Posts Tagged ‘
Roy Barnes ’
Friday, October 1st, 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
Just a month out now from Election Day, national political crosswinds are beginning to yield in importance to the sometimes idiosyncratic dynamics of key individual campaigns. In the second of our series of regional takes on statewide and congressional races, we´ll take a quick look today at the South (using the Old Confederacy definition of the region).
This was, by any measurement, Barack Obama´s worst region in 2008, despite important victories in Virginia, North Carolina, and Florida. He trailed John Kerry´s performance in Arkansas and Tennessee, and his percentage of the white vote was abysmal in Alabama, Mississippi, and Louisiana as well. Negative attitudes towards him have clearly deepened throughout the region during 2009 and 2010.
The South also has the nation´s richest lode of Democratic House members in districts carried by John McCain in 2008—23 out of 49. Considering the pro-Republican shape of the midterm electorate, and the erosion of Obama support, all these Democrats, plus many others in districts narrowly carried by Obama, entered 2010 in some serious danger.
There is only one Senate Democrat from the South up for re-election this year, Arkansas´ Blanche Lincoln, whose campaign appears to have fallen hopelessly behind Republican John Boozman even before her close primary runoff victory over Bill Halter.
The two Republican Senate seats thought to be within reach of Democrats are in North Carolina, where Elaine Marshall has run a credible race against Sen. Richard Burr, but is running out of time and money needed to score an upset; and in Florida, where the steady decline of Charlie Crist´s vote seems to be giving Marco Rubio an insurmountable lead.
Gubernatorial races are a relative bright spot for southern Democrats. Tennessee looks very likely to flip from D to R, and Alabama´s a very long shot for Democrat Ronnie Sparks, but in FL, Alex Sink is in a dead heat with Republican Rick Scott; in Georgia, the ethical and financial problems of GOP nominee Nathan Deal are keeping Roy Barnes in close contention; and in Texas, Bill White is running a very competitive race against Rick Perry. In Arkansas, Democratic incumbent Mike Beebe so far looks immune to the tsunami that has engulfed Blance Lincoln.
House races, as always, are harder to assess. Louisiana features a rare Republican-held district that Democrats are favored to flip, though accidental congressman Joseph Cao can´t be counted out. Overall, Democratic retirements have created major problems: the Cook Political Report rates five open southern House seats as “likely Republican,” and another as “lean Republican.” And among incumbents, twelve southern House Democrats are in races rated as tossups by Cook, with another seven in the competitive “lean Democratic” category.
All in all, that means 24 Democratic House seats in the South—2 in AL, 3 in AR, 5 in FL, 2 in GA, 1 in LA, 1 in MS, 2 in NC, 3 in TN, 2 in TX, and 3 in VA—are vulnerable in November 2. One big question involves African-American turnout, which is sometimes relatively robust in midterm election. Another is whether Republicans can count on a late surge in a region where anti-Obama and anti-Democratic leanings have been solidified for quite some time.
Photo credit: cfarivar
Tags: African-American, AL, Alabama, Alex Sink, anti-Democratic, anti-Obama, AR, Arkansas, Barack Obama, Bill Halter, Bill White, Blance Lincoln, Blanche Lincoln, Campaigns and elections, Charlie Crist, Democratic House members, Democratic Party, Elaine Marshall, Election Day, FL, Florida, GA, Georgia, GOP, Gubernatorial races, John Boozman, John Kerry, John McCain, Joseph Cao, LA, lean Democratic, lean Republican, likely Republican, Louisiana, Marco Rubio, midterm electorate, Mike Beebe, Mississippi, MS, Nathan Deal, NC, North Carolina, November 2, Old Confederacy, political crosswinds, Richard Burr, Rick Perry, Rick Scott, ronnie sparks, Roy Barnes, Senate Democrat, South, Tennessee, Texas, TN, TX, VA, Virginia
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Tuesday, September 21st, 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 just six weeks left until Election Day, it’s getting to that time when the sheep can be separated from the goats.
There are some developments that have been long expected but have not yet materialized. One is the tightening of the Pennsylvania Senate race, where Republican Pat Toomey, often considered far too conservative for this blue state, has had a sizable and steady lead over Democrat Joe Sestak. Another is the traditional pre-election decline by once-competitive southern Democrats (this year’s exemplars are Texas’ Bill White and Georgia’s Roy Barnes).
Other recent developments were not expected, and may or may not be a sign of things to come. The most obvious of these is the recent and (to Democrats) alarming surge of statewide Republican candidates in Ohio. Another is the apparent and shocking leap of obscure Republican John Maese into the lead, in at least one poll, over Gov. Joe Manchin in West Virginia’s Senate special election. Other possibilities include very recent recoveries of solid leads by Democratic senators Patti Murray of Washington and Barbara Boxer of California.
It’s also getting to that point where underdogs will need to make a move if they are going to have a shot at being competitive. If Republican Linda McMahon of Connecticut is really going to challenge Richard Blumenthal, she might as well go ahead and spend the rest of her wrestling money now to find out if it’s possible. And soon it will be time to stop talking about the “potential” of Republicans to upset theoretically vulnerable House Democrats like Dan Boren of Oklahoma or John Barrow of Georgia. Surely upsets occur, but winning candidates usually have gained at least some momentum by October.
In other words, we’re now in the stage where political trends are now crystallizing into impending realities. In the polls, this is reflected in the ongoing “switchover” from surveys of registered voters to those of likely voters. The closer we get to November 2, the more it makes sense to pay special attention to polls that screen likely voters based on their subjective intention to participate rather than some arbitrary weighting of this or that group’s probable voting propensity; it’s more of a measurement and less of a prediction.
And as each day goes by, the Republican “wave” we have all been expecting may or may not appear, at least in the kind of intensity we are talking about. The mental “thumb on the scales” we have all come to apply to the standing of Republican candidates this year should lighten as the more objective assessments pick up either the wave or its shortcomings.
Looking at the overall landscape, Republicans appear to be in better than average position to take over the House, but it’s all about the pitched battles in 20 or 30 districts that are very, very close. (Overall, the Cook Political Report currently calls no less than 50 House races “toss-ups,” though 47 of those are currently Democratic-held).
In the Senate, the apparent loss of Delaware means that Republicans need to put West Virginia or Connecticut into play, but still must win all but one of the baker’s dozen of competitive races in the rest of the country in order to take control. As has been the case all along, Democrats are relatively strong in some of the states where gubernatorial results could be key to major redistricting opportunities—Florida, Georgia, Texas—and relatively weak in others—Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois.
The two parties are relatively in balance from a financial point of view, with the DNC and its party committees having an unusual advantage, while as usual, Republicans will benefit disproportionately from “independent expenditures” (especially from the Chamber of Commerce and Karl Rove’s American Crossroads).
But from here on in, it’s time to stop talking about what might be, and figure out what’s actually happening.
Tags: American Crossroads, Barbara Boxer, Bill White, blue state, California, Chamber of Commerce, Connecticut, conservative, Cook Political Report, Dan Boren, Delaware, Election 2010, Election Day, Georgia, gubernatorial results, House Democrats, independent expenditures, Joe Manchin, Joe Sestak, John Barrow, John Maese, Karl Rove, linda McMahon, November 2, obscure Republican, Ohio, Oklahoma, Pat Toomey, Patti Murray, Pennsylvania, Republican Wave, Richard Blumenthal, Roy Barnes, switchover, toss-ups, Washington, West Virginia
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Friday, September 3rd, 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 general election bell-ringer of Labor Day on tap Monday, for the most part it’s now past time for observers to speak in some sort of future tense about what the two parties might do to position themselves for November. Yes, eight states do still have pending primaries, along with one that still has a runoff; these contests will significantly affect at least two Senate and three gubernatorial races. Yes, national decisions still have to be made about the precise deployment of financial resources in particular races, and there are a scattering of individual candidate decisions that could fundamentally change the landscape in particular races (most notably in Colorado, where doomed-looking Republican gubernatorial nominee Don Maes is under increasing pressure to drop out). And there are, of course, mistakes that can be made on the campaign trail or in debates that could move lots of voters. In most cases, however, campaigns will focus on getting out their vote, and on appealing to a very narrow range of swing voters. This is likely to revolve around negative attacks on opponents, since that is one of the few devices that can serve as both a motivator and a persuader.
To a considerable extent, much of the “political news” you are going to hear between now and November will have as much to do with the measurement of public opinion as with efforts to influence it. This is when most pollsters switch from surveying registered to “likely” voters (though some, notably Rasmussen and Survey USA, have long been deploying “likely voter” screens, which helps account for the relative strong Republican performance in their polls). And this is when various ambitious models for predicting the results will be announced and refined.
So what should the discriminating political junkie watch for during the next two months?
With respect to the fight for control of the House, the most important objective data point will probably be the final Gallup poll generic ballot results in October. Back in 2002, political scientist Alan Abramowitz developed a very reliable model for predicting the overall results from the final Gallup generic. Just yesterday Pollster.com’s Harry Enten released a refinement of the Abramowitz model, which suggests, for example, that a five-percent GOP advantage among likely voters in the final Gallup generic ballot poll would translate into 225 Republican seats.
Senate races are a much tougher nut to crack, since they are less susceptible to national “waves.” The most influential model, by FiveThirtyEight’s Nate Silver, currently shows Democrats likely to sustain a net loss of six to seven seats, but with a 20 percent chance of losing ten or more, which would give Republican control of the upper chamber. Nate’s system also supplies a probability rating for any given Senate seat “flipping” from one party to the other; right now the range is from a 100 percent probability in North Dakota and Arkansas to zero percent probability in eleven states.
And governor’s races are even more complex, since non-national issues (including specific economic and fiscal conditions) can be a major factor, and responsibility for an unpopular status quo doesn’t always reside with Democrats. So given the national dynamics and the slow but steady trend towards partisan polarization in state as well as federal politics, it makes sense to watch closely those “red state” gubernatorial contests where Democratic candidates have managed to remain competitive so far—particularly Texas (Bill White), Florida (Alex Sink) and Georgia (Roy Barnes), three states where a Democratic win could have a major impact on congressional redistricting.
Speaking of redistricting, there are also vicious battles being fought for control of state legislative chambers. I won’t go into this in detail today (it will be the subject of a future Political Memo), but the basic situation is that Republicans have significant advantages in the political landscape while Democrats appear to be a bit better focused and financed.
Finally, it’s important to keep in mind that the results of any given election cycle are usually over-emphasized. Obviously the Democratic “wave” elections of 2006 and 2008 have not, at least in the short-term, led to any sort of realignment of our political system. It works both ways, though: after the last redistricting cycle, it was generally thought that Republicans had won a “lock” on control of the House until 2012; it didn’t turn out to be much of a lock. But Democrats do need to relearn the basic problem that our constitutional system builds a conservative bias into the composition of the U.S. Senate, and the balance of control among governorships and state legislatures. But by the same token, Republicans need to understand that the gains they make this year need to be contextualized by their terrible performance in 2006 and 2008, and that the shape of the electorate in the presidential cycle of 2012 will be very different, and much less friendly to the GOP cause.
Ed Kilgore’s PPI Political Memo runs every Tuesday and Friday.
Photo Credit: OZinOH’s Photostream
Tags: Alan Abramowitz, Alex Sink, Bill White, Colorado, Democrats, Don Maes, Gallup, general election, Harry Enten, Labor Day, Nate Silver, Pollster.com, Rasmussen, Roy Barnes, Senate, U.S. House of Representatives
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Friday, August 13th, 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
When you add it all up, Tuesday produced four gubernatorial general election contests—three in states currently controlled by Republicans—in which the Democratic candidate is, at the moment anyway, the front-runner. Quite a tonic for distressed donkeys everywhere.
In Colorado, The Republican gubernatorial primary was a messy affair in which the “winner” – little-known, underfinanced, and rather kooky Tea Party activist Dan Maes – will now come under sustained pressure to fold his campaign and allow the state party to pick a more suitable candidate (possibly Jane Norton), in hopes of also squeezing Constitution Party candidate Tom Tancredo out of the race. If GOPers don’t pull off this gymnastic series of maneuvers, Democratic nominee John Hickenlooper will be a heavy favorite in November.
Meanwhile, in the Democratic senatorial primary, appointed Senator Michael Bennet survived what was beginning to look like a political death spiral. He dispatched former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff by an eight-point margin, with especially robust performance in the Denver suburbs in what will be perceived as a victory for the White House. He will now face district attorney and Tea Party favorite Ken Buck (R), who has shown a distinct proclivity for self-inflicted verbal wounds. Buck defeated former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton in the Republican primary mainly by piling up large margins in his home turf near Ft. Collins.
In Connecticut, an odd role reversal occurred in the Democratic gubernatorial primary. Former netroots idol Ned Lamont ran a campaign focused on imposing fiscal discipline and improving the business climate and lost rather dramatically to former Stamford mayor Dan Malloy, who has a “centrist” background but ran as something of a populist. Malloy will face former Ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley, a conventional conservative who held off Lt. Gov. Michele Fedele.
These two contests were also something of a test for Connecticut’s strong system of public financing of campaigns: Malloy and Fedele received public financing, while Lamont and Foley self-funded. Unfortunately for Malloy, the portion of the Connecticut law that provided for “triggering” larger grants for candidates facing self-funders has been invalidated for the general election. But according to the polls, Malloy will be the favorite in November.
In Minnesota, former U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton continued his political comeback by narrowly winning the gubernatorial nomination against party-endorsed State House Speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher. Dayton is the early favorite over Republican nominee Tom Emmer, who is probably too conservative for the state, and will also likely lose votes to Independence Party nominee Tom Horner.
And in Georgia, the vicious GOP gubernatorial runoff, in a mild upset, went to former congressman Nathan Deal, who is both a conservative ideologue and the candidate of the state’s GOP establishment. Deal defeated self-styled “conservative reformer” Karen Handel, by just an eyelash.
This contest featured a lot of national intervention, with Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee campaigning for Deal and Sarah Palin campaigning for Handel (Mitt Romney also did robocalls for the loser). Handel’s quick concession and endorsement of Deal provided some hope among Republicans that the party would unite after the bitter primary and runoff, in the face of a challenge from former Gov. Roy Barnes, who’s been running more or less even with the various Republican candidates in the polls.
Next Tuesday, Washington State (with its unusual system in which the top two primary candidates regardless of party proceed to the general election) and Wyoming are holding primaries. The much-higher-profile Florida and Arizona primaries follow on August 24.
In the Florida, the initial appeal of the two hugely self-funded candidates, Democrat billionaire Bob Greene and Republican billionaire Rick Scott, seems to be fading as the primary approaches.
In the Democratic Senatorial primary, a Feldman poll taken for congressman Kendrick Meek shows him edging ahead of Greene after a week or so of very bad publicity about the billionaire’s personal life.
Meanwhile, in the Republican gubernatorial primary, both Mason-Dixon and the Tarrance Group have new polls showing previously left-for-dead Attorney General Bob McCollum moving ahead of Rick Scott, a former hospital chain executive. Mason-Dixon also shows that the savage competition between the Republicans has lifted Democrat Alex Sink into the lead in the general election.
Ed Kilgore’s PPI Political Memo runs every Tuesday and Friday.
Photo Credit: Mykl Roventine
Tags: Alex Sink, Andrew Romanoff, Bob Greene, Bob McCollum, Dan Maes, Dan Malloy, Jane Norton, John Hickenlooper, Karen Handel, Ken Buck, Kendrick Meek, Margaret Anderson Kelliher, Mark Dayton, Michael Bennet, Michele Fedele, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Nathan Deal, Ned Lamont, Newt Gingrich, Primaries, Rick Scott, Roy Barnes, Sarah Palin, Tea Party, Tom Emmer, Tom Foley, Tom Horner, Tom Tancredo
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Tuesday, August 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
This is the busiest primary day since the June 8 blockbuster, with three states (CO, CT and MN) holding primaries and a fourth (GA) holding a runoff. So there’s a lot of ground to cover.
Colorado
A factor in all the Colorado races is that most counties in the state went to an all-mail-ballot system this year, which could boost overall turnout but will definitely affect the timing of votes (though Colorado’s had heavy early voting for a while now).
Colorado’s Senate races have become very competitive in both parties coming down the stretch. Appointed Sen. Michael Bennet (D) got hit with a controversial (in its timing) New York Times piece about his involvement in an unsuccessful investment by the Denver public schools, which immediately generated an attack ad by his opponent, former state House Speaker Andrew Romanoff (D), who has been pounding Bennet for weeks as someone too close to Wall Street. Late polls show a very close race, with Survey USA indicating Romanoff has moved ahead while PPP shows Bennet hanging onto a small lead.
On the Republican side, polls also differ as to whether district attorney Ken Buck has maintained his lead over former Lt. Gov. Jane Norton, despite his recent gaff-a-thon. Norton surprised a lot of observers by inviting John McCain into the state to campaign with her at the very end; we’ll see if she knew what she was doing. While both candidates are quite conservative, Buck’s the preferred candidate of the Tea Party folk and the national conservative chattering classes, so if he wins they will claim another Establishment scalp.
The ongoing meltdown known as the Colorado Republican gubernatorial contest is also ending with no clear leader; one poll has Tea Party activist Dan Maes narrowly leading; the other shows former congressman Scott McInnis narrowly regaining the lead. As you may have heard, McInnis’ campaign imploded in July when the Denver Post revealed that a wonky series of columns he “wrote” as part of a lucrative think tank contract were heavily plagiarized. But Maes has been hounded by campaign finance violations and poor fundraising, and also earned heavy derision by claiming a popular bike-sharing program in which Democratic gubernatorial candidate John Hickenlooper was involved is in fact part of a United Nations plot to take over Denver. You really can’t make this stuff up.
The “winner” of this primary will immediately be under heavy pressure to drop out and allow the state party to choose a more electable candidate, and also to beg former congressman Tom Tancredo to close down his campaign on the far-right, theocratic Constitution Party ticket, which polls indicate would split the GOP vote in half and guarantee a Hickenlooper victory.
Georgia
Rivaling Colorado in inter-Republican drama has been the gubernatorial runoff in Georgia, which polls show as coming down to a real nail-biter between primary first-place finisher Karen Handel and former congressman Nathan Deal. Continuing her effort to cast herself as a “conservative reformer” taking on the corrupt “good ol’ boys” of the Republican establishment, Handel has continued to attack Deal’s ethics record and Washington associations. Deal, probably hoping for a very low turnout dominated by ideologues, has pounded Handel for alleged “liberal” heresy on abortion and gay rights. Both campaigns are in danger of being overshadowed by their supporters, with Sarah Palin making a very conspicuous last-day appearance alongside Handel in Atlanta (Mitt Romney is also doing robocalls for Handel), while Newt Gingrich and Mike Huckabee have campaigned for Deal. Deal also has a massive endorsement list of Republican state legislators owing to Handel’s many attacks on their integrity as a group.
The runoff has become so nasty that Republicans are already planning “unity” events; Democrat Roy Barnes waits in the wings, raising money.
There are two Republican congressional runoffs that will affect turnout patterns; one is for Deal’s old seat in North Georgia, where special election runoff winner Tom Graves will face former state legislator Lee Hawkins for the fourth time in three months. The other is in Handel’s base area, in north metro Atlanta, where longtime conservative congressman John Linder (R) is retiring. His former chief of staff, Rob Woodall, is expected to defeat Jody Hice, a Southern Baptist minister and radio gabber whose billboards feature a reference to the president with a hammer-and-sickle replacing the “c” in the word “change.” Nice.
Connecticut
In Connecticut, both parties have competitive gubernatorial primaries involving self-funded candidates facing challengers who are receiving pretty generous public financing under the state’s Clean Elections system (which is under attack in the courts in the aftermath of the Citizens United decision). Among Democrats, wealthy cable station owner Ned Lamont, famous for his left-bent challenge to Joe Lieberman in 2006, has run a surprisingly “centrist” campaign focused on the state’s many fiscal and economic problems. His challenger, former Stamford mayor Dan Malloy, who narrowly lost the gubernatorial nomination four years ago, has been pounding him in a populist vein, while fending off allegations that he helped give a company that did work on his home a no-bid contract as mayor (not something you’d want to do in this state, since that’s what brought down former Gov. John Rowland). Malloy has closed the gap with Lamont in the stretch run, and either candidate could win.
The Republican self-funder is former Ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley, and the publicly-financed challenger is Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele. This race has also featured personal attacks, mainly involving Foley’s ownership interest in a Georgia textile plant that closed, throwing workers out of jobs. Late polls show exceptional instability in this race, but indicate that Fedele is rapidly gaining on Foley.
Meanwhile, former wrestling exec Linda McMahon, who beat former congressman Rob Simmons at the state GOP convention for the official party endorsement, will face Simmons (who reentered the race after dropping out for a while) and Tea Party activist Peter Schiff, but isn’t expected to have much trouble winning.
Minnesota
In Minnesota, the DFL (Minnesota’s unique version of the Democratic Party) gubernatorial primary features the official party candidate (as selected in a state convention that some candidates skipped), state House Speaker Mary Anderson Kelliher, and two wealthy self-funders, former U.S. Senator Mark Dayton and former state legislator Matt Entenza, both of whom have put about $3 million into the race. Dayton has held a steady if not spectacular lead over Kelliher, who hopes to pull a ground-game-driven upset in what could be a very low turnout election. All three Democrats lead certain Republican nominee Tom Emmer in general election polls, partly because the likely candidate of the Independence Party (still around more than a decade after Jesse Ventura’s election), Tom Horner, is pulling a lot of Republican votes. The DFL hasn’t won a governor’s race since 1986, but this could be the year the drought ends.
If you want more details, I’ve done previews of Colorado, Georgia and Connecticut/Minnesota over at FiveThirtyEight.
Ed Kilgore’s PPI Political Memo runs every Tuesday and Friday.
Photo Credit: brettneilson’s Photostream
Tags: Andrew Romanoff, Dan Maes, Dan Malloy, Jane Norton, Jesse Ventura, Jody Hice, Joe Lieberman, John Hickenlooper, John Linder, John McCain, John Rowland, Karen Handel, Lee Hawkins, linda McMahon, Mark Dayton, Mary Anderson Kelliher, Matt Entenza, Michael Bennet, Michael Fedele, Mike Huckabee, Mitt Romney, Nathan Deal, Ned Lamont, Newt Gingrich, Peter Schiff, Primaries, Rob Simmons, Rob Woodall, Roy Barnes, Sarah Palin, Scott McInnis, Tom Emmer, Tom Foley, Tom Graves, Tom Horner, Tom Tancredo
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Friday, July 23rd, 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 won’t go through the all the results for Tuesday’s Georgia primary, since an earlier P-Fix post covered the basics. But I will mention a few details that I omitted in the quick piece I did on Wednesday.
In the gubernatorial contest, while Democrat Roy Barnes looks highly competitive for the general election (particularly if the Republican runoff gets as nasty as it looks like it may), it’s worth noting that turnout for the GOP primary was just under 700,000, while turnout for the Democratic side was just under 400,000. While turnout in both parties was terrible, and some of the disparity was attributable to the more competitive nature of the GOP battle (and the attendant television ads), it’s a reminder that this state which didn’t have a Republican governor from the early days of Reconstruction until 2002 now has a decided red tint. To win, Barnes will need to run a very good campaign (he’s certainly reconfirmed his reputation as an outstanding fundraiser), while taking advantage of the opportunities the GOP has created in eight years of lackluster governance of the state, and in the extremism of the primary messages of its candidates this year. If Barnes does win, he would interrupt what would otherwise certainly be a blatant Republican gerrymandering effort, made all the worse by Georgia’s acquisition of an additional congressional district.
A second observation is that this is one GOP primary where geography seemed to matter more than ideology or the association of this or that candidate with the Tea Party or some national conservative figure. I’ve posted a fairly elaborate analysis of this topic at FiveThirtyEight, but suffice it to say that Karen Handel finished first more because she is from vote-rich metro Atlanta than because she was endorsed by Jan Brewer and Sarah Palin. The endorsements definitely helped her overcome a financial deficit by generating free media, but in the end half the primary vote was cast in her base region, and that was the most important difference. And that’s also why she has to be considered a heavy favorite in the runoff, since her opponent, Nathan Deal, did well only in his north Georgia base, which provides a much smaller segment of the GOP vote. It’s a measure of the importance of geography that Handel trounced Deal in the Atlanta suburb of Cobb County, home of Deal’s padrone, Newt Gingrich.
Perhaps because of this disadvantage, Deal looks likely to spend the three-week runoff attacking Handel for insufficient conservatism, which won’t be easy given her Palin association and her own harsh record on issues ranging from taxes (she wants to abolish the state income taxes and rely instead on regressive consumption taxes to finance state government) to immigration (as Secretary of State, she initiated a harsh voter ID system that ensnared a good many native citizen voters on primary day). So far Deal has mainly pounded Handel for supporting a rape-and-incest exception to an abortion ban, which used to be an acceptable conservative position, and for making a small contribution to the Log Cabin Republicans back when she was running for office in culturally tolerant Fulton County (Atlanta). Since Handel’s main attack line on Deal has involved ethics allegations, this could be a truly nasty culture-war dominated runoff that could drive up both candidates’ negatives.
In terms of the congressional races, there will be four Republican runoffs on August 10, two in safe Republican districts, one in a safe Democratic district, and one to choose an opponent for theoretically vulnerable Democrat John Barrow (D-GA) (though he is likely to have a big financial advantage and Barack Obama carried his district).
Down-ballot, there will be a highly contentious Republican runoff for Attorney General that could boost statewide turnout. And though it’s not directly connected to the primaries, the general election will be complicated by the fact that outgoing GOP Gov. Sonny Perdue is backing an independent candidate for State School Superintendent because the Republican nominee opposes accepting Race to the Top dollars.
The next primary is in Oklahoma on July 27, where there are competitive gubernatorial contests in both parties.
In polling news, PPP has had some interesting assessments of the Florida governor’s race. The late but free-spending entry of controversial former hospital executive and health reform opponent Rick Scott in the GOP contest has upset a lot of apple carts. A primary survey shows Scott beating long-time front-runner and party warhorse Bill McCollum 43-29, mainly by driving McCollum’s approval ratio among Florida Republicans to a dismal 26-40. But a general election poll shows Democrat Alex Sink beating either Republican (along with independent candidate Bud Chiles). And in the general electorate, Scott’s approval ratio is 23-41 and McCollum’s a truly disastrous 16-51. Like Georgia, this is a state where a Democratic gubernatorial victory could have major implications for redistricting.
In non-candidate polling news, Mark Blumenthal of pollster.com has a solid and very thorough critique of the new Politico “Power and the People” surveys by Mark Penn comparing the views of Americans generally with those of “D.C. Elites.”
Ed Kilgore’s PPI Political Memo runs every Tuesday and Friday.
Photo credit: Chuck “Caveman” Coker’s Photostream
Tags: Alex Sink, Atlanta, Barack Obama, Bill McCollum, Bud Chiles, Campaigns and elections, Democratic Party, FiveThirtyEight, Florida, Georgia, GOP, Jan Brewer, John Barrow, Karen Handel, Mark Blumenthal, Mark Penn, Nathan Deal, Newt Gingrich, Oklahoma, Politics and politicians, Republican Party, Rick Scott, Roy Barnes, Sarah Palin, Sonny Perdue
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Wednesday, July 21st, 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’ve found this year’s primaries in my home state of Georgia to be very interesting. Clearly, Georgians do not agree. Despite a host of competitive contests in both parties, total turnout in yesterday’s primaries was about 22 percent, which is pretty pathetic.
In any event, the consequences wrought by those few voters were pretty interesting. On the Democratic side, former governor Roy Barnes took the next step in his attempted redemption from a huge stumble in 2002, when his grossly overconfident re-election campaign was upset by a party-switching good ol’ boy named Sonny Perdue. This time around Barnes impressively defeated an African-American statewide elected official by a three-to-one margin, doing especially well in heavily African-American urban areas. Two Democratic congressmen, Hank Johnson and John Barrow, survived primary challenges.
Republicans set themselves up for some potentially wild-and-crazy runoffs. Sarah Palin’s candidate, Karen Handel, will face Newt Gingrich’s candidate, Nathan Deal, on August 10. All kinds of nastiness between these two candidate broke out late in the primary contest; Handel has basically called Deal a crook and Deal has basically called Handel a godless liberal. It’s not likely to get more civil in the runoff.
The Republican congressional primaries produced some odd results, too. You have to have some sympathy for 9th district congressman Tom Graves. He won his gig after a special election in May and then a runoff in June, all because Nathan Deal resigned the seat to (take your pick) devote more time to his gubernatorial campaign or short-circuit an ethics investigation. Then he had to run for a full term in yesterday’s primary, and once again, he’s in a runoff against the same candidate, Lee Hawkins. So Graves and Hawkins will be facing each other for the fourth time in three months.
Then you’ve got state Rep. Clay Cox (R-GA), who was endorsed by a who’s-who of Georgia Republican politics in his bid to succeed the venerable right-winger John Linder in a safe GOP district. Cox dutifully endorsed Linder’s hobby-horse, the “Fair Tax” proposal, and did everything else expected of him. But he finished a poor third, losing not only to Linder’s former chief of staff, Rob Woodall, but also to talk radio host Jody Hice.
In general, the August 10 runoffs will be mostly a Republican affair, and in that rarefied company, we can expect a lot of more-conservative-than-thou one-upsmanship. Looking forward to the general election, Democrats are in reasonably good shape to do relatively well in this red state, in this bad year.
This item is cross-posted at The Democratic Strategist.
Photo credit: 55thstreet’s Photostream
Tags: Campaigns and elections, Clay Cox, conservatives, Democratic Party, Fair Tax, Georgia, Hank Johnson, Jody Hice, John Barrow, John Linder, Karen Handel, Lee Hawkins, Nathan Deal, Newt Gingrich, Politics and politicians, Republican Party, Rob Woodall, Roy Barnes, Sarah Palin, Sonny Perdue, Tom Graves
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Friday, July 16th, 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 alert readers know by now, Robert Bentley won the Republican gubernatorial runoff in Alabama, with Terri Sewell winning the 7th district Democratic congressional nomination (tantamount to election), and Martha Roby turning back viral ad icon Rick Barber for the Republican nomination in the 2nd congressional district. My write-up of the results can be found here.
The next big primary state is Georgia, where voters go to the polls next Tuesday, July 20. There are competitive primaries for governor in both parties; and competitive Republican primaries for Congress in no fewer than six districts, with two Democratic congressional primaries that have drawn some attention. Georgia has a 50 percent nomination requirement, which means many contests will go to a runoff on August 10. This is also a state with a history of substantial early voting, though as of last week, mail-in and in-person ballots were down from prior elections, perhaps indicating a low turnout.
The Republican gubernatorial race (incumbent Republican Gov. Sonny Perdue is term-limited) has heated up in the last week, with a bunch of polls, sharp exchanges between candidates, and interventions by national figures. For most of the cycle, the front-runner has been State Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine, though he’s been considered vulnerable because of long-pending ethics investigations of alleged illegal contributions to his campaign by insurance companies. Three other candidates—former Secretary of State Karen Handel, former congressman Nathan Deal (who has some ethics issues of his own, which appeared to speed his departure from Congress), and state senator Eric Johnson—have been jockeying for a runoff position opposite Oxendine, though at least two polls now show the front-runner slipping into third place. Handel, whose campaign message closely resembles that of South Carolina gubernatorial nominee Nikki Haley (a “conservative reformer” fighting the “corrupt good old boys”), has been the candidate on the move of late, and got priceless attention this week from a Facebook endorsement by Sarah Palin. Deal countered with an endorsement from Georgian Newt Gingrich. Both Oxendine and Deal have been pounding Handel for alleged heresy on abortion and gay rights. And meanwhile, Johnson has been heavily running television ads, and has moved up into the teens in at least one poll. In other words, just about anything could happen on Tuesday, though Handel looks almost sure to have a runoff spot.
In terms of issues, all the GOP candidates have been competing to show avid support for an Arizona-style illegal immigration crackdown (Deal’s made this a signature issue, while Handel has sported an endorsement from Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer), and two candidates, Oxendine and Handel, have proposed abolition of the state’s income tax, reflecting the wild popularity of national “Fair Tax” proposals among Georgia Republicans. And all the candidates are hard-core conservatives on cultural issues, though Handel got into a fight with Georgia Right-to-Life by opposing its proposal to restrict IV fertilization procedures.
On the Democratic side, the big question all along has been whether former Gov. Roy Barnes, who lost to Perdue in a big upset eight years ago, can win the primary without a runoff, as most recent polls have suggested he will. Barnes’ most prominent challenger, Attorney General Thurbert Baker, got off to a very late start in television advertising, and is now trying to attract enough support from his fellow African-Americans to deny Barnes the win (African-Americans typically cast close to half the votes in Democratic primaries in Georgia). Baker got a significant boost earlier this week with an endorsement from President Bill Clinton (Baker was a big Human Rights Campaign supporter in 2008), and has been promoting legalization of electronic bingo as a way to raise money for K-12 education. But Barnes has strong African-American support of his own; just today he was endorsed by Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed. Other significant candidates who could soak up some votes include former Secretary of State David Poythress, who’s been running an under-the-radar web-focused campaign, and former state House Democratic leader Dubose Porter, whose wife, Carol, is the odds-on favorite to win the Democratic nomination for Lt. Governor.
On the congressional front, the state’s two white (and Blue Doggy) Democratic House members, Jim Marshall and John Barrow, are as usual considered vulnerable in November. Marshall, whose district went solidly for John McCain, has drawn a strong opponent in state representative Scott Austin, who should win the GOP nomination easily on Tuesday. Barrow, whose district is marginally Democratic even in presidential years, has for the second time drawn a primary challenge from former state representative Regina Thomas, whom he beat 3-1 in 2008. Thomas got some help from in-district anger at Barrow’s vote against health care reform, but his massive financial advantage should get him over the line. Meanwhile, Tea Party-backed candidate Ray McKinney is favored over former fire chief Carl Smith for the right to oppose Barrow, though that race could easily go to a runoff.
There are big and active Republican primaries in the districts of African-American congressmen David Scott and Hank Johnson (who also faces former Dekalb County executive Vernon Jones, something of a party renegade, in the primary but isn’t expected to lose), who has had recent health problems, but Republicans would have to get very lucky to become competitive in either place.
An open seat in the north metro Atlanta 7th district has spawned a mammoth eight-candidate Republican primary to succeed John Linder, with every single candidate endorsing Linder’s “Fair Tax” proposal. Former state representative Clay Cox and former Linder chief of staff Rob Woodall are the favorite to make a runoff, though Christian Right figure Jody Hice also has some support.
And up in the North Georgia 9th district, until recently represented by gubernatorial candidate Nathan Deal, the winner of last month’s special election, Tea Party favorite and former state representative Tom Graves, must face pretty much the same field of opponents in the primary, but is expected to win.
In non-Georgia political news, the big development was probably the implosion of the Colorado gubernatorial campaign of former congressman (and GOP front-runner) Scott McInnis, accused of plagiarizing portions of a think-tank paper for which he was grossly overpaid a few years ago. Colorado Republicans are in a quandary; the only other candidate on the primary ballot, Don Maes, has struggled to raise money, and has, ironically, also been cited for campaign finance violations. To hand-pick another viable candidate, party leaders would have to wait for the primary to occur and then beg the winner to step aside.
Ed Kilgore’s PPI Political Memo runs every Tuesday and Friday
Photo credit: Airno’s Photostream
Tags: Alabama, Bill Clinton, Campaigns and elections, Carl Smith, Carol Porter, Clay Cox, Colorado, conservatives, David Poythress, David Scott, Democratic Party, Don Maes, Dubose Porter, Education, Eric Johnson, Facebook, Georgia, Hank Johnson, Human Rights Campaign, immigration reform, income tax, Jan Brewer, Jim Marshall, Jody Hice, John Barrow, John Linder, John McCain, John Oxendine, Karen Handel, Kasim Reed, Martha Roby, Nathan Deal, Newt Gingrich, Nikki Haley, Politics and politicians, Public opinion, Ray McKinney, Regina Thomas, Republican Party, Rick Barber, Right-to-Life, Rob Woodall, Robert Bentley, Roy Barnes, Sarah Palin, Scott Austin, Scott McInnis, Senate, Sonny Perdue, Taxes, Tea Party, Terri Sewell, Thurbert Baker, Tom Graves, Vernon Jones
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Tuesday, July 13th, 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’s political feature is the runoff in Alabama, which I previewed in the last PPI political memo. As noted then, turnout patterns will probably be the determining factor in the GOP gubernatorial runoff, with the big question being whether Democrats will cross over in significant numbers. In the congressional runoffs, Democrat Terri Sewell is the favorite to win virtual election to the House in the 7th district seat vacated by unsuccessful gubernatorial candidate Artur Davis, and Martha Roby should be able to turn back viral ad star Rick Barber in the Republican contest in the 2nd district. In most of the state, voters will be suffering through hot, humid weather with possible thunderstorms.
The primary state up next on the calendar is Georgia on July 20, and the highly competitive Republican gubernatorial primary there was roiled yesterday by Sarah Palin’s endorsement of former Secretary of State Karen Handel. It’s not clear yet whether Palin’s endorsement was one of those one-off interventions that have often characterized her activity this year (viz. her endorsement of Terry Brandstad in Iowa without so much as a phone conversation), or will be followed up by more active engagement. But it was well-timed: Handel has been moving up in the polls recently, holding a strong second place behind long-time front-runner John Oxendine in a SUSA poll released last week. Much as happened in Iowa, Georgia’s social conservatives have not reacted well to Palin’s endorsement, and former congressman Nathan Deal, who has been battling Handel for a runoff spot, put out a release expressing disappointment in Palin for supporting “the most liberal Republican in this race.”
Rhetoric aside, Handel’s profile in the race is actually pretty similar to that of another recent Palin endorsee, South Carolina’s Nikki Haley, at least before hamhanded allegations about Haley’s sex life and background took over news coverage and vaulted her to a landslide runoff victory. Like Haley, Handel is positioning herself as a “conservative reformer” taking on the state GOP’s good ol’ boys, and her single biggest problem, poor fundraising, may have been offset by the attention she’ll get from Palin’s endorsement. Right now an Oxendine-Handel runoff is the most likely outcome next Tuesday, though both Deal and a fourth candidate, Eric Johnson (who’s been running copious television ads) will fight her tooth and nail to the finish.
An even bigger name than Palin got involved in Georgia’s Democratic gubernatorial primary over the weekend, as former president Bill Clinton endorsed Attorney General Thurbert Baker. This wasn’t that big a surprise, since Baker was Hillary Clinton’s highest-profile Georgia supporter in 2008 (at least after John Lewis defected to the Obama camp). And there are no signs that the Big Dog will actually show up in Georgia to thump the tubs for Thurbert. But Baker definitely needs the help. Long assumed to have a virtual lock on a runoff spot opposite former Gov. Roy Barnes, Baker’s late-developing campaign has struggled to get off the ground, and recent polls show Barnes headed for a primary victory without a runoff (there are two other significant candidates on the ballot: former Secretary of State David Poythress and Democratic state legislative leader Dubose Porter). With some more attention, Baker might have a chance to keep Barnes below 50 percent: he’s an African-American in a state where a majority of the likely Democratic primary voters are African-American, and he’s lately found a distinctive issue by coming out for an electronic bingo initiative to help forestall education cuts.
In polling news, Rasmussen has a survey of general election matchups in the Colorado Senate race, showing another beneficiary of a Bill Clinton endorsement, former state House speaker Andrew Romanoff, running a bit better than incumbent Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) against either of the two main Republican candidates, Ken Buck or Jane Norton. Colorado’s primary is four weeks from today.
Quinnipiac has released a new poll of the PA governor’s race, which, as in its May survey, shows Democrat Dan Onorato within single digits of Republican Tom Corbett, who leads 44-37.
The first poll in a good while in Indiana, by Rasmussen, shows Republican Dan Coats continuing to hold a big (51-30) lead over Rep. Brad Ellsworth (D-IA) for the Senate, though Ellsworth’s approval/disapproval ratio remains relatively strong at 42-29.
Ed Kilgore’s PPI Political Memo runs every Tuesday and Friday.
Photo Credit: BryanSwan’s Photostream
Tags: Andrew Romanoff, Arthur Davis, Bill Clinton, Brad Ellsworth, Dan Coats, Dan Onorato, David Poythress, Dubose Porter, Eric Johnson, Hillary Clinton, Jane Norton, John Lewis, John Oxendine, Karen Handel, Ken Buck, Martha Roby, Michael Bennet, Nathan Deal, Nikki Haley, Primaries, Rick Barber, Roy Barnes, Sarah Palin, Terri Sewell, Terry Branstad, Thurbert Baker, Tom Corbett
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Tuesday, July 6th, 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
Having looked at the overall landscape of House and Senate elections recently, it’s probably time for another overview of gubernatorial contests, which will have a bearing not only on state policies but on the upcoming decennial round of redistricting.
There are 37 governorships up for grabs in November, including 19 held by Democrats and 18 by Republicans, which closely reflects the narrow 26-24 Democratic advantage in gubernatorial offices overall. How many of these races are competitive? Well, according to the (subscription-only) Cook Political Report’s Jennifer Duffy, 18 of them, or nearly half, are toss-ups, including eight now held by Democrats and ten by Republicans. Add in eight more that are rated as leaning in one direction or another, and that makes an amazing 26 competitive gubernatorial races, and a range of possible outcomes that’s all over the lot, and won’t necessarily reflect the congressional results. For one thing, even if you concede a Republican “tide” this year, the competitive races are largely in states carried by Barack Obama in 2008: that includes 12 of the 14 currently held by Democrats, and 8 of the 12 currently held by Republicans.
There are races all over the country where late primaries and/or competitive dynamics could change. Fully 21 states with gubernatorial races haven’t yet held primaries (counting Alabama, with a Republican runoff next week), including 18 now rated as competitive. And most states are experiencing deep fiscal problems that cut in all sorts of different directions; it’s not automatically clear in many places whether frightening budget shortfalls will benefit Republicans who are talking about cutting back government or Democrats who are resisting new tax cuts and fighting unpopular teacher layoffs and service reductions. And thanks to term limits, retirements, and primary outcomes, the impact of incumbency is also more limited than you might think: only two of the 12 vulnerable Republican seats (Arizona and Texas), and five of the 14 vulnerable Democratic seats (Illinois, Iowa, Massachusetts, Maryland and Ohio) will have an incumbent on the ballot in November. Making things even more confusing, a significant number of former governors are running as non-incumbents this year, including Democrats Jerry Brown of California, Roy Barnes of Georgia and John Kitzhaber of Oregon, and Republicans Terry Branstad of Iowa and Bobby Ehrlich of Maryland.
I’ll be doing a separate memo focusing on redistricting later on, but it’s worth noting that gubernatorial contests could have a huge impact on that process. For example, there are five states certain to gain congressional seats where Republicans currently control the governorship and both chambers of the state legislature: Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Texas and Utah. The first four of those states have competitive governor’s races where a Democratic victory could mess up Republican “trifecta” control just in time for redistricting. New York, Ohio and Pennsylvania, all of which will lose congressional seats, also have very close partisan balances in the state legislature, and Ohio and Pennsylvania have competitive governor’s races. It’s kind of like three-dimensional chess, and well worth watching as we approach November.
Poll Watch
It’s been a quiet week on the polling front. New Rasmussen surveys of the gubernatorial races in Ohio and Pennsylvania show competitive races with GOPers out in front. In Ohio, which has been a very close contest, the poll gives Republican John Kasich a 47-40 lead over incumbent Ted Strickland, his biggest lead in any published poll since a Rasmussen survey in March. In Pennsylvania, however, Rasmussen shows Republican Tom Corbett’s lead over Democrat Dan Onorato dropping from 16 points (49-33) to ten points (49-39) since early June; the 10-point margin is also what PPP reported in its latest Pennsylvania poll.
Meanwhile, in Georgoa, whose primary is on July 20, Insider Advantage has a new poll of the Republican gubernatorial race showing long-time front-runner John Oxendine falling into a tie with Karen Handel at 18 percent, with Nathan Deal at 12 percent. This is a bit counter-intuitive since Oxendine and a fourth candidate, Eric Johnson, have recently been dominating the airwaves with ads, though at Iowa’s Southern Political Report site, John Tures attributes a purported Handel “surge” to her recent endorsement by Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, “the next Sarah Palin.” (I have a separate post at FiveThirtyEight examining Brewer’s new national influence.) It’s probably worth noting that shortly before South Carolina’s June 8 primary, Iowa showed Lt. Gov. Andre Bauer headed for a runoff with Nikki Haley; he instead finished a dismal fourth. We’ll see if the firm has got a better “Handel” on Republican sentiment in Georgia.
Ed Kilgore’s PPI Political Memo runs every Tuesday and Friday.
Tags: Andre Bauer, Barack Obama, Bobby Ehrlich, Campaigns and elections, Cook Political Report, Dan Onorato, Democratic Party, Eric Johnson, Jan Brewer, Jerry Brown, John Kasich, John Kitzhaber, John Oxendine, John Tures, Karen Handel, Nathan Deal, Nikki Haley, Rasmussen Survey, Republican Party, Roy Barnes, Southern Political Report, Ted Strickland, Terry Branstad, Tom Corbett
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Friday, June 25th, 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
We’re entering a slow period in state primaries, with the only contests on tap for the next four weeks being a runoff in Alabama on July 13 and Georgia’s primary on July 20. The former event features a Republican gubernatorial runoff between long-time front-runner Bradley Byrne and surprise second-place finisher Robert Bentley, who had to get past an unsuccessful recount petition by Tim James. In Georgia, there are competitive gubernatorial primaries in both parties, though former Gov. Roy Barnes seems to have the Democratic race well in hand at this point; Republicans have a fractious multi-candidate field led for many months by state insurance commissioner John Oxendine (whose ethics record is so controversial that RedState blogger Erick Erickson’s said he’d vote for Barnes if Oxendine wins the nomination), with a runoff almost certain. I’ll have more about both states when we get closer to the balloting.
As expected, the landslide victories on Tuesday of Asian-American Nikki Haley and African-American Tim Scott in South Carolina has spurred a lot of commentary about the GOP’s new diversity. (It hasn’t got much attention, BTW, but Haley’s Democratic opponent, Vincent Sheheen, is of Arab descent, reflecting the long-time presence of Lebanese in the Deep South). But outside South Carolina, an equally remarkable aspect of those victories has gone largely unremarked: both candidates were protégés of disgraced Republican governor Mark Sanford, who has now achieved the political equivalent of eternal life in the success of his young associates. It will also be interesting to see how well Scott (assuming he wins his heavily Republican district in November), a hard-core conservative ideologue, fits in with the Congressional Black Caucus.
Utah Republicans are recovering from a nomination cycle that involved the rejection of a long-time incumbent Senator, Bob Bennett, and then a savage primary between two very conservative candidates, with the winner, Mike Lee, being very much the vehicle for national groups determined to move the GOP to the right. To understand that these Men of Principle haven’t gotten rid of the hypocrisy of traditional politics, check out the web site of the losing candidate, Tim Bridgewater. At the top is a pre-primary jeremiad that includes this line: “My opponent, D.C.-based attorney Mike Lee, is spending $200,000 on TV and radio, spreading lies and distortions about my business background.” A bit later he accuses Lee of “a desperate lie.” But over to the left on the page is a new bulletin that, predictably, endorses that desperate liar for the general election.
Moving along, you can expect some serious political fallout around the country from the U.S. Senate’s apparent defeat of what some have called a second stimulus bill. Most of the attention in national media has been paid to the impact on people whose unemployment insurance eligibility is running out. But the bill also included $16 billion in assistance to state and local government to help forestall layoffs of teachers and other public employees. Whatever you think of that as economic policy, it’s clear the withdrawn funds will wreak havoc in those states where governors and legislators had counted on the help, including those where Republicans are nervous about the public reaction to teacher layoffs and higher public university tuition. It’s another example of how tough-sounding rhetoric on fiscal austerity and small government is more popular than the practical steps needed to reduce spending, particularly in a recession, since there’s no state budget category called “waste, fraud and abuse” that can painlessly absorb cuts.
Poll Watch
In polling news, Rasmussen has a bunch of new take-it-with-a-grain-of-salt polls. In the Nevada Senate race, a post-primary survey has Republican Sharron Angle up over Harry Reid 48-41, though her favorable/unfavorable ratio is no better than the incumbent’s. In the first general-election poll of the Vermont governor’s race in a long while, Rasmussen shows Republican Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie leading all the Democratic candidates, though Secretary of State Deb Markowitz holds him to a 47-40 lead. And in Washington, the new poll shows Sen. Patti Murray (D) and Republican Dino Rossi in a 47-47 dead heat.
A new Magellan poll in Arizona has John McCain with a comfortable 52-29 lead over conservative challenger, J.D. Hayworth, who’s having a tough week.
Tags: Alabama, Bob Bennett, Bradley Byrne, Brian Dubie, Campaigns and elections, Deb Markowitz, Dino Rossi, Erick Erickson, Georgia, Harry Reid, John McCain, John Oxendine, Mark Sanford, Mike Lee, Nevada, Nikki Haley, Patti Murray, Politics and politicians, Public opinion, Robert Bentley, Roy Barnes, Sharron Angle, Tim Bridgewater, Tim James, Tim Scott, Utah, Vermont, Vincent Sheheen
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Friday, April 23rd, 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
The madness in Florida continued to rivet political junkies this week, as the odds of Gov. Charlie Crist withdrawing from the Republican U.S. Senate field and refilling as an independent continued to rise. A second poll (this one from Rasmussen) shows Crist doing pretty well in a three-way contest with Republican Marco Rubio and Democrat Kendrick Meek. Nate Silver notes, however, that the dynamics of a three-way race are not friendly to the perma-tanned governor:
[If] Crist wants to avoid falling into third place, he probably needs to start appealing to Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents almost immediately. There’s a little bit more breathing room over on that side of the aisle because Kendrick Meek is relatively unknown by the electorate: just 26 percent of the electorate have an opinion of him, according to Quinnipiac, versus 57 percent for Rubio (and 84 percent for Crist)…. But Crist will need a fairly broad amount of support from Democrats and Democratic leaners in order to have a shot in a three-way race in which Rubio will almost certainly finish in at least the mid-high 30s, and his best way to achieve that is to prevent Meek from getting traction in the first place. Having denied Meek viability, he could then tact back toward the center or the center-right come the fall.
But, this isn’t easy: the more Crist thrusts to the left after having being reborn as an independent, the more flip-floppy he’ll look. It’s quite a needle to thread and it’s possible that he’s simply waited too long to make this move.
Crist has until April 30 to make up his mind what he’s doing.
In one of the fast-approaching 2010 primaries, things are heating up in Indiana, where former Rep. John Hostettler and state senator Marlin Stutzman are tacking to the right in the GOP primary in an effort to knock off the early prohibitive front-runner for the Senate, former Sen. Dan Coats. At least one conservative pundit is predicting a Stutzman upset, and he’s gotten support from self-appointed conservative GOP litmus-tester Jim DeMint, American Conservative Union president David Keene and RedState.com’s Erick Erickson.
Meanwhile, down in Georgia, Democrats desperate for a Senate candidate got lucky, as Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond, an African-American who has won three statewide elections, filed to take on Sen. Johnny Isakson, who’s been having some health problems. Thurmond’s move should help keep Georgia’s Democratic biracial coalition intact if former Gov. Roy Barnes, who is white, beats Attorney General Thurbert Baker, who is African-American, in the gubernatorial primary. Thurmond had been mulling a race for Lieutenant Governor.
As I noted in a separate post this week, the most fascinating polling news was a Rasmussen survey in California that not only showed former Gov. Jerry Brown moving out in front of Republican Meg Whitman in the gubernatorial contest, but also indicated that Whitman’s heavy spending on ubiquitous ads may be backfiring early in the cycle. Rasmussen has also done the first public polling since Bob Ehrlich officially launched a rematch against Maryland Democratic Gov. Martin O’Malley, showing a close race led narrowly by O’Malley.
Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/thomashawk/ / CC BY-NC 2.0
Ed Kilgore’s PPI Political Memo runs on Mondays and Fridays.
Tags: American Conservative Union, Campaigns and elections, Charlie Crist, Dan Coats, David Keene, Democratic Party, Erick Erickson, Jerry Brown, Jim DeMint, John Hostettler, Johnny Isakson, Kendrick Meek, Marco Rubio, Marlin Stutzman, Martin O'Malley, Meg Whitman, Michael Thurmond, Politics and politicians, Public opinion, Republican Party, Robert Ehrlich, Roy Barnes, Thurbert Baker
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