Swing State Project

Just a quick update on our project to crowdsource presidential results by congressional district. The following states are all in need of links to official data sources and “plans of attack”:

Alabama

Colorado

Florida

Illinois

Indiana

Louisiana

Mississippi

New Jersey

Oklahoma

South Carolina

Tennessee

Texas

Utah

Washington

The data sources don’t have to have actual numbers available yet – in fact, since most states won’t certify their vote totals for a while yet, that is only to be expected. And as for “plan of attack,” I’m talking about how we expect to crunch the numbers – do the states publish results by CD? Do they divide up (relatively) neatly by towns or counties? Or will we have to rely on raw precinct data?

Please input any relevant links or information into this spreadsheet. Thanks!

Congratulations to SSPer JFM110, who earned a shout-out from Rachel Maddow last night for his passionate diary on the over-representation of guys named “Steve” in Ohio’s congressional delegation:

It just goes to show that you never know who might be reading your work here at the Swing State Project!

The first House open seat of the 2010 election:

With the 2008 election season over, Rep. Jerry Moran wasted little time taking the next step in his likely bid for higher office.

The western Kansas Republican filed paperwork Friday that allows him to accept contributions for a U.S. Senate campaign.

Moran, of Hays, has been telling constituents for months that he plans to seek the seat being vacated in 2010 by Republican Sam Brownback. His statement of candidacy filed with the Federal Election Commission and the secretary of the U.S. Senate formalizes that process.

“Jerry was on the ballot for the U.S. House for the last time,” Moran spokesman Travis Murphy said Friday. “He’s made his intentions known for some time that this was his plan.”

Don’t get your hopes up. This seat had a PVI of R+20. We don’t yet know how Obama did here, but it can’t have been great. Perhaps of greater interest to open-seat fans is this tidbit:

Moran may not be the only prominent Republican laying the groundwork for a Senate bid. Rep. Todd Tiahrt, of the Wichita area, has not ruled out such a campaign and has been traveling the state recently to raise his profile outside his south-central Kansas district.

“An open Senate seat will draw a lot of interest, and my feeling is Kansas will not have two senators from the same congressional district,” Tiahrt said Friday, a reference to Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, who also represented western Kansas before ascending to the Senate. “I can guarantee there will be others who will get into this race.”

Tiahrt swamped what had looked like a promising challenge from state Sen. Donald Betts by a punishing 64-32 margin. I wouldn’t expect this R+12 district to be much more promising as an open seat, but you never know. At the very least, another Pearce vs. Wilson-style GOP senate primary would be fun.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution:

One of the big question marks in Georgia’s ongoing U.S. Senate campaign is how much President-elect Barack Obama will get involved.

Democrat Jim Martin desperately wants Obama to come here to boost Martin’s campaign against Republican incumbent U.S. Sen. Saxby Chambliss, who has already secured a promise from Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) to visit the state on Chambliss’ behalf.

Obama, however, had not responded to Martin’s overtures as of Sunday. And with the president-elect’s weekend calls for an end to partisan rancor after the Nov. 4 election, his involvement in Georgia’s bitter partisan brawl of a Senate race appeared anything but certain.

“Our campaign has talked to their campaign,” said Martin spokeswoman Kate Hansen. “And that it as far as it has gone. We would be honored to have him. We know his operation is incredibly busy right now.”

I hope this state of affairs changes soon. There is precedent for getting involved: President-elect Bill Clinton came down to GA to campaign for Wyche Fowler in his run-off against Paul Coverdell in 1992. I wouldn’t necessarily expect Obama to go that far, but even a single blast to his e-mail list could make a huge difference. So could a TV ad. It appears he may have sent some staffers to help Martin, but I think he can do more.

I can understand the Obama team wanting the election to be over, as far as they are concerned,  so that they can focus on governing. And I’m sure they don’t want to get into a potentially stature-diminishing proxy fight with John McCain (who is coming to the state for Chambliss). But I think that any such direct confrontation is easily avoided.

We’re going to have plenty of legislative fights which come down to a single vote in the Senate – and we’ll win a lot more of them with Jim Martin on our side.

At Intrade right now, Al Franken is at 57.5 and Mark Begich is at 66.8.

While the trading volumes aren’t that high, it appears the bettors think they have a really good chance win when the counting is finally completed.  Nate Silver rates a Franken a “slight favorite” to win the recount (Franken is 206 votes behind).

So can we net another Senate seat?

When we last checked in with the shocking result in California’s 44th District, Democrat Bill Hedrick was trailing GOP scuzzbucket Rep. Ken Calvert by 4600 votes. The margin has since grown to about 5900 votes. Here’s an update from Bill Hedrick communications director Lori Vandermeir:

Here’s where we stand:  They began counting ballots today in Riverside County so we should have some sort of indication when those numbers are released as to how we’re trending.

The end of last week only OC ballots was being counted which of course didn’t help our numbers – we’re down in that portion of the district (but OC accounts for only 20% of the district and we’re up in Riverside which accounts for 80%).

At this point, only VBM ballots are being counted (those that came in late but were postmarked correctly or those that were dropped off at the polls on election day).

As long as we trend the way we believe we will (maintaining a 4%-5% lead in Riverside County) we should be fine going into the provisional ballot count which should trend highly in our favor.  That process doesn’t begin for another week or two.

Stay tuned.

UPDATE (David): Another dispatch from Lori:

The good news is we’ve been told by the Orange County Registrar that they are now done counting the VBM ballots and we’ve held steady at 37% (which is 14% above Democratic registration – an amazing feat considering that county didn’t really know our candidate before this race).  The bad news is that the OC number today knocked us down a few more thousand overall.

I think I’ve already mentioned to you that our district spans both Orange County and Riverside.  80% of the district is in Riverside (where we’ve been winning) while 20% is in south Orange County (where we’re losing).

While Orange County is now complete, there are still over 50,000 VBM ballots to count in Riverside and we are very sure those will continue to trend in our favor (as they have all along) so the gap should narrow on both Wednesday and Friday (when that county continues counting).

In addition, there are still tens of thousands of provisional ballots which we know will trend our way.  Our campaign received hundreds of calls on election day from solid Democrats complaining that they had been issued provisional ballots even though they had voted in June at the exact same location so we feel safe in saying that we believe the majority of provisional ballots will lean Democratic.

This is what things look like in Orange and Riverside  (the county websites appear to be more up-to-date than the CA SoS):

At current rates, Hedrick would only net about 1,500 votes in Riverside if there are 50K left to count, as Lori suggests. However, unlike some counties in CA, Orange and Riverside don’t appear to break out VBM vs. election day stats, so there’s no way to know just yet if perhaps Hedrick did better in the early vote thanks to heightened Dem enthusiasm.

And no matter what, there are all the provisionals, which always tend to favor Dems – and we don’t have an exact count on those yet. Hedrick is facing difficult odds here, but my fingers are crossed.

The Kitchens Group for Paul Carmouche (11/6-7, likely voters):

Paul Carmouche (D): 45

John Fleming (R): 35

(MoE: ±4.0%)

Here it is — the first publicly-released poll of this race. Lots of undecideds here, but Carmouche begins the race with an edge, retaining a 53-16 favorable rating.

A strong field operation will be crucial in this race, as both sides expect that turnout will be poor. We can also expect a fierce air war here — Fleming is a wealthy physician and businessman, and surely he’ll be ponying up more of his own dough in the coming weeks. The NRCC also needs something to crow about, so they’ve reserved $330K in air time on Fleming’s behalf. No word yet on how heavy the DCCC plans to spend here, but they’ve already dropped $77,000 against Fleming over the weekend.

General election: 12/6.

The poll’s press release is available below the fold.

During each weekday this month, we’ll be posting a new open thread for every state featuring a senatorial or gubernatorial contest, and asking for your thoughts on who should run.

Alaska will feature two statewide contests of note — the gubernatorial race featuring Sarah Palin, and the Senate contest featuring incumbent Republican Lisa Murkowski.

So whom do you like for challengers to these seats? As David said the first time we did this, don’t be afraid to think creatively:

Don’t limit yourself to politicians. Businesspeople, community leaders, activists – even athletes or celebrities (think Heath Shuler or Al Franken) – are all fair game. Even seemingly outlandish suggestions are welcome. Would you have ever predicted that the guitarist from Orleans would now be a Congressman-elect?

Have at it. Alabama to come tomorrow.

CNN:

Hillary Clinton’s former campaign chairman filed papers Monday forming an exploratory committee to run for Virginia governor.

Terry McAuliffe was widely expected to make his decision after Election Day. The former Democratic National Committee chairman will now do a 60 day listening tour of the state.

Woof. Should he run, McAuliffe will square off against state Sen. Creigh Deeds and state Delegate Brian Moran.