Swing State Project

Public Opinion Strategies (R) for Jim Tedisco (2/3-4, registered voters):

Scott Murphy (D): 29

Jim Tedisco (R): 50

(MoE: ±4.9%)

NY-20 was always going to be a tough hold, despite the fact that it narrowly went for Obama over McCain, because of its historically Republican nature (as seen in the GOP registration advantage and the utter lack of a convincing Democratic bench). Although this is an internal poll from Tedisco’s camp, it pretty clearly shows what kind of a hole we’re starting in.

Complicating matters is the name recognition factor: Tedisco, as Assembly Minority Leader and someone with deep roots in nearby NY-21, sports a 51% favorable/13% unfavorable rating, while local businessman Scott Murphy has never held office before. Murphy’s one advantage is self-funding: he’s already amassed $600,000 cash on hand, including a $250,000 loan from himself. Which is good… if Murphy’s going to be competitive in this race, in the face of a relatively short timeframe, it’s going to have to be through a lot of paid media.

Rasmussen (2/4, likely voters, 12/4 in parentheses):

Creigh Deeds (D): 30 (39)

Robert McDonnell (R): 39 (39)

Some other candidate: 6 (4)

Brian Moran (D): 36 (41)

Robert McDonnell (R): 39 (37)

Some other candidate: 4 (5)

Terry McAuliffe (D): 35 (36)

Robert McDonnell (R): 42 (41)

Some other candidate: 3 (5)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Rasmussen polls the Virginia governor’s race a second time, meaning we now have trendlines… and, frankly, they don’t look very appetizing. Ex-Del. Brian Moran led AG Robert McDonnell last time by 4, but now he’s trailing by 3, while Del. Creigh Deeds fell from a tie to a 9-point deficit.

Part of the problem here may be that, while McDonnell has long since consolidated Republican support, the three Dem contenders are in primary attack mode, driving their numbers down as they target each other. The numbers in the McAuliffe/McDonnell matchup don’t seem to have budged much, which suggests that McAuliffe may be doing the best job right now of the three of getting his message into the media… although that still doesn’t seem to translate into a good performance in the general matchup.

UPDATE (James L.): Public Policy Polling’s Tom Jensen weighs in:

I think the answer here is in the timing of the poll being conducted. It was done Wednesday night. McDonnell resigned as Attorney General Tuesday and that was all over local tv news casts Tuesday, and then all over the state’s newspapers on Wednesday. That level of exposure is unusual for a 24 hour media cycle this far out from November, and I bet it helped McDonnell to lead in the poll. I certainly don’t think there was any nefarious intent in the timing of the poll but that sort of thing does have an impact.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (2/2-4, registered voters):

Kathleen Sebelius (D): 47

Todd Tiahrt (R): 37

Kathleen Sebelius (D): 48

Jerry Moran (R): 36

(MoE: ±4%)

Todd Tiahrt (R): 24

Jerry Moran (R): 19

Undecided: 57

(MoE: ±5%)

The race for the open Senate seat in Kansas looks to be Kathleen Sebelius’s for the taking, if she would just show up (and hopefully these numbers will pique her interest). Research 2000 finds that the Kansas governor leads both of her potential candidates by a double-digit margin. If anyone can break the sixty-plus years of Republicans having a lock on the Kansas senate seats, it’s her.

There’s one sort of generalized caveat here, though: Sebelius isn’t over the 50% mark here, and yet she’s extremely well-known (with a 56% favorable/37% unfavorable, almost everyone has an opinion of her), leaving me to wonder where that last few percent to put her over the top in this dark-red state are going to come from. With both Reps. Tiahrt and Moran much less-known (check out the undecided numbers on their primary), they seem to have the room to expand. While you can’t deny that Sebelius is in the driver’s seat here, this looks to be a much closer race in Nov. 2010 than the current gaudy numbers indicate. (Discussion is already well underway in conspiracy‘s diary.)

Monster news:

State Senate Democratic Leader Al Lawson will challenge incumbent U.S. Rep. Allen Boyd in 2010, sources close to Lawson confirmed this morning.

Boyd, elected to Congress twelve years ago, is a leader of the “Blue Dog Coalition,” a group of conservative Democrats. The Panhandle farmer also served in the state House.

Lawson is a Tallahassee insurance agent who is approaching three decades as a state lawmaker. He was first elected to the Florida House in 1982. He will be term-limited out of office in 2010.

This has been a long time coming, as Boyd’s strong conservative tendencies (even by Blue Dog standards) overcompensated for his moderate, R+2.2 district. Boyd, as you may remember, was the lone Democratic defector on George Bush’s plan to privatize social security in the aftermath of the 2004 elections.

Without knowing too much about Lawson (a quick profile is available here), he could make a strong challenge for the primary electorate’s African-American votes; the 2nd CD is only 22% black, but that share would be much higher in a Democratic primary.

If nothing else, Lawson’s challenge could force Boyd to tack leftward for once in his life.

(Hat-tip: The Hotline)

Research 2000 for Daily Kos. 2/2-4. Likely voters. MoE 4% (No trendlines)

Tiahrt (R) 37

Sebelius (D) 47

Moran (R) 36

Sebelius (D) 48

http://www.dailykos.com/storyo…

Contradicting that earlier GOP primary poll Tiahrt leads Moran 24-19.

“Yet here we have Gov. Kathleen Sebelius coming in with a solid 56-37 approval rating, including a surprisingly good 42-54 among Republicans, which is important given that Republicans make up half the state’s voters. In the head-to-head matchups, Sebelius, gets about a third of those voters. Independents, another quarter of the voter pool, like her at a 63-27 clip. If those numbers held up, she’d make history by having a Democrat represent Kansas in the U.S. Senate for the first time since 1939.”

Run Kathleen, run!

Hardly a day – hardly a post – goes by here at the Swing State Project without a reference to the Cook Political Report’s Partisan Vote Index, or PVI for short. In the wake of the 2008 elections, SSP’s pres-by-CD project has spurred a lot of discussion about how the PVI is calculated and why it’s calculated the way it is.

Quite a few people people had a hard time believing my explanation of the math behind the PVI. But you don’t have to take my word for it – this is how the Almanac of American Politics explains things:

Cook Partisan Voting Index. Refers to the Partisan Voting Index (PVI) as used by Charlie Cook, Washington’s foremost political handicapper. The PVI is designed to provide a quick overall assessment of generic partisan strength. For this volume, the PVI includes an average of the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections in the district as the partisan indicator. The PVI value is calculated by a comparison of the district average for the party nominee, compared to the 2004 national value for the party nominee. The calculations are based upon the two-party vote. The national values for 2004 are George W. Bush 51.2% and John Kerry 48.8%. The PVI value indicates a district with a partisan base above the national value for that party’s 2004 presidential nominee. Thus a district with an R+15 is a district that voted 15 percentage points (as an average of its 2000 and 2004 presidential vote) higher for Bush than the national value of 51.2%. Similarly, a district with a D+15 is a district that voted 15 percentage points (as an average of its 2000 and 2004 presidential vote) higher for Kerry than the national value of 48.8%. An X +00 indicates an evenly balanced district. (Emphasis added.)

The boldface sentences confirm my understanding of how PVI works. But why should it be calculated this way? I agree with the majority sentiment that it seems to make more sense to compare 2000 district performance with 2000 nationwide performance, not 2004 nationwide performance. This isn’t as big of a deal with the two Bush elections because they were both so close, but comparing Kerry’s 2004 district numbers with Obama’s nationwide numbers produces some pretty serious gaps. I’d be curious to know what sort of justifications or rationales anyone can come up with for the status quo.

In the meantime, some have suggested computing an “SVI” – a “Swing State Project Voting Index,” comparing 2004 to 2004 and 2008 to 2008. In fact, CalifornianInTexas has already gone ahead and started calculating these numbers. For the most part, these will be more favorable to Dems, as the big Kerry minus Obama splits are removed from the equation.

So, I’m asking the community: Should we use the “SVI”? Should it be in addition to the PVI? Are there any pitfalls if we do so? Any reasons not to? Let’s hear your thoughts!

A great day for the Ohio Retread Watch:

Mike DeWine, the former Republican senator from Ohio, said that he will be running for statewide office in 2010.

“I intend to run next year, and there are a lot of different possibilities,” DeWine said. “I have not ruled anything out.”

DeWine would not dismiss running against Rob Portman in the Republican Senate primary, though the two are on good terms from serving in Congress together.

“Rob and I are friends, and we’ve talked over the last few months about a lot of things,” DeWine said. “I’ve got to go through my own assessment.”

DeWine also is considering a campaign for governor against Democrat Ted Strickland — or for the state’s attorney general position.

As we saw earlier today, ex-Rep. Steve Chabot also wants his old seat back. DeWine, it seems, is less choosy, and with good reason – his gubernatorial numbers are not inspiring. But no matter what he decides, I welcome another run from him!

Excellent news:

Pennsylvania Rep. Jim Gerlach , a politically moderate Republican who has narrowly won four House elections in a district that is trending Democratic, took a formal step Thursday toward a campaign for governor in 2010.

Gerlach, whose 6th District takes in suburbs and exurbs west of Philadelphia, announced that he had filed papers with Pennsylvania election officials to establish an “exploratory committee” that would allow him to raise and spend campaign funds as he weighs whether to become an official candidate.

Exploratory committees almost always are precursors to full-fledged campaigns, though Gerlach said Thursday’s announcement was not tantamount to a declaration of candidacy. He issued a written statement saying he would take the next few months to “speak with political, business and community leaders, help our 2009 statewide judicial candidates, conduct polling and determine if there is a clear path to victory.”

“I suspect that by late spring we’ll know whether to formally move forward with a campaign for governor,” he added.

If Gerlach indeed bails, Democrats would stand an excellent chance at capturing this seat. Out of all the districts in the Philly burbs, Gerlach’s 6th CD took the most dramatic swing towards The Blue in 2008 according to a recent Swing State Project analysis of the raw numbers. After supporting Kerry by a tight 52-48 margin in 2004, the dam burst wide open last November, with Obama carrying the district by a full 17 points (58-41). As we’ve discussed recently, Democrats have a number of players on the local bench who could jump in once Jimmy jumps out.

As for Gerlach’s gubernatorial bid, I have a hard time seeing him winning a statewide primary, so it’s hard to see why he might pursue this option. Perhaps he’s just looking to cap off this stage of his political career with a bang, rather than end it with a humiliating loss to a Bob Roggio-type in 2010.

(Hat-tip: conspiracy)

When Judd Gregg’s head first reared up over White House airspace in consideration for the spot at Commerce, my first concern wasn’t about the musical chairs in New Hampshire or about the perception vs. reality of ‘bipartisanship…’ it was about the fact that we were putting the Census Bureau in the hands of a conservative Republican. I assumed I was the one of few people with this rather arcane concern, but some serious pushback started coming in the last few days, from people like Rep. Barbara Lee… particularly in view of Gregg’s vote against providing emergency funding for the 2000 census.

Today, it was revealed that in the Obama administration, the Census Bureau director would be reporting directly to the White House (or more specifically, to Rahm Emanuel) rather than to Gregg. This provoked a furious reaction from House Republicans (and you gotta wonder if they would have said boo if Obama had decided to take, say, Bill Richardson out of the Census Bureau’s line of command):

“Any attempt by the Obama administration to circumvent the census process for their political benefit will be met with fierce opposition as this ill-conceived proposal undermines a constitutionally obligated process that speaks to the very heart of our democracy,” said California Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican on the committee.

You wouldn’t necessarily think the Census Bureau would be such a political football, but, well, spend some time at a data-driven site like SSP and you’ll know why. Census data is the basis for House redistricting and allotting electoral votes… the very building blocks of getting and maintaining political power. The 2000 census is a case in point: left poorly funded by a Republican Congress (meaning not enough enumerators to perform adequate follow-up counts), and unable to use oversampling methods thanks to a US Supreme Court ruling, the 2000 census probably left millions of Americans undercounted.

Unsurprisingly, the undercounted tend to be the people who are both the hardest to reach (undocumented persons avoiding contact with government representatives, homeless people with no particular address) and the most vulnerable. The catch-22 is, to provide social services to these populations, they need to be counted by the Census in order to determine the magnitude of the need and to secure the proper funding. Already-strapped cities and counties lose billions of dollars in potential federal and state aid because of undercounted residents. Connect the dots, and you can see why it’s imperative to keep the Census properly funded and out of Republican hands.