Swing State Project

A normal House cattle call (which we have done in the past) would require you to submit a list of seats in order of their likelihood of flipping, but frankly, I find that a bit boring. Instead, why don’t we try this: Confining ourselves to the realm of realistic expectations, what is the best possible scenario for House Republicans on election night? In other words, let me put it this way: Where is “the floor” for Democratic gains in the House?

2006 was pretty bad for Republicans, but it could have been worse. They dodged a few bullets and won a fair share of squeakers (NC-08, NY-29, OH-02, FL-13, etc). It’s not inconceivable that a few incumbents could hang on again by the skin of their teeth. But looking at the key races, we have a handful in the bag already, and a number that are either leaning or tilting our way. In a wave year, “tossup” races tend to break at a greater than 50-50 rate for the victorious party, so I suspect that Democrats will be wrecking shop in this column, as well. And it’s very possible that we’ll see upsets in districts that are seemingly “leaning” or “likely” Republican, too.

So even at my most conservative guess, it’s hard for me to see Democrats picking up fewer than 20 seats. It’s amazing, but losing “only” 20 seats would count as a “good” night for Republicans — or perhaps “best-case nightmare” for the NRCC would be a better way of putting it. I’m sure that there are some people at the DCCC who would wring my neck for saying that, but increasingly, it seems to me like that’s the best that Tom Cole and friends can do right now. And even that is going to be a gloomy night for them.

One last note: that number doesn’t include any losses on our side. Tim Mahoney is a certain goner (just resign, dude), and while Kanjorski might still pull things out, he has an aura of political doom around him right now and it would be no shock to see him lose.

Rasmussen (10/21, likely voters, 9/29 in parens):

Rick Noriega (D): 40 (43)

John Cornyn (R-inc): 55 (50)

Undecided: 5 (7)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Blink and you’d have missed it: We actually briefly changed our rating on this race to Likely R, thinking that an upset could not strictly be ruled out. But we didn’t even have time to write it up before this poll came out – and before we learned about private polling which shows things even worse for Rick Noriega.

Let’s face it: Three-and-a-half million or so raised is just never gonna cut it in Texas, especially not when Cornyn’s raised over $18 mil. What’s more, the DSCC isn’t going to play here, and without their involvement, beating an incumbent senator is just about impossible. The good news, though, is that Texas is trending bluer, and we not only have several opportunities further down the ballot this year, we’ll have many more in the future as well.

The Swing State Project is changing its ratings on twelve House races:

• NY-24: Likely D to Safe D
• OH-18: Likely D to Safe D
• AZ-01: Lean D to Likely D
• AZ-08: Lean D to Likely D
• KY-03: Lean D to Likely D
• FL-24: Tossup to Lean D
• NM-01: Tossup to Lean D
• OH-15: Tossup to Lean D
• CA-04: Lean R to Tossup
• FL-25: Lean R to Tossup
• ID-01: Lean R to Tossup
• FL-16: Lean R to Likely R

All of these moves except FL-16 are in favor of the Democrats. We are also adding IA-05, GA-06 and PA-12 to our “Races to Watch” list. Look for our writeups to follow soon. Our full race ratings chart is available here.

Hey folks,  I just got home from the fabulous Merkley/Gore event in Portland and wanted to write up my reactions.  Besides finally meeting the lovely Sarah Lane in person, it was a great time and certainly worth reporting on!

Cross-Posted from Loaded Orygun: http://loadedorygun.net/showDi…

I was not smart enough to bring a camera, unfortunately, so I can’t post any of my pictures but it was a fun event.  About a thousand showed up and we had really great fun, especially when we discovered that the metal bleachers a lot of us were sitting on could be stomped on to make lots of noise.  I was in the front row on one side of the stack about a third of the way back, so I had a great view!

Below is my review of the speakers who were part of this great event:

Governor Kulongoski: I love Ted, I really really do, and I really wish I saw the fire in his belly more often than occasions like tonight.  He did a good job warming up the crowd and MCing the first part of the evening.

Rep. Earl Blumenauer (OR-3): What can I say, I love Earl.  He would make a great transportation secretary in an Obama administration, I’m just saying.

Rep. David Wu (OR-1): Except for an odd little bit about 9/11, he was great!  He got some audience callbacks going on Obama/Merkley/Schrader’s names.

Brad Avakian (Labor Commissioner): I love this guy.  He kept slipping the name “Jeff Merkley” randomly into his speech, and we went nuts whenever he said it.

Ben Westlund (State Treasurer Candidate/State Senator): Proof that Republicans can see the light and become Ds.  I wish he’d had a bit more time because if he gets going he can be a great speaker.

John Kroger (AG to be): Listening to him, you can really tell why he was such a good litigator.

Then they lowered the lights and played this little video (a new Merkley ad):

Jeff Merkley (next US Senator): He was his usual awesome self.  Did a great job both laying out his image but also clarifying why Smith’s time had passed.  That led us to the main attraction of the evening…

Al Gore: WOW!  He really would have been a great President if only given the chance.  He was on target all night, even when interrupted early on by a 9/11 conspiracy nut (to which the crowd chanted “Merkley, Merkley, Merkley” to drown out the noise of the guy on the megaphone).  Some memorable lines:

There’s a single common thread that runs through all these crises.  Our ridiculous, absurd dependence on dirty, expensive, carbon-based fuel. That’s the common thread

This is one of those moments in history when one era is ending and another era is beginning.  And you can almost hear the hinges creaking as that door opens up

Gore closed with perhaps his most powerful line of the night:

Do you want somebody who’s 10 percent of the time there (Smith)?  Or do you want somebody who’s committed, heart and soul?

After this I feel fired up and ready to go, 11 days to a new America, let’s make it happen!

Let me know what you think.

After the third quarter fundraising deadline, there’s one more report that candidates running for the House must file with the FEC: the pre-general fundraising report covering the period from October 1st through October 15th. DavidNYC and I have rounded up all the key numbers in this handy chart below (all figures are in thousands):

Note: Instead of listing totals raised by each campaign, we’ve gone with the broader category of receipts (which includes transfers, loans and the like).

SurveyUSA (10/22-23, likely voters, 10/4-5 in parens):

Baron Hill (D-inc): 54 (53)

Mike Sodrel (R): 39 (38)

Eric Schansberg (L): 5 (7)

(MoE: ±4.1%)

Memo to Brian Wolff: Baron Hill is going to be okay. I know Sodrel gave Baron a surprise in 2004, but come on — that was 2004. No more $400K ad buys here, mmmkay?

I’ll tip my hat to the new constitution

Take a bow for the new revolution

Smile and grin at the change all around me

Pick up my guitar and play

Just like yesterday

Then I’ll get on my knees and pray

We don’t get fooled again

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (10/20-22, likely voters, 9/17-18 in parens):

Judy Baker (D): 42 (40)

Blaine Luetkemeyer (R): 47 (49)

Other: 8 (6)

Undecided: 3 (5)

(MoE: ±5%)

The open seat race in Missouri’s rural R+7 (but historically Democratic) Ninth District is one of those races that probably would have gotten written off most years, but between the size of the Democratic wave this year, a money influx, and good candidate recruitment, we’re in a credible position to pull off the upset here. Internal polls have, in fact, shown Judy Baker up by as much as 4.

Research 2000 finds that Baker is down 5, but the trendlines have improved nicely from last month. The battle here seems mostly over the independents (who make up 30% of the sample); Luetkemeyer leads 44-42 among them. At the presidential level, McCain leads Obama 54-40, a much better showing than 2004 when Bush won 59-41.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (10/20-22, likely voters, 9/17-19 in parens):

Dennis Shulman (D): 40 (34)

Scott Garrett (R-inc): 47 (49)

Other: 2 (2)

Undecided: 11 (15)

(MoE: ±5%)

This is a tidy improvement over R2K’s first poll in this district, reflecting in part the fact that Shulman went up on the air between the two surveys. It also helps explain Scott Garrett’s wild freak-out and sick smears against Shulman. (My favorite: Shulman, an ordained rabbi, is “soft on Israel.” Uh huh.) You may also recall that earlier this week, the Club for Growth, which usually cares naught for incumbents, endorsed Garrett and may be getting ready to drop some bucks on his behalf.

In this expensive NYC metro district, Shulman will likely need some outside help of his own if he is to unseat Garrett. There’s still time for the DCCC to come in with a big moneybomb in this (and many other) districts. (Last cycle, for instance, they nuked Charlie Bass in NH-02 on Halloween.) We’ll soon see if Shulman has the momentum to pull off a major upset here.

Bonus finding: McCain leads Obama 51-39 (it was 52-37 in the last poll).

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (10/20-22, likely voters):

Bobby Bright (D): 45

Jay Love (R): 47

(MoE: ±5%)

Yesterday we highlighted a DCCC poll that had Bright up 50-43, which was encouraging to see after we’ve been seeing Bright losing steam on both the polling (his own internal had him up by only 1) and fundraising fronts.

Today, however, in their first poll of this race, Research 2000 shows a small edge for Jay Love, 47-45. Encouragingly, the sample give shows Bright picking up 14% of Republicans as well as 89% of Democrats, while Love picks up only 7% of Democrats and only 74% of Republicans. Unfortunately, the sample contains a lot more Republicans than Democrats (48% to 31%), which is also reflected in its presidential numbers (McCain leads in AL-02 by 56-39, although that’s still a big improvement from this district’s 67-33 performance in 2004).

UPDATE (James L.): Well, here’s one thing we missed about this poll, which is a huge red flag — the sample is only 17% African-American. This district is 30% black according to the most recent figures, and even Anzalone-Liszt pegs the black vote at a “conservative” (their words) 25%. If you adjust the sample accordingly, Bright would be leading.