no less), another arm to pick up the college town of Indiana, three distinct sections of Allegheny and Westmoreland counties each (!!), and part of Armstrong County.
The 12th, however, is somewhat ancestrally Democratic – this was Joe Hoeffel’s 4th best district in 2004, and turned out strong for Bob Casey. If you average the four federal statewide races since 2004 (Kerry v. Bush, Hoeffel v. Specter, Casey v. Santorum, and Obama v. McCain), the district’s returned on average a Democratic performance of 51.3% to 46.2%.
We can visualize this as follows (click on images for larger versions):
The Democratic strength is concentrated in the southern bulb around Washington and along the Monongahela River south of Pittsburgh, as well as in Johnstown. Of course, connecting the two areas does require passing through some significantly Republican areas.
At risk of falling victim to the “Republican Heartland” fallacy, playing around with my new GIS toys, we can pull some NYT-style map goodness, with graduated circles:
In this map, the sheer Democratic dominance of Johnstown and the Monongahela River towns becomes even more evident.
So what does this all mean for tomorrow? Critz needs to do well in Murtha’s old base in Cambria County, and hopefully stanch some of the Democratic bleeding in the southwestern half of the district.
As with Martha Coakley and Scott Brown, I also made an election-night model to predict results as they come in last night. It uses the similar uniform-swing assumptions (as compared to the 2004-2008 Democratic average) and accounts for possible variation within a given jurisdiction (this is necessary since counties here are much larger than towns in Massachusetts). I’m still fine-tuning the specifics, but expect that online sometime tomorrow afternoon!
PA-12: Burns Leads Critz by 1 Point in Final PPP Poll
Public Policy Polling (5/15-16, likely voters, 4/17-18 in parens):
Mark Critz (D): 47 (41)
Tim Burns (R): 48 (44)
Undecided: 6 (15)
(MoE: ±3.4%)
More, from Jensen:
If Burns does pull out the victory on Tuesday night it will be more because of a continuing gap in interest between Democratic and Republican voters in the off year election than anything else. Critz is actually winning over more McCain voters (14%) than Burns is Obama voters (12%). This race is not an example of people who voted for Obama who are now unhappy with him and voting Republican. But those planning to vote on Tuesday report having voted for John McCain by 5 points in 2008, compared to his actual 1 point victory in the district. And among voters who say they’re ‘very excited’ to vote in this election, Burns has a 60-38 lead.
In contrast, two other recent polls have given Critz a slight lead. It looks like we’re heading for a photo finish here, sports fans.
Bonus finding: Sestak leads Specter by 44-35 among Democratic primary voters in the 12th District.
SSP Daily Digest: 5/14 (Morning Edition)
SSP Daily Digest: 5/12 (Afternoon Edition)
• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist went the full-on “I” today; he made a big show of switching his own party registration to “no party affiliation” today, to match having filed as an independent to run for Senate. Free from his Republican shackles, Crist is also following through on plans to call a special legislative session on oil drilling, which could result in Floridians voting on a constitutional amendment to ban offshore drilling in Florida waters. And one final middle-finger to his former Republican allies: after previously saying he was open to refunding money to donors unhappy with his party switch, today he said he wouldn’t be giving any contributions back.
• NC-Sen (pdf): PPP’s out with another quick poll of the runoff for the Democratic Senate nomination between Cal Cunningham and Elaine Marshall. It’s a tie, with Cunningham and Marshall both at 36. While this would initially suggest that Cunningham (who finished 2nd) is picking up the bulk of the also-rans’ votes, that’s not the case; Marshall is still leading among liberals and African-Americans, which probably means she’s getting most Kenneth Lewis voters. PPP’s analysis is that Cunningham’s improved standing is a result of an enthusiasm gap between their supporters; Cunningham backers seem likelier to actually show up for the runoff.
• NV-Sen: Here’s something we haven’t seen in probably more than a year, which is half a lifetime in politics years: Harry Reid is posting a lead. Now, granted, this is a Democratic poll, although not a Reid internal; it was taken by Dem pollster Fairbanks Maslin on behalf of the New West Project. But still, this shows that the chickens have come home to roost for Sue Lowden, in the wake of her quadrupling-down on her HCR gaffe; she’s now trailing Reid 42-35 (with 5 for Tim Fasano, 3 for Scott Ashjian). Reid is tied with Danny Tarkanian, who isn’t gaffe-tainted (and in fact is now trying to tar and feather Lowden with it in the primary), at 37-37 (with 7 for Fasano and 2 for Ashjian).
• UT-Sen: One impure collaborationist down, one to go. With Bob Bennett out, teabagger frenzy is now turning to Orrin Hatch. Mason-Dixon finds Hatch’s 2012 numbers pretty weak, with a 35% re-elect and 51% wanting someone else. And that “someone else” is already making his interest known, more than two years out (probably with an eye toward goading the 78-year-old Hatch into retirement): ambitious freshman Rep. Jason Chaffetz.
• WI-Sen: Wealthy businessman Ron Johnson, the teabaggers’ horse in the Wisconsin Senate GOP derby, made it official, filing as a candidate today. He’ll officially launch his bid next Monday.
• AL-Gov: Bradley Byrne, the supposed moderate (by Alabama GOP standards) in the race, has had to two-step to the right and defend his creationist cred, after an ad from the “True Republican PAC” attacked him for the unforgivable sin of teaching evolution in schools. Turns out that there’s some tasty Democratic dirty pool behind all this: the True Republican PAC is funded by the state teacher’s union, the Alabama Education Association (who are also Ron Sparks’ biggest financial backer). Their rationale seems to be that they’d rather, Gray Davis-style, torpedo Bradley Byrne in the GOP primary, on the assumption that he’d be the most difficult Republican to beat in the general.
• CT-Gov: On the Chris Cillizza hierarchy of endorsements, I think this one falls under the category of “10) Wtf?” State Sen. minority leader John McKinney, who’d considered a gubernatorial run himself, endorsed neither of the GOP frontrunners, but rather the random businessman with the weird name, Oz Griebel. The former head of the Hartford Chamber of Commerce has been polling in the low single digits.
• OH-Gov: Lehman Brothers keeps turning into a bigger and bigger albatross around John Kasich’s neck. It turns out that Kasich, while he was head of Lehman’s Columbus office in 2002, tried to convince two state pension funds (OPFPF and OPERS) to invest with the now-imploded investment bank.
• OR-Gov: Yet another poll of the primaries in the Oregon gubernatorial race, confirming what’s come into pretty sharp focus lately, that it’ll be a John Kitzhaber/Chris Dudley matchup in November. Local pollster Tim Hibbitts, on behalf of assorted media outlets including Oregon Public Broadcasting and the Portland Tribune, found Kitzhaber beating Bill Bradbury 53-23 on the Dem side. For the GOPers, Dudley leads Allen Alley by a not-overwhelming 33-23, but there’s little time left for Alley to make a move. (John Lim is at 8 and Bill Sizemore is at 6.) They also looked at the Dem primary in the special election for Treasurer, finding a competitive race with lots of undecideds: appointed incumbent (and ex-Multnomah Co. Chair) Ted Wheeler leads state Sen. Rick Metsger 29-24.
• WA-Gov: The rumor du jour is that Chris Gregoire is now on the short list to become Solicitor General, assuming Elena Kagan gets promoted to the SCOTUS. Allow me to say: bad idea, if only because it means at least several months of Governor Brad Owen. Under Washington law, though, Owen wouldn’t serve for long, as a special election would be held. The timeline varies, depending on when Gregoire might quit as Governor. If it happens before May 31, a primary would be held, followed by a two-person general in November. If it happens after May 31 but before October 3, it would result in a jungle-style election in November. And if it happens after October 3, we’d be blessed with two full years of Owen. One other major wrinkle: if this looks like it has legs, it may shut the door on a Dino Rossi run for the Senate, as it’s a poorly-kept secret that he’d really prefer another gubernatorial run rather than wasting his third strike on getting pasted by Patty Murray, and this would be the way for him to do it.
• NY-29: David Paterson did the unthinkable and called a special election for the 29th. Heh… except he called it for the regularly-scheduled election day in November, so the winner will get to serve for a few weeks in the lame duck session, Snelly Gibr-style. Smart move by the Gov, as it saves Dems from a potentially embarrassing special election on a day when that’s the only story. Instead, the outcome will probably be that Tom Reed gets to start work a few weeks early.
• PA-12: Two polls are out today in the 12th, both giving a single-digit lead to Democrat Mark Critz. One poll is a Critz internal, so you’d expect a lead there: Global Strategy Group gives him an 8-point lead of 44-36 (up from 41-38 in mid-April). But the other is from Susquehanna, a pollster who often works for Republican candidates but here is polling on behalf of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review (the GOP paper in town). They find Critz up 44-38, and Critz even leads by 19 among “super voters” (who’ve voted in 3 of the last 4 primaries). Interestingly, they find Republican Tim Burns’ woes increasing on two different fronts: he’s also in a “dead heat” with BaseConnect stooge Bill Russell (who got passed over for the special election nod) in the regularly-scheduled GOP primary on the same day. For some reason, specific numbers weren’t available for the GOP primary or the Dem primary, although it says Critz has “a majority” against Ryan Bucchanieri.
SSP Daily Digest: 5/12 (Morning Edition)
Tim Holden (D-inc): 54
Sheila Dow-Ford (D): 27
Undecided: 18
(MoE: ±4.9%)David Argall (R): 21
Frank Ryan (R): 17
John First (R): 7
Allen Griffth (R): 5
Undecided: 47
(MoE: ±4.3%)
While Dow-Ford probably can’t unseat Holden, these are some uninspiring numbers for the incumbent, who only gets 38% re-elects. Obama’s job approval is 32-56.
SSP Daily Digest: 5/10 (Afternoon Edition)
• AR-Sen: Those nasty anti-Bill Halter Americans for Job Security ads just keep being an issue in the Arkansas Senate race, to the extent that the Halter camp just filed an FEC complaint against AJS. The content of the ads isn’t at issue, though, but rather that AJS spent $900K on the ads without disclosing its donors.
• PA-Sen, PA-Gov: Joe Sestak continues to hold a narrow lead over Arlen Specter in the daily Muhlenberg tracker that first opened up over the weeknd; today Sestak’s lead is up to 5, at 47-42. On the gubernatorial side, it’s Dan Onorato 35 41, Anthony Williams 15 8, Joe Hoeffel 8 6, and Jack Wagner 10 5. If there were serious doubts about the Muhlenberg poll (maybe based on the small daily sample size), that might be assuaged by Rasmussen, who also polled the primary on May 6 (Thursday) and found the exact same thing: Sestak leading Specter 47-42.
• CT-Gov: Ned Lamont is out with an internal poll via Garin Hart Yang, which has him in firm control of the Democratic gubernatorial primary. He leads former Stamford mayor Dan Malloy 53-18. There’s also one less minor candidate in the midst of the Lamont/Malloy fray; former state Rep. Juan Figueroa ended his bid after not getting out of the low single digits.
• GA-Gov: Here’s some interesting behind-the-scenes intrigue in the GOP primary that seems to have good ol’ interpersonal tension at its roots, as Rep. Tom Price (the current leader of the right-wing RSC) switched his endorsement from his former House colleague, Nathan Deal, to former SoS Karen Handel. Deal responded with a statement today that essentially questioned the Michigan-born Price’s southern cred.
• OR-Gov: Bill Bradbury is hitting the TV airwaves at the last minute, with Oregon’s primary in a week (kind of buried under the monumental Arkansas, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania elections). He’s leading off with his endorsement from ex-Gov. Barbara Roberts (which seems a little underwhelming if he has Al Gore and Howard Dean in his corner). Roberts probably is unknown to younger voters and unpopular with older voters, as she’s mostly known for proposing a sales tax, which is, quite simply, the one thing you don’t propose in Oregon. She also may have something of an axe to grind with John Kitzhaber, who basically pushed her out the door in 1994 after only one term.
• SC-Gov: The Club for Growth sure loves its lost causes; they weighed in in favor of state Rep. Nikki Haley in the Republican gubernatorial primary, who’s something of a minor player in a field that includes Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer and AG Henry McMaster but known for her anti-tax zealotry. Haley is a key ally of Mark Sanford, which isn’t exactly the electoral asset that it might have been a couple years ago.
• TN-Gov: Rep. John Duncan, the occasionally iconoclastic long-time GOPer in TN-02, offered an endorsement in the GOP gubernatorial primary. He gave his nod to his fellow Knoxvillean, mayor Bill Haslam, rather than to House colleague Zach Wamp.
• ID-01: Looks like Vaughn Ward, last seen trying to out-wacky the competition in the GOP field in the 1st on the issue of repealing the 17th Amendment, may have a Democrat problem in his past. He interned for a Democratic state legislator (Jim Hansen, now the state party chair) while in college in Boise in the early 90s, and much more recently, is listed as being part of Tim Kaine’s volunteer database from his 2005 campaign.
• KS-03: State Rep. Kevin Yoder (running to succeed retiring Dennis Moore) has conventionally been regarded as something of a “moderate” by Kansas Republican standards, but in a legislature where the battle lines are often Democrats + moderate Rs vs. conservative Rs, he seems to be on the conservative side in the state’s current budget impasse. Is he moving to the right for his primary, or was he just incorrectly identified from the outset?
• MI-01: Connie Saltonstall had a few good months there as the beneficiary of NOW and NARAL support when she decided to primary Rep. Bart Stupak. With his retirement, though, the interest seems to have dried up, and today she announced she’s getting out of the primary to replace Stupak. She still decided to lob a few grenades back at the establishment on her way out the door, though, accusing them of having anointed state Rep. Gary McDowell as Stupak’s successor and saying she can’t support him because of his anti-abortion views.
• PA-12: There have been concerns about Mark Critz’s warchest dwindling (supposedly down into the $70K range) as the clock ticks down toward the May 18 special election. However, word comes from his campaign that the most recent 48-hour report has him sitting on a much more comfortable $252K. Critz also benefits from an endorsement yesterday from the Tribune-Democrat, the newspaper in the district’s population center of Johnstown.
• TX-17: Could this actually be the year Chet Edwards’ luck runs out? He survived 1994 (albeit in a much friendlier district) and the 2004 DeLay-mander, but an internal poll from Republican rival Bill Flores shows Edwards in some serious trouble this time around. The poll from OnMessage Inc. has Flores leading 53-41, quite a change from August 2009 where a Flores poll gave Edwards a 44-36 lead. That’s all despite Edwards having very positive favorables (53/38); in a district where Obama’s favorables are 33/66, Edwards needs to work his usual magic, de-nationalize the race, and make it about the two candidates.
• WA-03: More establishment backing for Denny Heck in the Dem primary in the 3rd: Heck got the endorsement from Rep. Rick Larsen, who represents a similarly swingy rural/suburban district on the other side of the Seattle area.
• NY-St. Sen.: Here’s an opportunity for a pickup in the New York state Senate, if Democrats are actually willing to play some offense. Republican Tom Morahan is not expected to seek re-election in SD-38 in the Hudson Valley, a district that was won by Barack Obama 52-47. Assemblyman Kenneth Zebrowski is a potential Dem contender, but he’ll face off against a strong Republican: Rockland Co. Executive Scott Vanderhoef, most recently seen turning down entreaties to get into the GOP Senate primary to go against Kirsten Gillibrand.
• SEIU: The SEIU plans to spend freely in a number of gubernatorial races this year. They’ve set aside $4 million more for governor’s races; they plan on getting involved in Arizona, California, Connecticut, Illinois, New York, Ohio, and Florida. (Uh, New York? Are you sure that’s necessary?)
• Redistricting: The flow of money is about to rush into one more small area of the political battlefield. The FEC issued an advisory opinion that allows members of Congress to raise soft money for legal activities concerning redistricting. The FEC allowed members to raise funds for the National Democratic Redistricting Trust. This doesn’t affect a number of other redistricting-oriented groups in either party that aren’t focused on legal issues, though — like the Dems’ Foundation for the Future, which is set up as a 527.
• Passings: One of Alaska’s legendary politicians, Walter Hickel, died over the weekend at age 91. Hickel has one thing in common with Sarah Palin: he served half a term as the state’s Republican governor… although he left to become Richard Nixon’s Interior Secretary in 1968. He then encored with another term from 1990 to 1994, as a member of the Alaskan Independence Party.