Monthly Archive for April, 2008Page 2 of 8

In replay of late February arguments, campaigns spar on need for more debates

Published
by
Taniel
on April 26, 2008
in Nat-Dem
. 28 Comments

Since the end of February, Barack Obama has been trying to portray his nomination as a done deal while Hillary Clinton is doing what she can to convince voters and pundits that the race is still wide open. She told Newsweek last week that, “Neither of us can win without superdelegates. Neither of us can possibly get to the nomination unless something totally unforeseen happens.” Of course, his argument is much closer to the truth than hers is, but as long as Clinton is staying in the race, winning major primaries by convincing margins and forcing Obama to respond to her criticisms, it is difficult to argue that the race isn’t in some sense competitive and it makes it impossible for him to move on beyond the primaries.

In a predictable dynamic, the Obama campaign is increasingly trying to act like this is not a competitive race while Hillary’s is coming up with new tactics to transform this race into the suspenseful contest of the century — and these dueling spins are coming head-to-head on the issue of whether there will be more debates. The Obama campaign today announced that there would be no debates before May 6th; they had already declined one in North Carolina to be broadcast in CBS and they have now also rejected one in Indiana. With 21 debates already held, Obama insists, it is more important for him to talk to voters.

The Clinton campaign is now complaining Obama is ducking debate — but you might remember that they tried to make this into an issue in the run-up to the Wisconsin primary, and we all know how that contest ended. The Clinton campaign is thus upping the stakes this time, calling for the organization of debates in the style of the 1858 Lincoln-Douglas debates, in honor of their 150th anniversary! In a letter she wrote to David Plouffe, Maggie Williams proposes that the two candidates respond to each other with no set agenda and no set rules, with each Senator answering the other for 2 minutes; they could thus stay on an issue as long as they want, and just see where their conversation takes them.

In her quest to still be taken as a legitimate candidate that has been dealt with seriously, Clinton obviously would love as many debates as possible — and the more momentous the better. In a debates, the front-runner is forced to acknowledged that his nomination has not reached inevitability status; also, debate coverage in the media necessarily emphasizes horse race story lines — did candidates help themselves, hurt themselves, who won — thus treating both candidates as having a chance at clinching the nomination, which is exactly the impression Hillary wants to portray. Finally, Clinton needs as many events in the coming weeks as possible for her (and superdelegates) to have something to wait for. As soon as everything but the convention is taken care of, what can Clinton say she is staying in for and how can she make superdelegates hold on?

Meanwhile, the latest Gallup tracking poll (the first taken entirely since the Pennsylvania primary) has Clinton closing the gap with Obama entirely, with the two candidates tied at 47%. On Monday, Obama led by 10%. In the general election, Clinton has opened up a 3% lead with McCain, while Obama is tied with the Republican at 45%. A Newsweek poll released today and also conducted after the primary has better news for the Illinois Senator — tough he suffers from a big drop here as well. In primary numbers, he is ahead of Clinton 48% to 41%, but that’s a 12% tightening since the 19% lead Obama had last week (worth noting that the previous poll looked like an outlier, so the trendline might stronger than it should be because of that). In the general election, both Democrats lead McCain by 3%, 48% to 45% for Clinton and 47% for 44% for Obama.

Obama’s financial edge deployed on the upcoming states

Published
by
Taniel
on April 26, 2008
in Nat-Dem
. 12 Comments

With every single one of the upcoming primaries crucial for Hillary Clinton’s chances to score an upset, Obama has a major weapon at his disposal that is likely to prevent her from getting the type of victory she needs to truly change the game: nearly unlimited funds.

Obama massively outspent his opponent in Ohio and Pennsylvania but fell short in both contests, prompting speculation that his financial edge was not being put to good use. But it looks undeniable that Obama could have suffered much more damaging losses without the spending; in both states, he somewhat closed the gap and avoided the worst margins some polls suggested he might have to settle for. Also, his PA outreach efforts among white blue-collar voters no doubt played a major role in holding Clinton’s numbers to where they were in OH, despite Wright and bittergate coming in between.

In other words, massive overspending might not be enough to win Obama elections, but they are certainly enough to make it impossible for Clinton to score the victories she needs. Now, Clinton is confronted with the same problem in the upcoming contests: In Indiana, the polls suggest a very tight race and it will be hard for Clinton to pull ahead and score a double-digit victory given the financial condition of the campaigns. In places like Kentucky and West Virginia, Clinton has the potential of scoring gigantic victories of the kind she has rarely enjoyed, but it will be hard for her to meet that potential without financial parity.

Fully enjoying his edge, Obama will be on air in every single upcoming contest including Puerto Rico starting next week, offsetting some of the early advantage Clinton has in some of these primaries like Puerto Rico’s. Obama supporters might worry that this constitutes a waste of money considering that the cash would be better spent against McCain — but there are at least a few states that will be general election hotspots (Oregon, West Virginia, North Carolina, the Obama campaign might even add Montana), giving Obama a head-start in introducing himself relative to McCain.

This is the same question we faced in Pennsylvania: Will the candidates’ prolonged exposure in front of Democratic voters help their numbers contra McCain or will they emerge bruised and damaged? A few polls (Strategic Vision, Rasmussen) show that McCain has picked up ground in recent weeks in the Keystone state. But the campaign ended on a very sour note in Pennsylvania — one that will not truly have time to take hold in any of the upcoming states. There is much more potential for negativity in a 6-week campaign than 2 weeks divided between 2 states. Thus, I still don’t see the fact that Obama is being forced to run ads in NC, WV and OR now as a problem — quite the contrary.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton’s choices of spending also reveal plenty about her campaign strategy: Now that her fundraising has picked up since her win in Pennsylvania, Clinton had some money to use again, enabling her to contest the May 6th primaries (something that she was not sure she could financially just a few days ago). And the campaign has chosen to spend heavily on advertisements in North Carolina. This seems to be surprising some who are commenting that Obama is the clear favorite in NC but, as I argued on Thursday, NC could be even more dangerous than IN for Clinton. A large loss or Obama making inroads among white and blue-collar voters would deal as powerful a blow to her comeback narrative as anything could. Clinton’s choice to heavily invest here at least points to the fact that (1) she now has enough money to go beyond Indiana, and (2) her confidence that she can at least keep this race in single-digits.

Friday polls: Will Clinton get a post-PA boost?

Published
by
Taniel
on April 25, 2008
in IN-Dem, MA-Pres, MA-Sen, Nat-Dem and PA-Pres
. 15 Comments

Three days after the Pennsylvania primary, Hillary Clinton might have gotten a boost from her Tuesday victory if we believe Gallup’s tracking poll. Clinton has recovered from a 10% deficit on April 22nd and has forced a statistical tie, with Obama ahead 48% to 47% in today’s results which include interviews conducted on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday. Gallup adds, “Support for Clinton is significantly higher in these post-primary interviews than it was just prior to her Pennsylvania victory.” Gallup also finds Clinton jumping to a lead against McCain, 47% to 45%, while Obama narrowly trails, 46% to 45% — the first time in a while Clinton’s trendline is better than Obama’s in Gallup.

Clinton benefited from a similar boost of support in the days immediately following the ABC debate but the race quickly fell back to its pre-debate form. Also, Rasmussen’s tracking finds no tightening of the race — though it is on a four-day average rather than a three-day one like Gallup, so momentum swings take a longer time to register. In the general, Rasmussen finds a similar improvement for Democrats; while McCain is typically strong in Rasmussen, he is today tied with Obama and leads Clinton by 2, 47% to 45%.

The two questions in the coming days will thus be: Will Clinton confirm and maintain a boost? And will that momentum affect numbers in Indiana and North Carolina? For now, the trendline seems to be negative for her in Indiana, though she is certainly in a position to win as a new poll indicates:

  • ARG, who came closer in PA than in previous contests, finds Clinton ahead 50% to 45%. At the beginning of April, Clinton was ahead 53% to 44%.
  • The partisanship gap is fascinating: Clinton leads by 20% among registered Democrats, Obama is ahead by 31% among independents and Republicans.

What Clinton wouldn’t give to have Indiana be a closed primary like Indiana… This poll breaks a string of surveys showing a small lead for Obama, and it confirms that Indiana is one of the only states since February 5th in which there is actual uncertainty as to who will win, making the job of setting expectations a bit easier. With both candidates now going all-out in May 6th states, these numbers will certainly evolve in the coming 10 days.

Meanwhile, Rasmussen released two important general election polls:

  • First, a poll from Pennsylvania finds that both Democrats have lost ground against McCain in the past two weeks — suggesting that the increased negativity of the final days might have undermined their appeal. Clinton is now leading McCain 47% to 42% (she led by 9% two weeks ago); Obama trails 44% to 43% (he led by 8% two weeks ago).
  • Clinton gets 78% of registered Democrats, Obama only 65%; unfortunately for the Illinois Senator, that’s certainly not an outlier. Dozens of polls confirm that he has trouble breaking even the 70% mark among registered Democrats.
  • In Massachusetts, both Democrats are ahead by double-digits, with Clinton trouncing McCain 55% to 36% and Obama ahead by a narrower 51% to 39%.

Both sets of numbers are significant. In Massachusetts, first, where a consistent wave of polls has shown that Obama could (stunningly) be in trouble against McCain; the most recent poll has him only ahead by 2%. The Rasmussen poll does show Obama trailing McCain by 5% among independents, suggesting that McCain’s appeal among Northeast indies remains strong. Naturally, it is difficult to imagine a Democrat winning the White House without the 12 EVs of MA (even McGovern got them in 72!).

As for Pennsylvania, as troubling as those numbers are for Dems, this is probably as bad as it is going to get for the two Democrats to appeal to each other’s supporters. The exit polls on Tuesday suggested that a higher number of voters than usual would be dissatisfied if the candidate they weren’t supporting got the nomination. At least some of those will end up joining the Democratic side; the exact proportion that will stay away will determine the nominee’s fate come November.

On a last polling note, Rasmussen also released a survey of the Massachusetts Senate race and finds John Kerry trouncing his Republican opponents and staying above 50%; he leads Jeff Beaty 55% to 30% and Jim Ogonowski (who came close to picking up a blue district in a special election in 2007) 53% to 31%. Kerry is likely to coast to re-election but it is worth pointing out that an entrenched incumbent like him could have hoped to come even further ahead against mostly unknown Republicans.

DCCC going for the kill in Southern special elections

Published
by
Taniel
on April 25, 2008
in LA-06 and MS-01
. 2 Comments

The first round of the special election in MS-01, held Tuesday, was obscured by the higher-profile Pennsylvania primary. But the result was truly stunning: In this heavily Republican district that gave 62% of its vote to George Bush, the Democratic candidate came about 400 votes from the 50% mark that would have gotten him elected in the first round and 3% ahead of the GOP candidate. No one was expecting Childers to get this close to an outright majority; there were 6 names on the non-partisan ballot and, even if the race was looking competitive, most of the attention was focused on neighboring LA-06 which holds its special election on May 3rd.

But Childers fell just short and thus the race has to go to a runoff on May 13th. A probably very frustrated DCCC can harbor some regrets: It did not meet the NRCC’s final spending in the district and ended up spending half as much, in a clear calculation that the race would go beyond April 22nd. Had they invested a bit more in the final week, those 400 votes could perhaps have been found. But this is a a case in which hindsight is really 20-20.

Tuesday’s numbers by no means ensure a Democratic victory in the runoff, and Republicans are likely to fight back to try and close the 3% gap. But consider how concerned the NRCC must be this week. An outspent Democrat came close to a stunning upset against a Republican with no particular baggage in a district we only started paying attention two weeks ago. This paints a truly terrifying picture of what awaits the GOP in November. There are other seats that don’t feature on people’s competitive list because of their Republican lean, and they are plenty of endangered incumbents who seat on districts that are more vulnerable than MS-01. Trailing the DCCC’s cash-on-hand by $37 million, the NRCC does not have the money to compete in most of these districts. If the Democratic candidates have such potential in other supposedly uncompetitive districts, there is little the NRCC will be able to do about it.

For now, the congressional committees are raising the stakes in the two Southern special elections. The DCCC just bought a large media buy against Greg Davis in MS-01; the $220K bring their total to $360K; there is no word for now of the GOP rushing to Davis’ rescue after the run-off and the Republican strategists are probably now calculating how much is it worth for them to spend considering how little money they have and how close to a victory Childers is.

In a sign that Democratic strength in MS-01 might make the GOP concentrate more on LA-06, the latest Republican spending is coming from the latter: the NRCC bought a $130K ad against Cazayoux, bringing its total to $250K. But the DCCC more than responded with a $257K media buy against Jenkins as well as much smaller organizing expenditures. The DCCC has now spent a total of $670K in LA-06 — outspending their counterparts nearly 3:1!

The Republicans are staying afloat here thanks to the spending of other groups such as Club for Growth and Freedom’s Watch, which has spent half-a-million in the district. All together, expenditures meant to help Jenkins are superior to those on Cazayoux’s side but not by enough to outweigh the fact that the Democrat has been favored to win the seat ever since the two parties selected their nominees.

Thursday polls: Indiana is a rare toss-up

Published
by
Taniel
on April 25, 2008
in IN-Dem, IN-Pres, MN-Pres, MN-Sen and NV-Pres
. 18 Comments

We have seen remarkably few polls from Indiana so far but Research 2000 sought to correct that anomaly today by releasing a survey from the Hoosier state:

  • Obama edges out Clinton 48% to 47%, a slight improvement from the previous R2000 poll that had Clinton leading by 3%.
  • In the general election, McCain beats both Democrats but by margins that are narrower than those Bush enjoyed in 2000 and 2004. He leads Obama 51% to 43% and Clinton 52% to 41%.
  • Update: Selzer & Co (which is I believe the same pollster that conducts the Des Moines Register poll) released another Indiana survey tonight, also showing Obama up within the margin of error, 41% to 38%.
  • And in truly stunning general election numbers, Obama leads McCain 49% to 41% while Clinton and McCain are tied at 46%.

There have been few states in which there has been genuine uncertainty as to who would win rather than suspense about the margin. Texas was certainly the last state in which we went into Election Day with no favorite, but even there Clinton had gone into it the campaign as a favorite. This is why the next two week promise to be so much fun: There will be an actual measure by which to judge candidates’ performances rather than the always subjective metric of what losing margin constitutes a moral victory! That said, Clinton will need more than just a narrow victory, but this initial indecisiveness suggests she might have trouble getting there.

As for the general election, it would certainly be very impressive for the Democratic nominee to even put Indiana in play, as the state has not voted for a Democratic nominee since 1964. That said, the Selzer poll does look like an outlier; there have been other general election polls from Indiana and none suggests that McCain is in that much danger here. Not to mention that if McCain is in danger of losing Indiana come November he probably will be in even worse shape in neighboring Midwestern states such as Iowa and Ohio — not that the Obama campaign necessarily thinks it has a good chance of winning the latter. In a memo it distributed today to superdelegates and that the Washington Post obtained, the campaign lists what states Obama will concentrate on, classifying them as “big states,” “traditional battlegrounds” and “new states” (CO and VA, but also TX, ND and MT). This was meant to be a memo about electability, which explains the inclusion of TX, ND and MT as there have been some polls lately in which Obama has been strong but not Clinton. But much more shocking is that Florida and Ohio have just been left out of the memo!

Two other general election surveys were released over the past two days by Rasmussen:

  • In Minnesota, Obama crushes McCain 52% to 37%. Clinton is ahead by a much narrower 47% to 42%. This is a significant improvement for both Democrats; a month ago, Obama lead McCain by 4 and Clinton trailed by 1.
  • In Nevada, however, another crucial swing state that is near the top of the Democrats’ pick-up list, McCain is leading both Democrats, 48% to 43% against Obama and 48% to 38% against Clinton — a rare case in which there the proportion of undecided voters is much higher in Hillary’s match-up.
  • Last month, both Democrats led McCain — Obama by 4%, which was already a decline from the month before when Obama led by 12%.

Both of these states will be very disputed all the way to November. Minnesota is one of the blue states the GOP is assured of contesting; not only did it only narrowly reject Bush in 2004, but the GOP convention will be held in St. Paul this year and MN Governor Pawlenty is at the top of McCain’s vice-presidential list. As for Nevada, Democrats know they must make inroads in the West if they want to survive the census reallocation that will have kicked in by the next presidential election. They have room to grow in the region and the Obama campaign clearly believes that the West (starting with Colorado) is fertile ground for the Illinois Senator.

Finally, Rasmussen also released a Senate poll from Minnesota:

  • It shows Senator Norm Coleman leading Al Franken 50% to 43%. This is a second month in a row the Republican is improving his position since trailing 49-46 in February. Last month, Coleman was leading by 2%, 48-46.

This is the first time Coleman is reaching 50% in a Rasmussen poll, the vulnerability threshold no incumbent wants to fall under. Note that Franken’s trajectory is going downward just as he looks to be securing the DFL’s nomination. This race is probably the purest Senate toss-up along with Alaska’s Senate race, as all other races more or less clearly lean towards the incumbent or challenging party. With Democrats unable to make much of a move right now in Maine and Oregon, Franken could benefit from more DSCC attention.

Wright makes his first ad appearance, as everyone has something to say about Obama’s electability

Published
by
Taniel
on April 24, 2008
in Nat-Dem and Nat-Pres
. 14 Comments

The North Carolina Republican Party has decided to produce and air (supposedly over the objections of the RNC) an ad blasting the state’s two Democratic gubernatorial candidates for supporting Obama in the wake of Wright (you can watch the ad here). This ad starts one of the most discussed clips from a Wright sermon in which the pastor says “God damn America;” the bottom half of the screen describes Wright as “Obama’s ’spiritual mentor’ for 20 years.” The ad goes on to announce that gubernatorial candidates Moore and Perdue are both supporting Obama and concludes them to be too extreme for North Carolina.

This ad is bound to be controversial, if only because it is I believe Wright’s first appearance in a television ad that will get air time; it thus serves as the prelude to a crucial Republican strategy in the coming months. No matter how much the RNC and the McCain campaign profess to not want this ad to air, there is no question that many third-party groups will blast Obama with similar images. Another reason the ad is sparking a lot of controversy is its quite awful race-baiting, pointed out by Politico’s Jonathan Martin. The ad places the focus on a picture of Obama with Perdue, a white woman, while the picture of Moore shows him alone; towards the end of the ad, the Perdue picture grows and Moore’s recedes. You might remember that Republicans had already been accused of playing on the fear of interraciality in 2006 in Tennessee’s Senate campaign featuring Harold Ford.

The ad is introduced in a context of heavy discussion of Obama’s electability. Now that Clinton’s main hope to clinch the nomination is to convince superdelegates that Obama is unelectable, his standing among white men, blue-collar voters and Catholics and his prospect of boosting African-American turnout are being closely examined; his verbal gaffes are fueling discussions about his prospects in November;and articles being penned about how Obama has become the “next McGovern.” Odds are that this discussion is coming too late for it to meaningfully weaken Obama’s hold on the nomination, but the discussion should certainly proceed. The answer to these questions will determine Obama’s fate in November.

The Republican Party is clearly hoping that it can make Obama unelectable among white voters by using Wright’s sermons as a rally point; these also allow them to race-bait while hiding behind a facade of patriotism. There will surely be a lot more where this came from, and Obama is going to have to weather those attacks convincingly.

But one thing has to be pointed out: There is for now no evidence anyone can give that Obama is suffering from an insurmountable electability problem; nor, for that matter, that Clinton is. Polls show both Democrats have weaknesses, and both have strengths; Hillary Clinton and Obama looking like the stronger candidate at differing times and in different states (just take a look at SUSA’s latest wave of general election polls). In other words, these questions have not yet been answered conclusively.

This is why I ultimately find the North Carolina ad so surprising: Republicans might wish that running ads associating gubernatorial candidates to the Obama campaign would hurt down-the-ballot Democrats, but where are they getting the information that it will actually hurt them? If anything, Moore and Perdue probably want voters to see pictures of them associated with the Obama campaign; perhaps the GOP will succeed in making Obama radioactive by November, but it is absurd to treat the Illinois Senator as if he were George W. Bush. You might remember that, in the March special election in IL-14, the Democratic candidate ran ads featuring Obama; sure, this was his home-state, but IL-14 was a very red district. Foster won, and he clearly had no qualms about running on Obama’s coattails.

The same argument applies to those who are certain that Clinton will drag down-the-ballot Democrats down. There is no evidence that Clinton runs worse than Obama in red states; if anything, most polls agree she motivates the Democratic base more even in deeply Republican areas. Such a disingenuous discussion of electability comes to us (as often) from Kos, who has become one of the most virulent anti-Clinton bloggers; yesterday, he wrote a post listing a very selective set of polls all showing that Obama is more electable than Clinton and concludes, “she runs behind Obama in the general.” Any one who has read this site regularly knows that is not a conclusion that can be drawn that easily. Kos lists last week’s SUSA polls from IA and MN, for instance but conveniently forgets too mention that the same day SUSA released surveys from OH and MO showing Clinton running 16 and 9 points ahead of Obama, respectively; not to mention all the polls suggesting that Obama would struggle tremendously in Massachusetts. Once again, this is not too say that Clinton is more electable than Obama but that it is partisan spin to herald as evidence of Obama’s superior appeal a few carefully selected surveys.

But it is one thing for both sides to spin their own candidate’s electability and their opponent’s unelectability. It is quite another for the North Carolina Republican Party to try to hurt Moore and Perdue by stupidly highlighting their association with Obama when such an association probably helps them.

Clinton’s hope must be that superdelegates take the bait and, afraid that these types of ads multiply across the country in the coming months, jump on the Clinton electability bandwagon. This was the same hope after bittergate when the NRCC was taunting Democratic representatives. It did not happen then, but this is obviously the type of events Clinton needs if she wants to change the tide.

May 6th: Two crucial contests, but for different reasons

Published
by
Taniel
on April 24, 2008
in IN-Dem and NC-Dem
. 12 Comments

Clinton having survived to fight another day, all eyes turn to May 6th contexts, Indiana and North Carolina. Both candidates are now scheduled to criss-cross the states, and Indiana is likely to be portrayed as more crucial; but both states are very important to this nomination battle, but for very different reasons. Just like on March 4th and on April 22nd, Clinton needs to have solid results to survive; but those will be defined differently.

In Indiana, there are no expectations. This is perhaps the first state since Maine in which there is no favorite going in the contest. This is due first to the absence of polls. There have only been five surveys of Indiana in the past 2 months, three of which have been conducted by SUSA. To make matters more confusing, the three SUSA polls have been very inconclusive, with one showing a single-digit Clinton lead, the second a double-digit Clinton lead, and the third a single-digit Obama lead; among other pollsters, ARG shows Clinton ahead and Bloomberg Obama. None of this is particularly helpful to define the conventional wisdom.

More importantly, Indiana’s demographics make it difficult to predict the result. With Obama and Clinton holding very firmly to their electoral coalitions, almost every contest has been determined by a demographic logic and the state’s racial and class breakdown. Going into Pennsylvania, Clinton was a heavy favorite for just this reason and, by performing exactly as she had in Ohio among all the same groups, she held strong. Indiana, on the other hand, is a more complex picture (perhaps not seen since Wisconsin).

Large parts of the state are likely to go for Clinton by huge margins, holding to patterns we have been seeing in places like rural Ohio and rural Pennsylvania. But don’t forget Indiana is a heavily red state; a very large portion of Democratic votes is concentrated in urban Indianapolis where Obama should come in strong, and that alone should outweigh Clinton’s strengths in heavily Republican areas. Also, the Northwest of the state is close to Illinois and receives Chicago television, so Obama will be fighting on his home turf in that region. Read the Politico’s piece on Indiana demography for a more complete picture.

That Indiana is likely to be tight does not mean that Clinton can get away with a small victory, however. Just as in Pennsylvania, a win will allow her to stay in the race and fight on until April 22nd; but she also has to win convincingly to offset the likely Obama triumph in North Carolina. For Clinton to be described as having had a good night on May 6th, her Indiana victory needs to be impressive enough to overshadow the margin Obama gets in North Carolina. That is certainly a tall order given that the Illinois Senator is favored in the Southern state while Clinton is not in Indiana; but those are the tough playing field in which Clinton must play.

The stakes of North Carolina, then, are as crucial as those of Indiana. If Clinton does not manage to remain at a decent level, she is unlikely to receive any traction at all out of May 6th no matter what happens in Indiana. North Carolina is the biggest state that is left to vote, and its demographics are not as damaging to Clinton as those of other Southern states. If Obama scores a blowout of South Carolina’s proportions or even just a convincing double-digit victory, Clinton will fall very far behind in the popular vote and she will have trouble explaining why she is staying in the race. Remember, her campaign is now premised on the argument that Democratic voters are having second thoughts and that they are denying Obama the nomination.

As important will be the breakdown of the vote in North Carolina; Obama has posted better numbers in some primaries than in Pennsylvania among the voting groups he is weakest in; in neighboring Virginia, for instance. Just as in Pennsylvania, the exit polls will be scrutinized for the vote of blue-collar voters and whites; Obama and Clinton would be well-advised to spend a lot of time courting those voters in North Carolina. If he can show that those groups meaningfully moved towards him, it could offset Clinton’s argument that he is unelectable as much as any result in Indiana.

Most people are now saying that Clinton would only have to withdraw if she were to lose Indiana; but her position would become as untenable if Obama got great results in North Carolina. That said, the odds right now still favor a Clinton survival. She is in a position to win the Hoosier state and she has not collapsed in North Carolina. Some polls show her trailing by more than 20%, but SUSA’s latest poll released on Tuesday shows Obama up single-digits, 50% to 41%. And in a familiar pattern, Obama’s lead is pulled upward by independent voters, who support him by 22%.

Looking ahead: Will superdelegates continue waiting?

Published
by
Taniel
on April 23, 2008
in Nat-Dem
. 11 Comments

The Democratic race continues, and very little has changed. Superdelegates and donors are now Hillary Clinton’s primary audience, more so even than the voters of the upcoming state. She will not be able to meaningfully dent Obama’s lead among pledged delegates and there are only a few important contests remaining; Clinton has to score credible victories in most of them, certainly, but she first has to convince superdelegates to wait until June to make up their mind and persuade donors that her campaign is still worth contributing to.

Yesterday’s results have been a great success in tremendously boosting Clinton’s fundraising. Hillary’s campaign is reporting that they have now raised $10 million since the polls closed last night and from now 50,000 donors. That’s a very impressive display of strength and, considering how close to being broke Clinton was 24 hours ago, this money will allow her to press on; even if she remains far behind Obama’s fundraising haul, it looks like Clinton is more willing to spend her entire fortune while Obama understandably would want to save some for the summer fight against McCain.

[Update: The Clinton campaign via Terry McAuliffe later corrected itself saying it was on track to raise $10 million in 24 hours, still an impressive sum but certainly not what I wrote here. Note that some are doubting these claims. Update 2, Thursday morning: Well, the $10 million happened after all, as of 11pm last night.]

Meanwhile, the superdelegate question is up in the air. There appears to be a consensus that a large number of uncommitted superdelegates are looking to endorse Obama but are unsure of when to do so, with many planning on waiting until the end of the voting process on June 3rd. For now, indeed, there has been no massive movement towards one candidate of the kind that could end the race.

Will it be different this time? Some Obama supporters are hoping that, instead of triggering panic about their candidate’s strength, the Pennsylvania results push superdelegates who are leaning Obama to worry about the harm this long primary is inflicting to the party and openly declare themselves. Just this morning, Obama already got a high-profile endorsement from Brad Henry, the Governor of Oklahoma, a state Clinton won handily. And there have been rumors swirling that the Obama campaign has been holding on to a large number of supers who will endorse him in the coming days;

But how much of this is just spin, an elaborate story that the Obama campaign has successfully transformed into conventional wisdom? What is the proof that such large pockets of superdelegates exist since they have not been coming forward for weeks now. Rumors such as these have circulated again and again since Super Tuesday, hinting at massive movements to come and a resulting implosion of the Clinton campaign. They have never come true. Credible media sources reported, for instance, that Obama would get 50 superdelegate endorsements en masse after March 4th, days passed with no such news; neither did reports that Obama was about to get the collective endorsement of the entire North Carolina congressional delegation come to pass.

Prolonging cruel game, Pennsylvania voters satisfy neither candidate

Published
by
Taniel
on April 23, 2008
in PA-Dem
. 87 Comments

Once again, neither candidate blinked. In this trench warfare, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama held their ground, producing a result that satisfies no one and only strengthens the status-quo. Given a third opportunity to send Clinton packing after New Hampshire and the March 4th contests, Pennsylvania Democrats chose to prolong the race and they did so decisively, leaving no room for Clinton to drop out even if she wanted to. Yet, just as had happened the two previous times, enough voters rallied around Clinton to make her victory credible but not enough to improve her chances of seizing the nomination.

The Democratic electorate seems to be thinking of these primaries as a cruel game through which it can torture its candidates — making sure neither gets a result that could meaningfully help them. As a result, the race is showing no sign of slowing down and the candidates are already on to May 6th, the next mini-Super Tuesday featuring North Carolina and Indiana.

In my preview of the race yesterday afternoon, I differentiated between three issues: first, what Clinton needs to remain in the race; second, the threshold of a credible victory; third, what would allow her to change the fundamentals of the race. There were plenty of possible results that could have left room for spin, but last night’s results contained very little ambiguity:

1 - By posting a comfortable victory, Clinton undoubtedly gained the right to stay in the race and considerably eased the pressure to drop out. After all, how can a candidate who just won such a large victory in a crucial and hard-fought state even think of dropping out? Note that one major problem for the Clinton campaign is money; they are not paying bills and they have almost no money left in the bank. If the financial situation does not improve quickly, Clinton could be forced out of the race because of lack of funds. She was counting on tonight’s results to energize her base and get money flowing back in and for now she seems to be succeeding: She raised a stunning $2.5 million in the four hours after the polls closed last night.

2 - Despite falling just short of the double-digit mark, she passed the threshold of a credible victory, one whose legitimacy even the Obama campaign will not attempt to question; she barely reached this level, to be sure, but the tone of the media coverage and of this morning’s headlines leave no doubt that Clinton met the expectations that had been set for her. “With Clear Victory, She Has Rationale to Fight on,” writes the New York Times today. Keep in mind that the Obama camp was fully prepared to spin a narrower contest as a moral victory.

3- Just as evident, however, is that Clinton’s chances to seize the nomination did not improve; if anything, her prospects are even more somber this morning than they were yesterday. Pennsylvania was one of Clinton’s last shot at turning the race on its head, at cutting into Obama’s delegate total or at showing that Democratic voters are increasingly turning back to her after a flirtation period with Obama. She did none of these things: While the exact delegate breakdown is still unclear, she needed twice as big a victory only to leave it possible that Obama not emerge out of the primaries with a large pledged delegate lead; after yesterday’s vote, Obama is virtually assured that he will get to June with a significant advantage among pledged delegates.

On a more symbolic level, Clinton could have demonstrated that something has truly changed in the Democratic primary had she won by 15-20%. At the beginning of the Pennsylvania campaign, such a margin seemed to be very much possible, with some polls showing Clinton expanding to the 20% range during the Wright controversy. Just imagine how damaged Obama would have looked tonight had Clinton pulled such margin off.

Backed into the corner, Clinton undoubtedly survived to fight another day; but she did not move the numbers. In fact, the extent to which the numbers have held remarkably static since Ohio is truly remarkable: Not only is Clinton’s lead the same, but the voting pattern of most groups is similar, with Hillary’s winning margin slightly decreasing among white men and slightly increasing among Catholics. In other words, Clinton did not demonstrate that those weaknesses have increased over the past few weeks as she was hoping to do; after all, the Wright controversy and bittergate were supposed to have hurt Obama among these voters.

Naturally, none of this is to deny that the inability to move number is as much if not more Obama’s failure than Clinton’s. Pennsylvania once again served as evidence that Obama had fundamental problems relating to blue-collar voters: The Illinois Senator got trounced in most of the state’s working-class or rural counties, and was stuck in the 20s in a number of them — a stunningly poor showing. Even worse, Obama did not bring about strong turnout among young voters and his own position among white-collar voters was much weaker than usual yesterday; he for example barely held on to voters with a college degree. And all of this despite the fact that he massively outspend her and has been campaigning as the inevitable nominee for quite some time now. If he wins the nomination, Obama will have to urgently address his significant weakness among blue-collar voters if he does not want the Reagan Democrats to desert the party once again.

But this is no longer New Hampshire, nor is it even Ohio or Texas. Pennsylvania was not a zero-sum game but one of the last primaries in a long series of contests that started in early January. Since then, both candidates have held together very solid electoral coalitions but Clinton blinked a few times too many, leaving her trailing in most important counts. Her most important audience now is superdelegates, and she has been somewhat successfully making her case that Obama would go in the general election with glaring weaknesses but that has not proven enough to move many superdelegates her way. A 10% lead in Pennsylvania coupled with the exit polls we saw yesterday help her make her case, but it is only enough to stall for more time not to generate movement towards her.

Now, the campaign moves on to further contests. As always, the question will be whether either candidate can transcend the demographic logic that has determined almost every one of these Democratic primaries. Until he finds a way to do so and however inevitable his nomination looks, Obama will not be able to put Clinton away and both candidates will be forced to go through the motions of a competitive race. Given how much Obama prides himself for his ability to bridge the country’s stubborn divides, it is ironic that it is his failure to make inroads in his opponent’s demographic base that is dragging this primary longer than anyone thought possible.

Pennsylvania results thread: Clinton prevails; Childers 400 votes from stunning pick-up

Published
by
Taniel
on April 22, 2008
in MS-01 and PA-Dem
. 29 Comments

12:45am: With 98% reporting, Clinton’s lead is back down under 10% — at 9.4% to be exact. Most of the remaining precincts look to be in Chester County in which Obama is ahead, so it does not look like Clinton crossed 10%. However, her win clearly falls within the “credible victory” category I outlined this afternoon — though it is certainly not enough to change the fundamentals of the race. Clinton had the potential to score a much larger victory, and she reach the level she needed to truly change the discussion. As for delegates, Clinton failed to meaningfully dent into Obama’s margin, and this was by far the largest state left, ensuring that the primaries will end with Obama holding on to a very large lead among pledged delegates.

Yet, how can a candidate who just won such a large victory in a crucial state even think of dropping out? Clinton has to be happy with today’s narrative since she won based on her strength in rural areas and blue-collar voters. She broke 70% in many counties in Western Pennsylvania (79% in Fayette County). And in the all-important issue of money, it looks like Clinton will be able to generate money out of tonight’s victory. Her campaign claims that she had raised $2,5 million from the polls closing as of 11:30pm! More on all of this tomorrow. And also on MS-01, where the last county got Childers even closer to 50% — about 400 votes short. But this race is on to May 13th.

11:20pm: Clinton is holding firm to her double-digit lead with 88% reporting. In short, the results today are remarkably similar to those of Ohio, with most numbers internal numbers today very similar to those we saw on March 4th. Most things have remained stable in the past 6 weeks: Obama moved numbers very little despite massively outspending Clinton, and Clinton did not move upward among blue-collar voters despite her argument that Wright and bittergate hurt Obama in that group.

10:50pm: The AP has called a runoff in MS-01. With only 1 precinct remaining, Democrats just missed a pick-up in a conservative Southern district. Childers has 49% of the votes versus 46% for Davis but he remains only about 470 votes from the 50% threshold! This will certainly get Childers and the DCCC very frustrated, but it also guarantees that there will be a lot of spending in this race in the weeks ahead.

Meanwhile, Barack Obama has taken the stage in Indiana, already looking ahead to the now crucial contest of May 6th. He tried to put Pennsylvania behind him, using a tactic Clinton employed in late February when she gave her speeches on nights of defeat from the upcoming state. After congratulating Clinton for her victory (something she did not always do), Obamalaunched into a long charge against John McCain. He then moved on to his attacks against Clinton, drawing many contrasts without mentioning his opponent’s name; he called to reject a party that uses the fear of terrorism to win elections (a clear reference to Clinton’s 3am and bin Laden ads), tests its message in polls and relies on divisiveness. Meanwhile, Clinton has progressed to a 10% lead with 79% reporting.

10:40pm: In MS-01, Childers is now ahead by 500 votes… but both candidates are now far away from 50%. Results can be found here. The only outstanding county right now is Clay county, which Kerry won with 52% — so it is very likely that Childers will stay ahead but it is very unlikely that he gets above 50%.

In the Democratic primary, meanwhile, 76% of the votes are in and whether Clinton can inch to a 10% victory will determine much of the coverage of the race in the days ahead. As I explained this afternoon, she needed a double-digits victory, or at least a high single-digit lead to have what I called a “credible victory.” But she has certainly not reached the level she would need to change the fundamentals of the race.

10:20pm: Speaking in Philadelphia, Clinton vows to press on, emphasizing that, after a long campaign in which both candidates criss-crossed the state, Pennsylvanians chose her . “The American people don’t quit, and they deserve a President who doesn’t quit either,” she said. She also insisted on the need for people to go to her website and donate… Her campaign is in dire need of money, though they are reporting that they have raised half a million dollar tonight already. With 68% reporting, Clinton is still in single-digits. Both Philadelphia and Pittsburgh have almost finished reporting.

Meanwhile, exit polls have been updated. Among notable changes: Clinton won big among women (57%) but the surprise is among male voters: Obama only held on to a 4% lead. Helping Clinton, of course, is the fact that 59% of voters are women. Clinton is now ahead 62% to 38% among white voters and broke into double-digits among African-Americans (not that that is a strong showing at all); she is winning big among Catholics (69%) but she is also ahead among Protestants, contrary to what some polls were finding. Clinton wins union households with 59% and voters with no college degree voted for her with 58%; Obama underperformed among voters with a college degree (51%). And in a very important measure, Clinton is found to have won the white vote 56% to 44% — that is still less than her margin in Ohio, an argument Obama will use when talking to superdelegates.

10:10pm: With 92% of precincts is reporting, it looks like the MS-01 is heading for a runoff with Davis leading Childers by 400 votes, 48% to 47%. More proof that Childers is benefiting from strong turnout from Democratic voters: In Itawamba County, which voted for Bush overwhelmingly in 2004, the Democrats won with 59% today. There are plenty of similar examples.

Some interesting notes on the presidential race: Ben Smith finds that, among Republicans who went to vote in the meaningless GOP primary today, ie. the base of the base of the GOP, only 73% say they will vote for McCain in the general election suggesting that McCain still has some work to do among conservatives. Many of those could be Ron Paul supporters, as the Texas representative is coming in with 16% right now, ahead of Huckabee.

10pm: Quite a suspense in MS-01; with 83% of precincts reporting Davis is now at 49%, barely under the 50% threshold and 1,100 votes ahead of Childers. 4 counties have significant number of votes to count; I just looked back at the 2004 elections and one of these counties voted for Kerry, so Childers will score big there. Of the three others, one voted for Bush at the level of the rest of the district (61%) and two are more Republican than the district at large. On paper this favors Davis but don’t forget Childers is significantly overperforming the district’s partisan make-up.

In Pennsylvania, half of the precincts are now reporting and Clinton is ahead by 8% still; Pittsburgh and Philadelphia are now reporting at the same level, way ahead of the rest of the state. That suggest that most of the outstanding precincts are from non-urban areas, which should favor Clinton. A CNN commentator is suggesting that a Clinton nomination would make many voters flee the party — though more Clinton supporters in Pennsylvania are saying they would vote for McCain if Obama is the nominee than Obama supporters.

9:50pm: Davis is now ahead 51% to 45% with 71% of precincts reporting. Davis’s stronghold, DeSoto County, is now entirely in; Davis won there with 81% (8000 votes), which is 400% of his total margin. There is thus the potential for Childers to hold the Republican under 50%.

In Pennsylvania, Clinton is ahead by 8% with 45% of precincts reporting. Obama is performing better in Philadelphia (61% to 39%) but 72% of the city’s precincts are already reporti
ng. Clinton is swamping Obama outside of Philadelphia, posting very strong numbers in most of the counties heavy with blue-collar voters, with way above 66% in many counties. It is too early to talk about delegates, but this type of margin will enable Clinton to get strong results in many even-delegate districts.

9:25pm: Clinton’s margin of victory is still unclear — Clinton is leading by 6% with 15% of precincts reporting. It is too early for the Clinton campaign to be triumphant — though there are indications that her lead might grow significantly because of the simple fact that 41% of Philadelphia is reporting. PA has been called for Clinton, but the race’s dynamic going out of this contest is not yet determined.

In Mississippi, there has been a change as counties in which Davis is strong just reported. He is now ahead 50% to 46% with 46% of precincts reporting. If Davis wins tonight, the DCCC will regret not having met the NRCC’s spending and waited for the May 13th runoff.

9:10pm: The danger for Obama is that the storyline is that Clinton’s win is due to blue collar voters. With 10% reporting, Clinton is ahead by double-digits and Philadelphia (Obama’s stronghold) is reporting 28% while Pittsburgh (where Clinton is strong) has not reported at all.
In Mississippi, with 25% reporting, Childers is ahead 53% to 43% — hanging on above 50%.

9pm: AP calls Pennsylvania primary for Hillary Clinton.
It looks like Clinton’s actual winning margins are bigger than those in the exit polls — which also suggests that the numbers among key groups like white men and blue-collar voters will likely change to suggest larger wins by Clinton. Other good news for Clinton: I said that her winning margin among white men was cut since Ohio, but it looks like it has increased among other key groups like Catholics or union households; this will be used to push the argument of Obama’s weakening. With 25% reporting in Philadelphia, Obama is only getting 55% — a decent margin, but much less than what he would need.

8:45pm: Raw votes are starting to come in, and with 3% of precincts reporting Clinton is ahead 55% to 45%. This includes 11% of Philadelphia — in which the two candidates are tied right now! Exit polls suggest Obama got a huge victory in Philadelphia, so this implies the most favorable neighborhoods have not reported yet at all (or so Obama should hope).

In Mississippi, there are some very important numbers: With 7% reporting, the Democrat, Childers, is leading 58% to 37% against Davis. It is unclear where those votes are coming from, so things can obviously get much tighter, but the truly significant result for now is that the other candidates are getting 2% at most. This is a surprise considering that the ballot was non-partisan and that the primaries had been very nasty. This means that the odds of a candidate crossing 50% is much higher than previously thought — we might have a winner tonight.

8:25pm: The all important white male vote will be scrutinized very closely in the coming days, and the exit polls as they stand right now are not bringing her good news: She won the white men vote 53% to 46% (she won the white female vote 64% to 36%); in Ohio, she had won among white men by 19%. One of Clinton’s main hopes was to claim that Wright and bitter-gate weakened Obama among white voters; it’s going to be hard for her to argue that Obama has slipped dramatically enough to endanger his general election position if these numbers are confirmed in later updates to exit polls. However, Clinton won Catholics with 68% — another group that we were looking for closely.

8pm: Polls are now closed in both Pennsylvania’s primary and MS-01. As expected, there is no call in the Democratic contest; this does not mean that the race is going to end up close. It took a while for Ohio to be called and Clinton won by double-digits. Wolf Blitzer claims that “If Clinton wins tonight she will of course go on,” an interesting expectation setting with which the Obama campaign would beg to differ. By the way, Clinton is in Philadelphia, Obama is in Indiana.

The full exit poll just posted on CNN’s website shows Clinton narrowly ahead by 4-5%. This now looks to be the late wave of exit polls — which tend to be much less skewed than the second wave. Among interesting numbers: 14% of voters changed their registration to Democratic since January, and 60% of them favored Obama (So much for those who criticize Clinton for riding the Rush Limbaugh Operation Chaos wave). Clinton leads by 14% among voters with no college degree; Obama leads by 8% among voters with a college degree. These numbers will be refined through the evening.

7pm: In Pennsylvania, a group sought to keep the polls open in Philadelphia until 10pm but the motion was denied, confirming that the polls will close (and results will start tricking in) at 8pm. In Mississippi, I reported that polls had closed but, as a commenter correctly points out, they close at 7pmCT — so not for another hour.

Original post: The polls close at 7pm in Mississippi and at 8pm in Pennsylvania. Most of the suspense, of course, is in the latter. The first exit polls are starting to leak — and as always these numbers should be taken with a huge grain of salt since they include only part of the day. And please keep in mind that this is only the second wave of exit polls and those have often been too favorable to Obama: The ones from Ohio showed a tie on March 4th, and Obama was found to be leading in Massachusetts on February 5th (he lost both states by double-digits). In fact, Pollster.com’s Blumenthal finds that 18 out of 20 second wave exit polls were too skewed to Obama’s favor by an average of 7%.

That said, Fox reports that these early exits have Clinton leading 58% to 42% among gun owners, with Obama ahead 54% to 46% among voters with a college degree — perhaps a smaller margin than he would need. CNN adds that these exits are finding Clinton is ahead 55% to 45% among white men, that Obama getting as massive a victory among black voters as ever (92-8) and that those who have decided in the past week heavily broke for Clinton. As for full results, there are being leaked indirectly, they don’t agree with each other and thus don’t look reliable. The National Review (which often gets correct exit polls first) is reporting that exit polls have Obama narrowly ahead. Drudge is showing a narrow Clinton lead but Marc Ambinder notes those are the first wave of exit polls — not even the second.

For now, you can read my guidelines of what to expect tonight here.

Setting tonight’s guidelines: Will Pennsylvania’s primary be tighter than Mississippi’s special?

Published
by
Taniel
on April 22, 2008
in MS-01 and PA-Dem
. 6 Comments

This is the third Election Day in which Barack Obama has been in a position to bury Hillary Clinton; he came short on January 8th in New Hampshire and failed to do so again in Ohio and Texas on March 4th. From now on, of course, every Election Day could mean instant death for the Clinton campaign who has no room for error all the way until June 3rd. To continue using the metaphor of a tennis match, Obama has quadruple match points — and some of them (North Carolina, Oregon) are on his serve.

Clinton is hoping that a solid showing today in Pennsylvania will help her finally get some momentum and head into the May contests in a strong position. Polls over the past few days suggest that Clinton is heavily favored to win, but the margin of victory is more unclear; few polls are showing anything more than a 10% lead and the key to tonight’s results seems to reside in the turnout of groups that typically favor Clinton (blue-collar whites, Catholics).

The issue, of course, is defining what a strong showing would consist in. There are, as was the case in Ohio and Texas, three separates issues to consider: (1) What result does she need to stay in the race? (2) What result would make her claims of victory credible? (3) What result would change the fundamental dynamics of the race? It’s worth addressing them in turn.

(1) What Clinton needs to simply stay in the race is perhaps the hardest question to answer because it fully depends on Clinton’s determination; only she can decide to bring an end to the race by dropping out. It would be very difficult for her to stay in if she loses Pennsylvania; but what about a narrow victory (say 3-4)? That would be interpreted as a very weak result for the Clinton campaign; but would she pull the plug?

(2) The threshold of a credible victory is fairly clearly defined: Clinton needs a double-digit victory, or at the very least a very high single-digit lead. Under this “Ohio threshold,” the Obama campaign will claim to have exceeded expectations and pride itself on a moral victory. Above it, it will be nearly impossible for Obama to spin this into a decent showing and questions will only build as to why Obama is unable to close this off.

(3) To change the fundamentals of the race, Clinton needs much more than a double-digit victory. Her surprising comeback in Ohio, after all, allowed her to stay in the race but it did not alter the primary’s basic dynamics. Backed into a corner, Hillary needs a dramatic showing to get some air — and that involves exceeding expectations with a comfortable double-digit victory of at least 15% and she also needs exit polls to show Obama has come in very weakly among white blue-collar voters. Even then, of course, Clinton would remain the heavy underdog but she would finally have succeeded in moving the race meaningfully.

These measures might seem unfair, of course, considering that Obama has massively outspent Clinton; not to mention that, considering how close she is from the exit, it is remarkable that Clinton is still standing — let alone in a position to win a primary as important as Pennsylvania’s. But this year’s contests have been defined by demography: Both Democratic candidates have their core constituencies, and neither has made significant inroads in the other’s base groups. If anything, African-Americans are more determined to vote for Obama than they were in January and downscale whites are looking more solidly in Clinton’s camps than they were at the end of February.

In this trenchware warfare, the slightest weakness in either candidate’s core groups have cost the candidates greatly (Clinton in Wisconsin) but unusual displays of strengths have yielded great rewards (Clinton in NH and OH, Obama in SC). If Clinton blinks again, it could prove fatal to her campaign; but if she keeps her groups mobilized today it could be very damaging to the Obama campaign.

Mississippi’s 1st district: Also today, voters in the MS-01 are going to the polls for the first round of the special election to replace Rep. Wicker. This has become a surprisingly contentious election considering how red the district is; the NRCC have dumped almost $300,000, more than twice the amount spent by the DCCC, testifying to how panicked the GOP has become at the prospect of unexpectedly losing a conservative Southern seat.

The two main candidates are Democrat Childers and Republican Davis — but the ballot will feature 6 candidates total, including two important politicians (one from each party) who lost to Childers and Davis last month in the primary for the actual November election. They are not campaigning for the special election, but their presence on the ballot makes it almost impossible for either of the main candidates to get elected tonight.

If no one reaches 50% today, a runoff will be held on May 13th; but tonight’s results are certainly very important for they will tell us how strong a base vote Democrats have and how much bitterness there still is among Republicans after a very contentious primary. Depending on the answer to these questions, the DCCC might decide to invest more in the district or to give up the fight — and that will go a long way toward determining what will happen in the runoff.

Congressional diary: Begich declares in Alaska, GOP loses candidates in Arizona

Published
by
Taniel
on April 22, 2008
in AK-Sen and AZ-01
. 0 Comments

The day’s most important congressional news, of course, is the first round of the special election in Mississippi’s first district; I will get to that race shortly, when I post my guidelines for what to watch for tonight. Two other important congressional news that are unfolding this week concern recruitment and, as has become typical in this cycle, Democrats have once again been more successful than Republicans.

In Alaska’s Senate race, Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich announced his candidacy against GOP Senator Ted Stevens. Begich had formed an explanatory committee at the end of February, the first step toward a formal declaration of candidacy, so this week’s step is not surprising. But it confirms that Alaska will be the stage for one of the cycle’s most disputed Senate races. Stevens is a giant of Alaska politics; first elected in 1970, he has received at least 67% in every one of his re-election races since 1972. He is now considerably weakened by a corruption scandal and an FBI investigation and faces a potentially tricky primary.

Most polls have shown a toss-up, with the latest (from Rasmussen) finding Stevens up 1%. Other polls released earlier in the year found Begich leading. This race is likely to rise in my next Senate rankings — which should hopefully come out shortly (I know it has been a very long time since I have updated them).

In Arizona, meanwhile, Republicans are playing defense in the first district. Ethically embattled Rep. Renzi retired a few months ago, improving the Republicans’ chance of holding the seat. But that still requires finding a strong candidate to run… something the GOP has not been able to do. Their latest efforts focused on convincing Ken Bennett, a former state Senate president who had already declined to run, that he should reconsider. Bennett (re-)announced this week that he would stay out of the race despite this being a “tough decision.” This leaves Republicans with Sydney Hay, the president of the Arizona Mining Association. Democrats have the opposite problem — a competitive primary.

And don’t forget that there are still is a possibility Renzi might be forced to resign, potentially creating a special election; given turnout differential between the two parties, those have tended to be favorable to Democrats this year. AZ-01 is rated as lean take-over in my latest House ratings.