Take A Break From Kicking Republicans. (And Save Lives In Africa.)

I will keep this brief. Today, in honor of The World Cup, Yahoo has turned their special Penalty Shootout Game (RED) in order to help raise money for AIDS In Africa.

What this means is that all day today, you can take a break and play the game and for every goal you score, Yahoo will donate $1 up to a maximum of $100,000 to help buy life-saving drugs for those living with AIDS in Africa.

Now, true it may not be as much fun as taking a shot at Sarah Palin, but it is for a better cause, and as (RED) has shown with their documentary, The Lazurus Effect, just 40 cents a day can literally help save someone's life.

So please, take a moment, and play. I bet right here at Swing State Project, we're good for $10,000 today.

SSP Daily Digest: 6/10 (Afternoon Edition)

• AR-Sen: Here’s a non-surprise. Americans for Job Security, who poured $1.8 million into anti-Bill Halter ads during the primary, say they probably aren’t going to be doing any further work on behalf of Blanche Lincoln. The anti-labor group already got what it wants (two anti-labor candidates), so its work is done. Also worth noting, Nate Silver points out what a tough lift a Bill Halter victory would have been, revealing something called the ‘blogginess’ index (a factor of being white, liberal, and college-educated), on which Arkansas scores very low and Pennsylvania scores pretty high (by way of explaining how Pennsylvania was more responsive to a labor/netroots primary challenge — although I’d point out that actual labor and netroots support wasn’t the main factor in pushing Joe Sestak past Arlen Specter, whereas it was the driving force in Halter’s bid). I’m not sure if he noticed or not, but the rank ordering of the states on that index is quite similar to the graph of most liberal-to-conservative Democratic electorates that Andrew Gelman introduced last week.

• CO-Sen: Jane Norton is making a rhetorical rush to the right, if her new advertising is any indication: it’s all about stopping “Obamacare” and “yanking it out by the roots,” and it’s playing mostly in the dark-red Colorado Springs market. Wondering why? She’s probably seeing the same thing in her polling as what Republican pollster Magellan (who are getting quite active in offering public polls of Republican primaries where they don’t have a horse in the race) is seeing. They have a poll out today showing Weld County DA Ken Buck leading Norton, 42-32.

• IL-Sen: Worse to worst for Mark Kirk? It looks like frustration with his constant politicizing of his military service was present even within the Department of Defense, as a DoD memo has surfaced that expressed “concerns arising from his partisan political activities during his last two tours of active duty.” Kirk was required to get a waiver before deploying to Afghanistan in 2008, which required him to write out “an acknowledgment of limitations required for all candidates on active duty.”

• NC-Sen: This is kind of an out-of-the-blue endorsement, but it may help Elaine Marshall gain a little traction with the national netroots. Ohio SoS Jennifer Brunner is apparently OK with endorsing outside her own state’s boundaries, as she offered her support to Marshall.

• NV-Sen: Echoes of Rand Paul’s still-in-progress post-primary makeover? Jon Ralston notices that Sharron Angle’s wacky website just got scrubbed, with no discussion of her positions at this point (no mention of Social Security elimination, for instance). Meanwhile, the GOP signals that they’re going to actively get involved in breaking out the message massage oil and work on rehabbing Angle: RNC head Michael Steele has pledged his support. RNC funds will go to the Nevada GOP rather than directly to Angle, whose campaign actually was in the red ($139K CoH, $179K debt) on May 19. (Compare that to Harry Reid’s $9.1 million.) And Angle’s reaching out to the GOP establishment, too, to the extent that she says she’s willing to accept campaign help from John Ensign, a flip-flop from her pre-primary position. Fitting, though, since she’s been a big proponent of embracing radioactive waste in Nevada. (And while I don’t ordinarily like to honk my own horn, after looking back through the SSP attic, I have to remind everybody that I forecasted an Angle primary victory back in October.)

• SC-Sen: There’s a growing sense that something’s amiss with Alvin Greene’s entry to the race, to the extent that Jim Clyburn explicitly called him a “plant” today and asked for a probe. The real puzzle is the timeline on Greene’s obscenity arrest, obtaining a public defender because of his indigence, and then his filing for the race:

The South Carolina Commission on Indigent Defense, which operates the state’s public defender program, makes clear that courts take into account “the number of people in your household, whether you own any real estate, or have money in the bank” when deciding whether to assign a public defender to a defendant.

Greene has claimed that he paid the $10,400 filing fee out of his savings from his military pay. But he was discharged from the Army in August 2009 and says he hasn’t held a job since then.

So, in economic terms, the timeline goes like this: Greene’s military paychecks stopped in August. Three months later, he filed an affidavit with a South Carolina court claiming to be indigent. And four months after that he walked into the South Carolina Democratic Party headquarters with a personal check for $10,400.

Losing gubernatorial candidate Robert Ford (who’s African-American) also sheds some light on how Greene might have won despite his complete unknownness: apparently, in South Carolina, “Greene” (as opposed to “Green”) is understood to be an African-American last name. With South Carolina’s Democratic electorate with a black majority, voters with no other information about the two choices might vote based purely on that.

• UT-Sen: After previously having had some nice things to say about him, 4th place finisher Cherilyn Eagar went the whole way and endorsed Tim Bridgewater for the GOP Senate primary against Mike Lee.

• WI-Sen: Republican businessman Ron Johnson, who has some personal wealth to draw on in his bid against Russ Feingold, is launching his first television ads. A source tells SSP that this is a one-week statewide ad buy for about $350K.

• AL-Gov: Second-place finisher Robert Bentley is out with an internal poll (by Dresner Wicker) giving him a big lead in the runoff against Bradley Byrne, 45-29. That’s somewhat plausible, since Bentley seems likelier to consolidate the votes for the most conservative options, Roy Moore and Tim James, than is “moderate” Byrne. (Of course, since James is paying for a recount, it’s not a done deal that Bentley’s in the runoff.)

• CO-Gov: Scott McInnis, facing a primary from teabagger Dan Maes (who pulled even with him at the state convention), now says he “doesn’t remember” serving on the board of pro-choice group Republicans for Choice. However, paperwork filed with the FEC lists him on the group’s letterhead as a board member from 1996 to 2005… that’s ten years.

• SC-Gov: Nikki Haley is out with an internal poll giving her a big lead heading into the runoff against Gresham Barrett, 62-28 (suggesting she’s gotten the majority of the gains from the primary, where she led 49-22). Barrett‘s staying in (despite a sandbagging by the RGA), and he’s already out with a TV ad, where he appears with a drill sergeant who calls him “a Christian family man who won’t embarrass us.” I’m not sure if that cringeworthy line is supposed to be an anti-Mark Sanford dogwhistle or an anti-Haley dogwhistle; maybe it’s intended to do double-duty.

• GA-09: Despite losing the runoff in the special election in the 9th, Lee Hawkins is continuing to fight on; he’ll also challenge Rep.-elect Tom Graves in the regularly scheduled July primary. Hawkins didn’t fare as poorly as expected, staying within 56-44, and may be counting on the late-breaking news about Graves’s attempts to dodge a lawsuit over an unpaid business loan continuing to be a story in coming months.

• ID-01: Greg Smith & Associates released a poll (apparently not on any candidate’s behalf), showing Raul Labrador leading Democratic freshman Walt Minnick, 36-24. Recall, though, that this is the same pollster that found Minnick leading “the Republican” candidate 50-20 before the primary (and the link also helpfully provides a list of other times Smith has been way off the mark).

• VA-05: This should put to rest any notions that ex-Rep. Virgil Goode was considering a third-party independent teabagger-powered run in the 5th, or that he might throw his backing to one of the minor-league third-partiers running. Goode endorsed establishment Republican Rob Hurt to go against Rep. Tom Perriello.

FL-Sen, FL-Gov: Attack of the Shady Billionaires

Quinnipiac (6/2-8, likely voters, no trendlines):

Rick Scott (R): 44

Bill McCollum (R): 31

Undecided: 24

(MoE: ±3.4%)

Kendrick Meek (D): 29

Jeff Greene (D): 27

Maurice Ferre (D): 3

Undecided: 37

(MoE: ±3.5%)

Here’s a “holy crap!” moment from Quinnipiac: the two random sketchy ultra-wealthy guys, Rick Scott and Jeff Greene, whose entries into the GOP gubernatorial primary and Democratic Senate primary (respectively) initially seemed like go-nowhere vanity projects, are actually in serious contention thanks to lavish TV spending.

In particular, Rick Scott (former CEO for hospital corporation Columbia/HCA) has shot ahead of Bill McCollum. Scott’s favorables are a very high 40/12 among GOPers, indicating that McCollum’s (or Mary Cheney’s, really) attempts to point out that whole Medicare fraud thing on Scott’s part have gotten drowned out by the sheer volume of Scott’s advertising. Of course, it doesn’t look like McCollum has gotten too badly harmed by Rentboy; he’s also a 41/19 among GOPers, so he might be able to fight his way back if he can find his financial footing, ad-wise.

Jeff Greene, the derivatives pioneer who increased his fortune betting on an economic collapse caused in part by those same derivatives, isn’t leading, but is nipping at Kendrick Meek’s heels in the Democratic Senate primary. Meek has spent little on advertising so far, so despite his institutional frontrunner status, he isn’t particularly better-known than Greene right now.

Quinnipiac released its general election numbers separately:

Quinnipiac (6/2-8, registered voters, 4/8-13 in parentheses (Sen, Gov)):

Kendrick Meek (D): 17 (24)

Marco Rubio (R): 33 (30)

Charlie Crist (I): 37 (32)

Undecided: 11 (13)

Jeff Greene (D): 14

Marco Rubio (R): 33

Charlie Crist (I): 40

Undecided: 11

Alex Sink (D): 32

Rick Scott (R): 42

Undecided: 21

Alex Sink (D): 34 (36)

Bill McCollum (R): 42 (40)

Undecided: 19 (21)

(MoE: ±2.9%)

Alex Sink (D): 26

Rick Scott (R): 35

Bud Chiles (I) : 13

Undecided: 23

Alex Sink (D): 25

Bill McCollum (R): 33

Bud Chiles (I) : 19

Undecided: 19

(MoE: ±4.7%)

Charlie Crist may actually be able to thread the needle here (especially if he gets an assist from Jeff Greene, as Crist breaks off an extra 3% from the Dem column if it’s Greene instead of Meek); he leads Marco Rubio in both configurations, thanks to, if you believe the trendlines, eating up a further share of Dem votes.

Things aren’t looking so good for Alex Sink in the gubernatorial race, with similar underperformances against both Scott and McCollum. (Interestingly — and I don’t know if this is a trend or a blip — Rasmussen finds the Governor’s race a much better bet for the Dems right now than Quinnipiac does.)

It looks like Quinnipiac added a Bud Chiles option mid-sample once the indie candidate announced (as explained by the higher MoE on the three-ways). Despite his Democratic lineage, Chiles’ entry doesn’t seem to hurt Sink disproportionately, as he seems to have enough Dixiecrat appeal to draw equally from both column D and column R. The 8-to-9 point margins between the Rs and Sink remains unchanged with Chiles in the mix.

StephenCLE’s House Predictions 2010 – June Ratings Update

So here’s the other side of Capitol Hill, and the view from it this month.  Since starting this projection back in February, the red wave has grown marginally every month that I’ve gone forward.  This month, at the margins, the wave is continuing to grow higher even though the ratings changes were much more split.  There were fewer ratings changes this month than last month as well, 17 of them in total.  I’ll run through them quickly, but first a bit of housekeeping.  

Up to this point, I have been purposely keeping on the watch list (likely D to likely R range) races in which an incumbent is facing a PVI of more than 13 points in favor of the opposite party.  This month I do away with that rule, which impacted a few races.  Also, up to this point I’ve been following Charlie Cook’s custom of never putting an incumbent in a worse position than tossup unless their PVI was overwhelmingly in favor of the opposition party.  This month I’ve thrown that rule away as well, although there were only a few cases in which I thought about moving an incumbent into underdog status.

So from now on, it’s all gut instinct.  Onto this month’s ratings changes:

1.Minnesota-7 – Likely Democrat to Solid Democrat – I was holding out on this race because of the toughness of Peterson’s district, but seeing how the republicans didn’t get any solid candidates of note into this race, it’s moving off the board.  

2.California-11 – Lean Democrat to Toss Up – This race kinda caught me off guard, but I do think Jerry McNerney is in a lot more trouble than I would have thought a few months ago.  David Harmer, who performed very well against John Garamendi in CA-10 last year, steamrolled to a victory in the republican primary here yesterday.  I think he’s very legitimate.  Worse, since both of the statewide races are closer than the presidential race was in 2004 or 2008, it’s likely that Whitman/Fiorina will carry this district up-ballot, which will put a lot of pressure on McNerney to get voters to split their tickets.  The way I see it, this race is right in the same boat as CA-3 now.

3.Illinois-11 – Lean Democrat to Toss Up/Dem Retention – I’m really not feeling bullish about Debbie Halvorson’s chances in this district anymore, not necessarily because of what she’s done personally, but because the democratic brand in Illinois seems to be going to hell in a handbasket.  With the top of the ticket of Quinn and Giannoulias likely to get demolished here in November, I think as a freshman, Halvorson is really going to have to hustle to offset the coming red wave here.  Also, the Illinois districts could be particularly vulnerable to a wave because of the home state effect in 2008 making the PVIs here look better than they really are.  And then there’s the fact that polling has her behind republican challenge Adam Kinzinger

4.Illinois-14 – Lean Democrat to Toss Up/Dem Retention – See Illinois-11 above.  Bill Foster’s district is politically very similar to Halvorson’s, and if she’s losing to a ragtag operation like Adam Kinzinger’s campaign, you know Foster can’t be in a much better position.  Thus, he gets dropped as well.

5.New York-13 – Lean Democrat to Likely Democrat – Mike McMahon’s position has greatly improved in the past month.  Facing a challenge from the working family’s party and a unified attack from the right, things didn’t look good.  But now the GOP and conservative parties in New York are now fighting again, and the WFP doesn’t to be in a position to mount much of a challenge.  It’s possible that the republican and conservative lines will be split a la NY-23 in 2009.

6.Ohio-16 – Lean Democrat to Toss Up/Dem Retention – This one I’m moving mostly based on what I’m seeing on the ground here in northeast Ohio.  The Medina County GOP’s infamous mailer about nearby congresswoman Betty Sutton “getting thrown out of the house and into the kitchen” seems to be a reflection of how things are going in the rural reaches of Boccieri’s district.  Though that crap is hugely unpopular in metro Cleveland, this district is a little further out, exurby type, and the tea party seems to be organizing well here.  Republican candidate Jim Renacci has been strong to this point.  I now think that despite Boccieri’s almost star status in the Ohio GOP, that this district might be shifting under his feet a bit, and his vote for HCR really sent some people into a tizzy.  Toss up.

7.Ohio-13 – Lean Democrat to Likely Democrat – While we’re talking about it, that controversial and sexist mailer from the Medina County GOP was an unexpected punch to the gut for Tom Ganley in his bid to unseat Betty Sutton.  Sutton has now picked up a lot of sympathy from locals here in Ohio-13, particularly from women voters.  OH-13, my home district, is a mix of upscale suburbs and working class industrial areas south and west of Cleveland, and this kind of stuff doesn’t play well here.  While Ganley’s favorables probably haven’t been affected, Sutton’s have probably seen a nice bump.

8.California-3 – Toss Up/Dem Takeover to Toss Up/Rep Retention – I admit it, from the start I was perhaps a little too bullish on this district.  I think that even though California is blue and likes Obama, and even though Ami Bera is still out-campaigning and out-fundraising incumbent Dan Lungren, the inevitable wins at the top of the ticket here by Whitman and Fiorina are going to be very tough to overcome.  So I dial down the enthusiasm a bit here.

9.Idaho-1 – Toss Up/Rep Takeover to Toss Up/Dem Retention – This is a very unusual race to look at.  On one hand, the district is extremely conservative, and really all the republican nominee should have to say is “he voted for Pelosi” and it’s over.  But strangely, and I know his voting record has been conservative but still, Walt Minnick has been able to get most of ID-1 to like him enough to where they look beyond his party affiliation.  The great thing is that the GOP has botched this one up from the beginning too, as NRCC pick Vaughn Ward went Bill Sali 2.0 and went up in flames.  At this point, I gotta like Minnick’s chances at a retention.

10.Iowa-3 – Toss Up/Rep Takeover to Toss Up/Dem Retention – Walt Minnick isn’t the only incumbent looking better today.  Leonard Boswell’s chances went up following Tuesday night’s primary as the NRCC and the republican establishment screwed the pooch here too.  Their fave, and probably their best candidate, wrestling coach Jim Gibbons, fell against state senator Brad Zaun, who was reportedly a target of republican offers as power brokers tried to get him out of the race.  Given this dynamic, I wonder if the republican electorate could end up somewhat divided.  Either way, Boswell is probably the favorite now to retain the seat despite what could be a scary situation up-ballot with Terry Branstad and Chuck Grassley zooming to victory.

11.New Mexico-2 – Toss Up/Dem Retention to Toss Up/Rep Takeover – Once again, here’s a race that’s less about the candidate than what is going on around him/her.  A month ago, it appeared that Harry Teague would be getting some nice up-ballot coattails from Diane Denish in the governor’s race.  But now that race has turned into a toss up thanks to the emergence of Susana Martinez on the GOP side.  That means that she’ll be carrying NM-2 in that race, probably handily, and that puts Teague on the defensive against Pearce, who has lots of money and will likely be hammering Teague over his cap-n-trade vote, which was very unpopular here.

12.Pennsylvania-6 – Toss Up Dem Takeover to Lean Republican – This race has changed a lot in the past month as well.  I rated this race a great chance for a democratic takeover mostly because of Gerlach’s getting out and flip-flopping, as well as Doug Pike’s strong financial backing.  But now that his campaign flamed out miserably and Minan Trevedi won the democratic nomination, I don’t see a pickup as very likely anymore.  Maybe Trevedi could win an open seat, but in this environment, beating Gerlach is going to be an uphill climb.

13.Pennsylvania-12 – Toss Up/Dem Retention to Lean Democrat – I had figured that Mark Critz would defeat Tim Burns in the special election last month, but I wouldn’t have expected a 9-point cruise.  In the wake of that result, I feel good enough moving this race to lean.

14.Arkansas-2 – Lean Republican to Likely Republican – With Joyce Elliott’s win in last night’s AR-2 runoff, I really don’t feel good about this race anymore.  Tim Griffin’s road just got a lot easier, presumably because Elliott is more liberal than Wills would have been, and there’s also that sticky fact of her being a black woman in one of the most racist states in the nation in terms of voting habits.

15.Illinois-13 – Likely Republican to Solid Republican – The bad top of the ticket for Team Blue kills it for Scott Harper, who couldn’t even beat Judy Biggert in a solidly democratic year, much less a bad one.

16.Arkansas-1 – Toss Up/Dem Retention to Lean Republican – I think I erred on this seat a bit when I moved it back into the democratic column.  The way things are going in Arkansas, Generic R could beat just about any democrat.  The red wave is going to crest really, really high in Arkansas this year, and Boozman will be providing coattails.  Chad Causey will have to run a perfect campaign and make things local in nature to have much of any shot.

17.Utah-2 – Likely Democrat to Solid Democrat – I was holding out on this race to see if the Republicans could put up a halfway decent challenger to Jim Matheson.  Well, they haven’t, and even in a district this conservative, I feel good about moving this one off the board.  You have to wonder if Matheson will go for the Senate in 2012, especially if Orrin Hatch gets teabagged and/or retires.

Total House Math for June:

Old House – 256 Democrats, 179 Republicans

New House – 231 Democrats, 204 Republicans

National Swing – Republicans +25

Democratic Pickups (4) – DE-1, IL-10, LA-2, HI-1

Republican Pickups (29) – WV-1, AR-2, LA-3, TN-6, IN-8, KS-3, NH-2, NY-29, AL-2, CO-4, FL-2, MD-1, MI-1, MI-7, MS-1, NV-3, NH-1, NY-24, ND-1, OH-1, PA-11, TN-4, TN-8, TX-17, VA-2, VA-5, WA-3, AR-1

Pickup Changes from last month:

Democrat to Republican – AR-1, PA-6, CA-3, NM-2

Republican to Democrat – IA-3, ID-1

2010 House Big Board (as of June update)

Solid Dem – 165 seats:

AL-7, AZ-4, AZ-7, AR-4, CA-1, CA-5, CA-6, CA-7, CA-8, CA-9, CA-10, CA-11, CA-12, CA-13, CA-14, CA-15, CA-16, CA-17, CA-18, CA-20, CA-23, CA-27, CA-28, CA-29, CA-30, CA-31, CA-32, CA-33, CA-34, CA-35, CA-37, CA-38, CA-39, CA-43, CA-51, CA-53, CO-1, CO-2, CT-1, CT-2, CT-3, FL-3, FL-11, FL-17, FL-19, FL-20, FL-23, GA-4, GA-5, GA-12, GA-13, HI-2, IL-1, IL-2, IL-3, IL-4, IL-5, IL-7, IL-8, IL-9, IL-12, IL-17, IN-1, IN-7, IA-1, IA-2, ME-2, MD-2, MD-3, MD-4, MD-5, MD-7, MD-8, MA-1, MA-2, MA-3, MA-4, MA-5, MA-6, MA-7, MA-8, MA-9, MI-5, MI-12, MI-13, MI-14, MI-15, MN-4, MN-5, MN-7, MN-8, MS-2, MO-1, MO-5, NV-1, NJ-1, NJ-6, NJ-8, NJ-9, NJ-10, NJ-13, NM-3, NY-2, NY-4, NY-5, NY-6, NY-7, NY-8, NY-9, NY-10, NY-11, NY-12, NY-14, NY-15, NY-16, NY-17, NY-18, NY-21, NY-22, NY-27, NY-28, NC-1, NC-2, NC-4, NC-7, NC-12, NC-13, OH-9, OH-10, OH-11, OH-17, OK-2, OR-1, OR-3, OR-4, PA-1, PA-2, PA-13, PA-14, RI-2, SC-6, TN-5, TN-9, TX-9, TX-15, TX-16, TX-18, TX-20, TX-25, TX-27, TX-28, TX-29, TX-30, UT-2, VT-1, VA-3, VA-8, WA-1, WA-2, WA-6, WA-7, WA-9, WV-3, WI-2, WI-4

Likely Dem – 28 seats:

Arizona-1 (Kirkpatrick)

California-36 (Harman)

California-47 (Sanchez)

Colorado-7 (Perlmutter)

Connecticut-4 (Himes)

Connecticut-5 (Murphy)

Delaware-1 (Open)

Indiana-2 (Donnelly)

Kentucky-3 (Yarmuth)

Louisiana-2 (Cao)

Maine-1 (Pingree)

Michigan-9 (Peters)

Minnesota-1 (Walz)

Missouri-3 (Carnahan)

New Jersey-12 (Holt)

New Mexico-1 (Heinrich)

New York-20 (Murphy)

New York-25 (Maffei)

North Carolina-11 (Shuler)

Ohio-6 (Wilson)

Ohio-13 (Sutton)

Ohio-18 (Space)

Pennsylvania-3 (Dahlkemper)

Pennsylvania-4 (Altmire)

Pennsylvania-17 (Holden)

Rhode Island-1 (Open)

Virginia-11 (Connelly)

Wisconsin-3 (Kind)

Lean Dem – 22 seats:

Arizona-5 (Mitchell)

Arizona-8 (Giffords)

Colorado-3 (Salazar)

Florida-8 (Grayson)

Georgia-2 (Bishop)

Georgia-8 (Marshall)

Kentucky-6 (Chandler)

Mississippi-4 (Taylor)

Missouri-4 (Skelton)

New Jersey-3 (Adler)

New York-13 (McMahon)

New York-23 (Owens)

North Carolina-8 (Kissell)

Oregon-5 (Schrader)

Pennsylvania-8 (Murphy)

Pennsylvania-10 (Carney)

Pennsylvania-12 (Critz)

South Carolina-5 (Spratt)

South Dakota-1 (Herseth)

Texas-23 (Rodriguez)

Virginia-9 (Boucher)

Wisconsin-8 (Kagen)

Toss Up – 39 seats:

Alabama-2 (Bright)

California-3 (Lungren)

California-11 (McNerney)

Colorado-4 (Markey)

Florida-2 (Boyd)

Florida-22 (Klein)

Florida-24 (Kosmas)

Florida-25 (Open)

Hawaii-1 (Djou)

Idaho-1 (Minnick)

Illinois-10 (Open)

Illinois-11 (Halvorson)

Illinois-14 (Foster)

Indiana-9 (Hill)

Iowa-3 (Boswell)

Maryland-1 (Kratovil)

Massachusetts-10 (Open)

Michigan-1 (Open)

Michigan-7 (Schauer)

Mississippi-1 (Childers)

Nevada-3 (Titus)

New Hampshire-1 (Shea-Porter)

New Mexico-2 (Teague)

New York-1 (Bishop)

New York-19 (Hall)

New York-24 (Arcuri)

North Dakota-1 (Pomeroy)

Ohio-1 (Driehaus)

Ohio-15 (Kilroy)

Ohio-16 (Boccieri)

Pennsylvania-7 (Open)

Pennsylvania-11 (Kanjorski)

Tennessee-4 (Davis)

Tennessee-8 (Open)

Texas-17 (Edwards)

Virginia-2 (Nye)

Virginia-5 (Perriello)

Washington-3 (Open)

Wisconsin-7 (Open)

Lean Rep – 12 seats:

Arkansas-1 (Open)

California-45 (Bono Mack)

Indiana-8 (Open)

Kansas-3 (Open)

Minnesota-6 (Bachmann)

Nebraska-2 (Terry)

New Hampshire-2 (Open)

New York-29 (Open)

Ohio-12 (Tiberi)

Pennsylvania-6 (Gerlach)

Pennsylvania-15 (Dent)

Washington-8 (Reichert)

Likely Rep – 18 seats:

Alabama-5 (Open)

Alaska-1 (Young)

Arizona-3 (Open)

Arkansas-2 (Open)

California-19 (Open)

California-44 (Calvert)

California-48 (Campbell)

Florida-12 (Open)

Indiana-3 (Souder)

Kansas-4 (Open)

Louisiana-3 (Open)

Michigan-3 (Open)

Missouri-8 (Emerson)

South Carolina-2 (Wilson)

Tennessee-6 (Open)

Texas-32 (Sessions)

Virginia-1 (Wittman)

West Virginia-1 (Open)

Solid Rep – 151 seats:

AL-1, AL-3, AL-4, AL-6, AZ-2, AZ-6, AR-3, CA-2, CA-4, CA-21, CA-22, CA-24, CA-25, CA-26, CA-40, CA-41, CA-42, CA-46, CA-49, CA-50, CA-52, CO-5, CO-6, FL-1, FL-4, FL-5, FL-6, FL-7, FL-9, FL-10, FL-13, FL-14, FL-15, FL-16, FL-18, FL-21, GA-1, GA-3, GA-7, GA-9, GA-10, GA-11, ID-2, IL-6, IL-13, IL-15, IL-16, IL-18, IL-19, IN-4, IN-5, IN-6, IA-4, IA-5, KS-1, KS-2, KY-1, KY-2, KY-4, KY-5, LA-1, LA-4, LA-5, LA-6, LA-7, MD-6, MI-2, MI-4, MI-6, MI-8, MI-10, MI-11, MN-2, MN-3, MS-3, MO-2, MO-6, MO-7, MO-9, MT-1, NE-1, NE-3, NV-2, NJ-2, NJ-5, NJ-4, NJ-7, NJ-11, NY-3, NY-26, NC-3, NC-5, NC-6, NC-9, NC-10, OH-2, OH-3, OH-4, OH-5, OH-7, OH-8, OH-14, OK-1, OK-3, OK-4, OK-5, OR-2, PA-5, PA-9, PA-16, PA-18, PA-19, SC-1, SC-3, SC-4, TN-1, TN-2, TN-3, TN-7, TX-1, TX-2, TX-3, TX-4, TX-5, TX-6, TX-7, TX-8, TX-10, TX-11, TX-12, TX-13, TX-14, TX-19, TX-21, TX-22, TX-24, TX-26, TX-31, UT-1, UT-3, VA-4, VA-6, VA-7, VA-10, WA-4, WA-5, WV-2, WI-1, WI-5, WI-6, WY-1

THE Math – Ridiculously premature, specific election predictions.

So I’ve made some predictions about 2010, using 2004 and 2006 partisan turnout data and ascribing percentages to each candidate for each party affiliation in my own, subjective way.  The polling industry has failed us this cycle, so I’m ignoring the polls and going with my gut.  I am only predicting races where the primaries are over, as I did not want to guess who is going to win primaries.  That would be too speculative even for me!  And obviously, these are predictions of the two-way vote.  Pickups are in bold.

AL-SEN – Shelby (R) 65, Barnes (D) 35 – No trouble for Shelby.

AR-SEN – Boozman (R) 56, Lincoln (D) 43 – Very little shot for Lincoln here.

CA-SEN – Boxer (D) 51, Fiorina (R) 48 – Boxer is a flawed candidate, but she will hold on.

IA-SEN – Grassley (R) 57, Conlin (D) 43 – Conlin a strong challenger, but not this year.

ID-SEN – Crapo (R) 75, Sullivan (D) 24 – Sullivan is not a serious challenger.

IL-SEN – Giannoulias (D) 50.2, Kirk (R) 49.8 – Good thing “none of the above” not on the ballot.

IN-SEN – Coates (R) 53, Ellsworth (D) 46 – Too tough a year for Ellsworth to get over the hump.

KY-SEN – Conway (D) 50, Paul (R) 49 – Paul makes more unforced errors; Conway consolidates Dems.

ND-SEN – Hoeven (R) 67, Potter (D) 32 – Easy pickup.

NV-SEN – Angle (R) 50, Reid (D) 49 – Harry Reid is just THAT unpopular.  We seem to be forgetting that.

OH-SEN – Portman (R) 51, Fisher (D) 49 – Portman cash advantage proves too much.

OR-SEN – Wyden (D) 56, Huffman (R) 44 – No cakewalk, but Wyden stays on his game and wins.

PA-SEN – Sestak (D) 52, Toomey (R) 48 – PA says no to Santorum II.

SC-SEN – Demint (R) 75, Greene (D) 25 – Please go away, Alvin!

SD-SEN – Thune (R) unopposed.

AR-GOV – Beebe (D) 64, Keet (R) 35 – Smooth sailing for Beebe.

CA-GOV – Brown (D) 52, Whitman (R) 48 – Whitman’s millions hard to overcome, but Brown can do it.

IA-GOV – Branstad (R) 60, Culver (D) 40 – Culver’s approvals are low and Branstad is just too tough.

ID-GOV – Otter (R) 60, Allred (D) 39 – Allred could compete in a different cycle.

IL-GOV – Brady (R) 52, Quinn (D) 48 – Quinn is VERY unpopular.

ME-GOV – Mitchell (D) 52, LePage (R) 47 – LePage a little too teabaggy for Maine.

NE-GOV – Heineman (R) 69, Lakers (D) 30 – Lakers a non-trivial candidate, but will not be close.

NM-GOV – Denish (D) 51, Martinez (R) 49 – Martinez steals some Hispanic Dems, but not enough.

NV-GOV – Sandoval (R) 59, Reid (D) 41 – Whose idea was it to get behind Rory Reid?

OH-GOV – Strickland (D) 50.4, Kasich (R) 49.6 – Don’t think much of Kasich as a candidate.

OR-GOV – Kitzhaber (D) 52, Dudley (R) 48 – This will be no cakewalk for Kitz, but he pulls through.

PA-GOV – Corbett (R) 52, Onorato (D) 48 – Onorato will grow on PA voters, but not enough.

SD-GOV – Daugaard (R) 56, Heidepreim (D) 44 – Heidepreim runs pretty strong in a tough year.

TX-GOV – Perry (R) 51, White (D) 49 – White wins Indies comfortably, but still not enough.

House Incumbent 2010 Primary Performance

Here’s a fun chart – it’s a list of all the members of the House who have scored 70% or less in a primary so far this year:


































































































































































































































Incumbent Party District %age Notes
Inglis (R) SC-04 28% TARP [RUNOFF]
Burton (R) IN-05 30%
Griffith (R) AL-05 33% Ex-Dem [LOST]
Mollohan (D) WV-01 44% Ethics [LOST]
Souder (R) IN-03 48% TARP [RESIGNED]
Miller (R) CA-42 49% TARP, Ethics
Kanjorski (D) PA-11 49% Ethics
Lance (R) NJ-07 56% Cap-and-trade
Hall (R) TX-04 57% TARP, Ex-Dem, Age
Simpson (R) ID-02 58% TARP
Harman (D) CA-36 59% Blue Dog
Shuler (D) NC-11 62% HCR
Schmidt (R) OH-02 62% TARP
Kissell (D) NC-08 63% HCR
McHenry (R) NC-10 63%
Terry (R) NE-02 63% TARP
Coble (R) NC-06 64% TARP, Age
Herger (R) CA-02 65% TARP
Holden (D) PA-17 65% HCR
Lewis (R) CA-41 66% TARP, Ethics
Calvert (R) CA-44 67% TARP, Ethics
Davis (D) IL-07 67% Considered other office
Jackson-Lee (D) TX-18 67%
Rahall (D) WV-03 67%
Richardson (D) CA-37 68% Ethics
Hill (D) IN-09 69%
Smith (R) NJ-04 69% Cap-and-trade, TARP
Wilson (D) OH-06 69% HCR
Bono Mack (R) CA-45 70% Cap-and-trade, TARP
Platts (R) PA-19 70% Sought Obama appointment
Granger (R) TX-12 70% TARP

I’ve also included some notes on possible reasons for these poor performances: Dems who voted against healthcare reform, Republicans who voted for the bailout or cap-and-trade, ethical issues on either side, and a few other odds-and-ends. For a complete list of all members of Congress and their primary percentages, click here. So far, 89 (38D, 51R) incumbents have faced primaries while 141 have not (and another 13 open seats have been contested). Of those in primaries, the median vote share has been 74% (76% D, 73% R).

SSP Daily Digest: 6/10 (Morning Edition)

  • AR-Sen: Mark Blumenthal has a detailed post-mortem of the polling in the Arkansas senate runoff, including some off-the-record claims that both Halter’s and Lincoln’s internal polling showed Lincoln ahead. I sort of wonder why Lincoln didn’t put out these numbers, if true.
  • CT-Sen: Several big-name Republican fundraisers are hosting an event for none other than Joe Lieberman, to benefit his 2012 re-election campaign. Some of the hosts include Robbie Aiken, Wayne Berman, Rachel Pearson, and Kathryn Rand. Obviously an outright party switch is always possible with this fuckin’ guy.
  • FL-Sen: Wow, so there really is a Democrat who wants death panels (more or less). Maurice Ferre, himself 75 years old, said in a meeting with the Palm Beach Post editorial board:

    • “Well, you know what, when you get to be 85 or 90 years old, you’re going to die. And I’m sorry, you call it, Sarah Palin, what you want, but the fact is that it is absurd for us to be spending the types of money we’re spending to extend life three months.”

    Asked what he’d do as a Senator to control such costs, Ferre said: “I would absolutely say that this is the cap on how much is available for you to spend at age 90, 87, with a heart condition of this sort, with diabetes of this sort, two legs missing and, you know, this is how much is available for you to spend. And you spend it any way you want.”

    There are other ways to lose races in Florida, but this is the simplest and most direct.

  • KY-Sen: Mitch McConnell’s sticking in his bite-guard and gritting his teeth hard to do a fundraiser for Roark Rand Paul later this month. Believe it or not, we happened to get the advance text of Paul’s prepared remarks for the event:

    • Throughout the ages, the finger painter, the Play-Doh sculptor, the Lincoln Logger stood alone against the daycare teacher of her time. She did not live to earn approval stamps. She lived for herself, that she might achieve things that are the glory of all humanity. These are my terms; I do not care to play by any others. And now, if the court will allow me, it’s naptime.

  • NV-Sen: The Big Dog is coming to the Silver State to do a campaign rally for Handsome Harry Reid next week – who won’t actually be there because the Senate will be in session. No word on whether a fundraiser is also on tap.
  • PA-Sen: Pat Toomey is taking some heat for a long-ago resume item: He used to work on Wall Street – in derivatives trading, no less.
  • SC-Sen: Alvin Greene, the mysterious Dem senate nominee in South Carolina, says he won’t drop out of the race, in spite of the state party’s call for him to bail in the wake of revelations that he was arrested on an obscenity charge last fall. Then again, Scott Lee Cohen said he wouldn’t bow out, either.
  • KS-Gov: Dem gubernatorial hopeful Tom Holland picked fellow state Sen. Kelly Kultala, considered something of a rising star in KS politics, as his running mate. The two formally kicked off their campaign yesterday.
  • NM-Gov, WI-07: In NM-Gov, we mentioned a little while back that Dem LG Diane Denish is hitting GOP nominee Susana Martinez’s record as a prosecutor in TV ads, specifically targeting her conviction rate. A related issue is coming up in WI-07, where Dems are charging ex-prosecutor Sean Duffy with misusing his (very recently) former office to compile conviction statistics helpful to his political campaign.
  • SC-Gov: Mitt Romney, who endorsed Nikki Haley back in March, is heading back down to the Palmetto state to campaign for her once more. Haley faces a runoff against Rep. Gresham Barrett on June 22nd.
  • AK-AL: Former communications exec Sheldon Fisher is running ads against his primary opponent, GOP Rep. Don Young, portraying himself as the “new conservative choice.” Kudos to the AP for reporting that the ad buy is $40,000 in size – not much by conventional standards, perhaps, but that money ought to go a lot further in Alaska.
  • IN-03: So this is pretty bizarre. Ex-Rep. Mark Souder, who recently resigned on account of having an extra-marital affair with a staffer, sent an odd message on Facebook concerning his likely successor, state Sen. Marlin Stutzman. On the one hand, he says Stutzman is “probably best qualified” to fill his spot. But then, explains the AP:

    • In one paragraph, he says Stutzman knew nothing of the affair and therefore couldn’t have tipped off the media. In another, he mentions that Stutzman or a political consulting firm leaked word of the affair to Fox News after getting information from the staffer’s husband, Brad Jackson a Kosciusko County commissioner.

    Hmm, I thought it was Mike Pence who dimed out Souder?

  • MD-01: Businessman Rob Fisher is going up with an ad presenting himself as an outsider in the GOP primary. He faces the better-known state Sen. Andy Harris (the 2008 loser). BIG props to Ben Pershing at the Washington Post for nailing down these details: “The spot is running on cable stations in the Baltimore and Salisbury markets, with an initial buy of more than $70,000.”
  • MI-07, MI-09: President Obama did some fundraisers in Michigan earlier this week – one for the DNC, and another joint event for Reps. Gary Peters and Mark Schauer.
  • OH-18: Zack Space is doin’ it right: He’s launching a “six-figure” buy for an ad attacking GOP opponent Bob Gibbs as a tax-hiker and self-pay-raiser. Why do I like this move? Because Space is using his use cash edge ($1.3 mil to $0.1mil) to define Gibbs, at a time when Gibbs has only just emerged from the uncertainty of a primary recount (which he won with an absurdly pathetic 20.9%). For his part, Gibbs fired back with a popgun press release, the poor man’s television ad – very poor man’s.
  • VA-05: True to his word, Some Dude Jeff Clark is going ahead with his plans to run as a teabagging independent, since Rob Hurt won the GOP primary to take on Tom Perriello. In fact, Clark filed petitions with the board of elections last week. Note, though, something he hasn’t yet filed: an FEC report. Meanwhile, second-place finisher Jim McKelvey, who swore he wouldn’t support Hurt if he became the nominee, is still playing coy. Election night remarks suggested he was prepared to fall in line, but he hasn’t officially endorsed. (The other four also-rans have in fact done so.)
  • Polltopia: Taegan Goddard relays some blind non-quotes from random “pollsters” complaining about the alleged lack of transparency in Nate Silver’s pollster ratings – in particular, the fact that he hasn’t published his database of polls. Leaving aside the delicious irony that anonymous pollsters are complaining about transparency, I think this is a red herring. As Nate points out in a post of his own, anyone can recreate his work (with a lot of time and a little money) – and his main concern is the legal issues involved in making public a database that in part relies on information drawn from for-pay services.

    • AR-Sen: The Reality of the Race

    A lot of beltway pundits have said a lot of stupid beltway things about the result of the Arkansas senate runoff between Blanche Lincoln and Bill Halter. But at least a couple of outsider analysts have the right take. First is Ari Melber, who works for the Nation but also has a monthly column in the Politico. It’s really worth reading his newest piece in full, but here’s a good excerpt:

    Take the senior administration aide who called Politico’s Ben Smith on Wednesday morning, eager to declare that unions “”flushed”” ten million down the toilet in a “”pointless”” primary. That public servant is either disingenuous or clueless.

    “If even half that total had been well-targeted and applied in key House races across this country,”the aide said, “that could have made a real difference in November.”

    This criticism misreads the entire insurgency on the left – and may cause more heartburn in November.

    President Barack Obama’s political team can wish that its base was focused on defending a governing majority. But labor has joined cause with anti-establishment, liberal groups that believe changing the membership of the party’s congressional majority is as important as growing it.

    After watching Democratic incumbents freeze out a litany of progressive proposals, from the famous public option to the Employee Free Choice Act – which Democratic politicians have decided to support through speeches, not floor votes – some allies are wising up.

    Greg Sargent is on the money as well:

    For labor, not doing anything was tantamount to losing.  Blanche Lincoln is terrible on issues important to labor. As long as she remains in the Senate, unions lose.

    Yes, labor dumped $10 million on the effort. But they, you know, almost won. If anything, the closeness of the contest — recall that Halter forced Lincoln into a runoff three weeks ago — underscored that labor was right to undertake this effort. And putting aside that $10 million, unions are in some ways in a better position than they were before: It’s a simple fact that other Dems will think longer and harder before crossing labor on issues that are dealbreakers for them.

    If labor had never entered this race at all, they’d still be in a losing position with Lincoln in the Senate. This is an unbearably simple and obvious point, but the only way for labor to reverse this situation was to try to replace her with someone better on their issues. They couldn’t do this, of course, without running the risk of losing. Doing nothing would have amounted to a loss, anyway — with no chance of ever winning. They were absolutely right to give it a shot. The alternative was much worse.

    I’ll add a final thought, which is that for all the claims that DC loves to play the “expectations game,” the only thing that beltway bobbleheads understand is winning and losing. Smart baseball analysts know that good teams don’t win many close games – they win a lot of blowouts, because narrow wins are more a product of luck than skill. But in the cloistered minds of most tradmed pundits, only the won-lost record matters: you win, you’re golden, you lose, you suck – no matter how close the margin. This, of course, is foolish, and the establishment ignores Lincoln’s tight escape at its peril.

    NV-Sen: Angle Seeks to Purify Our Precious Bodily Essences

    Isn’t it obvious, Mandrake?

    The Assembly voted 26-16 Thursday for a bill that requires the fluoridation of water in Clark and Washoe counties.

    Before the vote, Assemblywoman Sharron Angle, R-Reno, sought to postpone the vote so she could add an amendment to block fluoridation in Washoe County. …

    But Angle said she simply does not like fluoride.

    “The fluoride solutions used in fluoridation must not contain any quantity of lead, arsenic, mercury, or any other substance that may be considered hazardous to human health,” she said. During hearings, Angle said witnesses testified most states use an industrial fluoride that contains such substances.