Swing State Project

Happy Holidays, everybody! Here’s a mercifully brief edition of the Daily Digest for your perusal today.

• CO-Sen: Former GOP Lt. Gov. Jane Norton is looking to “channel” the passion of teabaggers who insist that Barack Obama is a baby-killing Muslim into a fearsome GOTV operation for her campaign against Sen. Michael Bennet. Sadly, this is no exaggeration.

• CT-Sen: In the wake of Joe Lieberman’s nutfuckery in the healthcare reform process, a new CNN/Opinion Research poll shows that his standing has taken a big hit back home across the country — his favorable rating is at 31-34, down from 40-28 two weeks earlier. (Update: Whoops; I didn’t realize that this was a poll of “adult Americans”, not Connecticut voters. That’s not exactly as useful.)

• AL-05: Democrats have a pair of credible candidates giving consideration to a run against newborn GOP Rep. Parker Griffith. State Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks has stated that he’s thinking about switching from his gubernatorial bid over to a Congressional campaign. Another very appealing candidate is state PSC Commissioner Susan Parker, whose ties to the district are stronger than Sparks’. Parker says she’s giving the race consideration, and will make an announcement after the holidays.

• MN-06: PPP has some up-ballot observations from their latest House poll. Namely, Norm Coleman and Mark Dayton are damaged goods.

• PA-10: It’s looking more and more clear that John McCain and other national Republicans completely crumbed the play in their efforts to snag a second defection from the Democratic House ranks. Not only did they hand Carney a beautiful talking point (“Hey, John McCain thinks highly enough of me to ask me to join the GOP caucus!”), but they’ve also set the state Republican Party scrambling to disassociate themselves from the national play. The PA GOP says that they had no part in the recruitment effort, saying that they’re looking for “real Republicans” to beat Carney. Meanwhile, Snyder County Commissioner Malcolm Derck, himself the only candidate of note in the GOP primary, called McCain’s efforts “a slap in the face to all rank-and-file Republicans working to take back the seat”. At least this is still excellent news… for John McCain!

• NY-State Sen: SSP data guru jeffmd takes a look at Obama’s performance in each of New York’s state Senate districts in an effort to answer the question: why does the GOP control so many seats?

• Judges: Retired Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O’Connor is leading a new campaign to eliminate the election of judges. (Good idea.)

The Census Bureau has released its annual population estimates, so that means the usual players are in the field with their reapportionment projections. First up is Election Data Services. (You can check out their prior studies as well: 2007 | 2008.)

EDS now offers six different projection models. The column headers indicate the range of time used to calculate each projection.

The biggest losers in this new batch of projections are, not too surprisingly, the sun-belt states of Arizona and Florida. Last year, Arizona was expected to gain two seats under every single projection model. Now, in a stark demonstration of how southern migration has slowed in the midst of the Great Recession, the three nearest-term projections all show it picking up just one seat. Meanwhile, Florida, which still looked to gain two seats according to longer-term projections in 2008, now grabs just one new seat under all models.

Other losers include Oregon, which was slated to grab a new district under four of five models last year – it’s off the list entirely this time. North Carolina was in a much more marginal situation in 2008 (gaining a seat under two of five models), and it too drops from the list. Texas shows a teeny bit of wobble, as the longest-term projection now shows it picking up three rather than four seats, but it seems like the odds still favor four. California, on the other hand, stabilizes some more, with four of six models (including all the nearer-term ones) indicating it won’t lose any seats (last time, only two of five did).

The biggest gainers? That would be Missouri, which isn’t on this list at all – and for the Show Me State, that’s a good thing. In 2008, all five models projected a one-seat loss, and in fact, in 2007, all three models did as well. Now EDS thinks Missouri won’t lose any seats. Meanwhile, Washington state is brand-new to the list, gaining a tenth district acoss the board.

Polidata also has an analysis out. They only do one projection, based on the most recent year’s numbers, which matches EDS’s 2008-2009 projection in all respects. They also offer a list of which states barely hang on to their final seats and which states are oh-so-close to nabbing one more:

EDS has a similar chart with “last six/next six” on the final page of their PDF, with different iterations for each of their models. The bottom line is that right now, Missouri looks very lucky and Minnesota looks very unlucky. But given the small numbers involved and the fact that we’re dealing with estimates rather than actuals counts, I would not be surprised at all if things changed by the time we get final numbers in from the 2010 Census.

P.S. Check out Dave’s diary for some more discussion of these new studies.

As long as I’ve been interested in politics, I’ve never understood how the NYS Senate was controlled by Republicans for so long, especially in a state as Democratic as New York.

So the purpose of my diary was two-fold: to understand the situation as it is now (our tenuous 2-seat majority), and to look at what a potential redistricting would look like that would cement Democratic control (for the next time…I don’t feel like formatting too much html.)

I started by analyzing Obama’s performance in each Senate district – after Pres-by-CD and the NY political data in Dave’s app, this wasn’t too difficult. Just follow me over the flip…

Here’s the massive table with results from Pres-by-SD.

In case you’re wondering, McCain won a scant 9 districts of 62. Since one, the 27th, is represented by Carl Kruger, there are a whopping 22 “Obama Republicans” in the NY Senate. There are 8 black-majority districts: 2 in Queens, 4 in Brooklyn, 1 in Manhattan, and 1 in Bronx/Westchester. There are 6 Hispanic-majority districts, 1 in Queens, 1 in Brooklyn, 2 in the Bronx, and 2 Bronx-Manhattan hybrids.

Is this surprising? Not really – Presidential toplines aren’t necessarily indicative, and this is certainly true here. But looking at the results a little differently, a pretty clear line is drawn in the Obama 58-60% range.

So I’d like to propose Obama at 59% as the ‘safe’ line for a Democrat in the NY Senate – only two Republicans live above this line, and six Democrats below: Brian Foley (54.69%) and Craig Johnson of Long Island (55.55%); David Valesky (58.46%), whose district which runs between Rome, Syracuse, and Auburn; Darrel Aubertine of the North Country (49.75%); and Bill Stachowski (56.30%) of Buffalo, and Carl Kruger of Sheepshead Bay, who I don’t think counts for many reasons maybe better saved for a diary on voting patterns in Brooklyn.

Only two Republicans live above this line – both of whom faced stiff challenges in 2008 and nearly fell victim to the Obama tide, Frank Padavan of Bellerose (Obama+26) and James Robach of Greece (Obama+33) (!!…Robach is a former Democrat).

There aren’t too many other surprises on this list, except for maybe that the most Republican district in all of New York is Andrew Lanza’s Staten Island district…

So now you’re asking…what does this mean for redistricting?

Well, a few things moving forward:

• the goal, unlike Congressional redistricting, is no longer solely to squeeze every Democratic district out possible, it’s to get to the magic number for control first.
  

• at a certain point, the weakening effect (on the margin) from creating another Democratic district becomes greater than the effect of that marginal Democrat. (For example, is there really that much of a difference between 43 and 44 Democrats out of 62?) [Sidenote: Yes, in some cases, like marriage equality, it does…but if we had 11 more Dems in the Senate, I’m pretty sure the bill would have passed…]
  

• the NYS GOP pushed the 5% up-or-down rule to the limit. Given the ideal district size of 306,072, districts in the city, on Long Island, and in Westchester have an average population of 311,344; the average population upstate is 298,269!
  

• the GOP gerrymandered well upstate: they conceded two districts in Buffalo and one in Albany, but split Syracuse and Rochester two-ways, and Ithaca three to dilute Democratic votes. This happens on Long Island as well, where the Democratic center of Nassau County in Uniondale and Hempstead are split between Kemp Hannon (who did almost lose), Carl Marcellino, and Dean Skelos.
  

• in a revised upstate (and Long Island) map, we simply need to uncrack these Democrats. This isn’t like congressional redistricting where Republicans need to be cracked so we can preserve our overwhelming advantage; we can concede a few districts without too much trouble. The same holds for Long Island and in the Hudson Valley.
  

• the opposite holds true in the city, where we have a large surplus of Democratic votes that we can dilute the influence of Republican voters.
  

My plan made 43 districts above the safe line. Assuming we can’t knock off Robach and we keep both Stachowski and Kruger, we’d be talking 44 or 45 Democrats. Funny how much tweaking boundaries can change things. Stay tuned for the map itself.\

Update:As Andrew says, maps would be helpful. Here’s the senate as it currently is. I’m working on final maps for my proposed districts.

From the Politico:

“I am flattered by the overtures of Sen. McCain and other Republican Party officials and consider their outreach a sure sign that I have worked in a truly bipartisan manner,” Carney said in a statement.

“I always put my district above political party and have maintained an independent voice. I have enjoyed widespread Republican support throughout my district and will continue to work closely with Democrats, Republicans and independents alike. I appreciate the Republican Party’s outreach, but I have no plans to change parties.”

And as an update to their original piece:

DCCC Chair Chris Van Hollen spoke to Carney Wednesday and received assurance that the Pennsylvanian was not switching, according to a senior Democratic aide.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s aides talked to Carney staffers, as well, and received the same assurance.

Well, that proves one thing: Carney is not the fool that Parker Griffith is.

Election Data Services posted their reapportionment projections yesterday…and there are some big surprises.

Polidata has a good summary

States gaining based upon July 1, 2009 estimates projected to April 1, 2010: AZ +1; FL +1; GA +1; NV +1; SC +1; TX +4; UT +1; WA +1.

States losing based upon July 1, 2009 estimates projected to April 1, 2010: IL (1); IA (1); LA (1); MA (1); MI (1); MN (1); NJ (1); NY (1); OH (2); PA (1).

Thus, changes in seats compared to the previous projections based upon 2008 estimates would be: AZ gains only 1 seat while MO stays even and OR stays even while WA gains 1 seat.

Check it out: Washington would gain a seat; Arizona only gains 1; Oregon doesn’t gain any.

This table is from the EDS PDF.

From the table you can see that Washington jumps to 432nd or 433rd in all the estimates. Also, Missouri, which had been projected to lose a seat would not lose any. Texas is still projected to gain 4 seats, but that 4th seat is much more tenuous.

2010 is going to be very interesting….

First, the good news:

With Griffith’s announcement Tuesday, eyes immediately turned to his home state freshman counterpart, Rep. Bobby Bright.

But Bright told the House Democratic leadership Tuesday night that he planned to stay in the party, according to a senior Democratic aide.

Similarly, Rep. Walt Minnick (D-Idaho), another freshman Blue Dog who would be a prime target, indicated in a statement to POLITICO that he won’t switch.

“I will remain as independent as Idaho, I will not be switching parties, and I will win in November,” Minnick said in the statement.

These are two guys who you’d think might have something to gain by switching — they occupy blood-red districts and surely would have an easier time winning re-election as Republicans, right? Well, say whatever you will about their voting records, but they’re not morons like Parker Griffith. They know full well that they would stand a greater chance of being teabagged to death in a GOP primary than they do of losing a general election as a Democrat. In other words, once you go Dem, there ain’t no goin’ back.

But wait, what the hell is this?

Democratic Rep. Chris Carney received a phone call Wednesday from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) asking him to consider becoming a Republican, a top GOP official told POLITICO.

A spokesman for Carney declined to say if the congressman was considering such a switch.

“No further comment at this time,” said Carney spokesman Josh Drobnyk, who would only confirm that the call took place. […]

But [a House Republican] aide acknowledged that they had gotten “a nibble” from Carney and were now making the pitch that he’d be better off switching parties than running again as a Democrat in a northeastern Pennsylvania seat that President Obama lost by 9 percentage points last year.

Carney would be a damned fool to do this. Perhaps he’s just being coy as a means to foster some kind of cross-ballot appeal, in order to say to his GOP constituents that even DC Republicans think that he’s “their kind of Democrat”. But if Carney thinks that the NRCC could clear a primary field for him, or if he wouldn’t be vulnerable to a generic teabagger in a primary after voting for the stimulus and health care reform, his stupidity is breathtaking.

(H/T: desmoinesdem)

An omnibus of the latest and greatest Parker Griffith news:

• Things got off to a rocky start for freshly-minted turncoat GOP Rep. Parker Griffith when his hometown paper, the Huntsville Times, eviscerated Griffith’s defection as a move made out of self-preservation that will end up hurting his district, which is heavily dependent on government funding for various aerospace and missile defense projects.
• The Times was of course correct in their assessment that Griff’s split would hurt his district — Nancy Pelosi just stripped him of his committee assignments.
• Griffith’s move has also cost him at least some of his staff and political associates: his press secretary called it quits, and all of his DC consultants have severed their ties with him.
• Griffith was also forced to respond to the news that his campaign downloaded voter data from the Alabama Democratic Party just hours before his switch was made official. Griffith has said that they will delete that data. Also, in the run-up to his switch, Griffith conducted internal polling on the general election — but won’t disclose what the results were.
• Republicans must be thrilled to welcome such a staunchly conservative Democrat into their ranks, right? Well, no. Not only are the local teabaggers unsupportive of Griffith, it appears that Republicans higher up the food chain are joining the purity chase, too. State Treasurer Kay Ivey, who is currently running for the GOP gubernatorial nomination, slammed Griff for defecting merely as a “ploy” for self-preservation, and that his enrollment in the Republican ranks is an “insult to every grassroots activist who commits untold hours in devotion to getting candidates elected”. (The irony, of course, is that Ivey herself used to be a Dem.) Was this the warm embrace that you were counting on, Griff? Perhaps calling yourself a “lifelong Democrat” and, in previous campaigns, running on a platform of giving “health care for all of the citizens” isn’t the type of background that the Republican base can accept under any circumstances these days — no matter how much you try to apologize for it.
• And speaking of Republicans who want a piece of Griffith’s hide, here’s a familiar name who may be itching to step up: insurance executive Wayne Parker, who gave Griffith a close shave in 2008, is saying that he’s seriously considering an entry into the Republican primary.
• So who will run for the Democrats? There are a few options — after all, this district has a pretty healthy Democratic bench. For one, there’s Susan Parker, a member of the state’s Public Service Commission and former State Auditor. Parker was actually interested in the race back in 2008, but demurred after Griffith jumped in. (It was a shame to me at the time, and an overwhelming shame now.) The problem is that Parker is up for re-election to the PSC next year — so she would have to choose between a relatively easy re-election campaign and a hard-fought congressional scrap.

  The other choice is a name that any self-respecting SSP fan is thoroughly familiar with: state Commissioner of Agriculture and Industries Ron Sparks, who is currently waging an underdog campaign for Governor against Artur Davis. The DCCC called Sparks, and by the sound of it, he seems pretty interested in the campaign. When a candidate doesn’t swat down rumors that he’s considering race-switching with haste, that’s usually a pretty good sign that they’re giving the matter more than just serious thought.

RaceTracker Wiki: AL-05

According to the Politico:

Democratic Rep. Chris Carney received a phone call Wednesday from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) asking him to consider becoming a Republican, a top GOP official told POLITICO.

A spokesman for Carney declined to say if the congressman was considering such a switch.

“No further comment at this time,” said Carney spokesman Josh Drobnyk, who would only confirm that the call took place.

In a brief interview, McCain declined to offer details about the conversation.

“I just said, ‘Whatever you do, I know that you’ll make the right decision for the country,'” said the Arizonan.

Carney defeated Republican incumbent Don Sherwood in 2006. Pennsylvania’s 10th district has a PVI of R+8.

Meanwhile, Jonathan Martin tweeted today that Walt Minnick (ID-01) and Bobby Bright (AL-02) are not switching.

UPDATE: Forgot to mention that Carney voted for the stimulus bill and the House version of health care reform, so it’s questionable whether he could survive a GOP primary in PA-10. He did vote against the climate change bill.

SECOND UPDATE: Carney says he’s not switching:

“I am flattered by the overtures of Sen. McCain and other Republican Party officials and consider their outreach a sure sign that I have worked in a truly bipartisan manner,” Carney said in a statement.

“I always put my district above political party and have maintained an independent voice. I have enjoyed widespread Republican support throughout my district and will continue to work closely with Democrats, Republicans and independents alike. I appreciate the Republican Party’s outreach, but I have no plans to change parties.”

Public Policy Polling (12/18-21, registered voters, 4/2-3 in parens):

Jack Conway (D): 33 (37)

Trey Grayson (R): 40 (33)

Jack Conway (D): 36

Rand Paul (R): 42

Dan Mongiardo (D): 35 (36)

Trey Grayson (R): 44 (40)

Dan Mongiardo (D): 36

Rand Paul (R): 42

(MoE: ±2.8%)

There are a few takeways from this: First, all of these candidates are fairly unknown and undefined. Conway and Grayson have “Not Sure” numbers of 63% and 64%, respectively, in their favorability scores. The circus act that is Rand Paul, on the other hand, has left more of an impression than either of these statewide-elected officials, with only 51% of the electorate being unfamiliar with him. The best known of this lot, Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo, has less room for growth: only 38% are unfamiliar with him, while his favorables are underwater at 25-37 (Conway, Grayson, and Paul all have close to net neutral favorable ratings). I’m still kind of surprised that Mongiardo stayed in the primary after a string of profanity-laced tirades against Gov. Steve Beshear were released on tape, but the primary head-to-heads released yesterday suggest that he still has shot at the pie.

Next, speaking only for myself, I’m not optimistic about this race if Grayson can squeak through the primary. Now, perhaps the national environment will improve enough to give a guy like Conway an easier shot in such a race, but I’m not going to hold my breath. However, if Paul can ride a wave of his own freaknut base and forge an alliance with the teabag crowd in the GOP primary, I like the general election a lot better. As we’ve mentioned many times in the past, Paul represents a weirder strain of conservatism, one that isn’t exactly a perfect fit for a mainstream Kentucky electorate. It’s possible that a candidate cut from his cloth could get swept into office if the national trends are that bad, but his libertarian views will be vulnerable against a competently-run Democratic campaign in a general election. It should be a very fun race to watch.

You may recall that, back in August, GOP Rep. Pete King made one of the mopiest exits from Senatorial consideration in recent memory, kvetching that Gov. David Paterson’s decision to tap Kirsten Gillibrand instead of Caroline Kennedy to fill Hillary Clinton’s Senate seat robbed him of the opportunity to enter a competitive race. Well, it looks like King, at the urging of Rudy Giuliani, may be having second thoughts:

While Mr. Giuliani mentioned Mr. Pataki and Representative Peter T. King of Long Island as potential challengers to Ms. Gillibrand, those who know Mr. Pataki say the odds of his running are remote. (Efforts to reach Mr. Pataki through a spokesman on Tuesday were unsuccessful.)

Mr. King ruled out a race against Ms. Gillibrand in August, but said in an interview on Tuesday that he would give it a second thought, at the urging of party strategists. A run would mean giving up his House seat and his spot as ranking member of the Homeland Security Committee, and winning would leave him facing re-election in 2012.

Who knows how seriously King is taking this — if he wants to run, he wasted a hell of a lot of fundraising time in dithering for so long while the industrious Gillibrand has been flooding her coffers. The GOP can’t seem to come to terms with letting this race slip away, but they have nothing substantive to show for this race 11 months after Gillibrand’s appointment.

UPDATE: King tells Politico that it’s unlikely that he’ll run, with the chances that he’ll take the plunge on a scale of 1-to-10 being a “three”.

RaceTracker Wiki: NY-Sen-B | NY-03