Tag: 2010

A new poll of “battleground” districts:

A new survey by Democracy Corps and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research in the 40 most marginal Democratic seats shows Democratic incumbents holding strong in the territory where nearly all expect Republicans to reclaim lost ground. With Congress poised to vote on the president’s budget, the Democratic incumbents are winning over 50 percent of the vote – stable over the last three months – and hold a double-digit lead against their generic challengers even in the 20 most difficult seats. Meanwhile, in the 15 most marginal Republican districts the incumbents are far from safe. They beat their generic Democratic challengers by just 6 points and fail to top 50 percent in the vote (48 to 42 percent). Republicans are still on defense while President Obama remains very popular across all of these districts. …

This memo is based on a survey of 1,500 likely voters in the 40 most competitive Democratic-held districts and the 15 most marginal Republican-held districts conducted for Democracy Corps by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research April 16-21, 2009.

Interesting stuff. Some hard numbers from the survey (PDF):

• Obama approval (all districts): 55-35

• Democratic incumbents: 52-39

• Republican incumbents: 48-42

Dem incumbents were tested against generic Republicans and vice-versa, so it’s an apples-to-apples comparison – and not a good one for the GOP. Obama’s approval, interestingly, was basically the same in D and R districts, even in the “Tier 1” most vulnerable Dem seats which went to McCain by an average of six points.

The full memo is here (PDF), and the list of districts polled is here (PDF).

CQ politics has finally released its ratings for the 2010 Senate and gubernatorial elections. Here they are:

Incumbent in parenthesis, *=retiring

First, the Senate races:

Safe Democrat

California (Boxer)

Hawaii (Inouye)

Indiana (Bayh)

Maryland (Mikulski)

New York (Schumer)

North Dakota (Dorgan)

Oregon (Wyden)

Vermont (Leahy)

Washington (Murray)

Democrat Favored

Arkansas (Lincoln)

Colorado (Bennet)

Delaware (Kaufman*)

Leans Democrat

Nevada (Reid)

New York (Gillibrand)

Wisconsin (Feingold)

No Clear Favorite

Connecticut (Dodd)

Florida (Martinez*)

Illinois (Burris)

Kentucky (Bunning)

Missouri (Bond*)

New Hampshire (Gregg*)

North Carolina (Burr)

Ohio (Voinovich*)

Pennsylvania (Specter)

Leans Republican

Louisiana (Vitter)

South Carolina (DeMint)

Republican Favored

Arizona (McCain)

Georgia (Isakson)

Kansas (Brownback*)

South Dakota (Thune)

Safe Republican

Alabama (Shelby)

Alaska (Murkowski)

Idaho (Crapo)

Iowa (Grassley)

Oklahoma (Coburn)

Utah (Bennett)

Now the governor’s races:

Safe Democrat

Arkansas (Beebe)

Maryland (O’Malley)

New Hampshire (Lynch)

Democrat Favored

Hawaii (Lingle*)

Ohio (Strickland)

New Mexico (Richardson*)

Leans Democrat

California (Schwarzenegger*)

Colorado (Ritter)

Illinois (Quinn)

Iowa (Culver)

Maine (Baldacci*)

Massachusetts (Patrick)

New York (Paterson)

Oregon (Kulongoski*)

Wisconsin (Doyle)

No Clear Favorite

Michigan (Granholm*)

Minnesota (Pawlenty*)

Nevada (Gibbons)

New Jersey (Corzine)

Pennsylvania (Rendell*)

Rhode Island (Carcieri*)

Virginia (Kaine*)

Wyoming (Freudenthal. Apparently he is considering suing to overturn the term-limits law, so CQ is unsure about rating this race until that is resolved)

Leans Republican

Alabama (Riley*)

Arizona (Brewer)

Oklahoma (Henry*)

South Carolina (Sanford*)

Tennessee (Bredesen*)

Texas (Perry)

Vermont (Douglas)

Republican Favored

Alaska (Palin)

Connecticut (Rell)

Georgia (Perdue*)

Florida (Crist)

Idaho (Otter)

Kansas (Parkinson*)

South Dakota (Rounds*)

Safe Republican

Nebraska (Heineman)

You can see the maps here:

http://innovation.cq.com/senat… http://innovation.cqpolitics.c…

Please comment and say what you think of CQ’s first batch of race ratings!

PPP poll of 1,050 Colorado voters between April 17th and 19th. MoE +/-3%.

Do you approve or disapprove of Democratic Senator Michael Bennet’s job performance?

Approve 34%

Disapprove 41%

Not Sure 25%

Versus various Repubs the numbers are:

Bennet 39

Ryan Frazier 35

Bennet 40

Ken Buck 34

Bennet 41

Josh Penry 34

Bob Beauprez 43

Bennet 42

I would say the fact that he trails the better know Beauprez by only a single point and leads all the others isn’t all bad. He should be okay with some outreach to Dems (his waffling on EFCA has clearly hurt), indies and particularly hispanics. Though numbers like this might encourage a primary challenge from Andrew Romanoff or others.

http://www.publicpolicypolling…

Doesn’t sound like a serious threat to McCain, but it should make the primary interesting if nothing else.

http://www.politico.com/blogs/…

Social conservatives tolerated John McCain as the party’s nominee, but never trusted him, and he now appears to be facing a serious primary from the right in Arizona next year.

Chris Simcox, the founder of the Minuteman Civil Defense Corps and a prominent figure in the anti-immigration movement, will announcing tomorrow at an event on the Mexican border that he’s resigned from the group to run in the 2010 Senate primary.

From a forthcoming release:

“John McCain has failed miserably in his duty to secure this nation’s borders and protect the people of Arizona from the escalating violence and lawlessness,” Simcox said. “He has fought real efforts over the years at every turn, opting to hold our nation’s border security hostage to his amnesty schemes. Coupled with his votes for reckless bailout spending and big government solutions to our nation’s problems, John McCain is out of touch with everyday Arizonans. Enough is enough.”

McCain was forced to abandon his own immigration reform legislation during last year’s Republican Primary, a move that may have cost him substantial Hispanic support to which his record could have given him access.

So he’s basically getting it from both sides on this one.

Simcox, with a national base and a high profile on the right, is well positioned to give McCain a serious local headache. He’ll find some allies among the conservatives who recently took over the Arizona Republican Party from McCain’s allies, and he has a national fundraising base.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

QUESTION: What do you think about the idea of secession or sovereignty for your state?

PERRY: Oh, I think there’s a lot of different scenarios. Texas is a unique place. When we came into the Union in 1845, one of the issues was that we would be able to leave if we decided to do that.

My hope is that America, and Washington in particular, pays attention. We’ve got a great Union. There’s absolutely no reason to dissolve it.

But if Washington continues to thumb their nose at the American people, who knows what might come out of that.

This man is seriously deranged.  He is getting dangerously close to treason.

Sen. Richard Burr (R-N.C) really screwed up in some recent comments that he made. He is making himself more and more vulnerable with each passing day.

Here is what he told a group of NC business leaders earlier this week, as reported by The Hendersonville Times-News:

“On Friday night, I called my wife and I said, ‘Brooke, I am not coming home this weekend. I will call you on Monday. Tonight, I want you to go to the ATM machine, and I want you to draw out everything it will let you take. And I want you to tomorrow, and I want you to go Sunday.’ I was convinced on Friday night that if you put a plastic card in an ATM machine the last thing you were going to get was cash.” Burr added, “I think it is safe to say the economy has not rebounded. If anything, we have gone deeper into what economists call ‘recession.’ I would tell you it’s not a recession. I would define this as a depression.”

http://politicalticker.blogs.c…

Advocating runs on the banks is a really idiotic thing to do, and I am really looking forward to getting a new Senator in 2010. I really hope that Roy Cooper will run for Senate!

What do you all think of these comments and will this impact Sen. Burr’s future at all?

Good news and not so good news for the Junior Senator from New York. In an email to supporters Kirsten Gillibrand has announced that her campaign raised $2.3m in just two months since she was appointed to the seat.

http://thehill.com/leading-the…

However, the latest numbers from Quinnipiac continue to show her trailing Rep. Carolyn McCarthy in a prospective Democratic Primary, 33-29. Though the margin is down from 34-24 in February.

http://www.quinnipiac.edu/x131…

I’d say funds like that will go a long way towards solving her name recognition problems and maybe even scaring off any challengers.

She leads GOP Rep. Peter King 40-28.

Paterson meanwhile now has the worst approval rating of any New York Governor, 28-60.

In comparison, Andrew Cuomo comes in at an impressive 75-14, but will he run?

Against Giuliani he leads 53-36 while Paterson trails Rudy by 53-32.

http://politicalwire.com/archi…

So I decided to have a look at how my state’s congressional districts could be redistricted come 2010. It looks like we’ll miss getting a 14th seat by about 100k people (so close…), so I had to make a plan with 13 seats. This was interesting because based on the 2008 census estimates, each seat would have over 700,000 people

In NC, redistricting is done solely by the legislature, which is now under Democratic control. While it could hypothetically shift to the GOP in 2010, our numbers are good enough that that would be unlikely.

I focused mainly on protecting the 8 Democratic incumbents (espescially Kissell and Shuler), seeing as the 5 districts still in GOP hands are pretty Republican for the most part.

Here is my map:

1st District – G.K. Butterfield (D-Wilson). This is a solidly Democratic, black majority district that covers much of northeastern North Carolina. I didn’t make many big changes to this district, mostly because it was hard to pinpoint specific black areas and how much the black populations there have changed.

2nd District – Bob Etheridge (D-Lillington). This mainly rural district narrowly went for Obama after voting for Bush in 2000 and 2004. I added more black areas in Wake County to make it somewhat more Democratic and moved some Republican parts of Johnston County to the nearby 3rd district. Etheridge has been elected 7 times so he is probably safe here.

3rd District – Walter Jones (R-Farmville). This is a solidly Republican coastal district where Obama got only 37% of the vote, and Jones is fairly popular so I didn’t change very much, Just for kicks, I drew Jones’ home into the 1st district, but he can still run in the 3rd.

4th District – David Price (D-Chapel Hill). This rapidly growing district includes much of the Triangle and RTP. Obama won 62% here mainly thanks to Durham and Orange counties. I transferred some of the populous Wake County parts of this district to the 13th and 2nd districts to make them more Democratic.

5th District – Virginia Foxx (R-Banner Elk). This is GOP country. It would have been a challenge to make this district more Democratic without harming some of the neighboring districts. The 5th lost Democratic Watauga County, but I added Republican parts of Guilford County (Greensboro) from the 6th district and most of Rockingham County from the 13th district.

6th District – Howard Coble (R-Greensboro). Coble is NC’s longest serving congressman, first elected in 1984. I kept his Republican district mostly the same but gave some of his Guilford territory to Virginia Foxx. Coble will keep his job for as long as he wants.

7th District – Mike McIntyre (D-Lumberton). This district went for McCain by 6 points, but on the state and local level it is mostly Democratic. I added some more areas in Sampson County but didn’t change very much. McIntyre is a conservative Blue Dog who matches his district well and the 7th has only had 3 congressmen in the the last 50 years, so he is safe.

8th District – Larry Kissell (D-Biscoe). After narrowly losing to Robin Hayes in 2006, Kissell finally defeated him in 2008, while Obama won the district by 8 points. To make it more Democratic, I gave parts of Republican-leaning Union County (Jesse Helms grew up there) to Sue Myrick’s 9th district. In return, the 8th picked up some Democratic urban areas of Charlotte from the 9th.

9th District – Sue Myrick (R-Charlotte). This district is made up of the Republican-leaning suburbs of Charlotte and it has been held by former Myrick since 1995. McCain won the 9th by 10 points and Myrick will be safe for a long time. In addition to trading urban areas of Charlotte with Republican parts of the 8th district, I put all of Gaston County into the 9th district (I will explain).

10th District – Patrick McHenry (R-Cherryville). This is the granddaddy of GOP districts in NC and has been in Republican hands since 1969. I took in all of Rutherford and McDowell counties from Heath Shuler’s 11th district. I also drew McHenry’s lifelong Gaston County home into the 9th just to annoy him 🙂

11th District – Heath Shuler (D-Waynesville). I gave McHenry Rutherford and McDowell counties, but in return I took in Mitchell and Avery counties from the 10th. I added Democratic trending Watauga County (App State) to Shuler’s district to make it more Democratic.

12th District – Mel Watt (D-Charlotte). This is the infamous 12th district, which has been declared unconstitutional 3 different times. It’s a black plurality, very Democratic district that follows the I-85 corridor. I didn’t make many changes, mainly because I didn’t know much about the specific racial concentrations within each county.

13th District – Brad Miller (D-Raleigh). After narrowly going for Bush in 2000 and then Kerry in 2004, this district gave Obama a whopping 58% of the vote in 2008. It was gerrymandered by then State Sen. Brad Miller 2001 to elect him when NC gained a 13th seat in 2000. I made it more Democratic by adding some urban areas of Wake County. Miller will be safe until he decides to move up to higher office.

Please let me know what you think and if there are any changes or improvements that I can make.

Thanks and enjoy!

(From the diaries – promoted by DavidNYC)

None of you asked for Maryland, but I wanted to redraw a state in which I couldn’t use townships and incorporated municipalities as a crutch. Four of Maryland’s five largest communities are unincorporated – Columbia, Silver Spring, Ellicott City and Germantown.

Plus, having lived in Maryland for quite awhile, I wanted to do a state that I actually had a local feel for. Lastly, Democrats control both the General Assembly and the Governorship, so no quips about this map being “unrealistic”!

I apologize for the title ahead of time – I’ve seen tourist gear with that slogan one too many times flying out of BWI….

My goals:

• Strengthen Kratovil (1st)

• Pack Republicans into Bartlett (6th)

• Keep all other Democrats at their previous levels or 65%, whichever is lower.

(When you have this many Democrats to protect….)

Anyways, here’s the map (click for full-size version):

Update: I realized I mis-merged some shapes in my GIS and this lead to a misrepresentation of the 1st and 5th in Anne Arundel County. Fixed.

So normally, there’d be a nice map of the state broken up by municipalities and colored in based on McCain/Obama performance. In Maryland, this was harder: I consolidated precincts to match up with Census 2000’s voting tabulation districts (VTDs). Sometimes, in cases where precincts changed significantly, I consolidated some VTDs, too. I’ve creatively named these consolidated VTDs “CVTDs”.

Also, tabulating data by CVTD is a pain in the ass. Seriously. So I only created CVTDs for counties that had a chance of being split. So here’s the map, colored by CVTD for some counties (I wasn’t going to split Calvert, St. Mary’s, the Eastern Shore, or the Panhandle).

District-by-district, here goes (numbers are: Population, Voters, %African American, Obama%, McCain%):

This is the district we were all wondering about, Frank Kratovil’s 1st. Before, the 1st took in all of the Eastern Shore, a chunk each of Anne Arundel, Harford, and Baltimore counties. Those parts were absolutely brutal, so I removed the the BaltCo (35% Obama)/Harford (33% Obama) parts completely. Additionally, instead of taking in the Republican pats along the North Shore, the district runs through the city of Annapolis proper and into PG County. Yes, the district reaches across the bay, but the old district did this too. Plus now, I can use the Bay Bridge as an excuse, as both ascents to the bridge are in this district now. Obama lost the AA part of the district 39-59, but he won the reconfigured part of Anne Arundel 56-42. We weren’t going to more artfully draw Baltimore, so for Democratic strength, the new 1st looks to Prince George’s County – Obama’s 88-11 performance there anchors this district. Overall, Obama scored 56% here – up a whopping 16%.

Dutch Ruppersberger’s district doesn’t change much – still the southern half of Harford, an arm across Northern BaltCo, and a section of the city. However, there’s no awkward arm across the Patapsco into Anne Arundel this time. The Harford section is a tad less Democratic, the BaltCo section a bit more, and Baltimore City a bit less. However, the removal of Anne Arundel bumps this district to 60%, up about 0.5%.

Surprisingly, I think this incarnation of the 3rd is less gerrymandered than before – there’s no one-block wide sliver connecting to distinct sections. The major change from before is the placement of almost all of Howard County into this district, which had been located mostly in the 7th. Instead of making a westward facing loop through Baltimore as before to hit Towson, this district makes an eastward facing U. Obama got 61%, up 2% from before.

Donna Edwards’ district also isn’t changed much. A large section of upcounty MontCo and Prince George’s along the DC line. With the 8th shifted northward, the 4th is a bit more Montgomery-heavy, but stays majority African-American. This shift drops Obama’s performance by about 3%, but this is still the most Democratic district in Maryland at 82%.

Steny Hoyer’s district, again, experiences some minor shifts. It still contains all of the Southern Maryland trifecta of Charles, Calvert, and St. Mary’s. I had thought about cracking Charles to tap its population growth and Democratic trend, but ultimately decided against it. A large chunk of PG is taken by the 1st, so this district expands farther into Anne Arundel. At 64%, this is about a 1% drop.

We took some Republicans out of the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd districts, and this is where they go. I cut out Democratic-trending and sububanizing southern Frederick County and just packed as many deep-red VTDs in here as possible from Harford and northern Baltimore County. The Panhandle and Carroll County remain in their entirety. This drops Dem performance to 35%, down 5%.

Before, this district took in a large chunk of Howard County, before reaching into Western BaltCo and West Baltimore. We took the extremely Republican parts of Anne Arundel County out of the 1st, and this was the safest place to deposit them. The anchor of the district stays Baltimore City, which also maintains the 56% African-American composition of the district. At 73% Obama, this is a drop-off of 6%, but again, no cause for concern.

It was tempting to make this district solely Montgomery County, but that’d well, be too clean. (It’d also abandon some strong Democratic votes in Frederick City.) Thus, this takes a bite out of Southern Frederick along 270, and then takes in the western half of Montgomery County and ventures east into Silver Spring. Frederick is nowhere as Democratic as downcounty Montgomery County, resulting in a 5% drop in Obama’s performance to 69%. Even if Frederick’s shift was a one-time thing for Obama, the vast majority of the district is still in Montgomery County.

So I’m pretty sure my map of Maryland is not only better – resulting an improvement for the three most marginal Democratic districts and negligible drops in the other 4 Democratic districts – but less gerrymandered, I dare say. Questions, comments, witty descriptors for what the districts look like, and suggestions always welcome.

From PPP via Taegan:

“45% of voters support the job she’s doing while 40% say they disapprove of her work. Hurting Lincoln’s numbers are poor marks from independents, only 31% of whom say they approve of her performance while 50% rate her negatively. 73% of Democrats but only 22% of Republicans express approval.”

Lincoln (D) 48

Baker (R) 37

Lincoln (D) 46

Griffin (R) 38

http://www.publicpolicypolling…

I wonder if the hard right turn in Arkansas as evidenced by the surge to McCain last November is something more permanent. After holding out for so long is it finally catching up to the rest of the South?