Swing State Project

I’ve found the overarching tradmed coverage of the New York State Senate debacle to be depressingly uninformative – no one really seems to know what’s going on. But there have been a few developments that bear noting. First off, a state judge refused to grant Dem Sen. Malcolm Smith’s request for an injunction to stop the GOP from conducting Senate business, saying he lacked the authority to do so. The GOP + Pedro Espada + Hiram Monserrate proceeded to conduct a brief, do-nothing session, which more or less came to an end when Monserrate walked out after giving a speech, denying the Skelos-Espada faction a quorum to do anything further.

Monserrate’s behavior has been unusual – under considerable pressure, he’s been playing footsie with his Democratic frenemies, making it seem like he’s not totally committed to the coup. He better decide soon, though, because of couple of folks are already starting to sound a bit like potential primary challengers: Assemblyman Jose Peralta and NYC Councilwoman Julissa Ferraras, his former CoS. Meanwhile, the chief advocate of gay marriage in the state, Thomas Duane, briefly considered switching sides as well – Espada said he’d like to see Duane’s marriage equality bill come to the floor. But later reports have said he’s staying put.

Undoubtedly there will be much more to come in the days ahead.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (6/8-10, likely voters, no trendlines):

Jim Doyle (D-inc): 48

Scott Walker (R): 36

Undecided: 16

Jim Doyle (D-inc): 49

Mark Neumann (R): 35

Undecided: 16

Jim Doyle (D-inc): 45

Tommy Thompson (R): 47

Undecided: 8

(MoE: ±4%)

Incumbent Gov. Jim Doyle has an unlovely 43-48 approval rating, yet he’s still close to the 50% mark against his likeliest opponents, Milwaukee Co. Executive Scott Walker and former WI-01 Rep. Mark Neumann. Half the sample has no opinion of Walker, while a third doesn’t know Neumann, but interestingly, they pull identical numbers. (The only other poll of this race, by the Republican firm POS, showed similar nums for Doyle but had both GOPers in the low 40s.)

Meanwhile, former Gov. Tommy Thompson remains pretty popular (54-36), but only holds Doyle to a dead heat. Perhaps Obama’s 14-point thumping of John McCain is a signal that Wisconsin’s politics have changed – or maybe voters are just tired of Tommy, who was elected to an unprecedented four terms and then, after an ineffectual stint in the Bush cabinet, made a fool of himself with an embarrassing presidential run.

My gut is that the 67-year-old Thompson, who has been toying with a run, won’t get in. Thing is, Doyle (who’s already served two terms) might bow out as well. So R2K also tested his most likely replacement, Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton:

Barbara Lawton (D): 44

Scott Walker (R): 35

Undecided: 21

Barbara Lawton (D): 43

Mark Neumann (R): 35

Undecided: 22

Barbara Lawton (D): 44

Tommy Thompson (R): 46

Undecided: 10

Lawton, who holds a 35-17 favorability rating, fares quite well. Indeed, her numbers are almost identical to Walker’s 33-16 favorables. The fact that she starts off with a natural nine-point advantage does suggest that something fundamental may indeed have changed in Wisconsin. (If so, thanks, Republicans!)

R2K also took a look at the Senate race, where Russ Feingold is up for re-election. While Feingold often makes things a lot more interesting than they have to be (he’s never won with more than 55% of the vote), he looks to be in command at this point:

Russ Feingold (D-inc): 53

Paul Ryan (R): 32

Undecided: 15

Russ Feingold (D-inc): 52

Mark Green: 34

Undecided: 14

Rep. Paul Ryan (WI-01), something of a GOP rising star, has more or less ruled out a run against Feingold. And former Rep. Mark Green, who lost the 2006 gov race against Doyle, is working for an anti-malaria non-profit in DC, following up on his stint as US ambassador to Tanzania. He says he’s not “seeking out” any return to elective office at this time.

And therein lies the real story for Russ Feingold: the Republican cupboard in Wisconsin is pretty bare. Feingold may get very lucky indeed next year. With a solid lead in the polls and no serious opponents in site, the Swing State Project is moving its rating for this race from Likely Democrat to Safe Democrat.

RaceTracker: WI-Gov | WI-Sen

Last cycle, the Swing State Project kicked off what seemed at the time to be an ambitious project: creating a community-powered wiki to track the various comings and goings of incumbents and candidates for 2008’s congressional and gubernatorial elections. The wiki we produced turned out to be a great success thanks to the contributions by members of the SSP community and other blogs around the ‘net (especially Daily Kos). As the cycle progressed, it became clear that there was no greater resource for candidate tracking than the 2008 Race Tracker wiki.

After a few months of hard work, I’m very pleased to announce that the RaceTracker project is making a return for the 2010 cycle — but this time it’s bigger, badder, and better than ever. Thanks to the generosity and technical support of the Sunlight Foundation’s OpenCongress.org team, the RaceTracker project has a new home, a new look, and a big upgrade in terms of its functionality and user friendliness.

Over at OpenCongress, Conor has more:

RaceTracker is the next-generation version of the SwingStateProject’s 2008 RaceTracker and Congresspedia’s WikiTheVote project. We’re taking a cue from Joe Friday and keeping it a “just the facts” operation so its non-partisan nature is clear, regardless of the partisan motivations a participant might have in watching any particular race. Besides, we’re practicing transparency at home by requiring each piece of information to be referenced to an outside source, so there’s no need to take the word of “some guy on the Internet;” anyone can join the wiki community in checking the facts of each submission.

RaceTracker will be your one-stop source for information on all 435 House races, every Senate seat, and every gubernatorial contest in the country. We’ve already filled in the basics for each race (see IL-Sen Class III and CO-04 for good examples), but it’s up to you to keep everything up to date (and, judging by how well the RaceTracker performed last cycle, I know you guys are more than up to the challenge).

So please, go over to the new and improved RaceTracker wiki now, sign up for an account, and get busy adding what you know to our master database. After you’ve signed up for an account, click on the Edit With Form tab on each race page for the smoothest editing experience. More information on how to participate is available here. The new RaceTracker wiki also now has a permanent home on our sidebar under our “Resources” column.

Let us know what you think!

• CT-Sen: I guess I wasn’t dreaming when I thought I heard economist and talking head Peter Schiff say he was still looking into the GOP primary for the Connecticut Senate race Tuesday night on the Daily Show… apparently he’s making a full-court press all week gauging his support for a run. Schiff is a favorite of the Paulist wing of the party, and true to anarcho-libertarian form, he shrugs off the fact that he can’t remember the last time he voted.

• FL-Sen: The Club for Growth doesn’t get involved in Senate primaries very often (RI in 2006 and NM in 2008 being the exceptions), but the fact that Marco Rubio met this week with the CfG and they admitted to being “impressed” suggests that they might get involved here. The CfG may still be reluctant to get involved, though, simply given the unlikely return on their investment with the long odds Rubio faces against Charlie Crist.

• NY-Sen-B: Writer Jonathan Tasini, who got 17% in a challenge from the left to Hillary Clinton in the 2006 Senate primary, announced that he’s going to run against Kirsten Gillibrand in the 2010 primary. It’s still as unclear as ever if Rep. Carolyn Maloney will officially join Tasini in the hunt (and Tasini getting in may make it more difficult for her, seeing as how Tasini would eat into her share of the purer-than-thou vote), but Maloney seems to be testing out various attack lines against Gillibrand in a prerecorded interview with NY1 that will air tonight. Meanwhile, Gillibrand got another prominent endorsement today, although this one may help her more in the general than with the liberal base: former NYC mayor Ed Koch.

• UT-Sen: Somehow Bob Bennett has become flypaper for wingnuts lately. He’s pulled down his fourth primary challenger, businessman and conservative activist James Williams.

• NJ-Gov: The Philadelphia Inquirer looks at a new conundrum for both Jon Corzine and Chris Christie: picking running mates. (This is the first New Jersey gubernatorial election since the creation of the Lt. Gov. position, a need made apparent by the resignations of both Christie Todd Whitman and Jim McGreevey.) This looks like an exercise in ticket-balancing, both in terms of gender and geography. State Senator Diane Allen from the Philly burbs in Burlington Co. (who declined the chance to run in NJ-03) may have the inside track for the GOP nod, although (paging open seat fans) one other name that gets a mention is NJ-02’s Rep. Frank LoBiondo.

• OK-Gov: No surprise here, but AG Drew Edmondson today officially launched his exploratory campaign for the Democratic nomination for governor. Edmondson faces Lt. Gov. Jari Askins in the primary, giving the Dems two strong candidates facing a steep climb uphill against Oklahoma’s ever-darker shade of red.

• DE-AL: Rep. Mike Castle said today that he won’t seek the newly-open position of ranking member on the Education and Labor Committee, saying he wanted GOP stability on the panel. While this doesn’t help us know whether he’s planning to run for the Senate or retire, it does send a pretty clear signal the 69-year-old Castle isn’t staying in the House.

• FL-24: This race is barely a couple days old, and already it’s one of the most heated in the nation. Once Winter Park City Commissioner Karen Diebel announced her run, some local Democrats (although not the Kosmas camp) began pointing to a 2007 Orlando Sentinel article discussing some of her odd actions and outbursts. That brought on a counterattack from state GOP chair Jim Greer, who attacked freshman Rep. Suzanne Kosmas directly for gutter politicking.

• NV-03: The NRCC hasn’t had much luck on the recruiting front in this D+2 district in the Las Vegas suburbs to take on freshman Rep. Dina Titus. Local banking executive John Guedry looks willing to step up to the plate, though, saying he’s “seriously considering” it. Other possible GOPers include former Clark County GOP chair Brian Scroggins and former state Controller Steve Martin.

• SC-01: With Linda Ketner turning down the rematch against Rep. Henry Brown, all eyes have turned to state Rep. Leon Stavrinakis as a potential Dem nominee. He said he’ll make a decision “sometime in July.”

• TN-09: Rep. Steve Cohen is getting fundraising help from an interesting source, and still one of the most powerful forces in Memphis politics: former Rep. Harold Ford Sr. At first this seems odd, since Ford campaigned against Cohen and in support of his son, Jake Ford, in the 2006 general election (where Ford was running as an independent). However, Ford Sr. is a long-time foe of Cohen’s 2010 primary opponent, Memphis mayor Willie Herenton, so that would tend to explain it all.

Rasmussen (6/10, likely voters, 4/15 in parens):

Creigh Deeds (D): 47 (30)

Bob McDonnell (R): 41 (45)

Some other candidate: 2 (5)

Not sure: 10 (20)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

That was fast! Hot off his surprisingly strong victory in Tuesday’s Democratic primary, state Senator Creigh Deeds seems to have gotten quite a post-primary bounce, pulling into a 6-point lead against AG Bob McDonnell. This is the first poll I can find where Deeds led McDonnell in a head-to-head matchup (although if you go back to December, Rasmussen found them tied at 39 apiece), and a huge improvement from the 45-30 gap in April… not coincidentally at a time in the primary when Deeds seemed to be lagging, tortoise-like, and Terry McAuliffe was sprinting ahead, hare-like.

The question is how long this will last. Obviously, there’s a lot of media visibility for Deeds right now and good buzz as well (as seen in his 59/27 favorables), thanks to his dominant statewide performance and also thanks to T-Mac’s quick and effusive endorsement. This may settle back into a tied race during the summer doldrums… or, given that Deeds seems to have already made strong inroads among NoVa voters even while doing what he was expected to do (put the rural parts of the state into play), maybe this will be the new normal. (Discussion already underway in DCCyclone‘s diary, which also contains a little more information about the crosstabs.)

I thought even before the primary that a Deeds win would get us a nice post-primary bump in general election trial heat polling, and that bump is happening a little faster than I imagined!  More below the jump.

Rasmussen has Deeds up 47-41 on the strength of Democratic unity.  McDonnell has the edge among independents, but only with a 43-36 plurality as but 16% of them are undecided.  Only 4% of Dems are undecided with Deeds picking up 89%, and Repugs have 11% undecided with 9% going to Deeds.

Another key demographic is that Deeds trails 49-36 among white voters with 12% undecided and 3% saying they’ll vote for “some other candidate,” although almost all of that 3% will end up choosing between the 2 so that the true undecided whites are 15%.  In Virginia about 40% of the white vote means a Democratic victory in a Governor’s race, so Deeds sitting at 36% with another 15% still persuadable puts him in a great position for victory.

Yes, yes, it’s early, and anything can happen, so this poll isn’t to be relied on too strongly……I’m a campaigns junkie and I know all that.

But the fact is this poll does mean something, that this race is winnable, and McDonnell no longer can be called “the frontrunner” as he was legitimately called in the pre-primary stretch.

It’s a toss-up at worst for us.

I voted for Deeds in the primary thinking he was the only one of the 3 who could beat McDonnell, and today that seems more true than ever.

Creigh’s top responsibilities for the next few weeks need to be fundraising and outreach to minority voters, especially blacks but also Hispanics and Asians.  I hope he raises the cash he needs this time, as he failed to do 4 years ago vs. McDonnell in the A.G. race.

The consensus is Nevada will have 4 congressional districts after 2010. Here is what it may look like:

Las Vegas area:

A VRA-Hispanic district in Nevada would have been unthinkable 20 years ago but it looks likely in 2010. The fastest-growing demographic in America will almost certainly reach 50% of the 1st district in time for the 2010 census. (hence the title)

The 3rd district, despite its appearance, is mostly an urban-suburban district surrounding Las Vegas. 87% of its population is in Clark County. Most of the existing 3rd district (the propeller, represented by Dina Titus) is in the proposed 3rd district.



The propeller does lose some of its inner parts, possibly its most liberal parts, to the new 2nd district. But by then Dina Titus will have had 4 years to become popular and entrenched, and the Las Vegas region will have had 4 years to become even more liberal. Dina Titus, or whoever represents this district, will have to make some occasional obligatory appearances in the far-flung parts of this district.

Why Chruchill County? Because it had the right number of people. It was the only way to get population equality without dividing any northern counties. Churchill looks like it belongs in the 4th district. In order to do that I could either put part of Elko in the 3rd, or put all of Elko in the 3rd and part of Nye in the 4th.

Any information about what features are in what district (casinos, brothels, Yucca Mountain, Area 51, etc) is welcome in the comments.

So I’m going to Bonnaroo tomorrow and I found this gem on a Bonnaroo forum.

From: Carl Mumpower, Asheville City Council

To: Gary Jackson, Asheville City Manager

Subject: Observations of Phish Concert as Asheville Civic Center

Mr. Jackson,

I just left the Phish Concert at the Civic Center and wanted to share my experience there.

…

Tonight, Asheville’s Civic Center smelled more like City Hall than an Amsterdam hash house.

Many thanks,

Carl Mumpower

Asheville City Council

Here’s the complete letter he wrote. I’m guessing “No No Word” means pot.

http://bonnaroo.proboards.com/…

Public Policy Polling:

Artur Davis (D): 35

Bradley Byrne (R): 39

Artur Davis (D): 39

Kay Ivey (R): 31

Artur Davis (D): 37

Tim James (R): 35

Artur Davis (D): 41

Roy Moore (R): 38

Ron Sparks (D): 27

Bradley Byrne (R): 41

Ron Sparks (D): 33

Kay Ivey (R): 29

Ron Sparks (D): 32

Tim James (R): 32

Ron Sparks (D): 36

Roy Moore (R): 38

(MoE: ±3.8%)

Artur Davis begins the 2010 gubernatorial race with some impressive numbers, especially compared to state Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks. Tom Jensen offers an explanation:

There’s not much doubt the black vote is the reason Davis is polling so much better than Sparks. For instance, against Byrne, Davis holds a 58-point lead with that demographic, 68-10. But Sparks has just an 18 point advantage at 38-20. Sparks actually gets slightly more support from white voters than Davis in all of the possible matches.

It raises the question, then: do these numbers represent something close to a high-water mark for Davis in a general election? While Davis has consolidated a good deal of support from the African-American community already, most of the remaining undecided voters are whites — a notoriously difficult voting bloc for any Democrat in Alabama to crack.