Swing State Project

From the Chicago Tribune:

There will be no redux for Tammy Duckworth in the 2008 election.

Duckworth, an Iraq War veteran now serving as director of the Illinois Department of Veterans’ Affairs, said Sunday that she has decided not to run again next year against U.S. Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.) in the 6th Congressional District.

Roskam, an experienced state legislator before his election to Congress last year, proved to be one of the slicker Republican candidates of the 2006 cycle; despite receiving a well-funded challenge from Duckworth last year, his campaign succeeded in snagging Duckworth in skirmishes over illegal immigration while Iraq was mostly left off the table until the closing weeks.  He went on to win by a two-point margin while Democrats scored victories in twelve seats that were more Republican-leaning than Illinois’ 6th District.

While the DCCC has made some noise about Roskam’s far-right voting record in recent months, there are no other obvious names set to challenge the freshman incumbent next year.  It’s widely noted that IL-06 has been rapidly losing its traditionally strong Republican edge (while Gore lost this district by nine points, Kerry only trailed by six).  It would be a shame if Roskam would be able to escape 2008 without facing an aggressive challenger who would be willing to push Iraq as the number one issue facing the district, and the nation.

(Hat-tip to DailyKos diarist chipoliwog.)

(From the diaries – promoted by James L.)

There has been a flurry of developments in WV-02 during the last two weeks. All of them point to one conclusion: State Sen. John Unger’s challenge of vulnerable incumbent Rep. Shelley Moore Capito is a top-tier pick-up opportunity for the Democratic Party in 2008.

Unger–recruited by both netroots and the DCCC–has emerged as an early, well-positioned challenger to Capito. The major recent developments include:

* Potential challenger Anne Barth (W.Va. State Director for Sen. Robert Byrd) ended speculation and stated she is not running. This clears the path for a single strong Democratic Party nominee–it’s all but certain now that Unger will face no significant Democratic primary opposition.

* Unger held a successful fund-raising event in Washington, D.C. hosted by a Who’s Who of W.Va. and DCCC Reps. The event was officially hosted by our two W.Va. Dem. Reps. Mollohan (WV-01) and Rahall (WV-03), along with DCCC Chair Rep. Chris Van Hollen and DCCC Recruitment Chair Rep. Artur Davis.

* As part of their July 4th week campaign hitting vulnerable Republicans, the DCCC announced a series of radio commercials targeting Rep. Capito’s poor record of supporting veterans. This level of support from the DCCC is highly significant–this is a strong signal that WV-02 is a key target for 2008. (James L. has more details here.)

* Not long after the DCCC announcement, Pres. Bush announced he was visiting John Unger’s hometown, Martinsburg, W.Va. on July 4. Providing a safe harbor to her good friend Rep. Shelley Moore Capito greeted Bush with open arms at his time of need. Bush held a private, closed door morning speech with National Guard members and their families.

* Wasting no time after getting setup on ActBlue, Unger sent out his first email fund-raising appeal. Using Pres. Bush’s visit to show how out of touch Capito is with West Virginia values in “Bush and Capito Stick Together!“, Unger called for bringing our soldiers home from Iraq.

This is shaping up to be an exciting race. John Unger is a good fit for this district. He is similar to Rep. Rahall in that he’s more socially conservative (just like this district) than a typical member of the Progressive Netroots, but he is also adamant about issues of social and economic justice–and, that includes getting out of Iraq.

Written by Clem G., a W.Va. volunteer Netroots activist. Cross-posted at West Virginia Blue, the home of WV-02 coverage.

I believe in elections, and elections believe in me.

With the end of the Federal 2nd Quarter fundraising period, we’ve taken some time to look through the data we’ve collected at ActBlue. Each day this week we released some data regarding the activity across ActBlue, both for the quarter and how that compares to our lifetime statistics for the past 3 years. I’ve analyzing it for trends and patterns that may shed light into the giving habits of Democratic donors at the early phase of campaigns.

Here’s a review of the week.

Tuesday
Totals, donors, and contributions- find out info on the raw numbers system wide.

Wednesday
Candidates- find out who’s hot by the number of donors and dollars.

Thursday
Fundraising Pages- find out the top 10 pages on ActBlue by donors and dollars.

Friday
State Level Activity- find out what’s up in non-federal races and who’s leading.

When a person is chosen as a veep nominee can the funds s/he raised be used in the presidential contest?  I’m wondering about this because it might be why Susan Collins (wRong-ME) is still supporting Iraq.  She’s be immensely supportive of the Mccain and the war, and her continued support, coupled with the her “moderate” status, and location would make her a strategic choice for veep.  This is of course assuming Mccain can bring his campaign out of the dumps.  It’s also an interesting parallel between the republicans now, and the democrats of 1968.  McCain/collins would be their version of Humphrey/Muskie. 

We here at the SSP hope everyone has a great Fourth of July holiday. We’ll be taking a vacation through the end of the week, so in the meantime, feel free to use this as an open thread.

See you next week!

(If you’ve got any other Q2 numbers, post them in the comments. – promoted by James L.)

[Originally posted today at Senate 2008 Guru: Following the Races.]

Q2 Fundraising: Second quarter fundraising figures are beginning to trickle in.  The Hill reports: Thad Cochran (R-MS) dropped to $275,000; Katrina Swett (D-NH) raised “about” $700,000; Jon Bruning (R-NE) took in over $720,000; Mike Ciresi (D-MN) raised over $735,000; Steve Marchand (D-NH) brought in about $100,000; Steve Novick (D-OR) took in $190,000; and, recovering Senator Tim Johnson (D-SD) neared a goal of $600,000.  UNO Dems reminds us that “Bob Kerrey’s still got about $400,000 cash on hand from his old Senate campaign account.”  Norm Coleman (R-MN) raised around $1.5 million.  Larry LaRocco (D-ID) raised about $80,000.

Also: John Warner prepares us for another notoriously low fundraising quarter.  (Retirement announcement on the way?)

The commutation of Scooter Libby’s prison sentence wasn’t really a surprise. We already knew the President believed in amnesty.

But the silence from our Congressman is troubling. Mike McCaul fancies himself an authority on national security and is a member of the Committee on Standards of Official Conduct.

Does he condone the treasonous act of outing a clandestine intelligence agent?

Standing by your friends is one thing. Standing by a high government official convicted of lying to federal agents to cover up Dick Cheney’s campaign to take the nation to war in Iraq under false pretenses is another.

We need a change in Washington – now.

Please join me at http://www.dangrantforcongress.com/ to see how we can make a fresh start in a new direction.

According to the Buckeye State Blog, Franklin County Commissioner Mary Jo Kilroy is set to have the primary field all to herself in her rematch bid against faux-moderate Republican Deborah Pryce:

I’m getting highly reliable reports that this morning Franklin County Commissioner Paula Brooks announced her intention not to make a formal bid for Congress in the OH-15 race. Apparently Commissioner Brooks called Commissioner Kilroy and informed her of the news first.

Studious readers of the Swing State Project might know that I’m generally not optimistic about House rematches, with certain exceptions: scandal, or when the challenger turns a low-profile shell campaign into a serious threat (e.g. Paul Hodes).  We all saw how four years of the same campaign worked for Lois Murphy (PA-06) and Diane Farrell (CT-04) last year.  Mary Jo Kilroy is no exception, but she could have a possible opening if she can reorient her campaign message.  Searching high and low on Youtube, I couldn’t find a single TV spot from Kilroy’s 2006 campaign hitting Pryce on Iraq directly: not from her, not from the DCCC, not from any of the third-party groups who dropped some serious coin into Ohio’s 15th last year.  All I can find is the standard stuff: bio fluff, fiscal responsibility, veteran’s benefits, congressional pay raises, perscription drug prices, etc.  The only Iraq-related ad produced by Kilroy that I could find was this one featuring a disabled Iraq vet, but its message has much more to do with trying to prove toughness on security matters (“immediate wiretapping!”) rather than opposing the war or even calling for change in Iraq.  Now, it’s entirely possible that Kilroy aired a series of hard-hitting Iraq ads that didn’t find their way to Youtube, but given the sheer volume of OH-15 ads available on the site, it doesn’t seem likely.

If Kilroy truly failed to exploit the Iraq issue, and if she’s prepared to reverse course, then she may have a legitimate shot at giving Pryce another serious run.  But if we’re going to see another two years of giving Pryce a pass on Iraq, color me unimpressed.