Search Results for: MO-09

For the second consecutive election cycle, Democrats had much to celebrate. We won the largest Presidential election mandate in 20 years, we gained seats in the Senate even though we didn’t get to the filibuster-proof majority, and have won an additional 20 seats in the House, give or take a couple of close calls. Obama’s likely 364 electoral vote tally easily bested by prediction of 291, while my Senate seat pickup prediction of seven now looks optimistic, but my cautious prediction of 17 House seat pickups looks pretty close.

As for my two broader-themed predictions, it was a split decision. I had guessed that “moral values” would once again shock the world by emerging as the second-most important concern of voters going to the polls yesterday. It wasn’t even in the top four. On the other hand, I was laughed out of the room by numerous people when suggesting that Ralph Nader would overperform his 2004 numbers as a protest vote for alot of older Democrats who just couldn’t bring themselves to vote for a black man. But I was vindicated on that one as Nader exceeded 2004 margins in just about every state where he was on the ballot. As for the exit polls, they appeared to be even worse than those of 2004. Most of the close races showed huge Obama victories in the exit polls while even many red states looked to be breathtakingly close based on erroneous exit poll data.

State by state thoughts below the fold….

Our final House race ratings chart of the cycle:

Safe D:

     NY-13 (Open)

Races to Watch:

Things have changed — a lot — since our first entry back in March.

Below is a list of key House, Senate, gubernatorial and state legislative races, arranged by poll closing times. (Asterisks indicate open seats.) A list of key ballot measures can be found here. States with multiple closing times are listed in order of their earliest closing, with the exception of Oregon (where the bulk of the state is in the Pacific time zone). Once again, all times are Eastern, not local.

Here goes. Just beacuse.

Presidential Election:



Electoral Votes: Barack Obama 364, John McCain 174

Popular Vote: Obama +6.9

McCain Pickups: None



Obama Pickups: Iowa, New Mexico, Colorado, Nevada, Missouri, Ohio, Virgina, North Carolina and Florida

I’m a little unsure about North Carolina and Missouri but I’m going to call them for Barack. I think he’ll come up just short in Indiana, Montana and Georgia.

This post summarizes James Hell’s amazing work since August tracking independent expenditures on House races. Note that this does not include direct expenditures by party committees (like we saw the other day from the DCCC in NJ-05 & FL-18) or electioneering communications by 527’s like Freedom’s Crotch (the FEC’s database is all but unnavigable).

We do, however, include spending by many third-party groups, not just the DCCC and NRCC. In fact, we’ve tracked spending by forty-six different organizations, some of which you’ve heard of, many of which are obscure. The list includes the Veterans of Foreign Wars, the Safari Club, SEIU, the National Association of Realtors, the Michigan Republican Party and many, many more. (Scroll down to the key at the bottom for the complete list.)

And all of these groups made choices, whether to support Team Red or Team Blue. Some supported both. At the end of the day, though, Democrats completely and utterly swamped the field. Here’s a brief run-down of the sixty-nine districts which saw serious spending this cycle (note: we excluded a handful of districts where aggregate spending was under about $20K):

Total spending on Dem-held seats:

     Blue: $18,588,000

     Red: $6,035,000

Total spending on GOP-held seats:

     Blue: $66,849,000

     Red: $22,898,000

Total spending on all seats:

     Blue: $85,437,000

     Red: $28,933,000

Below the fold are two tables of district-by-district spending. The first lists Dem-held seats, the second lists GOP-held seats. Both are sorted by total amount spent in the district. Note that averages only take into account seats where a side actually spent money.

I put my predictions in the following format:

State-race (# of EV if presidential): margin, chance, result (change from Democratic perspective) (comments, if any)

Margin terms: up, up-dash, dash, down-dash, down.  These reflect my written shorthand.  An up-arrow (“up”) refers to a margin of 8 points or more for the Democrat.  An up-arrow with a dash through the tail (“up-dash”) means a margin of about 2-7 points in the Democrat’s favor.  A dash (“dash”) means a margin closer than that, or basically a toss-up.  (Substitute “Republican” for “Democrat” when you see “down” instead of “up”).

Chance terms: I use the same terms as SSP: “safe” means I can’t see a reasonable chance for the other party to win (barring something really crazy happening, basically); “likely” means that I feel I can safely predict that outcome but would be vulnerable to a strong challenge from the other side; “lean” means I feel that that side has only a narrow advantage; “tossup” means I think both sides are about evenly matched.

Result: “keep” means the incumbent party retains the seat; “gain” means the winning party wins the seat from the other side.  “change from Democratic perspective” means that “+1 House” refers to a gain of one Democratic House seat while “-1 House” refers to the loss of one Democratic House seat.

And before I begin: Be sure to join me (and hopefully other SSP people!) on IRC on election night!  Once again, our chat room is #swingstateproject on the Chat4All network (irc.chat4all.org).  Hope to see you there!

Edit: Added LA-02.

Now, here we go!  (below the fold)  Part 2 coming soon, before the end of the day!

(DavidNYC and Crisitunity contributed to the writing of this post.)

AK-AL (Young): Tossup to Lean Democratic

While we’ve been very high on this race for a long, long time, we’ve always been aware that this is Alaska, and Don Young has seldom been threatened since he first captured this seat in the early 1970s. But lately, The Donald seems to get less and less popular with each passing year, and this cycle is no exception. Young has never lead in a single poll released since 2007, which is pretty remarkable. Pollster.com counts sixteen polls showing Young trailing, and while the man has come from behind before, he hasn’t done so in a time of extraordinary change in Alaska’s political culture — Ted Stevens is set to go to jail, and voters seem poised to give the boot to a beloved Senator. It seems hard to believe that they’ll stick with a Representative under FBI investigation whom many dislike.

Yes, Young overcame tough odds to win his primary, but only barely — and that was after one of the most inept campaigns ever witnessed by Sean Parnell and the Club For Growth. While I do not believe that Democrat Ethan Berkowitz will win this race by a large margin, a Young victory on Tuesday would have to be considered a surprise. (James)

IN-03 (Souder): Lean Republican to Tossup

A 14-year Republican incumbent in an R+16 district in a dark-red state shouldn’t have much trouble getting reelected, even in today’s climate. But Mark Souder just keeps making it possible, with his apparently lukewarm approach to fundraising and campaigning. In 2006, he won by only 54-46 over Fort Wayne city councilor Tom Hayhurst; the DCCC smelled a missed opportunity here and, once attorney Mike Montagano showed some promise, the money spigots opened. The district’s lean and the NRCC’s furious defense may save Souder’s butt once again, but given Montagano’s strong polling (including an honest-to-gosh 3-point lead in a public poll) and the likely best Democratic presidential performance in Indiana in more than 40 years, it’s even tougher this year. (Crisitunity)

MO-06 (Graves): Lean Republican to Likely Republican

For a long while, this looked like it was going to be a top-tier barnburner of a race. Kay Barnes, the former mayor of Kansas City, was one of the DCCC’s first and most highly-touted recruits in 2007. The problem, though, is that much of the 6th District lies outside of metropolitan Kansas City, and GOP Rep. Sam Graves wasted no time in painting her as a big city liberal with “San Francisco values”. The bullshit either worked, or Graves’ campaign just never took off, because recent public polling has Graves opening up an 18-point lead over Barnes. Private polling is also pessimistic. (J)

MO-09 (Open): Lean Republican to Tossup

When Kenny Hulshof retired from this seat to become gubernatorial roadkill, lots of Democrats saw some potential here… but who would have anticipated that this race, and not the highly touted MO-06, would be the one that turned into a Tossup as we entered the home stretch? It’s a combination of a particularly scrappy Dem candidate, state representative Judy Baker, with a strong base in the district’s major population center (Columbia), plus a rather bland GOPer in Blaine Luetkemeyer who emerged depleted from a bitter primary against a Club for Growth pod person (and has tapped into his own money to stay competitive). Baker has trailed in single digits in public polling (down 5 in R2K last week), and has led by as much as 4 in her own internals. The GOP probably has the natural edge in this rural R+7 district, but Baker has made a real race out of this. (C)

NC-05 (Foxx): Safe Republican to Likely Republican

This race has flown under the radar all cycle, but we’ve decided that if there was one GOP-held seat that wasn’t on our competitive races list that has the very small possibility of not just being close but scraping out an upset, this is it. Virginia Foxx (something of a non-fictional version of Dana Carvey’s Church Lady) has, in her elections, underperformed this district’s dark-red R+15 inclinations, and Roy Carter, a well-known high school football coach, is a popular figure. A PPP poll from September showed Foxx up by only 2 (with an earlier PPP poll giving her a 10-pt. edge); at the time, it seemed fluky, but given Democratic strengths this year in North Carolina, even in the whiter areas (like this mountain district), who knows? (C)

NJ-05 (Garrett): Likely Republican to Lean Republican

This expensive, Republican-leaning district on New Jersey’s northern border was always going to be a tough nut to crack. But it looks like rabbi & psychologist Dennis Shulman has closed a lot of ground with uber-wingnut Scott Garrett and could be poised to deliver an upset. Shulman, a first-time candidate, has raised almost a million bucks and just got a dose of help from the DCCC.

He’s also gotten under Garrett’s skin, prompting shrill freak-outs and bizarre attacks. The only public polls of this race (by R2K) showed nice momentum for Shulman, while Garrett dangled below 50. It would still be an upset if Shulman were to win here, but a Dem victory now looks much more possible than at any time in the past. (David)

SC-01 (Brown): Likely Republican to Lean Republican

This race has moved hard and fast. We moved it to Likely R just a couple of weeks ago, and now we’re bumping it to Lean R. It seems that Rep. Henry Brown, Jr. never imagined he’d face a competitive race, and when he got one, he was utterly unprepared for the challenge. Maybe this isn’t so surprising: After all, Brown was so indignant about being prosecuted for burning down twenty acres of a national forest that he had the law changed so that acts like his would no longer be considered crimes. It’s not hard to imagine a schmuck like this growing entitled and complacent.

Since our last ratings adjustment, we’ve seen two polls which confirm Brown’s precarious position, even in this R+10 district. R2K showed him under 50, while SUSA gave him just a five-point lead. Dem Linda Ketner is a wealthy heiress (her father created the Food Lion chain of supermarkets) and has spent $700K of her own money on this race, addition to raising a million bucks the hard way. She could very well rock the political world come Tuesday. (D)

The Swing State Project is changing its ratings on the following races:

• AK-AL: Tossup to Lean D
  

• IN-03: Lean R to Tossup
  

• MO-06: Lean R to Likely R
  

• MO-09: Lean R to Tossup
  

• NC-05: Safe R to Likely R
  

• NJ-05: Likely R to Lean R
  

• SC-01: Likely R to Lean R

We have also moved PA-18 back onto our “Races to Watch” list. Look for write-ups to follow shortly. Our full House chart is available here.

A roundup of all the independent expenditures made by the DCCC and NRCC in the last seven days:

More details on these and other expenditures are available at SSP’s Independent Expenditure Tracker.

UPDATE: In the comments, a former DCCC staffer weighs in to rebut criticisms of the party’s IE spending. Worth a read.