Swing State Project

From The Hill:

Rep. Vito Fossella (R-N.Y.) is expected to announce this week that he will not seek reelection, according to two sources.

The announcement could come as early as Tuesday but is expected before Congress adjourns for its Memorial Day recess at the end of this week.

It is unclear if Fossella will finish out his term or opt to resign before the end of the 110th Congress. One source said he will complete his sixth term.

As nrafter530 writes in the diaries, expect a full-court press to ensue for a Staten Island-based pol like state Sen. Diane Savino, Assemblyman Mike Cusick, or NYC Councilman Mike McMahon to run for the Democrats in this D+0.8 district.

SSP currently rates this race as a “Tossup“.

UPDATE (David): The AP is saying the same thing.

UPDATE II (James): It’s official — Fossella will retire at the end of his term.  The Politico has Fossella’s statement.

UPDATE III: Elizabeth Benjamin picks up buzz that Councilman Domenic Recchia (D-Coney Island) will drop out of the race:

On the Democratic side, a source confirms the rumor that Councilman Domenic Recchia is NOT expected to follow through with his nascent bid for Fossella’s seat, despite the fact that he is sitting on some $325,000.

Recchia is apparently friendly with Savino and McMahon, so this could be a sign that one of these candidates is planning a bid.

The news just broke here in New York City on Fox 5. Vito Fossella, the Republican from the 13th district of New York who was arrested for drunk driving two weeks ago and was discovered to have a love child with a mistress will NOT run for reelection in November, but he will serve out his term.  

That opens up another seat ripe for the taking. The district, based in Staten Island and includes parts of Southwestern Brooklyn, has a PVI of D+1. Gore won here in 2000, but Bush won in 2004. This is the third open Republican seat in New York State. Half of the state’s Republicans are retiring.

Possible Republican candidates may include State Senator Andrew Lanza, NYC Councilman James Oddo, Staten Island DA Dan Donovan.

Democratic candidates Steve Harrison and Dominic Recchia are in the race, but an open seat may entice a couple of strong Staten Island Democrats; State Senator Diane Savino, State Assemblyman Mike Cusick, NYC Councilman Michael McMahon.  

From the Lafayette Independent Weekly:

The national Democratic Party is putting the full court press on state Sen. Don Cravins Jr. to challenge incumbent Republican Charles Boustany in the 7th Congressional District. Cravins, who recently expressed an interest in possibly switching parties to run against Boustany as an independent, says the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has been in close contact with him and offered substantial support were he to run as a Democrat. Cravins, along with two other Democratic African American state legislators, Lydia Jackson of Shreveport and Michael Jackson of Baton Rouge, recently stated they were considering Congressional runs as independents, partly because of the Democratic Party’s poor track record of supporting black candidates in major state elections and majority white districts. Cravins saw his father receive little party backing for his Congressional run in 2004.

“I’d like to run as a Democrat,” Cravins says. “But right now, I’m more concerned over the decision of whether I’m going to run or not. [The Democratic Party] has been talking to me about things I really wanted to hear the party talk to me about. I’m going to be traveling to D.C. in the next two weeks and I’ll make up my mind very shortly.” Cravins says he has been contacted directly both DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen and House Majority Whip James Clyburn. While in D.C., Cravins also plans to meet with former Louisiana Senator and 7th District Congressman John Breaux, who also has reached out to him.

LA-07 is an R+7.4 district that’s been held by Boustany since 2004, when a racial split depressed Democratic turnout in the runoff and allowed the seat formerly held by Democrat Chris John to fall into Republican hands.

Will this one go down to the wire?

SurveyUSA (5/16-18, likely and actual voters, 5/9-11 in parens):

Jeff Merkley (D): 34 (31)

Steve Novick (D): 37 (27)

Candy Neville (D): 7 (11)

Other/Undecided: 23 (30)

(MoE: ±4%)

Novick leads Merkley among those who have already voted by 6 points.  The two candidates are tied at 32 apiece among voters who have yet to return their ballots.

Public Policy Polling also released a poll on this race today (5/17-18, likely voters, no trendlines):

Jeff Merkley: 33

Steve Novick: 38

Candy Neville: 6

Other: 3

Undecided: 19

(MoE: ±2.7%)

SurveyUSA (5/16-18, likely voters and actual voters, 5/5-7 in parens):

Kevin Mannix (R): 46 (41)

Mike Erickson (R): 42 (49)

(MoE: ±4.7%)

As you probably know, this race was recently shaken up in a big way when Mannix released serious allegations about Erickson’s hard-partying past.  Among voters who have already returned their ballots in Oregon’s mail-in system, Erickson leads by 2 points.  But in SUSA’s likely voter screen, the 38% of voters who have not yet returned their ballots favor Mannix by a 14-point margin.

On the Democratic side, things are looking good for state Sen. Kurt Schrader:

Kurt Schrader (D): 43 (37)

Steve Marks (D): 19 (14)

Other/Undecided: 38 (49)

(MoE: ±3.6%)

(From the diaries – promoted by DavidNYC)

In several diaries or stories lately there have been comments where people have wondered whether Congressperson X is the only person of Y race to represent a district that is majority-Z. I went through the list and found every one I can think of, so hopefully this diary can be the ultimate argument-settler. Please feel free to chime in in the comments if you think someone is missing.

I’m using 2005 census estimates. Interestingly, a number of districts have crossed a threshold since the 2000 census: a number of districts, for instance, have crossed from a white plurality to a Hispanic plurality in those years (CA-17, CA-21, CA-23, CA-27), while CA-13 crossed from white plurality to an Asian plurality. TX-09, TX-18, and TX-30 crossed from an African-American plurality to a Hispanic plurality (although the Houston districts may have switched back, thanks to the New Orleans diaspora). While most districts are becoming less white, one district actually crossed the other way: HI-02 crossed from an Asian plurality to a white plurality.

Districts with white majority not represented by white

(Despite the Anglo name, Trent Franks identifies as Mexican-American and is a member of the Congressional Hispanic Conference, the Republican equivalent to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus. Anna Eshoo is of Assyrian descent; I don’t know if she would describe herself as white or Asian.)

Districts with white plurality not represented by white

(The Census Bureau, for some reason, does not have estimated populations for 2005 for the 110th congress (only for the 109th congress, which doesn’t reflect Georgia’s mid-decade redistricting), so the numbers for GA-02 are based on the actual 2000 census count. As you can see, it may have crossed into an African-American plurality in the last few years.)

Districts with African-American majority not represented by African-American

Districts with African-American plurality not represented by African-American

Districts with Asian majority not represented by Asian

Districts with Asian plurality not represented by Asian

Districts with Hispanic majority not represented by Hispanic

Districts with Hispanic plurality not represented by Hispanic

(Devin Nunes is a member of the Congressional Hispanic Conference, but identifies as Portuguese-American, which at least to me does not imply either “Hispanic” (from a Spanish-speaking background) or “Latino” (from a Latin American background).)

SurveyUSA gives notice of their upcoming polls that will be released this weeks:

Missouri’s Republican primary for governor and a peek at November.

Massachusetts’ US Senate primaries.

North Carolina November matchups for President, Governor, and US Senate.

A look ahead to November in Missouri’s 6th Congressional District.

Approval ratings and head to head November matchups in multiple states … including, for the first time, a look at how some potential November tickets do against one another.

Looks like Haggai over at Open Left was right about the vice presidential polls.  If you ever find yourself being polled about a downballot race (House, Senate, or Governor), let us know about it!

Stay tuned to SSP for full coverage as all these polls break.

(H/T: ChadInFL)

May has been a busy month and it is more than half over.  I have a few important things to announce this week.

1. CHANGES IN THE CAMPAIGN ORGANIZATION — We are going to make several important changes to the campaign organization this week.  These moves will bring in some new people with important knowledge, experience and expertise to the campaign and will change the roles of some people already involved with the campaign.

Henry Guthrie of DuBois will be moving from the position of Vice Chairman to Chairman of the McCracken for Congress committee.  Henry and his wife Molly have been very involved with the campaign since we began in January and I have great confidence in his political knowledge and abilities.  I worked closely with Henry in 2007 when we were both candidates for office at the county level.

Victor M. Ordonez will continue in the position of Media & Policy Advisor.  Victor brings years of political experience working in campaigns.  His prior positions have included working for Rep. Joseph Sestak (PA-07) and helping to get Senator Robert Casey Jr. elected in 2006.

Keith Bierly is coming on board as a campaign advisor.  Keith brings a wealth of knowledge to the campaign serving 12 years as a District Justice and 16 years as Centre County Commissioner.  Keith will be working on specific areas of the campaign to coordinate the efforts of the entire committee and we’re pleased to have him take this official role with the campaign.

Tim Fannin from the accounting firm of Catalano, Case, Catalano and Fannin will be taking over as Treasurer.  Running for federal office with all the required FEC and IRS filings takes a great deal knowledge.  Tim is a highly experienced accountant in the Clearfield area who has served on many boards and organizations including the Clearfield County Industrial Development Authority and the Clearfield County Economic Development Corporation among others.   With the appointment of Tim Fannin as Treasurer we are moving Milt Weisman to the position of Assistant Treasurer where he will remain involved with the campaign.

Recognizing the key role that Centre County plays in the 5th Congressional District, it is important to name someone to the position of Centre County Coordinator.   I didn’t have to look far to find someone with the credentials I was looking for.  Tim Wilson shares a passion for many of the same issues I’m stressing in the race for US Congress.  Tim is interested in alternative fuels, environmental issues, fiscal responsibility, health care reform, farmland preservation, support for public education and many of the other issues the McCracken for Congress campaign is all about.  An additional benefit of having Tim on our committee is, while he is now living in Centre County, he is originally from Jefferson County and will be able to help the campaign in those areas of the district also.

We’ve also invited Andrea Smith of Glen Richey to take over the role of Secretary of the committee.  Andrea has worked for many years as a legal secretary in the Clearfield area and has supported and assisted me in my past campaigns for school director and county commissioner.

We’re excited to have these people on board with the campaign.  We also have a number of people from every county in the 5th district offer to work for the campaign.  The solid organization we are putting together will help us run strong in every county in the 5th district.

2: CONGRATULATIONS TO TRAVIS CHILDERS — This past Tuesday Democrat Travis Childers was elected to the US Congress in a special election to fill a vacant seat in the state of Mississippi.   This was the third Democratic victory so far in 2008 in special elections.  The 3 seats in Mississippi, Louisiana and Illinois (the seat of former Speaker Dennis Hastert) were all considered to be traditional Republican seats and have been captured by Democrats.  It will take a great deal of hard work but we can accomplish this same feat here in the 5th Congressional District in November.

3: ARMED FORCES AWARENESS DAY — On Saturday, I took part in the Armed Forces Awareness Day ceremony in Clearfield.  This is the 5th consecutive year that I’ve participated as a county commissioner in this moving ceremony.  It is so important that we take time to recognize the commitment of the men and women who are serving and who have served in our armed forces.  

The ceremony in Clearfield is always so special with emotional speeches, patriotic songs by the DuBois American Legion Band and special recognition of the veterans and active servicemen in attendance.  This year, there were several very special guests including 2 Gold Star Mothers and a Clearfield County veteran who is a survivor of the attack on Pearl Harbor.

4: This coming week, Kelly, Amanda and I will be spending Saturday in Tioga County to attend the Blossburg Coal Festival and participate in the parade.  We also will be traveling later in the day to Wellsboro to meet with people who are interested in helping with the campaign.  If anyone from Tioga County would like to meet with us in Wellsboro, please email the campaign at mccrackenforcongress@verizon.net.

Mark B. McCracken

Your Candidate For Congress

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This diary is cross-posted at McCracken’s campaign blog, PA’s Blue Fifth

Mark McCracken for Congress

ActBlue page

SurveyUSA (5/16-18, likely voters, 5/9-11 in parens):

Bruce Lunsford (D): 47 (41)

Greg Fischer (D): 26 (23)

Others: 23 (30)

Undecided: 4 (6)

(MoE: ±4%)

Stick a fork in it, ’cause Greg Fischer’s campaign is done.

Primary: May 20th