Swing State Project

Here he goes again on his own – goin’ down the only road he’s ever known.

AZ-Sen (R) (3/16, likely voters, 1/20 in parens):

John McCain (R-inc): 48 (53)

J.D. Hayworth (R): 41 (31)

Other: 3 (3)

Undecided: 8 (8)

(MoE: ±4%)

AZ-Gov (R) (3/17, likely voters, 1/20 in parens):

Jan Brewer (R-inc): 20 (29)

Dean Martin (R): 21 (31)

Buz Mills (R): 19 (n/a)

John Munger (R): 10 (7)

Other: 7 (8)

Undecided: 23 (20)

(MoE: ±4%)

CA-Gov (3/15, likely voters, 2/15 in parens):

Jerry Brown (D): 40 (43)

Meg Whitman (R): 40 (43)

Other: 6 (6)

Undecided: 14 (8)

Jerry Brown (D): 42 (46)

Steve Poizner (R): 27 (34)

Other: 13 (7)

Undecided: 18 (13)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

CA-Sen (3/15, likely voters, 2/15 in parens):

Barbara Boxer (D-inc): 46 (46)

Carly Fiorina (R): 40 (42)

Other: 4 (7)

Undecided: 10 (5)

Barbara Boxer (D-inc): 43 (45)

Tom Campbell (R): 41 (41)

Other: 6 (4)

Undecided: 10 (10)

Barbara Boxer (D-inc): 46 (47)

Chuck DeVore (R): 40 (42)

Other: 4 (6)

Undecided: 9 (5)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

GA-Gov (3/17, likely voters, 2/17 in parens):

Roy Barnes (D): 41 (37)

John Oxendine (R): 41 (45)

Other: 6 (7)

Undecided: 11 (10)

Roy Barnes (D): 40 (37)

Nathan Deal (R): 43 (43)

Other: 5 (7)

Undecided: 13 (14)

Roy Barnes (D): 39 (36)

Karen Handel (R): 42 (45)

Other: 5 (5)

Undecided: 14 (14)

Roy Barnes (D): 40 (37)

Eric Johnson (R): 38 (37)

Other: 6 (8)

Undecided: 16 (18)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

GA-Sen (3/17, likely voters, 2/17 in parens):

Johnny Isakson (R-inc): 52 (49)

Generic Dem: 31 (36)

Other: 5 (4)

Undecided: 12 (12)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

PA-Gov (3/16, likely voters, 2/8 in parens):

Jack Wagner (D): 33 (28)

Tom Corbett (R): 46 (49)

Other: 6 (5)

Undecided: 16 (17)

Joe Hoeffel (D): 28 (29)

Tom Corbett (R): 49 (51)

Other: 5 (5)

Undecided: 18 (15)

Dan Onorato (D): 29 (26)

Tom Corbett (R): 46 (52)

Other: 7 (5)

Undecided: 17 (17)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

PA-Sen (D) (3/15, likely voters, 2/8 in parens):

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 48 (51)

Joe Sestak (D): 37 (36)

Other: 5 (4)

Undecided: 9 (9)

(MoE: ±5%)

WI-Gov (3/16, likely voters, 2/17 in parens):

Tom Barrett (D): 42 (42)

Mark Neumann (R): 46 (44)

Other: 4 (4)

Undecided: 8 (10)

Tom Barrett (D): 42 (40)

Scott Walker (R): 48 (49)

Other: 2 (1)

Undecided: 8 (10)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

WI-Sen (3/16, likely voters, 2/17 in parens):

Russ Feingold (D-inc): 45 (43)

Tommy Thompson (R): 47 (48)

Other: 3 (6)

Undecided: 4 (4)

Russ Feingold (D-inc): 51 (47)

Dave Westlake (R): 35 (37)

Other: 5 (6)

Undecided: 10 (10)

Russ Feingold (D-inc): 49 (47)

Terrence Wall (R): 40 (39)

Other: 3 (6)

Undecided: 9 (7)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

{First, a quick plug for my blog Senate Guru.}

As we await the historic vote on health care reform, it’s important to remember that we’re just ten days away from the end of the first fundraising quarter of 2010.  The fundraising totals reported in this quarter will be pivotal to determining the tenor of many races for the rest of the year.  If there is any time to contribute, now is the time!

Please head over to the Expand the Map! ActBlue page and contribute whatever you are able to these terrific Democratic candidates for Senate.

Democrat	Currently At	End-of-Quarter Goal	Distance to Goal
Kendrick Meek	$25	$300	$275
Bill Halter	$445	$750	$305
Joe Sestak	$1,320	$1,600	$280
Paul Hodes	$1,447	$1,700	$253
Robin Carnahan	$1,163	$1,400	$237

Remember, the contribution you can make isn’t just a donation to a single candidate or political campaign.  It’s an investment against Republican obstruction (and conservaDem enabling) and an investment toward achieving that more perfect union.

US Congressman Stephen Lynch, D-South Boston, has already announced his intention to vote “no” on Health Care Reform today.

http://www.boston.com/news/loc…

Luckily, a primary challenger emerged today. Needham Town Meeting member Harmony Wu is a former professor at Emerson College in Boston, and was the Needham town coordinator for the Obama campaign. Wu has said she will challenge Lynch if he follows through on his pledge to vote against Health Care Reform.

A Facebook page set up for Wu has drawn more than 400 followers within a few hours of being posted. Many are experienced organizers and campaign staffers from throughout the Boston area.

http://www.facebook.com/group….

http://www.harmonywu.org/

This is only the begining.

If Representative Lynch votes against Health Care today, he will have a fight on his hands for the Democratic nomination.

Let this be a message to all Democratic members who are thinking of throwing their values out the window for the sake of political expediency in today’s vote.

We, the base, are watching.

I’m starting a new blog on Redistricting in general and my work on compactness based redistricting in specific. This is a crosspost of a redistricting news recap over there.

Illinois, Prison Gerrymandering, Party vs Party…

Illinois

03-08, Rose Report, 03-19 Progress Illinois blog, 03-21 OpEd citing League of Women Voters efforts and IL Fair Map (I like that they have an ordered list of critera, and it is the same as mine.)

Prison Gerrymandering

03-09 Minnesota takes note of prison based gerrymandering

Party vs Party

03-15 AP Article parties wrangle to controle state legislatures and thus redistricting.

03-16, Huffington Post, DLCC to sepend $20e6 on state legislature races with eye toward redistricting.

In this 03-04 Wall Street Journal OpEd, Karl Rove wants to prove the supremacy of the Republican party by gerrymandering Democrats out of seats. (Noted 03-16 at the Rose Report)

03-19 WSJ OpEd seeks “permanent benefit” from redistricting power grab, no shame, greed is good:

“While the election of 1994 did signal a political realignment, none of that alignment translated into the much more permanent benefit that redistricting could provide in 2010 if the GOP takes over state legislatures across the country.” — Michael Solon, former advisor to Sen. McConnel (R-KY)

Love of money is the root of all evil. Here are the February fundraising numbers for the six major party committees (January numbers are here):

Outraised across the board, and outraised overall for the third month in a row. At the end of November, Democrats had a $20 million cash advantage. Now that’s down to $16 million.

This was originally going to be a comment on http://www.swingstateproject.c… but it ran long:

The NY GOP seems to be somewhat firmly behind Levy. Additionally, I read something yesterday about Some Dude from Buffalo who wants to run on a Tea Party line. So there could potentially be a 3-way split on the right. Steve Levy by the way, isn’t called “the George Wallace of Long Island” for nothing. He’s a rabid Lou Dobbs style anti-immigration nut who may not be a party-line Republican, but is anything but a Liberal.

And here’s how it gets better:

Ballot order in all elections in NY is determined by that party’s performance in the previous gubernatorial election. Based on the 2006 election, the ballot order is currently:

Row A – Democratic Party (2,740,864 votes for Sptizer/Paterson)

Row B – Republican Party (1,105,681 votes for Faso/Vanderhoef)

Row C – Independence Party (190,661 votes for Spitzer/Paterson)

Row D – Conservative Party (168,654 votes for Faso/Vanderhoef)

Row E – Working Families Party (155,184 votes for Spitzer/Paterson)

Should Levy get Scozzafava’d by Lazio, that would mean that the Conservative Party would move up to row B for the next four years, with the GOP being knocked down to Row C or possibly even lower, which might happen depending on how the yet-to-be-determined (could be anyone, including Cuomo) Independence Party candidate performs on that line.

This kind of split would also obviously help Cuomo immensely, although I doubt he’ll need any help winning in a landslide even against a unified candidate of the right.

It would also be cool to see the WFP move up a row, although I don’t honestly see that happening, and if the Tea Party line is created and gets enough votes, it could take Row E and move the WFP to Row F.  

Even if Suffolk Co. Executive Steve Levy, who until very recently was a Democrat, manages to win the GOP gubernatorial nomination, it looks like he may end up getting severely Scozzafava’d.

The New York Daily News is reporting that the executive committee of the state’s Conservative Party voted this afternoon to endorse the candidacy of ex-Rep. Rick Lazio over Levy by a 13-5 vote. However, this doesn’t mean that Lazio has secured a spot on the ballot on the Conservative line, as the party will have a vote at a statewide convention in June to officially nominate a candidate. Levy’s team is vowing to win that endorsement, but Conservative Chair Mike Long (who, incidentally, is calling Levy’s candidacy “an affront” to Conservatives) may attempt to bump up the convention in order to secure the ballot line for Lazio early:

The Conservative Party’s convention isn’t until June, although Long has suggested he might move the date up to May in hopes of forcing the GOP’s hand.

This gives Levy and Paladino plenty of time to lobby the executive committee members and try to woo them away from Lazio in advance of the weighted vote that will result in the formal nomination of a candidate.

But Long said he believes his members will remain loyal to Lazio, adding:

   “This is the body that issues the Wilson Pakula. That membership is not going to change. This is where we’re going to be. We’re going to be behind Rick Lazio, and he’s riding it all the way to November.”

If successful, Long’s play would force the GOP to either abandon their more electable candidate (Levy) in favor of the underwhelming Lazio, or march willingly into another Scozzafava-esque sawmill. Lazio, for his part, is vowing to stay on the Conservative line through November, which would virtually doom Levy’s chances:

“I commit to running on the Conservative line all the way through to election day,” Lazio continued. “I thank Chairman Long for his principled leadership and his deep commitment to the values we share as conservatives.”

I think I may just O.D. on cat fud tonight.

UPDATE: Diarist Hudi11 makes a great point: If Lazio gets the Conservative nomination and Levy gets the GOP nod, Lazio could conceivably come in second (and Levy 3rd or worse), pushing the Republicans past Column B for the next four years in New York. Now that would be something!

This is the third part of a series of posts analyzing the swing state Virginia. It is the first section of two focusing on Northern Virginia. The fourth part can be found here.



NoVa

A vast and growing suburban metropolis, Northern Virginia has become increasingly important in Virginia politics. There, demographic changes have imperiled Republican dominance of Virginia.

To illustrate the exceptional nature of this movement, compare the two elections below. Here is 2000:

Eight years later, Northern Virginia has transformed:

More below.

In 2000, Governor George W. Bush had won Virginia by a comfortable 8.1% margin, carving out the traditional Republican coalition of rural and suburban Virginia. As this picture indicates, Virginia Democrats in 2000 really don’t have a base of support, except perhaps the heavily black southeast parts of the state. By 2008 Senator Barack Obama won the state by an equally comfortable 6.30% – a 14.3% shift in support.

Before digging into the dynamics of modern NoVa, it is worth exploring its past behavior to gain a sense of context.

A History

Northern Virginia was not always as populous as it is today; well into the twentieth century, it remained a rural (and heavily Democratic) backwater. In the 1940 presidential election, for instance, less than 10,000 people voted in Arlington County.

Growth began in the 1940s, however, driven by an ever-expanding federal government. The inner-ring suburbs in Arlington started expanding first, followed by Fairfax County in the 1950s. Like many other white and wealthy suburbs, Northern Virginia leaned Republican during this era.

Unlike some suburbs, however, Northern Virginia never fell in love with Republicanism. In Fairfax County, Republican presidential candidates only once took more than 65% of the vote (in 1972) – something which would regularly happen in a place like Chesterfield County, a suburb of Richmond.

Change first began in the 1980s, when inner-ring suburbs such as Arlington started voting Democratic. In the 2000 map, one sees Arlington County as the lonely blue bubble to the right of Fairfax County.

By 2000, as the graph above indicates, change was coming to the suburban communities in Fairfax. In 2004 the county voted Democratic by a 7.30% margin, which should have been a warning sign to Republicans. A mere two years later, it powered Democratic candidate Jim Webb to a narrow victory over incumbent Senator George Allen (he won the county by 18.9%). In 2008 Fairfax – well, just look at the map to see what happened in 2008.

In just eight short years, Northern Virginia has turned from a Republican-leaning suburb into a fundamental part of the Democratic base. Virginia has changed from a red state into a purple one, due mainly (but not entirely) to Northern Virginia.

The next post will explore Northern Virginia today – in order to get a sense of how this has happened.

–Inoljt, http://mypolitikal.com/

UPDATE (David): I know the healthcare reform bill is a hot topic. But as always, I want to remind people to limit any discussion here to the electoral effects of how members vote. We will also post a diary as soon as there is an actual vote. In the meantime, if you are interested in whip counts, I suggest using Twitter or checking out David Dayen’s updates.

{First, a cheap plug for my blog Senate Guru. You can contribute to terrific Democratic candidates for U.S. Senate via the Expand the Map! ActBlue page.}

Recent polling from Public Policy Polling and Research 2000 suggests that Democratic Congressman Kendrick Meek is in terrific position to win Florida’s 2010 U.S. Senate race. With Republican Marco Rubio well ahead of primary challenger Charlie Crist in the polls, but far behind on fundraising, Rubio will likely emerge victorious from the primary, but out of campaign funds and politically badly bruised, as well as positioned to the extreme right ideologically. Congressman Meek, on the other hand, is steadily campaigning and fundraising and will be well-positioned for the general election.

As such, Senate Guru has added Congressman Meek’s campaign to its Expand the Map! ActBlue fundraising page, which has raised tens of thousands of dollars for Democratic candidates for Senate in the 2008 and current 2010 cycles.

To kick off the addition of Congressman Meek, we’re looking to start off with just $100 raised to get the ball rolling. Just five $20 contributions would be a great start! Can you chip in $20?

Visit the Expand the Map! ActBlue page to chip in if you can!