Swing State Project

This isnt of much consequence from a strictly strategic political perspective, but is a story I felt compelled to share with the SSP community.

An African-American, James Young, was elected Mayor (on Tuesday, I imagine) of Philadelphia, MS.  

Whats remarkable about this election was not only did he beat out a 3-term white incumbent Mayor or that he did it in a city that has a 55% white population in the Deep South, but that he did it in Philadelphia – the city where 3 civil rights workers were killed, a brutal, horrific incident that inspired the movie “Mississippi Burning” (An absolute must watch for those who have not seen it).

Even after electing an African-American POTUS just 7.5 months ago, I still cannot help being moved and impressed by this story.  I hope everyone will take a few minutes to click on the link, read the story and watch the video of CNN speaking to James Young.  Truly inspiring (my apologies for all the editorializing).  

ADDITION (not in original posting): Oh yeah and he won by 46 votes in a city of 8,000 people (dont know how many votes were cast unfortunately).

http://www.cnn.com/2009/US/05/…

There’s been a flurry of polling of the Oklahoma Governor’s race lately, showing former Representative (and CFL great) J.C. Watts beating the Democrats in the general, and at least competitive with retiring Rep. (and former Lt. Gov.) Mary Fallin in the GOP primary. Well, today, Watts made clear that he wouldn’t be running in 2010.

“I have observed with great interest and pride the progress my state is making under the bold and innovative leadership of the state legislature. Nothing would give me greater joy and satisfaction than to go work with these leaders to grow and prosper Oklahoma,” Watts said in a statement. “However, my current business and contractual obligations create hurdles that I cannot overcome at this time.”

Watts had recently made statements that left him sounding skeptical about being able to raise the funds, but this is still a bit surprising in view of solid polls. This leaves Fallin an easier path to the nomination. She isn’t unopposed, though; state Sen. Randy Brogdon is in the race, and will be the really, really conservative in the primary, as opposed to Fallin’s merely really conservative.

And there’s one last wild card… Sen. Tom Coburn, who has sounded non-commital about running for another Senate term and has occasionally been the subject of gubernatorial speculation; Coburn will reportedly announce his plans on June 1. The Dems, for their part, face a contested primary between Lt. Gov. Jari Askins and AG Drew Edmondson.  

• PA-Sen: Democratic internal pollsters Garin-Hart-Yang, at the behest of the DSCC, took a look at the possible Pennsylvania Senate primary between Arlen Specter and Rep. Joe Sestak. There’s no information about the dates or the MoE, but it shows Specter beating Sestak 56-16 (with 16% undecided), not much different from R2K‘s 56-11 a few weeks ago. This falls against a backdrop of coalescing conventional wisdom that Specter has, after a rocky first week, settled down into reliable Dem-ness (although Campaign Diairies offers an effective rebuttal of that idea).

• The Corrections: Two things have already changed since yesterday’s digest: Suzanne Haik Terrell, suddenly rumored to be ready to primary David Vitter, backed down and endorsed Vitter. And in California, Dianne Feinstein walked back comments about running for Governor, saying it’s “very unlikely” and that she’s tired of being asked about it.

• Senate: PPP put together a handy scorecard of all the approval ratings for Senators they’ve polled so far this year. Amy Klobuchar is tops, at 62/25, followed by Tom Coburn and Kay Bailey Hutchison. The bottom 3? Jim Bunning, Mel Martinez, and Roland Burris (at 17/62). The only other Dems in net-negative territory are the Colorado 2, Mark Udall and Michael Bennet (and that’s from that widely-poo-pooed Colorado sample).

• FL-Sen: Rep. Kendrick Meek just got two endorsements as he and state Sen. Dan Gelber battle for supremacy in their shared south Florida stomping grounds: Broward County Mayor Stacey Ritter and West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel. (Of course, Gelber may shortly be in the AG’s race instead, so this all may be moot.)

• FL-16: Speaking of the Florida AG’s race, the DCCC has a top contender in mind for the 16th: state Sen. Dave Aronberg (who instead seems likely to square off with Gelber, and 2006 gov candidate Rod Smith, in the AG’s race). Aronberg’s seat is up in 2012, and wouldn’t have to give up his Senate seat to go for FL-16, although state law would require him to give it up to run for statewide office. The DCCC is talking to St. Lucie County Commissioner Chris Craft as a backup plan.

• MS-01: Nobody’s exactly sure what “national pundits” the rumors came from, but Rep. Travis Childers quickly quashed suggestions in a recent interview that he might jump to the GOP (and the deep minority) to have an easier go in the 2010 election. (What is this, the 90s?) “Absolutely not,” he said. “I’m a Southern Democrat – I vote what’s best for Mississippi.”

I’ve been saving the changes in registration differences in the competitive districts that I track in my regular registration number updates. Here I will show the changes in registration going from the last numbers before the 2008 election to the latest numbers released a few days ago. Here they are in tabulated form. And for the congressional districts, in addition to the 8 Obama-Republican districts, I tossed in CA-04, because the House race there was very close in spite of the considerable Republican advantage in registration and the presidential race, and CA-46, the district of McCain’s closest win of the 11 McCain districts and the only one that he won with less than 50%.

Cross-posted at Calitics.

Numbers are over the flip.

CONGRESSIONAL DISTRICTS

District	10-08 DIFF	02-09 DIFF	03-09 DIFF	05-09 DIFF
CA-03	R+2.19%	R+1.93%	R+1.91%	R+1.85%
CA-04	R+14.88%	R+14.68%	R+14.64%	R+14.69%
CA-24	R+6.40%	R+6.13%	R+6.04%	R+5.99%
CA-25	R+2.37%	R+1.68%	R+1.63%	R+1.52%
CA-26	R+5.57%	R+4.96%	R+4.92%	R+4.83%
CA-44	R+8.25%	R+7.52%	R+7.68%	R+7.77%
CA-45	R+4.60%	R+3.98%	R+3.99%	R+4.27%
CA-46	R+12.16%	R+11.79%	R+11.57%	R+11.47%
CA-48	R+16.12%	R+15.78%	R+15.46%	R+15.37%
CA-50	R+9.20%	R+8.90%	R+8.98%	R+8.87%

STATE SENATE DISTRICTS

District	10-08 DIFF	02-09 DIFF	03-09 DIFF	05-09 DIFF
SD-04	R+11.11%	R+11.05%	R+11.05%	R+11.10%
SD-12	D+13.92%	D+14.32%	D+14.37%	D+14.66%
SD-16	D+16.21%	D+16.53%	D+16.46%	D+16.49%
SD-18	R+16.01%	R+15.70%	R+15.67%	R+15.74%
SD-22	D+43.91%	D+44.21%	D+44.24%	D+44.35%
SD-24	D+31.96%	D+32.46%	D+32.39%	D+32.59%
SD-34	D+8.18%	D+8.63%	D+9.24%	D+9.39%
SD-36	R+17.49%	R+17.11%	R+17.19%	R+17.12%
SD-40	D+16.13%	D+16.84%	D+16.94%	D+17.07%

STATE ASSEMBLY DISTRICTS

District	10-08 DIFF	02-09 DIFF	03-09 DIFF	05-09 DIFF
AD-03	R+5.44%	R+5.37%	R+5.34%	R+5.45%
AD-05	R+1.23%	R+0.89%	R+0.87%	R+0.87%
AD-07	D+28.72%	D+29.11%	D+29.09%	D+29.09%
AD-09	D+37.61%	D+37.89%	D+37.93%	D+37.99%
AD-10	R+0.43%	R+0.11%	R+0.07%	D+0.01%
AD-15	D+3.96%	D+4.45%	D+4.51%	D+4.57%
AD-20	D+28.16%	D+28.43%	D+28.48%	D+28.44%
AD-21	D+20.26%	D+20.32%	D+20.39%	D+20.52%
AD-23	D+32.24%	D+32.39%	D+32.32%	D+32.29%
AD-25	R+5.51%	R+5.48%	R+5.46%	R+5.51%
AD-26	D+2.31%	D+2.76%	D+2.82%	D+2.83%
AD-30	D+9.81%	D+9.89%	D+9.65%	D+9.69%
AD-31	D+14.62%	D+15.12%	D+15.23%	D+15.30%
AD-33	R+4.81%	R+4.83%	R+4.86%	R+4.77%
AD-35	D+19.86%	D+20.26%	D+20.29%	D+20.34%
AD-36	R+0.05%	D+0.83%	D+0.91%	D+1.18%
AD-37	R+5.95%	R+5.62%	R+5.54%	R+5.47%
AD-38	R+3.76%	R+3.21%	R+3.18%	R+3.06%
AD-47	D+53.60%	D+53.67%	D+53.66%	D+53.67%
AD-50	D+45.03%	D+45.68%	D+45.71%	D+45.87%
AD-63	R+3.11%	R+2.59%	R+2.45%	R+2.37%
AD-64	R+5.98%	R+5.35%	R+5.72%	R+6.03%
AD-65	R+4.54%	R+3.92%	R+3.94%	R+4.82%
AD-68	R+9.27%	R+8.89%	R+8.43%	R+8.36%
AD-70	R+13.94%	R+13.61%	R+13.30%	R+13.16%
AD-74	R+11.11%	R+10.74%	R+10.79%	R+10.65%
AD-75	R+9.23%	R+9.07%	R+9.17%	R+9.08%
AD-76	D+14.91%	D+15.16%	D+15.07%	D+15.09%
AD-78	D+10.97%	D+11.50%	D+11.55%	D+11.62%
AD-80	D+7.82%	D+8.63%	D+8.84%	D+9.09%

SurveyUSA (5/18-19, registered voters):

Tim Pawlenty (R-inc): 51

Matt Entenza (D): 37

Tim Pawlenty (R-inc): 52

Tom Bakk (D): 34

Tim Pawlenty (R-inc): 51

John Marty (D): 34

Tim Pawlenty (R-inc): 50

Susan Gaertner (D): 36

Tim Pawlenty (R-inc): 47

Mark Dayton (D): 43

Tim Pawlenty (R-inc): 51

Paul Thissen (D): 32

Tim Pawlenty (R-inc): 47

R.T. Rybak (D): 42

Tim Pawlenty (R-inc): 48

Chris Coleman (D): 37

Tim Pawlenty (R-inc): 51

Margaret Anderson Kelliher (D): 34

(MoE: ±4.3%)

And because you can’t tell the players without a scorecard (unless you’re a Minnesota political junkie)…

Paul Thissen, a Minneapolis-area state representative

Tom Bakk, a state senator representing parts of northeast Minnesota

John Marty, a state senator from Roseville

Margaret Anderson Kelliher, Speaker of the Minnesota House of Representatives

Susan Gaertner, County Attorney for Ramsey County

Matt Entenza, former Minnesota State House Democratic Leader and 2006 candidate for Attorney General

Chris Coleman, mayor of St. Paul

R. T. Rybak, mayor of Minneapolis

Mark Dayton, former U.S. Senator

Of course, the field is still very fluid here; it’s unlikely that all of the above names will strap on a pair and jump into the roller derby, and we can’t even be sure that T-Paw himself will run for a third term.

In the diaries, Populista offers a local take on the above numbers. It’s worth a look.

Another day, another hundred thousand dollahs. Here are the April fundraising reports for the six major party committees (March numbers are here):

Still on tap: a joint DSCC/DCCC fundraiser headlined by Barack Obama in June.

With Rep. Kendrick Meek vacating his seat for the unenviable task of running against Charlie Crist for the open Senate seat in Florida, that leaves a vacancy in this D+34 seat (the 13th most Democratic in the nation) based in the mostly-African-American suburbs to the immediate north of Miami. Like most vacancies in such dark-blue districts, it’s attracting a crowded and diverse field in the Democratic primary.

The vacancy may produce a first: the first Haitian-American Congressperson. (Creole-speaking Haitians have a different set of concerns from non-Haitian African-Americans, with a focus on immigration.) It’s the district with the nation’s largest Haitian population (at least 16%, according to most recent Census estimates), and it’s a community that Meek pays close attention to.

Three of the most prominent candidates already in the race are from the Haitian community: former state Rep. Phillip Brutus (the first Haitian-American elected to the state legislature), state Rep. Yolly Roberson, and activist Marleine Bastien. However, there may be several stumbling blocks preventing a Haitian candidate from winning: first, three candidates may split the Haitian vote, letting someone else win, and second, Brutus and Roberson are divorced from each other and are now bitter rivals, for whom the battle is seemingly personal.

With the Haitian vote split, odds would instead favor one of the non-Haitian African-American candidates. Shirley Gibson, the mayor of Miami Gardens (the largest city in the district with about 100,000 residents, although one that didn’t exist until a few years ago, cobbled together out of unincorporated Carol City and its environs) just announced her candidacy on Tuesday, while state Sen. Frederica Wilson has been in the race since February.

There’s one reason this race should be of particular interest to the netroots — as I observed several weeks ago, New Dem Kendrick Meek is one of the biggest ideological mismatches with his district in the entire House, compiling the 126th most liberal record last Congress. In the quest for “Better Dems,” he’s doing us a big favor by getting out of the way without the time and expense of a primary fight (of course, his moderation, like that of Artur Davis, was probably in large measure due to his eagerness to move to statewide office — understandable, but not something we have to thank him for, either).

And now, like the vacancy in AL-07 and the functional equivalent of a vacancy in LA-02, we have a free shot at electing a progressive to a dark blue seat previously held by a centrist… something the netroots needs to get on top of. There’s only one problem… I really don’t know much of anything else about any of these candidates, and the information out there is pretty inconclusive. So, I’m turning this over as a crowdsourcing question to any SSPers who know more about this district than I do: what else do we know about these candidates, especially where they might fall ideologically?

• LA-Sen: David Vitter may get a serious primary challenger after all (Family Research Council honcho Tony Perkins and ex-Rep. John Cooksey have declined, and SoS Jay Dardenne has been laying low). It’s someone we haven’t seen in a while, though: former state Elections commissioner Suzanne Haik Terrell, who let her interest be known last week. Terrell’s last appearance in the spotlight was the 2002 Senate race, where she lost narrowly to Mary Landrieu. Terrell is the only Republican woman to have ever held office in Louisiana.

• NY-Sen-B: Like a giant game of Whack-a-mole, Kirsten Gillibrand jammed a couple potential primary challengers back into their holes last week, but now a new one popped up: Rep. Jose Serrano. The Bronx-based Serrano might be able to make a lot of hay out of the immigration issue, but he may not have the cash to make a race of it (although as an Appropriations cardinal, he’s well-connected). Meanwhile, Gillibrand nailed down endorsements from three other Reps. — John Hall, Mike Arcuri, and Scott Murphy — as well as Nassau County Dem party chair Jay Jacobs (important because he has a lot of sway over Rep. Carolyn McCarthy).

• PA-Sen: Roll Call tried to pin down the Democratic House members from Pennsylvania on whether or not they’d endorse Arlen Specter in a potential Democratic primary with Rep. Joe Sestak. Interestingly, PA’s most liberal Dem, Chaka Fattah, was probably the most enthusiastic and unconditional endorser of Specter, while its most conservative Dem, Jason Altmire, was most reluctant to offer an endorsement one way or the other, although more out of admiration for Sestak than on ideological grounds. Tim Holden also endorsed Specter and Bob Brady came as close as possible to it, while Patrick Murphy took a “wait and see” attitude and the others simply punted the question.

• AR-Sen: State Senator Kim Hendren (having recently shot himself in the foot by calling Charles Schumer “that Jew”) is now vacillating and may not run in the GOP Senate primary after all, despite having announced his candidacy.

• IL-Sen: Here’s some confirmation on what we speculated last week: Rep. Mark Kirk isn’t lost in space; he’s just deferring any decisions on the Senate race because he’s waiting to see what AG Lisa Madigan does. He reportedly won’t run for Senate if Madigan does.

• FL-Gov: Ag Commissioner Charles Bronson will announce today that he won’t run for the open governor’s seat, leaving an unimpeded path to the GOP nomination for AG Bill McCollum. Bronson is term-limited out of his job in 2010 and looking to move up, but couldn’t buck the pressure from state chair Jim Greer — I mean, the guy doesn’t have a Death Wish.

• CO-Gov: Ex-Rep. Scott McInnis officially filed yesterday to enter the Colorado governor’s race, amidst sniping that he started soliciting funds before filing his campaign paperwork. State Senate minority leader Josh Penry also launched into an oblique attack on McInnis, suggesting he might be interested in a primary battle.

• CA-Gov: Dianne Feinstein, occasionally rumored to be interested in what has to be the least desirable job in America (California governor), has said that she “might” run for governor next year, depending on her assessment of the other candidates’ plans for dealing with California’s seemingly perpetual budget crisis. Polls that have included Feinstein have shown her dominating the race if she got in.

• IL-13: 71-year-old Rep. Judy Biggert just confirmed that she’ll be running for re-election in 2010, despite a return engagement with Scott Harper, who held her to 54%, and the district’s shift to only R+1. (Of course, her inclusion in the first round of 10 in the NRCC’s Patriots program Tuesday showed her hand already.)

• AL-02: Republicans have at least one candidate lined up to go against Rep. Bobby Bright as he seeks his first re-election in this R+16 district: 32-year-old Montgomery city councilor and attorney Martha Roby. GOP State Rep. Jay Love, who narrowly lost to Bright last time, may also try again.

• MI-13: Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick, who narrowly won a 3-way primary in 2008, may have to face off against both of the same challengers again in 2010: state Sen. Martha Scott and former state Rep. Mary Waters. Former interim mayor Ken Cockrel also is mentioned as interested. Kilpatrick may be less vulnerable in 2010, though, as the brouhaha surrounding her son (former mayor Kwame Kilpatrick) recedes in the distance.

• Maps: Here’s another interesting map for the geography nerds out there. It’s a map of which party controls all the state House seats throughout the South. (It’s a lot bluer than you might initially think.)

We still have 531 days until the 2010 election but the race for governor in Minnesota has already been underway for months. Seven major candidates have entered the DFL field and I continue to hear buzz about five more. Tim Pawlenty remains publicly undecided about if he will run for re-election to a third term or not.

With all that in mind KSTP commissioned a poll from SurveyUSA pitting 9 current or potential DFL candidates against Pawlenty. All announced candidates minus Steve Kelly and plus R.T. Rybak, Chris Coleman and Margaret Anderson Kelliher. It has a fairly small sample size of 552 and doesn’t take into account potential IP or other third party candidates but it’s still interesting to political junkies like me (and probably you if your reading this). It has very good news for R.T. Rybak and Mark Dayton.

In addition it’s very bad news for Tim Pawlenty. When a incumbent is under 50 percent they are considered vulnerable in politics. Three candidates hold him under that mark.  

First here is a link if you want the entire poll, crosstabs and all.

47% Tim Pawlenty

43% Mark Dayton

10% Undecided

This is very good news for Dayton. His camp will use this heavily. He has a nice argument developing for his candidacy. He is the only candidate who has won statewide, he polls the best and has strong stances on the issues to boot. He’s already a household name among DFL activists and has a loyal base of support. Entenza has been making smart staff hires, campaigning hard and picking up endorsements recently so this gives the Dayton camp some much needed momentum.

47% Tim Pawlenty

42% R.T. Rybak

11% Undecided

Out of all the potential candidates Rybak is shaping up to be the strongest. Current legislators seem to be doing poorly, Gaertner and Coleman have RNC issues to deal with and Entenza, Dayton and Kelly are longtime players in statewide politics which could damage them among some. Plus he already has a statewide base of loyal suporters from campaigning extremely hard for Barack Obama and other DFL candidates in 2008. He’s running for re-election in 2009 and so can’t do much until November but I wouldn’t be suprised if he’s already taking a very hard look at running.

48% Tim Pawlenty

37% Chris Coleman

15% Undecided

Solid numbers for Coleman who seems to be making clear signals that he’s in the race but it won’t help that his fellow big city mayor is doing 6 points better then him.

51% Tim Pawlenty

37% Matt Entenza

12% Undecided

Encouraging signs for his campaign that he’s doing better then any current legislators including MAK  but he still has a lot of work to do closing the gap.  

50% Tim Pawlenty

36% Susan Gaertner

14% Undecided

Decent numbers for the Gaertner camp. They can point to the fact that she’s doing better then all the legislators and keeps Pawlenty to 50 percent but it won’t matter much if she can’t put together a viable endorsement campaign.

52% Tim Pawlenty

34% Tom Bakk

14% Undecided

Bakk has a slightly more influential position then Thissen which probably is why he does three points better but he’s never run for statewide office and is from the Iron Range so it’s not hugely surprising that not many people know who he is and thus tell pollsters they wouldn’t vote for him.

51% Tim Pawlenty

34% John Marty

15% Undecided

Marty was on the ballot statewide in 1994 so you’d hope he would do a little better then this. But the gap between him and Pawlenty is about half as much as how much he lost to Arne Carlson by so it’s progress I guess.

51% Tim Pawlenty

34% Margaret Anderson Kelliher

15% Undecided

Not very good news for Kelliher and will probably make her think twice about giving up the Speakership which she could probably hold for decades (she’s in her early 40s) for a risky run for governor.

51% Tim Pawlenty

32% Paul Thissen

17% Undecided

Not great numbers for Thissen but not very surprising. How many people do you think know who he is? He’s a state representative who isn’t in the leadership and has been serving for 7 years. I can’t imagine his name ID was very high.

There you have it. It is a long, long way until the election and if polls decided elections President Hillary Clinton would be sitting in the White House currently (and would be nominating Barack Obama to be Justice Barack Obama?) but this is very good news for Rybak and Dayton and not good news for MAK and the rest of the legislators. It’s interesting that Steve Kelly got left out. What’s up with that KSTP?