Tag: IN-07

10:43PM: With 346 precincts reporting, Carson has this locked.  The Indianapolis Star and other media outlets are calling this race for Carson.

10:35PM (James): With 327 of 445 precincts reporting, it’s not looking good for El Rod: 53-44 Carson.

9:46PM (David): This site might be updating quickest of all. 51-47 Carson with 232 of 445 precincts reporting. My sheet now shows Elrod would need over 54% of the outstanding vote to pull ahead.

9:33PM (James): 50-47 Carson with 51% in.

8:43PM (David): 51-46 Carson with 27% in. My spreadsheet indicates, that at least as far as the two-party vote goes, Elrod would have to perform 10% better than he is now in the remaining precincts to overtake Carson.

8:23PM: Carson 52%, Elrod 45%, with 26% of precincts reporting.

8:12PM: With 18% of precincts in, Carson is up 51%-46%.

7:46PM ET: With 13% of precincts reporting, Carson now has a 50%-47% lead.

7:37PM ET (J. Hell): With 6% of precincts reporting, Elrod has a 51%-46% lead over Carson.  The commenters over at Blue Indiana caution that GOP-friendly precincts tend to report first.

UPDATE: WISH-TV has results. Also available on the front page at Indy Star.

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Right now, as SSP readers know, a special election is taking place in Indiana’s 7th Congressional District to replace the late Julia Carson. The Democrat is her grandson, Indianapolis councilman Andrew Carson, and the Republican is state Rep. Jon Elrod.

Polls close ridiculously early here – 6pm Eastern. I personally think this is an affront to working people and should be changed. But we can have a long conversation about voting reform another time. For now, please post your predictions in comments. Then, we’ll turn this over to results once they start streaming in.

I suspect the Indy Star will carry results here. Also, I’m sure that our friends at Blue Indiana will be all over this sucker. Let’s just hope we pull this one off.

Found these two:

In IN-07, from Gsuge Market Research (2/16-2/17),

Andre Carson leads Jon Elrod 54%-36%.

In IL-14, from Global Strategy Group (D), (2/21-2/24), Bill Foster leads Jim Oberweis 45%-41%.

 

So is IN-7 safer now?  And does Foster have a real chance IN-14?   What do you think?

The Dems and the Repubs have made their choices:

Jon Elrod’s reputation as a hard worker with a track record of winning elections in districts that favor Democrats earned him the Republican nomination to fill the 7th Congressional District seat Sunday.

…

His opponent in the March 11 special election is Andre Carson, whom Democrats selected Saturday to run for the seat held by his grandmother, Julia Carson, until her death last month.

Both decisions were made by party committees, not by the public. The GOP probably got their strongest candidate (relatively speaking), while we wound up with just about our weakest. I’m not thrilled. One diarist at Blue Indiana is even less happy. And CQ rates this seat – which is D+8.7 – at just “Lean Dem.”

Note, though, that the special election, which is on March 11th, is not on the same day as the primary for the November general. The primary will be held as previously scheduled on May 6th. That means that whether Carson wins or loses the special, he might not be our nominee this fall. (Elrod, on the other hand, is unopposed in the GOP primary.)

I hate to be a wet blanket, but recent history in this district – plus the only known poll on the race – doesn’t make me sanguine. I just hope we don’t wind up with another MA-05 on our hands – or worse.

• LA-04: Former Shreveport Mayor Keith Hightower (D) is taking a hard look at the open seat of retiring GOP Rep. Jim McCrery:

  Hightower said he is “trying to look at the lay of the land” before making a decision.

  One thing that may be in his favor, he said, is that Democratic candidates have an advantage in 2008 because Congress is under Democratic control.

  “Part of the reason McCrery is getting out is that he was on the down side. But I would be on the up side,” Hightower said.

  A Hightower candidacy would force Republicans to sweat a little in this R+6.5 district.  Could they afford to play defense in this district and in LA-06, where state Rep. Don Cazayoux (D) will challenge what is likely going to turn into an open seat?

• AZ-08: Should Democrats start worrying about the seat of frosh Rep. Gabby Giffords?  A Summit Group poll conducted 12/3-4 for AZ state Senate President Tim Bee (R) shows Giffords under 40%:
  

  Gabrielle Giffords (D-inc): 36%
  
  Tim Bee (R): 30%
  
  (MoE: 5%)

  Bee has yet to make his candidacy official (he’s still in the “exploratory phase”), but with results like these, you can bet that he’ll be entering the race in the near future.

• IN-07: Indiana Gov. Mitch Daniels has set a date for the special election to replace the late Rep. Julia Carson: March 11.  Democrats will caucus this Saturday to choose the nominee for the special election, and a contested primary will happen in May to determine the November nominee.  While Carson’s grandson, Indianapolis city councilor Andre Carson, is looking like the front runner for the caucus nomination, some are speculating that we could see a different cast of characters contest the May primary.




• NM-03: NM FBIHOP brings the news that Carol Miller, the same spoiler who caused Republicans to win a 1997 special election for the seat now held by Tom Udall, is running again.  However, I haven’t been able to find this story in other media yet. UPDATE: Link to sub. only ABQ Journal story.




• IL-14: The fists are flying in the GOP primary to replace Dennis Hastert.




• CT-05: Chris Murphy tells it like it is: “I think it’s hard to justify that Senator Lieberman is a member of the Democratic Party any longer.”

  The early makings of a 2012 Senate campaign, perhaps?  We can only hope…

Happy New Year, everyone!  I hope you all had a relaxing holiday season.  I’m feeling rested and refreshed, so let’s take a look at some of the recent developments in down-ballot races across the country.

• NY-19: Strike three!  After uber-wealthy self-funding Republican Andrew Saul pulled the plug on his congressional campaign against freshman Rep. John Hall after some shady ethics violations came to the fore, some Republicans hoped that former state assemblyman Howard Mills would be an adequate replacement.  Too bad he said no in late November.  The next great hope for the NRCC, assemblyman Greg Ball, announced yesterday that he won’t run, either.  This leaves the GOP’s ball in the hands of Iraq war vet and wingnut Kieran Lalor.  Will the Republicans really end up without a top flight challenger in a district that they held for 14 straight years before Hall’s win?

  Perhaps now is a good time to revisit Ball’s sage words from November, when the GOP line on the NY-19 ballot was his for the taking:

  Ball is concerned about the electoral outlook for the GOP in the 2008 election cycle.

  “George Bush has not only hurt the Republican Party, he’s left the nation without leadership,” the Republican state lawmaker said. “It’s going to be a tough year to run as a Republican at the national level.”





• IN-02: Speaking of the GOP’s bare shelf, a whole year has passed and Indiana Republicans are still lacking a challenger to frosh Rep. Joe Donnelly.  Has NRCC Chair Tom Cole really gone through his entire Rolodex of ethically-challenged Republican millionaires who live in this R+4.3 district? (H/T: Blue Indiana)




• Kentucky: The Lexington Herald-Leader’s blog has a thorough run-down of all the upcoming down-ballot special elections in the weeks and months ahead in Kentucky.  The first two happen next week.




• NM-Sen: New Mexico’s very own Dr. Doolittle, political gossip blogger Joe Monahan, has been talking to “the alligators” again, and this time they’re telling him that Steve Pearce outraised Heather Wilson in the fourth quarter by a margin of $450,000 to $350,000.  Seems kinda low-ish to me, but I suppose that’s probably the end result of having the state’s GOP money divided between two of their heaviest hitters.




• NM-02: State Rep. Joe Cervantes (D) has dropped out of the race to replace Steve Pearce, leaving former Lea County Commissioner and oilman Harry Teague and Dona Ana County Commissioner Bill McCamley as the only top-tier candidates left in the Dem field.  Monahan thinks the news will favor Teague, a conservative Democrat, but McCamley’s fundraising has been solid and he’s been running for quite some time.  It’ll be interesting to see how this one shakes out.




• MN-03: MNPublius is hearing rumors that GOP Rep. Jim Ramstad’s retirement is definite.  Let’s hope that they’re true!




• IL-18: Aaron Schock, a 14-year old GOP state legislator and nuclear proliferation advocate, is doing his best to avoid any foreign policy debates with his primary opponents for the open seat of retiring Rep. Ray LaHood.  I guess Schock has now fully realized that his “ideas” of selling nukes to Taiwan don’t play so well outside of his local college Republican chapter.




• IN-07: State Rep. Joe Orentlicher is the first to file for the Democratic nomination to succeed the late Rep. Julia Carson.  Carson’s grandson, newly-elected Indianapolis city councilor will make his decision soon, but it’s looking like he’ll throw his hat into the ring.  It’s also looking like the special election to fill the seat may be pushed back until May.

From the Indianapolis Star:

Congresswoman Julia Carson died this morning at the age of 69.

Carson’s death comes just weeks after she announced she was dying of lung cancer and would not seek re-election to a seventh term in 2008.

Carson battled a number of ailments during her tenure in Congress with a great deal of bravery.  May she rest in piece.

Rep. Julia Carson announced today that her long political career is coming to an end:

U.S. Rep. Julia Carson, who announced Saturday she has terminal lung cancer, will not run for re-election, her chief of staff said this morning.

Leonard Sistek, who has led Carson’s Washington office for a year and previously worked with her on the House committee handling veterans’ issues, said he is not aware at this time of any plans by Carson to step down early from her term, which ends in 2008.

“She is hopeful that she is going to return to Washington, probably after the first of the year,” Sistek said. “That’s her plan. Whether she’ll be able to make that plan or not, I don’t know.”

Our thoughts are with her.

It’s official:

First-term state Rep. Jon Elrod will announce Thursday that he’ll run for U.S. Rep. Julia Carson’s 7th District congressional seat next year, his spokesman said.

Elrod, an Indianapolis Republican who defeated incumbent Ed Mahern in state representative district 97 last year, will make Thursday’s announcement at noon, his spokesman said.

Elrod confirmed to 6News he planned to announce something Thursday but declined to say what that would be. However, his spokesman Kyle Kasting said Elrod would announce he is seeking the Republican nomination for the seat held by Carson, a Democrat.

As a frosh state representative, it remains to be seen how formidable Elrod would be in a general election match-up.  However, a state legislator from a Dem-leaning district is a pretty decent recruitment score for the Indiana GOP.

As we’ve said before, this seat is only vulnerable because of Carson’s health issues and her sagging electoral performance as of late.  With a stronger Dem on the ballot — and, I have to presume, the party’s Indianapolis bench must be fairly deep — this district (which gave Kerry 58% of its vote in ’04) should be an easier hold.

One possible scenario is that Carson will retire after the deadline, and allow the nomination to be given to her grandson, newly-elected city councilor André Carson.  I think a primary would be a much healthier option, though.

(H/T: Blue Indiana)

Fresh off their upset win over the Democratic mayor of Indianapolis, Bart Peterson, Indiana Republicans are setting their sights on a bigger target: Rep. Julia Carson.

Carson, who has battled chronic health problems in recent years, was a rare Democratic incumbent in a safely blue district who had an uncomfortable race in 2006, winning by a 54%-46% margin to an underfunded challenger in a district that gave John Kerry 58% of its vote in 2004.  According to Roll Call, the district’s Republicans are sensing vulnerability, and are aiming to field a viable candidate:

“Certainly after Tuesday, everything is possible,” said Cam Savage, spokesman for the re-election campaign of Gov. Mitch Daniels (R). “Republicans are feeling very good about their chances in the county. Republicans are very energized. They have the mayor’s office for the first time in eight years and all the support that goes with it.”

Savage added that his camp is focused on carrying Marion County, which includes Indianapolis, in 2008.

Many Republicans look to state Rep. Jon Elrod to run for Carson’s seat if it becomes open. Elrod proved his electability in a Democratic district, even beating the state lawmaker who redrew the district maps in 2001.

“This guy beat the guy who drew the maps for the Democrats,” said Howey. “They need to take him very seriously.”

According to the Howey Political Report, Elrod will make a decision sometime this week:

State Rep. Jon Elrod told WXNT’s Abdul in the Morning that he will decide sometime this week whether he will challenge U.S. Rep. Julia Carson. “We have no idea who might be on the other side. There may be other Republican challengers. You weigh all those things and decide whether you still want to get in,” Elrod, R-Indianapolis, said. “I’ve got a lot of decisions to make. I’ve got a lot of people to talk to in the next few days. We decided we had to set a date to stop all of the speculation and either get on the horse and ride or put it back in the stable.”

Bottom line: if Carson stays on the ballot, there will be serious doubts over her ability to campaign, and an undeserved opportunity for the GOP would stay on the table.

How did you use your extra hour today?  I’m going to use mine right here by rounding up various House race flotsam and jetsam from the past several days.

• FL-10: Bring ’em to Justice?  At a recent Young Democrats breakfast in Florida, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz announced that State Senator Charlie Justice (D), the man whose name is most often mentioned as a potential opponent for crumb-bum Republican Rep. Bill Young, may have “big news” to announce soon. 

  When pressed for comment, Justice told the St. Petersburg Times that: “If [Young] retires, the seat hasn’t been open in 40 years, everyone should take a good look at it.  Am I looking at it? Absolutely.  Does that mean 100 percent that I’m going to run?  No, but it’s pretty darn close.”
  

  The Times keeps hearing rumors that Young will step down and that his wife will run in his place.  With a PVI of D+1, this would be one of the hottest takeover opportunities for Democrats next year.  I don’t have their sources, but by reading the tea leaves, I suspect that Young will have some “big news” of his own to share soon.
  

• AK-AL: Speaking of crumb-bums named Young, the Defenders of Wildlife are up on the airwaves in Alaska, hitting scandal-tainted Rep. Don Young (R) hard.  Let’s hope we can make a Pombo out of Young.

• NC-09: Remember Harry Taylor, the man who shocked a Republican-friendly audience when he told President Bush, face-to-face at a PR event, that “I would hope from time to time that you have the humility and the grace to be ashamed of yourself”?
  

  Well, he’s now running for Congress against Rep. Sue Myrick (R).  I welcome the courage that Taylor will bring to this R+12.2 district.

• IN-07: With Democratic Rep. Julia Carson’s health concerns continuing to affect her House attendance (she’s on medical leave until December 15), it looks like Republicans are trying to tap into their minimal bench in Indianapolis in order to pounce on the opportunity.  In the 11/5 issue of Indiana Daily Insight (subscription required), it is reported that freshman state Rep. Jon Elrod (R) is “seriously considering” a bid against her.  Blue Indiana has more on Elrod, and welcomes the opportunity that his open legislative seat could bring.  Could Elrod scare Carson into a retirement?  Without one, this heavily Democratic seat (with a PVI of D+8.7) won’t be safe.

• WY-AL: If Barbara Cubin is planning on running again, she’ll be facing a crowded primary.  Retired Naval officer Bill Winney, who mounted an underfunded long-shot primary challenge to Cubin in 2006 and walked away from it with 40% of the vote, is running again.  However, Winney wouldn’t be the only challenger on the ballot: Swede Nelson, a motivational speaker and teacher, is also running, and state Rep. Colin Simpson said earlier in the year that he planned on challenging Cubin for the nomination if she ran again. 

  If Cubin decides to run again, her only chance of survival is having the anti-incumbent vote split between several different options.  Her stock has sunk so low, that I would bet that she’d be in danger of losing a head-to-head match up against even an unknown like Winney.  Sadly for us, I strongly suspect that Cubin will hang up her spurs and broomstick.

UPDATE (David):

• MD-04: The netroots fundraiser for Donna Edwards has been a huge success so far. We’ve blasted past our intial goal of 4,000 total donors to Donna (we’re at 4,250, in fact). We’ve also raised around $75,000 so far. We’re hoping to hit an even $100,000, so if you can help make it happen, please do so.
• Illinois: The filing deadline in the Praire State is tomorrow, Nov. 5th. Illinois has the first Congressional primaries in the nation, on Feb. 5th, so it’s no surprise that their filing deadline is so soon. Diarist benawu informs us that IL Dems look to be fielding challengers in all districts except the 15th. We’ll know the final shape of our field tomorrow.