Posts Tagged ‘
Kelly Ayotte ’
Tuesday, October 5th, 2010
Ed Kilgore
Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.
by Ed Kilgore
As spin wars continue over polling assessments of the two parties´ prospects nationally and in individual contests, the overall situation remains relatively stable, with a lot of the fireworks in the national news coming from California, where a controversy regarding Meg Whitman´s employment of an illegal immigrant is not exactly helping her gubernatorial campaign.
The most ominous news for Democrats came yesterday, when Gallup’s weekly tracking poll offered a likely voter sample for the first time this year. It showed Republicans with a 13 percent margin among likely voters, much larger than the three percent margin among registered voters.
At 538.com, Nate Silver offers a useful analysis Likely Voter/Registered Voter numbers from all pollsters, showing the Gallup “gap” to be unusually high. But it bears close watching, since likely voter estimates tend to become more accurate the closer you get to election day.
Our regional roundups continue today with the Northeast, the most pro-Democratic region in 2008, and a source of considerable residual Democratic strength today. According to Gallup´s tracking polls, the northeast region gives President Obama his only majority job approval numbers, currently at 51 percent.
There are eight Senate seats currently at stake in the Northeast, seven currently held by Democrats. Two of them—held by Vermont´s Pat Leahy and New York´s Chuck Schumer—are completely safe. Among the other five Democratic seats, Democrats have a robust if not invulnerable lead in three (Gillibrand of New York, Blumenthal of Connecticut, and Coons of Delaware); Republicans have held a steady lead in one (Toomey over Sestak in Pennsylvania); and one is dead even (Manchin versus Raese in West Virginia). Republicans have a strong but not insurmountable lead to hold on to the one (open) Republican seat, in New Hampshire, where Kelly Ayotte leads Paul Hodes.
The best-case scenario for Republicans, which would include Linda McMahon`s dollars making Connecticut truly competitive, is a gain of three seats. Democrats would be happy with a net loss of one.
In the gubernatorial races, Democrats currently hold six governorships that are up this year (Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania and Maryland) and Republicans three (Vermont, Rhode Island and Connecticut). According to the Cook Political Report, all but two of these nine gubernatorial races are currently tossups, with Democrats heavily favored to hold onto New York and Pennsylvania being rated “lean Republican.” Polling shows Republicans leading in Maine as well as Pennsylvania, and Democrats leading in New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Maryland; Vermont appears to be very close. The range of possible outcomes is very broad, but in gubernatorial races, the northeast appears to rival the West as the most promising Democratic region, in no small part because Dems are likely to pick up some Republican seats.
In House races, New York and Pennsylvania seats make the northeast a potential source of major Republican gains. Two New York and four Pennsylvania Democrats are in races considered toss-ups by Cook; four more New York districts and another in Pennsylvania are rated “lean Democratic,” vulnerable to a last-minute pro-GOP wave. Both New Hampshire seats, now held by Democrats, are also tossups, along with an open seat in West Virginia and Frank Kratovil`s seat in Maryland. The region does include a rare probable Democratic House pickup, in Delaware. In general, the Northeast is the region where the size and scope of Republican House gains will most be determined.
Photo credit: Peter Miller
Tags: 538.com, Blumenthal, California, Campaigns and elections, chuck schumer, Connecticut, Cook Political Report, Coons, Delaware, Frank Kratovil, Gallup, Gillibrand, governorships, illegal immigrant, Kelly Ayotte, lean Democratic, lean Republican, linda McMahon, Maine, Manchin, Maryland, Massachusetts, Meg Whitman, Nate Silver, New Hampshire, New York, Northeast, Pat Leahy, Paul Hodes, Pennsylvania, Politics and politicians, pro-Democratic, Raese, Rhode Island, Toomey, tossups, Vermont, West Virginia
Posted in
Daily Fix, Political Memo |
No Comments »
Friday, September 17th, 2010
Ed Kilgore
Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.
by Ed Kilgore
What looked to be a reasonably predictable final Tuesday of the 2010 primary season was taken over by the shock of the chattering classes at the victory of Christine O’Donnell over Mike Castle in the Delaware GOP senatorial contest. Indeed, the interpretation of Christine O’Donnell’s win has become as interesting as the win itself.
It’s not as though there were not abundant warnings: PPP released a poll the Sunday before the primary showing O’Donnell ahead. But I suspect that what’s shocked Republican observers in particular was the failure of a last-minute effort by the Delaware GOP and the state’s leading newspaper to destroy O’Donnell by exposing her history of financial malfeasance.
As voters went to the polls on Tuesday, the buzz around Washington was that Castle would be just fine. The probable assumption was that Tea Party supporters would subordinate their ideological concerns about Castle to horror at O’Donnell’s “irresponsibility,” so like the “deadbeats” that many conservatives think brought on the housing and financial crises. It didn’t happen.
In any event, as even more stories of O’Donnell’s personal and ideological wackiness spread, and as national GOP figures began publicly to write her off (Democrat Chris Coons has assumed a big lead in post-primary polls), the Senate landscape has shifted, with more pressure than ever on Republicans to win close races in Wisconsin, Washington, Colorado and California, and perhaps put Connecticut or West Virginia into play.
The dog that didn’t quite bark on Tuesday was in New Hampshire, where Ovide Lamontagne, who was receiving some of the same (minus Sarah Palin) last-minute national right-wing support enjoyed by O’Donnell, missed upsetting Kelly Ayotte in that state’s Senate primary by less than one percent. My guess is that the collapse in support for a third candidate, rich businessman (and “proudly pro-choice”) Bill Binnie, saved Ayotte, which is ironic since Binnie made this race competitive in the first place by running heavy attack ads on Ayotte throughout the summer. Lamontagne would not have been in as hopeless position as O’Donnell in a general election, in part because NH is a lot more amenable to Republicans than DE, but Ayotte’s a better bet for Republicans, though Democrat Paul Hodes was relatively close in the first post-primary poll.
In Wisconsin, longtime front-runner Scott Walker put away Mark Neumann by a surprisingly large 20% margin in the Republican gubernatorial primary. He will now be in a competitive general election contest against Milwaukee mayor Tom Barrett.
Meanwhile, in New York, where no one really expects the Republican gubernatorial or senate nominees to have much of a prayer against Andrew Cuomo, Kirsten Gillibrand, or Chuck Shumer, the GOP suffered an embarrassment when party stalwart Rick Lazio got trounced for the gubernatorial nomination by the rather eccentric self-funder and Tea Party favorite Carl Paladino. As the New York Times put it:
It put at the top of the party’s ticket a volatile newcomer who has forwarded e-mails to friends containing racist jokes and pornographic images, espoused turning prisons into dormitories where welfare recipients could be given classes on hygiene, and defended an ally’s comparison of the Assembly speaker, Sheldon Silver, who is Jewish, to “an Antichrist or a Hitler.”
In House races, Delaware was again the state that supplied the major upset, as another Tea Partier, Glenn Urquhart, defeated the NRCC-recruited candidate, Michelle Roberts, for the state’s at-large House seat. Former Lt. Gov. John Carney, the Democratic nominee, has now become one of a very select group favored to win Republican-controlled House seats.
In NH-2, in one of a smattering of competitive Democratic House primaries, Ann Kuster crushed former Lieberman for President chairman Katrina Swett by more than a two-to-one margin, and will face former Rep. Charlie Bass for the seat Bass lost to Paul Hodes in 2006. In NH-1, ethically challenged former Manchester Mayor Frank Guinta turned back a challenge from self-funder Sean Mahoney for the chance to take on Democratic Rep. Carol Shea-Porter. National GOP forces got the candidate they wanted in another vulnerable Democratic district, MA-10, where Jeff Perry won a shot at Democrat Bill Keating in the district vacated by Bill Delahunt.
And of course, in DC, mayor Adrian Fenty lost pretty badly to DC Council Chairman Vincent Gray in a contest where support was highly correlated to race. Much of the local political discussion in Washington since Tuesday has focused on the question of whether Gray will continue or reverse the education reforms initiated by Fenty and his school chief, Michelle Rhee.
We’re now down to just two primaries: an October 2 runoff in Louisiana, and tomorrow’s primary in Hawaii. The marquee contest in the Aloha State is the Democratic gubernatorial primary matching former congressman Neil Abercrombie, who upset a lot of Democrats in Washington by resigning his House seat just before the vote on health reform, with a Republican winning the special election to replace him, and former Honolulu mayor Mufi Hannemann, who is a bit conservative by Hawaii Democratic standards. Hannemann has a financial advantage, but Abercrombie has maintained a small but steady lead in the available polls. The winner of the primary will be favored in November to defeat Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona, and flip the state from R to D governance.
Tags: Adrian Fenty, Andrew Cuomo, Ann Kuster, Bill Binnie, Carl Paladino, Carol Shea-Porter, Charlie Bass, Chris Coons, Christine O’Donnell, chuck schumer, Duke Aiona, Frank Guinta, Glenn Urquhart, Hannemann, John Carney, Katrina Swett, Kelly Ayotte, Kirsten Gillibrand, Mark Nuemann, Michelle Rhee, Michelle Roberts, Mike Castle, Neil Abercrombie, NRCC, Ovide Lamontagne, Paul Hodes, post-primary poll, PPP poll, racist jokes, rick lazio, Sean Mahoney, Sheldon Silver, Tea Party, Vincent Gray, “an Antichrist or a Hitler”
Posted in
Daily Fix, Political Memo |
1 Comment »
Tuesday, September 14th, 2010
Ed Kilgore
Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.
by Ed Kilgore
Today marks the last big primary day of the midterm cycle. Following these eight contests, only Hawaii, this Saturday, and a runoff in Louisiana on October 2, remain on the calendar.
Most of the national attention during the week prior to these primaries has been focused on the two states with competitive Republican Senate primaries, Delaware and New Hampshire. In both states, late surges by conservative candidates threaten not only to upset establishment-backed front-runners, but also to make these seats far more difficult for Republicans to win in November.
Delaware
The Delaware race has been particularly characterized by late dramatics. From the day he announced for this contest, congressman Mike Castle has been the prohibitive front-runner, not only for the nomination but for the general election as well. Castle has won a remarkable twelve statewide elections in Delaware and has never lost. He has the solid support of both the state and national GOP. His challenger, religious conservative activist Christine O’Donnell, is a relative newcomer to the state (though she did win the sacrificial-lamb Senate nomination against Joe Biden two years ago) and is mainly known for extremist positions on sexual ethics. She also has a history of serious personal financial problems, and in fact, has no visible means of support at present. On top of everything else, she’s run a campaign against Castle heavily laden with homophobic innuendoes about her opponent’s masculinity.
Yet according to the one recent poll, released by PPP late Sunday night, O’Donnell is actually leading Castle 47-44. She’s received late endorsements from the NRA, Sarah Palin, and Jim DeMint, but only one endorsement, from the Tea Party Express, arrived early enough to give her any kind of material assistance. She’s benefitting, it appears, from long-simmering conservative resentment of Castle’s voting record: he’s pro-choice; he’s regularly bucked the gun lobby; he voted for TARP; and he was one of a handful of Republican House members who voted for climate change legislation in 2009. There may be a geographical factor as well; O’Donnell seems to be doing especially well in the southern portions of the state said to be fed up with the domination of Delaware politics by populous New Castle County (Wilmington).
O’Donnell’s late endorsements and particularly the PPP poll seem to have lit a fire underneath the Castle campaign, and his supporters have been pounding O’Donnell very aggressively as voters prepared to make their choice. One piece of raw material they’ve used is a Weekly Standard article about O’Donnell’s gender discrimination lawsuit against a Delaware-based conservative campus organization. “O’Donnell’s finances, honesty, and stability have been called into question in light of her false and strange claims,” the article suggests.
If she survives, O’Donnell will be the instant underdog against Democrat Chris Coons, the New Castle County Executive, who’s been running a stronger race than expected against Castle. But even if Castle pulls it out, the bad feelings from the primary could help Coons make the race competitive.
New Hampshire
Meanwhile, a more conventional if equally close Senate primary is unfolding in New Hampshire, where another originally prohibitive front-runner, Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, is now hanging onto a small lead over “true conservative” activist Ovide Lamontagne, who was the GOP gubernatorial nominee back in 1996. Ayotte does not have Castle’s kind of voting record to defend, and she’s been endorsed by Sarah Palin and some anti-abortion groups. But she’s been caught in sort of a pincers movement. During the summer months, a self-funding businessman, Bill Binnie, spent millions attacking Ayotte’s competence and integrity, and lured her into a back-and-forth that boosted both candidates’ negatives. Just as Binnie (who took the unconventional route of boasting about his pro-choice convictions) began to fade, Lamontagne took flight, particularly at the end of August when he secured the aggressive backing of that hardy conservative monolith, the New Hampshire Union-Leader. The paper has focused particularly on undermining Ayotte’s conservative support, pounding her daily for agreeing to a financial settlement with Planned Parenthood over a lawsuit against the state’s parental notification law.
PPP’s last poll showed Lamontagne within seven points of Ayotte over the weekend, while another late poll, by Magellan Strategies, pegged her lead at only four points. Jim DeMint offered Lamontagne a last-minute endorsement, and Sarah Palin’s done some robocalls for Ayotte, but the battle is pretty much between Ayotte and the Union-Leader. As in Delaware, national party figures are unhappy with the prospects of an upset; Lamotagne is the one Republican candidate who’s trailed Democratic congressman Paul Hodes in general election polls.
Wisconsin
The other statewide contest of note is in Wisconsin, where Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker is in a heated battle with former congressman (and heavy self-funder) Mark Neumann for the Republican gubernatorial nomination to face Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett (D). This race has mainly revolved around each candidate’s efforts to challenge the conservative credentials of the other, with Walker running last-minute ads attacking Neumann for voting for a large transportation bill in Congress back in 1998. Walker’s been the front-runner all along, but Neumann’s money has made it competitive.
Washington, DC
DC Democratic voters will determine the fate of Washington Mayor Adrian Fenty, who’s gotten high marks from wonks for his efforts to deal with DC’s dreadful public schools, but has actually been trailing DC Council Chairman Vincent Gray in recent polls. This contest has exposed long-standing racial rifts; while both candidates are African-American, Fenty’s strongest base of support is among the white gentrifiers whom some African-American voters blame for pricing black folks out of traditional neighborhoods; Gray has also unsurprisingly won backing from those who oppose Fenty’s controversial school reforms. The outcome will probably depend on turnout patterns in DC’s very diverse electorate.
Photo credit: Kevin Dooley
Tags: Adrian Fenty, African-American, anti-abortion groups, Bill Binnie, Chris Coons, Christine O’Donnell, climate change legislation, Conservative Activists, DC Council Chairman, Delaware, extremist positions, gender discrimination, gentrifiers, GOP, gun lobby, homophobic innuendoes, Jim DeMint, Joe Biden, Kelly Ayotte, Magellan Strategies, Mark Neumann, midterm cycle, Mike Castle, Milwaukee, New Castle County Executive, New Hampshire, NRA, Ovide Lamontagne, Paul Hodes, Planned Parenthood, PPP, Primaries, primary day, pro-choice, public schools, racial rifts, religious conservative activist, Republican House, Republican Senate primaries, sacrificial-lamb, Sarah Palin, school reforms, Scott Walker, sexual ethics, TARP, Tea Party Express, Tom Barrett, Union-Leader, Vincent Gray, Weekly Standard article, Wisconsin
Posted in
Daily Fix, Political Memo |
1 Comment »
Friday, September 10th, 2010
Ed Kilgore
Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.
by Ed Kilgore
Four days before the last big batch of primaries for the year, anticipation of the general election is already dominating most political discussions, with President Obama’s press conference yesterday being widely viewed as an effort to “go comparative” (or negative, depending on your perspective). This tactic is designed to simultaneously energize the flagging Democratic base while convincing swing voters not to treat the election as a referendum on the status quo or on Democratic policies they may not particularly like. You can expect other Democrats to quickly follow suit.
In the welter of recent polling data, a new Allstate/National Journal survey stands out because it detects deeper and more conflicted senses of discontent that echo the sentiments associated with the Great Depression. Here’s part of Ron Brownstein’s analysis:
The grim weight of the extended slowdown, the poll suggests, is deepening the public’s divisions over government’s role in promoting prosperity and the widespread distrust of financial institutions and major companies. The survey also captures the emergence of attitudes that don’t fit easily into the platform of either political party: a prickly “America First” streak anxious about the outsourcing of jobs to foreign countries and a censorious conviction that Americans summoned hard times on themselves through irresponsibility at all levels. Indeed, the belief that average Americans must manage their finances more responsibly as the economic storm lingers is one of the most powerful chords in the poll.
Whether there is some “new normal” that will guide political attitudes for years to come is one of the questions that will become urgent after November 2.
We’ll have a full preview of the September 14 primaries next Tuesday, but there are significant developments today in some of those contests. Sarah Palin has just endorsed hyper-conservative Senate challenger Christine O’Donnell, who is trying to deny congressman and former governor Mike Castle the Republican nomination in Delaware. Castle is thought to be one of the GOP’s most important recruitment successes. If he loses to O’Donnell, it will be a major triumph for the “true conservative”/Tea Party forces in the Republican Party, and would probably make Democrat Chris Coons the front-runner for a Democratic seat long thought to be lost.
Up in New Hampshire, Attorney General Kelly Ayotte’s once prohibitive lead for the Republican nomination to succeed Sen. Judd Gregg is also in doubt, with conservative Ovide Lamontagne surging in recent polls even as Ayotte’s negatives rise from relentless pounding by a third candidate, self-funder Bill Binnie. And in the District of Columbia, Washington mayor Adrian Fenty is in dire danger of losing re-election to District Council Chairman Vincent Gray despite generally positive ratings of the direction of the city, in a contest featuring significant racial polarization in Gray’s favor.
Tags: "true conservative", Adrian Fenty, Bill Binnie, Chris Coons, Christine O’Donnell, Kelly Ayotte, Mike Castle, Ovide Lamontagne, Tea Party, Vincent Gray
Posted in
Daily Fix, Political Memo |
1 Comment »
Tuesday, September 7th, 2010
Ed Kilgore
Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.
by Ed Kilgore
With the traditional Labor Day launch of the general election campaign now past, national political news is being dominated by predictions of large Republican gains. This mood is being fed by two major new congressional generic ballot surveys utilizing likely voter screens. A NBC-Wall Street Journal poll gives Republicans a 49-40 advantage among likely voters (registered voters are tied at 43 percent), while an ABC-Washington Post survey shows a 53-40 GOP preference among likely voters (Republicans lead among registered voters 47-45). This makes last week’s much-debated Gallup poll showing a ten-point GOP lead (among registered voters, actually) look like less of an outlier.
Unsurprisingly, such numbers are also increasing sentiment that Republicans are in a good position to take control of the House. At a panel during this weekend’s American Political Science Association annual meeting, five prominent political scientists predicted major GOP gains in the House, with three (Emory’s Alan Abramowitz, Dartmouth’s Joe Bafumi and SUNY Buffalo’s James Campbell) projecting a Republican takeover.
More specifically, Politico published an annotated list today of 75 Democratic House districts that are being targeted by the GOP, ranked in three tiers: “must-win” seats, “majority-makers,” and “landslide” districts that could be won if a Republican wave is really high. There are also 13 districts considered “on the bubble” for being winnable by the GOP. The “must-win” contests are largely focused on open seats and those represented by freshman and sophomore Democrats in Republican-leaning districts, but the second and especially third tiers include a lot of relatively senior Democrats who’ve survived tough competition before.
The “majority-makers” list of targets, for example, includes Jim Marshall of GA, Baron Hill of IN, Leonard Boswell of IA, John Spratt of SC and Chet Edwards of TX; while the “landslide” list includes Gabby Giffords of AZ, John Salazar of CO, Ike Skelton of MO, Lincoln Davis of TN, Rick Boucher of VA and Rick Larsen of WA.
Aside from the prediction game, a lot of the talk about the midterms continues to focus on an “enthusiasm gap” between Democrats and Republicans. This “gap” is often used interchangeably with measurements of likelihood to vote, obscuring the rather important fact that various demographic categories of voters always show a differential likelihood to vote in midterms, with particularly unfortunate consequences for Democrats in 2010.
Most importantly, likelihood to vote in midterms is strongly correlated with age, while support for President Obama is inversely correlated with age (among white voters, at least). A new Gallup study indicates that young voters are relapsing to their traditional levels of political disengagement in midterms:
The gap between young adults (aged 18 to 29) and older adults (aged 30+) in their election attention levels was relatively narrow in 2008 — 12 percentage points — but the 23-point difference today (42 percent vs. 19 percent) is similar to the average 26-point gap seen in October-November of prior midterms, from 1994 through 2006.
So a lot of the “enthusiasm gap” is sort of baked into the cake, and is not necessarily attributable to anything that’s happened since November of 2008. That’s cold comfort for Democratic House members in trouble this year, but should point to a much better landscape in 2012.
With the winding-down of the primary season, polling of individual states has wound down a bit, too. Democrats were alarmed by a set of new Ohio polls from the Columbus Dispatch showing Republican Senate candidate Rob Portman and gubernatorial candidate John Kasich opening up double digit leads over Democrats Lee Fisher and Ted Strickland. A Magellan poll of New Hampshire Republicans shows long-time front-runner in the Senate race, Kelly Ayotte, holding an uncomfortable lead over a large field, with “true conservative” Ovide Lamontagne not far behind. The primary in that state is next Tuesday.
Tags: ABC-Washington Post survey, Alan Abramowitz, American Political Science Association, Baron Hill, Chet Edwards, Gabby Giffords, Gallup poll, Ike Skelton, James Campbell, Jim Marshall, Joe Bafumi, John Kasich, John Salazar, John Spratt, Kelly Ayotte, Lee Fisher Ted Strickland, Leonard Boswell, Lincoln Davis, Magellan poll, NBC-Wall Street Journal poll, Ovide Lamontagne, Politico, Rick Boucher, Rick Larsen, Rob Portman, set of new Ohio polls, “enthusiasm gap”
Posted in
Daily Fix, Political Memo |
1 Comment »
Tuesday, August 31st, 2010
Ed Kilgore
Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.
by Ed Kilgore
It’s another Tuesday, and believe it or not, there are no primaries today! In fact, the next batch is not until September 14, when seven states plus the District of Columbia hold elections. This last weekend, however, voters in Louisiana and West Virginia went to the polls, with the latter limited to a special primary election for the late Robert Byrd’s Senate seat.
West Virginia
The results there were absolutely predictable, with Gov. Joe Manchin easily defeating Ken Hechler for the Democratic nod, and 2008 Senate nominee Jon Raese winning the Republican bid without breaking a sweat. Given the refusal of better-known Republicans to take on Manchin, this contest will provide a pretty good test of generic Republican strength in a red-leaning state where Democrats have often dominated in non-presidential elections.
Louisiana
Down in Louisiana, Senate candidates David Vitter (R) and Charlie Melancon (D) had no trouble winning their parties’ nominations. The more interesting contests were in two House districts. In LA-02, where Republican Joseph Cao pulled off a flukey win in 2008 over the ethically challenged Bill Jefferson, state legislator Cedric Richmond (D), the well-financed consensus choice of both New Orleans and DC Democrats, easily won the nomination without a runoff. This is perhaps the ripest Democratic House pickup opportunity in the nation. But in Melancon’s LA-03, a ripe Republican pickup opportunity, front-runner Jeff Landry, the beneficiary of Tea Party and Christian Right support, just missed avoiding a October 2 runoff against former state House Speaker Hunt Downer. The runoff will boost the uphill candidacy of Democrat Ravi Sangisetty, who has raised an impressive amount of money.
Alaska
A major bit of unfinished business from last Tuesday’s primaries continued to play out today, as Alaska election officials began to count an estimated 25,000 absentee and provisional ballots. Former judge Joe Miller leads incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski by 1,668 votes, and things are getting nasty already with Miller’s campaign alleging vote-tampering by the Murkowski camp. On another front, the Alaska Libertarian Party decided against offering Murkowski its ballot line should she lose the GOP nomination. That means her options would be limited to a write-in campaign. The Libertarian action was bad news for Democratic candidate Scott McAdams, though the hatefulness surrounding the Republican contest could still give him an opening.
Delaware
Meanwhile, in Delaware (another Senate contest where Republicans were assumed to have a virtual lock, in Delaware) the Tea Party Express has decided to weigh in on behalf of insurgent conservative candidate Christine O’Donnell, who is challenging Republican party establishment favorite Mike Castle.
New Hampshire
Similarly, in NH, longtime front-running Republican Senate candidate Kelly Ayotte may be getting nervous following the endorsement of hard-core conservative Ovide Lamontagne by the New Hampshire (nee Manchester) Union-Leader. Democrat Paul Hodes has been leading Lamontagne in general election test heats.
North Carolina
And in yet another race often conceded to Republicans, a new PPP survey of NC (which involved a switchover by PPP from registered to likely voters) shows Democrat Elaine Marshall hanging in there against Sen. Richard Burr, trailing him 43-38 with 6% going to a Libertarian candidate.
It would be ironic, to say the least, if Democratic control of the Senate were saved by unlikely wins in Alaska, Delaware or North Carolina (not to mention Nevada, where most observers wrote off Harry Reid as early as last year), but it’s always possible.
Florida
And then there’s Florida, where two recent polls have shown Charlie Crist falling significantly behind Marco Rubio. Crist is in real danger of losing crucial Democratic support to freshly minted nominee Kendrick Meek, and is dancing around the key question of which party he would caucus with in the Senate.
The game of predicting Republican House gains is intensifying as we get closer to November, and this week GOPers are buzzing over a new Gallup House generic ballot poll that shows them with a ten point lead, the largest in Gallup history. But as Pollster.com’s Mark Blumenthal explains, this result looks a lot like a random-noise outlier, particularly when you compare it to the most recent Newsweek generic ballot poll, which shows the two parties tied. The overall trendlines, though, are hardly comforting for Democrats.
Tags: Cedric Richmond, Charlie Crist, Charlie Melancon, Christine O’Donnell, David Vitter, Elaine Marshall, Hunt Downer, Jeff Landry, Joe Manchin, Joe Miller, Jon Raese, Joseph Cao, Kelly Ayotte, Ken Hechler, Kendrick Meek, Lisa Murkowski, Marco Rubio, Mike Castle, Ovide Lamontagne, Paul Hodes, Ravi Sangisetty, Richard Burr
Posted in
Daily Fix, Political Memo |
1 Comment »
Friday, July 30th, 2010
Ed Kilgore
Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.
by Ed Kilgore
I know it probably seems like this year’s primary season has been unbearably long. But as July comes to a close, there are 23 state primaries (plus runoffs in, so far, Georgia and Oklahoma, and a special election in West Virginia) still ahead. Next week’s schedule includes primaries on August 3 in Kansas, Michigan and Missouri, and on August 5 in Tennessee. Most of the action is on the Republican side, except in Michigan. Kansas has a close Republican Senate primary and two competitive GOP House contests; Missouri has two big Republican House primaries; and Tennessee has a close three-way Republican gubernatorial contest. In Michigan, both parties have very complex and competitive gubernatorial primaries (including that rarest of phenomena, a Republican candidate campaigning as a moderate), and there’s another strong challenge to Democratic Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick.
In the chattering classes, there’s been considerable discussion the last few days about Democratic efforts to improve morale, particularly a DCCC memo that denies Republicans have much of a chance of taking over the House. FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver mocked the memo as making slopping assumptions about the number of seats “in play” and also taking for granted four takeovers of Republican-held seats that are far from certain. RealClearPolitics’ Sean Trende takes a somewhat different tack, and concludes that Republicans’ prospects in November could be better than in 1994, because their goal is simply to take back two-thirds of the House seats they controlled prior to 2006. (On a different front, Stu Rothenberg of Roll Call accused Democrats of trying to rationalize likely House losses as attributable to factors beyond their control, which provoked me to respond).
There’s lots of fresh polling data. In California, PPP and PPIC (Public Policy Institute of California) have new statewide surveys out, and both show Democrats Jerry Brown and Sen. Barbara Boxer maintaining steady if relatively narrow leads. PPP has Brown leading Meg Whitman 46-40, while PPIC shows him up 37-34 with a big (23 percent) undecided vote. In the Senate race, PPP shows Boxer increasing her lead over Carly Fiorina by 6 points since the June 8 primary. She’s now up 49-40, and just as importantly, has a significantly better approval disapproval rating than Fiorina (Boxer’s is 44/46; Fiorina’s is 28/40). PPIC places Boxer’s lead at 39-34, with, again, a high-undecided rate of 22 percent.
A new Mason-Dixon poll of NV shows Harry Reid and Sharron Angle in a dead heat; Reid leads 43-42, with the favorable-unfavorable ratios of both candidates also being very similar (Reid: 38-51; Angle: 38-47).
Two new surveys in the under-reported Senate race in New Hampshire show Republican front-runner Kelly Ayotte with a significant but shrinking lead over Democratic Rep. Paul Hodes. PPP now has Ayotte up 45-42; a University of New Hampshire poll shows her leading Hodes 45-37.
Last week PPP created a buzz with a poll showing Democrat Alex Sink taking the lead in Florida governor’s race thanks to a toxic Republican primary between Attorney General Bill McCollum and former hospital chain magnate Rick Scott. Now Quinnipiac has a new survey showing both McCollum and Scott basically tied with Sink, with independent Bud Chiles in double-digits and a very large undecided vote.
And Michigan-based EPIC-MRA has a survey out of both parties’ gubernatorial primaries in Michigan. On the Democratic side, the poll shows labor-backed Lansing mayor Virg Bernero holding a 40-32 lead over state legislative leader Andy Dillon. Among Republicans, EPIC-MRA shows a very close three-way race, with former Gateway exec Rick Snyder, who has been openly appealing for Democratic and independent crossover votes, at 26 percent, while Attorney General Mike Cox is at 24 percent and congressman Peter Hoekstra at 23 percent; the latter two candidates have been battling for the Tea Party/”true conservative” vote.
Ed Kilgore’s PPI Political Memo runs every Tuesday and Friday.
Photo Credit: hlkljgk‘s Photostream
Tags: Barbara Boxer, California, Carly Fiorina, DCCC, Democratic Party, FiveThirtyEight, Georgia, GOP, Jerry Brown, Kansas, Kelly Ayotte, Meg Whitman, Michigan, Missouri, Nate Silver, New Hampshire, Oklahoma, primary election, RealClearPolitics, Rep. Carolyn Kilpatrick, Rep. Paul Hodes, Republican gubernatorial, Roll Call, Tennessee, West Virginia
Posted in
Daily Fix, Fixing Our Broken Politics, Political Memo |
No Comments »
Friday, May 14th, 2010
Ed Kilgore
Ed Kilgore is a PPI senior fellow, as well as managing editor of The Democratic Strategist, an online forum.
by Ed Kilgore
There were two House elections of note earlier this week. The one which earned national attention was in West Virginia, where ethics-challenged Rep. Alan Mollohan (D), who had served 14 terms in office, was beaten decisively by Democratic primary opponent state senator Mike Oliverio. The winner styles himself as a conservative Democrat, but given Mollohan’s own relatively conservative record, it’s likely the result had less to do with ideology than with serial investigations of the incumbent for alleged conflicts of interest associated with his chairmanship of an appropriations subcommittee. This seat has been targeted by Republicans, and Oliverio may be harder to beat than a wounded Mollohan.
Down in Georgia, a special election was held to replace Republican Rep. Nathan Deal, who resigned his seat to “concentrate” on his gubernatorial races; Deal was also being investigated and criticized by the Ethics Committee for alleged interference with a state grant program that benefitted his own business. In the heavily Republican mountain district, the big issue was strong Tea Party and Club for Growth backing for former state Rep. Tom Graves, who finished first with 35 percent of the vote, but will face a June 8 runoff with a more conventional Republican, former state senator Lee Hawkins, who gained 23 percent of the vote. Graves will be favored in the runoff, but will have to run for a full term beginning with a primary on July 8.
Next Tuesday primaries will be held in Arkansas, Kentucky, Oregon and Pennsylvania. In Arkansas, Sen. Blanche Lincoln (D) is in a close primary battle with Lt. Gov. Bill Halter; there are competitive primaries in both parties for a Senate seat in Kentucky; Oregon will feature a comeback bid by former Gov. John Kitzhaber; and in Pennsylvania, Arlen Specter is in serious trouble from a challenge by Joe Sestak. I’ll have more about those races on Tuesday morning.
Poll Watch
Polling news includes a very interesting Mason-Dixon survey of the Republican Senate primary race in Nevada. When asked if the “Chickens For Checkups” controversy involving longtime frontrunner Sue Lowden affected their likely vote, Nevada Republicans generally said it would not. But for no other apparent reason, Lowden’s support has dropped significantly since the last Mason-Dixon poll in April, and she’s now locked in a competitive three-way race in which Tea Party favorite Sharron Angle has suddenly leapt into second place. The poll gave Lowden 30 percent, Angle 25 percent, and Danny Tarkanian 22 percent. The primary is on June 8, and the winner will face Harry Reid.
A new Rasmussen survey in New Hampshire shows Republican former Attorney General Kelly Ayotte continuing to hold a solid (50/38) lead over Democratic Rep. Paul Hodes for the seat held by retiring Sen. Judd Gregg. A DKos/R2K poll in Kentucky suggests that Democrats Dan Mongiardo and Jack Conway are in a dead heat, while on the GOP side, Rand Paul holds a 10-point lead over Trey Grayson.
Yet another poll in Pennsylvania, this one from Suffolk, shows Joe Sestak pulling ahead of Arlen Specter (49/40). And a PPP survey of Republicans to measure early support for prospective 2012 presidential candidates places no fewer than four candidates (Mike Huckabee with 25 percent; Mitt Romney with 23 percent; Newt Gingrich with 21 percent, and Sarah Palin with 20 percent) in a virtual dead heat.
Ed Kilgore’s PPI Political Memo runs every Tuesday and Friday.
Tags: Alan Mollohan, Arkansas, Arlen Specter, Bill Halter, Blanche Lincoln, Campaigns and elections, Dan Mongiardo, Danny Tarkanian, Democratic Party, Georgia, Jack Conway, Joe Sestak, John Kitzhaber, Judd Gregg, Kelly Ayotte, Kentucky, Mike Huckabee, Mike Oliverio, Mitt Romney, Nathan Deal, Newt Gingrich, Oregon, Paul Hodes, Pennsylvania, Politics and politicians, Public opinion, Rand Paul, Republican Party, Sarah Palin, Sharron Angle, Sue Lowden, Tea Party, Tom Graves, Trey Gray, West Virginia
Posted in
Daily Fix, Fixing Our Broken Politics, Political Memo |
No Comments »
