Swing State Project

Alright, folks. It’s that time. List your predictions for today’s Democratic gubernatorial primary in Virginia in comments. The person with the the smallest aggregate deviation from the correct totals for each candidate just might earn a babka.

The latest and greatest comings and goings in the mad, mad dash to replace outgoing GOP Rep. John McHugh in upstate New York:

• Valesky: Democrats can cross off one name from the list of potential candidates thinking of giving the race a crack: state Sen. David Valesky tells the Syracuse Post-Standard that he won’t run.

• Aubertine: The other state Senator in the mix for the Dems, Darrel Aubertine, is telling reporters that he’s giving consideration to the race. However, with the state Senate in chaos right now, he may be under more pressure than ever to stay put. On the same day that Aubertine expressed his possible interest in the race, state Sen. Diane Savino said that she would “chain his leg to the chair” if necessary.

• Sullivan: Another potential Democratic candidate, John Sullivan, the former head of the state Attorney General’s Watertown office, is going to dip his toes into the water. Sullivan, a Cuomo family ally, also served as the mayor of Oswego in the late ’80s. For the Republicans, attorney Matthew Doheny is also interested.

• Scozzafava: Perhaps the most surprising development in recent days is the chatter that moderate GOP Assemblywoman DeDe Scozzafava, one of the few New York Republicans who has also run on the Working Families Party line, may be considering running for McHugh’s seat as a Democrat.

Scozzafava is known to be interested in the race, but she’s run into trouble with the hard-right rump of her party before; in 2008, the NY GOP rejected her bid to replace outgoing state Sen. Jim Wright in favor of her more conservative colleague, Assemblyman Will Barclay (who went on to be defeated by Aubertine in the special election). If she does seek the GOP nod to replace McHugh, she won’t be getting any support from the state’s Conservative Party — chairman Todd Long says that her support for same-sex marriage is a “non-starter” for his party’s endorsement.

In light of the perceived problems she’d face with her party’s base in a nomination battle, a group of Democrats has created a “Draft DeDe” site and claims to be in contact with her “close allies” to help make it happen. The most interesting thing about all this, though, is Scozzafava’s silence on the matter. Both the National Journal and PolitickerNY have both tried to get Scozzafava to verify if she’s considering a party switch, and both outlets received nothing but radio silence from her camp. If she wasn’t considering such a move, why wouldn’t she swat down the rumors immediately?

No, Denny the Hutt isn’t looking to abort his retirement… but his son, attorney Ethan Hastert, is gearing up to challenge Democratic Rep. Bill Foster for his dad’s old seat. From Roll Call:

Attorney Ethan Hastert (R) has filed to run for his father’s former Congressional seat in 2010. The son of former Speaker Dennis Hastert (R-Ill.) announced Monday that he has opened a campaign committee for his bid in the 14th district, according to a report in the Kane County Chronicle.

The junior Hastert told Roll Call prior to his announcement that he has discussed the bid with his father, who “knows I’m doing it for the right reasons.”

The Hastert name carries some force in the district, so young Ethan will have that on his side. However, the 14th CD — like much of the suburban Chicagoland area — is not the reliable GOP turf as it used to be. Foster won the district twice in 2008 by convincing margins (including a 57% win in November), while the district embraced Obama over McCain by a 55-44 margin. Ethan will have to bring more than just a pretty name to the table… but so far, his lines of attack fail to rise above vapid platitudes:

Ethan Hastert, 31, is the only Republican so far to announce a bid in the western suburban Chicagoland district. He has never run for political office before.

“Generally, what I’ve been hearing is that people are not happy, not satisfied with our current leadership in Washington,” he told the Kane County Chronicle. “Quite frankly, people are ready for the next generation of leadership.”

Good luck with that, Ethan.

Democrats took over control of the New York Senate with the 2008 election after decades of trying, but that flipped back to the GOP today with two defections.

A raucous leadership fight erupted on the floor of the Senate around 3 p.m., with two Democrats, Pedro Espada Jr. of the Bronx and Hiram Monserrate of Queens, joining the 30 Senate Republicans in a motion that would displace Democrats as the party in control.

This makes Dean Skelos the new majority leader by a 32-30 margin, although Espada and Monserrate don’t seem to have officially changed parties. This would seem to be a last-ditch effort to stop gay marriage from clearing the New York Senate, but oddly, the main Democratic obstruction on that front, Sen. Ruben Diaz Jr. Sr., didn’t join the other two dissidents in today’s vote. (H/t Zeitgeist9000.)

As much as this screws up not only the gay marriage push but also the state’s budget, this may have one silver lining: unless there’s going to be some sort of counter-push, Darrell Aubertine isn’t as desperately needed to stay in place, and he can jump into NY-23 with impunity.

UPDATE (David): It looks like gay marriage may have had nothing to do with this:

One person backing the revolt to put Republicans back in charge was Tom Golisano, the Rochester businessman and founder of Responsible New York, a political action committee that gave thousands of dollars to Senate Democrats last year to help them take control of the Senate, but who has become increasingly critical of the party. Mr. Golisano recently announced that he was moving his legal residence to Florida out of anger about the budget deal crafted in April by Democratic leaders in Albany, which included an increase in taxes on high earners.

Mr. Golisano played a role in negotiating original deal under which Mr. Espada and Mr. Monserrate – along with Mr. Díaz and Senator Carl Kruger of Brooklyn – gave their support to Mr. Smith. Steve Pigeon, his aide de camp, has been a frequent presence in Albany in recent weeks, and said Tuesday that Mr. Golisano felt betrayed by Mr. Smith because the Democratic leader had not delivered the overhaul of Senate rules he had promised upon taking power.

“He feels very strongly that he backed Malcolm Smith, and Smith didn’t keep his word, and didn’t make the changes he said he would,” Mr. Pigeon. “What you will see now is power-sharing, real reform.”

LATER UPDATE (David): Senate Dems seem to be saying this is all just a bad dream:

STATEMENT FROM AUSTIN SHAFRAN, PRESS SECRETARY FOR SENATE MAJORITY LEADER MALCOLM A. SMITH

“This was an illegal and unlawful attempt to gain control of the Senate and reverse the will of the people who voted for a Democratic Majority.

Nothing has changed, Senator Malcolm A. Smith remains the duly elected Temporary President and Majority Leader.  The real Senate Majority is anxious to get back to governing, and will take immediate steps to get us back to work.”

ONE MORE UPDATE (David): In a new article, the NYT says that gay marriage had nothing to do with it:

Concern over a failure to adopt new Senate rules, coupled with anger over a tax increase included in the recently passed state budget deal, was said to have led to the switch.

• PA-Sen: Seems like Joe Sestak cleared his Senate run with his family, as now he only has to run it by the Almighty: “It would take an act of God for me to not get in now,” he said on Saturday. Meanwhile, the state’s political establishment, led by Ed Rendell, feted Arlen Specter at the state party’s quarterly meeting on Friday (with Sestak in attendance).

• FL-Sen: From sitting Senator to punchline in a few short years: Bob Smith’s announcement that he’s running for Senate again seemed to generate mostly just shrugs and giggles. Of course, part of the problem is that he’s running in Florida instead of New Hampshire, where he looks to be barely a blip on the radar screen in the titanic Crist/Rubio faceoff. This may benefit Charlie Crist a bit by shaving off some of the die-hard conservative vote from Marco Rubio, but Smith in his announcement didn’t even seem to have any ammunition to use against Rubio, saying only that he offers “strong political leadership” in contrast to Rubio’s “wheeling and dealing.” Meanwhile, Crist got hammered in a St. Petersburg Times editorial for his role in gutting Florida’s growth management act, which damages his environmental credentials for the general.

• NY-Sen-B: Kirsten Gillibrand snagged two more endorsements from her former colleagues in New York’s House delegation: Nydia Velazquez and Ed Towns. Rep. Carolyn Maloney continues to staff up for a potential challenge, though, and words comes that she’s looking to hire Joe Trippi as strategist, and Mark Penn’s polling firm (now there’s an odd combination).

• IN-Sen: Indiana Republicans have located a challenger for Evan Bayh: 32-year-old state Senator Marlin Stutzman. While Stutzman probably doesn’t have Bayh shaking in his boots, it seems like a way for him to grow his statewide profile for future endeavors.

• CA-Gov: Another California governor’s poll bubbled up last week, from Probolsky Research for Capitol Weekly. They look only at the primary fields: former Governor Jerry Brown continues to lead the field at 24, while SF mayor Gavin Newsom is at 16 and LA mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is at 15. On the GOP side, “undecided” is running away with it, with 64%. Among the human candidates, here’s a surprise: moderate ex-Rep. Tom Campbell leads at 13, leading the two more-highly-touted and richer candidates, ex-eBay CEO Meg Whitman (10) and Insurance Comm. Steve Poizner (8).

• IA-03: Rep. Leonard Boswell may face a rematch with the guy he barely beat in the 1996 open seat race to take office: former state GOP chair Michael Mahaffey. IA-03 is a very different configuration now, though; it used to be a mostly rural district then, but now is centered on Des Moines (although Boswell still manages to find ways to get elected by narrow margins).

• TX-23: Rep. Ciro Rodriguez may face a primary challenge in 2010, from lawyer and Iraq vet Miguel Ortiz. Rodriguez and Ortiz are both from San Antonio, so Ortiz doesn’t have the advantage of a geographical hook.

• FL-AG: State Senator (and former U.S. Senate candidate) Dan Gelber confirmed that he’s running for Attorney General (against friend and fellow Senator Dave Aronberg). Gelber had also been considered for Lt. Gov., seemingly leaving Dems back at square one to fill that slot.

• FL-16: Speaking of Aronberg, with him out, St. Lucie County Commissioner Chris Craft seems to be DCCC’s person of interest to take on freshman Rep. Tom Rooney. They’ve also talked to Craft’s fellow Commissioner, Doug Coward.

• VA-Legislature: Here’s another interesting look at our best chances of taking control of the Virginia House of Delegates in 2009, this time from our own diaries courtesy of Johnny Longtorso.

Former Iowa GOP chairman Mike Mahaffey told CQ Politics that he is thinking about running against Representative Leonard Boswell in Iowa’s third Congressional district next year. (Hat tip to WHO-TV’s Dave Price.) Boswell barely defeated Mahaffey in his first bid for Congress in 1996.

CQ Politics highlights a big obstacle for Mahaffey if he runs:

A Boswell-Mahaffey rematch after a 14-year hiatus would also take place on quite different turf from their first race. The 3rd District in 1996 was located mainly in southern Iowa and was heavily rural; Boswell was aided in that race by the fact that he had spent his life outside of politics in farming. But redistricting, performed in a non-partisan procedure in Iowa, move the district’s boundaries north and east to take in the state capital of Des Moines, to which Boswell relocated from his rural hometown.

It will take a lot to convince me that Mahaffey, a small-town lawyer and part-time Poweshiek County attorney, poses a serious threat to Boswell in a district dominated by Polk County. So far IA-03 doesn’t seem to be on anyone’s list of competitive U.S. House districts, even though the DCCC still has Boswell in the Frontline program.

You can count Heath Shuler out of the race to beat GOP Sen. Richard Burr in 2010:

U.S. Rep. Heath Shuler shot down speculation today that he is still pondering a run for Senate.

“I am not running for Senate,” the second-term Democrat said after a ground-breaking ceremony for a new building at the Bent Creek Experimental Forest Station in Asheville. “I am not running for Senate. I am not running for Senate. I have said that a thousand times, and I don’t know why they keep coming up (with the idea). Of course they keep coming up and running polls.”

Dems still have quite a few options to choose from to make a race of this, but if they’re looking to NC’s House delegation to land a recruit, Mike McIntyre is the only option who’s still giving the race serious consideration.

Sorry, open seat fans:

Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.) has decided not to run for Senate in 2010, according to an announcement from her campaign. Schakowsky said Monday that she will run for re-election in her northern Chicago district instead of competing for the seat currently held by Sen. Rolland Burris (D-Ill.).

With Schakowsky now out of the picture, we can turn our eyes to Illinois AG Lisa Madigan, who is keeping her options open for 2010. While the nomination would be hers for the taking, somehow I’d still be surprised if she decided to pursue the opportunity.

UPDATE (David): I would like to commend Schakowsky for keeping her word on this announcement. Back in April, she said she’d decide by June 8th, and lo and behold, she has. This is in contrast to Mark Kirk, who also set a self-imposed deadline and then proceeded to ignore it.

SurveyUSA (6/5-7, likely voters, 5/31-6/2 in parens):

Terry McAuliffe (D): 30 (35)

Brian Moran (D): 21 (26)

Creigh Deeds (D): 42 (29)

Other/Undecided: 7 (11)

(MoE: ±4.3%)

Looking good for Deeds. General election match-ups (registered voters):

Creigh Deeds (D): 43 (43)

Bob McDonnell (R): 47 (44)

Terry McAuliffe (D): 41 (40)

Bob McDonnell (R): 48 (47)

Brian Moran (D): 38 (37)

Bob McDonnell (R): 49 (48)

(MoE: ±2.4%)

If South Carolina does gain a district, as projected, it will be possible to make that new district a second majority African American one.

Here’s one such map that does this:



(Full Resolution)

Charleston:

Columbia:

The racial demographics of the two districts are:

District 6 (Charleston based):

Black: 341,718 (53.4%)

White: 263,579 (41.2%)

Other (inc. Hispanic): 34,797 (5.4%)

District 7 (Columbia based):

Black: 357,623 (55.9%)

White: 242,185 (37.9%)

Other: 39,613 (6.2%)

Even if the DOJ doesn’t mandate the creation of new African American district, the Republican controlled legislature may want to create one anyway, since it would shore up the 1st and 2nd districts, both of which had strong challenges last year, and take some Black voters out of the 5th, which would go from 32 to 25 percent Black, though it would remain unlikely that they will be competitive there until Spratt retires.