Swing State Project

Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos (10/2-3, likely voters, no trend lines):

Colleen Hanabusa (D): 48

Charles Djou (R-inc): 47

Undecided: 5

(MoE: ±3.9%)

It looks like Charles Djou and Colleen Hanabusa are in a game of jump ball here, which is a better result than I had been expecting for Team Blue here. If turnout were at 2008 levels, as Jed L. says, Hanabusa would be leading by 54-40.

Bonus finding: In the gubernatorial race portion of this poll, Duke Aiona and Neil Abercrombie are tied at 48-48. Considering this is Abercrombie’s old district, this could mean that the Governor’s race is a lot closer than previous polls indicated.

Disappointing news:

Doug Hoffman has dropped out of the race to represent New York’s 23rd Congressional District. Hoffman’s name will still appear on the ballot on the Conservative line; however, Hoffman said Tuesday morning that he wants his supporters to vote for Republican Matt Doheny.

“Our nation is at a crossroads, and it is imperative that on Election Day we wrest control of Congress from Nancy Pelosi and the Democrat majority,” Hoffman said in a prepared statement.

Of course, Doug Hoffman could still end up having a serious impact on the race, whether he campaigns or not. Recall that John Powers, whose name appeared on the NY-26 ballot as the Working Families Party nominee, still collected 5% of the vote despite his wholehearted endorsement of Democratic nominee Alice Kryzan and his subsequent efforts to remove his name from the ballot.

Still, it’s very sad to see the cat actually escape from the dryer…

P.S. Miller’s personal financial disclosures – which he promised to file last week, after ignoring the law since April – are still “going to take a little while.” Anybody home, McFly?!

Fundraising:

• ID-01, OH-15: The Hotline has numbers for Walt Minnick and Mary Jo Kilroy
• NY-20: Scott Murphy, $900K raised
• NM-01: Martin Heinrich, $575K raised, >$1m on hand
• WA-02: Rick Larsen, $500K raised

Independent Expenditures:

• Ophthalmologists: Those rogues are backing a rare Dem, Glenn Nye (VA-02), and a guy whose name hasn’t come up in well over a year, Erik Paulsen (MN-03), to the tune of about $65K each
• CT-Sen: The DSCC is spending half a mil on TV for Richard Blumenthal

SSP TV:

• CA-Sen: Uh, is it just me, or does this ad seem like a parody of itself?
• ND-AL: I like seeing this a lot. It’s not the greatest ad of the cycle, but here Earl Pomeroy proudly touts his support of healthcare reform (I think he was the Dem in the reddest district to vote in favor), while attacking Rick Berg for supporting the never-popular insurance companies. If you know they’re going to attack you anyway, you need to just go strong

Analyzing the midterm elections gets easier the closer it gets to the actual vote. What I'm going to do is take a look at the midterm elections of other Presidents.  

Lyndon Johnson's only midterm resulted in a huge loss for Democrats, 48 seats were lost, but Democrats still held a commanding majority of 247. Lyndon Johnson's landslide victory in 1964 initiated many gains for Democrats in the House, 36 seats, so much of the 1966 midterm was a fall from a previous over performance.  

Jimmy Carter's only midterm results in very moderate losses for Democrats, 15 to be exact. This is an example of a very routine midterm, there was not a lot of satisfaction with how things were going, but there wasn't big movement in voting.

 Ronald Reagan's first midterm resulted in 26 seats lost for Republicans, but at the same time Republicans held on to the Senate, which had a Republican majority due to Reagan's large victory in 1980.

 Fast forward to 1994 and Bill Clinton's midterm, which resulted in the disastrous loss of 54 seats to Republicans. The electorate was dissatisfied and you had an organized Republican opposition that people felt they could take a chance on.

The popular vote numbers for each of these elections  

1966: D-50%, R-49%  

1978: D-53%, R-44%  

1982: D-54%, R-43%

1994:R-47%, D-44%

 As you can see, the popular vote margins don't necessarily reflect how small or large party's losses will be, which is why generic polling isn't a great indicator about how things will go, but I am factoring it in just a bit to help me gauge the terrain. Another thing to factor in is that Democrats survived a few midterms because they had huge enough room to drop some seats and still be in the driver's seat. Right now, Democrats hold an overall majority that is slightly less than they had before the 1994 midterm. To the board now (purple means toss-ups). The second and third columns are in no real particular order of vulnerability.  

That’s 26 seats that are likely loses and 22 more on the cusp. If the Republicans do remarkably well and sweep every seat between postions 1 and 44 without losing any of their own, they have a majority of 222, but here is the catch. At least 3 GOP-held seats are about certain to flip Democratic, with another on the cusp and one or maybe two more edging toward that. If they only lose three of those seat (DE-AL, HI-1, LA-2) the Republicans will right at 219 and the Democrats at 216. If Dan Seals is successful in IL-10, then it’s 218-217, which is basically a hung Congress (like a hung Parliament), the GOP has a majority, but it’s not solid enough to do much. Of course, the GOP  probably won’t win all the toss-ups and could miss some seats on the solid flip list.

I predict they will get no less than 22 of the seats that look best for them and get half the toss-ups for an overall gain of 32. Minus the 4 seats leaning Democratic, it’s a gain of 28. The toss-up wins could be more and there may be more wild cards that pop up. Overall, the GOP would have to run the table on everything that is out there, plus grab some extras. 226-206 is my current prediction, give or take a number. If the election does somehow turn out to be 218-217 for either side, Capitol Hill will be one mess of gridlock.

Suffolk University (9/30-10/3, likely voters, no trendlines):

Pat Quinn (D-inc): 43

Bill Brady (R): 37

Scott Lee Cohen (I): 6

Rich Whitney (G): 3

Lex Green (L): 1

Undecided: 8

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Market Shares Corp. for the Chicago Tribune/WGN-TV (9/24-28, likely voters, 8/28-9/1 in parens):

Pat Quinn (D-inc): 39 (32)

Bill Brady (R): 38 (37)

Scott Lee Cohen (I): 4 (4)

Rich Whitney (G): 3 (2)

Lex Green (L): 2 (2)

Undecided: 12 (23)

(MoE: ±4%)

Suffolk University weighs in with its first poll of the race, showing Quinn with his biggest lead since….December 2009. The Chicago Tribune also has Pat Quinn surging to a lead, albeit a statistically insignificant one. Quinn’s job approval is up to 40/49 according to Suffolk and 33/48 according to the Trib, which – while terrible – is better than the 28/50 he saw last month. Perhaps most significantly, Quinn and Brady are now even in the collar counties, a large improvement from Quinn’s 17-point deficit. These socially moderate areas are where Quinn needs to do well – and where Brady’s extraordinarily conservative record as a state Senator might come to bite him.

Quinn hasn’t been shy on the airwaves with his “Who Is Bill Brady?” campaign, and from a purely anecdotal perspective, Democrats (at least that I’ve seen) seem to be coming home for Quinn… and they’re realizing that an [alleged] prostitute-cutting pawn shop owner might not be the best recipient of their protest votes if it results in a Governor Brady.

The Trib’s also not the only pollster showing some movement towards Quinn:

Public Policy Polling (9/23-26, likely voters, 8/14-15 in parens):

Pat Quinn (D-inc): 35 (30)

Bill Brady (R): 42 (39)

Scott Lee Cohen (I): 6(-)

Rich Whitney (G): 4 (11)

Lex Green (L): 2 (-)

Undecided: 11 (20)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

PPP has him down 7 and up to 35, which is up from being down 9 two months ago. Quinn’s still only getting 59% (!!) of self-reported Obama voters, but he’s doing much better among indies, now losing them 39-27 to Brady.

All three pollsters also have numbers from the Senate race, which remains close (and brutal on the airwaves, I might add…):

Suffolk University (9/30-10/3, likely voters, no trendlines):

Alexi Giannoulias (D): 41

Mark Kirk (R): 42

LeAlan Jones (G): 4

Mike Labno (L): 3

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Market Shares Corp. for the Chicago Tribune/WGN-TV (9/24-28, likely voters, 8/28-9/1 in parens):

Alexi Giannoulias (D): 38 (34)

Mark Kirk (R): 36 (34)

LeAlan Jones (G): 5 (6)

Mike Labno (L): 3 (3)

Undecided: 17 (22)

(MoE: ±4%)

Public Policy Polling (9/23-26, likely voters, 8/14-15 in parens):

Alexi Giannoulias (D): 36 (37)

Mark Kirk (R): 40 (35)

LeAlan Jones (G): 8 (9)

Mike Labno (L): 3 (-)

Undecided: 13 (19)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Both candidates’ favorables remain in the tank, at 33/48 for Alexi and 33/47 for Kirk, according to PPP.

Lastly, while the GOP’s been shut out of all statewide offices since 2006, that looks bounded for a change. For state Comptroller, south suburban State Rep. David Miller (D) trails former state Treasurer (and failed ’06 gubernatorial candidate) Judy Baar Topinka (R) by twenty points at 52-32 according to PPP or 39-23 by Suffolk, while Giannoulias aide Robin Kelly trails downstate state Rep. Dan Rutherford (R) for state Treasurer 34-42 by PPP and 26-32 according to Suffolk. (Fortunately, Democrats won’t be swept out statewide entirely, SoS Jesse White and AG Lisa Madigan are safe for re-election. Suffolk has White up 60-15, and Madigan up 63-14).

Public Policy Polling for the Daily Kos (10/2-3, likely voters, no trend lines):

Cedric Richmond (D): 49

Joe Cao (R-inc): 38

Undecied: 13

(MoE: ±4%)

Joe Cao wins 22% of Democrats, 21% of Obama voters, wins independents 52-30, wins whites by 65-24, and has a 50-29 favorable rating. In a less Democratic district, that might be enough to survive this year, but this truly looks like a fridge too far for any Republican.

Bonus finding: Charlie Melancon leads David Vitter by 65-28 in the Senate race portion of the poll.

I’ve been away for quite some time so I apologize if this topic has already been raised and exhausted, but I recently read that it’s odds-on Missouri will lose a Congressional seat rather than Minnesota next year.  This generates a number of questions about who controls redistricting in Missouri….and which seat is likely to be snuffed out.

First of all, with Missouri’s Republican legislature take the lead in redrawing district as is usually the case, with veto power in the hands of the Governor?  Or do they have a different system?  I can never keep track of which state has which approach.

Assuming the Republicans’ have the whip hand in the reconfiguration, it’s pretty obvious they will go about taking out the Democrats’ weakest links of which there are two.  The obvious weak link is Ike Skelton, assuming he prevails in 2010 which is far from a certainty.  But given the geography of his district and his age, it wouldn’t make much sense or be logistically plausible to radically alter his district…and since the district is almost certain to go Republican after Skelton retires anyway, there’s a much more convenient target in Russ Carnahan.

My guess is Carnahan’s seat will be the easiest to make disappear.  Lacy Clay’s MO-01 will simply have its boundaries pushed southward to absorb the most Democratic precincts in the existing MO-03, leaving Carnahan Jefferson County and the current MO-03’s least Democratic precincts with which he’ll be likely to run against Jo Ann Emerson in MO-08.

Am I either misinformed about MO’s redistricting specifics or all wet about my predictions here?  It sure looks to me like Missouri will have a 2 Democrats/6 Republicans split after this cycle and the retirement or defeat of Ike Skelton.

• CT-Sen: Remember how Linda McMahon was touting how the WWE dialed things back to “PG-rated” entertainment this decade? That didn’t seem to take into account some corporate synergy between WWE and the Girls Gone Wild empire, who collaborated on a 2003 pay-per-view. My Left Nutmeg has the rundown on GGW’s greatest legal hits, and also some compare and contrast with WWE’s own most luridly misogynist moments from its pre-PG days.

• IN-Sen: Brad Ellsworth, after a few weeks in the dark, is going back on the air with an ad hitting Dan Coats on outsourcing, including his lobbying ties to job-shippers and his own NAFTA vote in the early 90s. However, it looks like this ad is coming out of the Ellsworth campaign coffers, as the DSCC (contrary to a brief flurry of reports) still doesn’t seem to be buying any time here.

• MD-Sen: Washington Post (9/22-26, likely voters, no trendlines):

Barbara Mikulski (D): 61

Eric Wargotz (R): 29

(MoE: ±3.5%)

Here’s the Senate half of WaPo’s last Maryland poll, with Barbara Mikulski looking like she might match the 65% she got in her 2004 re-election. Her lead is 59-24 among RVs, so Maryland, like many solidly blue states, has less of an enthusiasm gap problem than the swing states. Her opponent’s problem is, naturally, name rec: he has 10/9 favorables, with 81% with no opinion.

• NV-Sen: Sharron Angle will be in Washington DC tomorrow, fundraising at the NRSC headquarters at a minimum-$500 event replete with many lobbyists and ex-Senators. If that causes a little head-spinning cognitive dissonance for you — in the wake of revelations of her inexplicably tape-recorded summit with Tea Party candidate Scott Ashjian in which they both agree that the GOP has been corrupt since, oh, at least 1994 — well, then, clearly you’re not a Republican.

• CA-Gov: While Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown have actually gotten down to some debating lately, tomorrow’s planned debate is suddenly off… and without any explanation it’s by mutual agreement, not purely a Whitman pullout (while she retrenches in the wake of her illegal employment arrangement with her housekeeper). If you’re wondering what the first poll of the race taken since the story broke looks like and whether it’s hurting Whitman, well, there’s a box called “Rasmussen” down at the bottom of the digest…

• CO-Gov: Here’s a little more info on what happens to the Colorado GOP if Dan Maes doesn’t reach 10% in the gubernatorial race. You probably know they get stuck in “minor party” status, which affects their ballot position in both 2012 and 2014. But (this is new, at least to me) it also has major fundraising ramifications for state legislative candidates in those cycles, halving what they can raise from individual donors.

• MA-Gov: Tim Cahill, whose right-leaning indie campaign lost its wheels months ago and last week seems to have lost most of its chassis as well too, still plans to go on the air with $1 million worth of attack ads (his only ads so far have been positive, which may explain why he’s polling in the single digits). And here’s the good news… he’s going after Republican Charlie Baker. If he were to join Baker in training his guns only on Deval Patrick, that could be a problem, but he won’t. (Makes me wonder if he was a Patrick plant all along? Probably not, but it’d be one of the greatest stories in the history of ratfucking if true.)

• NY-Gov: Now here’s one big financial disparity, at least on paper. Andrew Cuomo’s warchest, as of required reports last week, is more than $19 million CoH. That contrasts sharply with Carl Paladino’s $209K. Of course, Paladino can write his own checks, and has promised to spend up to $10 million of his own money if necessary. (Even if he did, that’d still be a 2:1 disadvantage, with little likelihood of ‘recouping’ that money in the form of a win, so don’t count on it.) Cuomo spent almost $3 million on TV ads in the last few weeks, so he’s leaving nothing to chance.

• AL-02: Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for DCCC (9/26-28, likely voters, 8/23-26 in parentheses):

Bobby Bright (D-inc): 52 (52)

Martha Roby (R): 43 (43)

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Not a typo. The numbers seem to have stayed exactly the same over the last month, since GQR’s previous internal on behalf of Bobby Bright. In this climate, consistency is good.

• IA-01: If, like me, you’ve been wondering why AFF is pouring $800K into the race against Bruce Braley in the 1st, which no observer has taken much interest in or seen any smoke coming from, well, now you have an answer: Sandy Grenier is the head of AFF. She’s also running for state Senate in her spare time… in Iowa. In other words, she’s pouring money into a race that’s her own personal hobby horse, at the expense of other races that are actually competitive. (And that’s not even the main point of the article… it turns out that Grenier, like so many other members of the current wave of GOP candidates, is a big believer in sucker-punching the government with one hand even as you take money from it with the other. Her family has received over $935K in farm subsidies over the last 15 years.)

• NY-20: Grove Insight for DCCC (9/28-30, likely voters, no trendlines):

Scott Murphy (D-inc): 51

Chris Gibson (R): 38

(MoE: ±4.9%)

We haven’t seen an internal in this district until now. While the numbers are nice, this actually isn’t as good as Siena’s poll of the district mid-September, which put Murphy up 54-37.

• WV-03: Anzalone Liszt for Nick Rahall (9/27-29, likely voters, no trendlines):

Nick Rahall (D-inc): 59

Spike Maynard (R): 34

(MoE: ±4.5%)

With the DCCC out with a poll a couple weeks ago giving Rahall a 55-37 lead (and even that round of AFF polls showing him up by 16), I think it may be time to stop discussing this race as competitive. What’s most remarkable here is that the Dems manage to have a 47-37 edge on the generic ballot question, and Maynard (a controversial ex-state Supreme Court justice) still manages to underperform that low bar.

• DCCC: Now who’s copping out on their DCCC dues payments? CQ finds that the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has been particularly remiss on making its payments, with only junior leadership member Xavier Becerra having paid all his dues as of the Aug. 24 tally. (Two more, including CHC chair Nydia Velazquez, report having paid up since then.) Some members cite failure to move immigration reform as a reason for holding out and giving directly to cooperative individual Reps instead.

• AL-St. Sen.: Despite having a 25-10 20-15 Democratic edge in the Alabama state Senate, many observers are thinking it’s high on the list of legislative chambers that could flip this year, given a perfect storm of local and national dynamics. And this isn’t going to help: 4 different members of the 35-person body got snared in a federal probe of a bingo operation. One is a retiring Republican, but the others are a Dem running in a tossup seat, a Dem running in a safe seat, and an independent running for re-election who was expected to caucus with Dems next session (Harri Anne Smith, whom you might remember from the AL-02 2008 GOP primary). This scandal looks like it’ll drive the legislative race conversation in the state for the remaining weeks.

• NY-St. Sen.: There are four more polls from Siena of state Senate races in New York, showing two pretty safe incumbents (one from each party) but two open seats in true tossup territory. The safe-ish incumbents are Dem David Valesky in SD-40 (beating Andrew Russo 50-40) and GOPer James Alesi in SD-55 (beating Mary Wilmot 55-35). The other two races seem close mostly because of their screwy circumstances. In the Hudson Valley’s GOP-held SD-40, GOPer Greg Ball (an inflammatory teabagger out of step with a district more amenable to moderate GOPers) leads Dem Michael Kaplowitz 45-44. And in Buffalo-area Dem-held SD-58, GOPer Jack Quinn (not the ex-Rep., but a relative) leads at 42, but that’s because Tim Kennedy (on the Dem and Con lines) is at 39 and William Stachowski (whom Kennedy beat in the Dem primary) is at 12 on the WFP and IP lines.

• State legislatures: At SSP, we’re always about finding ways for you to maximize the leverage you get out of your political contributions, and there’s no better way to do that than through giving at the state legislative level, where a little money can go a long way (especially a lot of vulnerable chambers and redistricting looming.) The DLCC is out with its second list of Essential races, in the contests they consider important ones in the quest to hold important legislative chambers.

One other resource you should check out is the “Win Big By Thinking Small” ActBlue page, courtesy of Progressive Kick. They have 18 different progressives in important state legislative races all in one place. (One name you might remember is Patsy Keever, who ran in NC-11 in 2004.)

• SSP TV:

• CT-Sen: The DSCC is out with an ad simply called “Bad” focusing on Linda McMahon as bad CEO of WWE; meanwhile, the McMahon camp is out with an ad calling Richard Blumenthal a liar for the nth time over his Vietnam service

• MD-Sen: Barbara Mikulski seems to have an easy race, but is still hitting the airwaves touting her education record

• OH-Gov: John Kasich says that 400,000 Ohio jobs were lost under Ted Strickland’s watch (without, of course, guessing at how many of those job losses were proximally related to the devastation of the credit market in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers)

• CA-03: Ami Bera hits Dan Lungren for using ethical loopholes to party with lobbyists in Hawaii

• FL-12: Faced with a state Rep. opponent, Dem Lori Edwards tries running against Tallahassee instead of Washington (and against big insurance, while she’s at it), in what’s definitely today’s most cut-through-the-clutter ad

• PA-11: Paul Kanjorski keeps going to the well of how bad a mayor of Hazleton Lou Barletta was

• NRCC: The NRCC is out with freakin’ 27 different ads today… you can see the full list at their blog, and even watch them if you have 13½ minutes of your life you don’t want to get back

• Rasmussen:

• AR-Gov: Mike Beebe (D-inc) 51%, Jim Keet (R) 41%

• AR-Sen: Blanche Lincoln (D-inc) 37%, John Boozman (R) 55%

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 49%, Meg Whitman (R) 44%

• NM-Gov: Diane Denish (D) 41%, Susana Martinez (R) 51%

• PA-Gov: Dan Onorato (D) 41%, Tom Corbett (R) 53%

• WY-Gov: Leslie Peterson (D) 25%, Matt Mead (R) 61%