AK-Sen « Campaign Diaries

Poll watch: The Kennedy disaster, Palin loses to Murkowsky

January 7, 2009

Just a day after I argued that Caroline Kennedy could make a weak general election candidate because of her struggles on the trail and her lack of engagement with policy matters, Public Policy Polling released a poll testing Kennedy and Andrew Cuomo against the most probable Republican candidate, Rep. Peter King. The result is an unmitigated disaster for the former first daughter.

While Cuomo crushes King 48% to 29%, Kennedy is locked within the margin of error: She has a 46% to 44% edge. Stunningly, a quarter of Democrats say that they would turn their back on the dream of Camelot and cast a ballot for King!

Yes, Kennedy has not even been appointed. Yes, she would not face voters until November 2010, and she would certainly have time to improve her image and position herself as a hard-working incumbent until then. But let’s put these numbers in full context. Kennedy carries one of the most famous last names in American society, she has high name recognition, and she was supposedly a darling of the Democratic base; King, by contrast, is one of New York’s 29 representatives, and his name recognition isn’t particularly high. Most respondents can only situate him based on his party affiliation, and this is the staunchly blue Empire State we are talking about.

A poll released in such a context should have found very favorable results for Kennedy, not a tie. That the survey is being released before she is even appointed and before King declares his candidacy only makes it look worse for Kennedy, not better.

Worse still, Kennedy’s loss of standing since early December makes it difficult for her camp to argue that she would improve her numbers as New Yorkers get to know her as the incumbent. If a Senator Kennedy performs the same way as candidate Kennedy has over the past few weeks, Peter King would have a very good chance to score an upset indeed.

Finally, Kennedy performs 27% worse among white voters than does Cuomo; she trails by 9% while the Attorney General leads by 18%. Over the past few decades, white ethnics have been the vulnerability point for New York Democrats and King has already been pressing his case among that constituency by touting his modest roots and opposing them to a Kennedyesque entitlement.

—

Given that Alaska has become one of the most reliably Republican states in the country, whoever emerges out of the GOP’s Senate primary would be a shoo-in for the general election. That might make a Senate run an attractive option for Governor Sarah Palin if she feels like defeating incumbent Senator lisa Murkowski is not too difficult a task.

Two weeks ago, a Research 2000 survey found that Palin would crush Murkowski in a Republican primary. Today, however, a new poll commissioned by a conservative radio host finds the reverse result, 57% to 33% in Murkowski’s favor. The survey also finds that both women have strong approval ratings.

This poll suggests two things. First, Palin should be very careful about what she chooses to do: It would naturally be a disaster for her presidential ambitions if she were to not run for a gubernatorial re-election in 2010 but lose the Senate primary, leaving her out of a job. Second, we should not trust polls from Alaska; something about the state makes surveys extremely unreliable. Such a big disparity between two surveys taken over a similar period is a clear indication of that, as is the massive polling error every single polling outfit committed when testing Ted Stevens’s and Don Young’s re-election race.

3 Comments | AK-Sen, NY-Sen | Permalink
Posted by Taniel

2010: Matthews inching away, Palin’s Alaska strength

December 24, 2008

Over the past few weeks, speculation has been increasing that Chris Matthews laid the groundwork of a Senate run only in order to improve the terms of his contract with MSNBC. Call me naive, but I chose to believe that Matthews couldn’t be that much of a cynic. But the latest developments suggest that Matthews might indeed be inching away from a jump into politics that just a few weeks ago looked all but certain.

Consider this interview with the president of NBC (Matthews’s employer):

Q: Right, Mr. Zaidi could take over for Chris when Chris goes off to run for office.
A: [Chris Matthews] is not running for office.
Q: He’s not?
A: I don’t think so. Well, look, if he were running for office, he wouldn’t be on TV.

Matthews has indicated he will announce his decision in the weeks ahead; while an exit would certainly shake-up the race, other Democrats (Reps. Schwarz and Murphy, for instance) were already looking at the race and it’s not like Matthews was scaring other Democrats away.

—

Meanwhile, a new Research 2000 poll confirms that Alaska is one of the reddest states in the country. The survey tests all three of 2010’s statewide races and finds little for Republicans to worry about. In particular, the poll confirms that Sarah Palin remains highly popular in her home state: She enjoys an approval rating of 60% and she would be favored to win whatever job she runs for in 2010 - including the Senate seat currently held by fellow Republican Lisa Murkowski:

In a primary showdown with Murkowski, Palin demolishes the incumbent 55% to 31%.
In the Senate’s general election, Palin beats former Governor Tony Knowles 53% to 39% and demolishes state Senator Hollis French 58% to 27%. Murkowski would also be favored to win the general election if she makes it there: She leads Knowles 49% to 41% and French 56% to 27%.
No danger for Palin in a gubernatorial general election, as she crushes Knowles 55% to 38% and posts a strong re-elect of 51%, while only 16% want to replace her.

Needless to say, a Murkowski-Palin battle would be one of the most entertaining races of the 2010 cycle if Palin chooses to go down that path. In 2006, Palin defeated Murwkoski’s father (then the incumbent Governor) in the GOP’s gubernatorial primary, so this would constitute the second episode of a family feud. As if that was not enough, Palin’s running for Senate would attract national spotlights as it would be viewed as the prelude of a presidential run in 2012 or 2016.

Whichever Republican makes it to the general election in the gubernatorial and senatorial races should have little to worry about. While Knowles keeps Murkowski under 50% in the Senate race, he is unlikely to run after consecutive defeats in the 2004 Senate race (against Murkowski) and the 2006 Governor’s race (against Palin). This leaves the House race for Democrats to focus on. Rep. Don Young’s survival was the second biggest upset of the 2008 cycle (after Anh Cao’s victory in New Orleans). Young trailed Democratic nominee Ethan Berkowitz throughout 2008, often by huge margins; but he ended winning by 5% despite the ethics scandals surrounding him. Research 2000’s poll now finds him leading Berkowitz 49% to 46% despite an atrocious approval rating.

As we learned in 2008, Alaska voters only consider voting for a Democrat if the Republican nominee is a convicted felon; and even there Ted Stevens got much closer to winning re-election than most people expected.

6 Comments | AK-AL, AK-Gov, AK-Sen, PA-Sen | Permalink
Posted by Taniel

Make it 58

November 18, 2008

Mark Begich has defeated Alaska’s legendary Ted Stevens to earn himself a place in the U.S. Senate, making this the first time a Democrat has won a federal election in Alaska since 1974. This seat becomes the Democrats’ 7th pick-up of the year, raising their total to 58 seats with two more Republican incumbents still hanging in the balance.

24,000 ballots were counted today, and they broke towards Begich just as earlier questioned and absentee ballots had. The Democratic nominee dramatically increased his lead from 1,022 to 3,724 votes. This means that Stevens would not be able to overtake Begich no matter how overseas absentees break (such ballots are allowed to arrive until tomorrow as long as they were postmarked by Election Day). It also means that there will be no recount, as Begich’s lead of 1.18% is more than the double of the recount threshold.

This completes an extraordinary election in which one of the most towering figures of American politics found himself embroiled in an FBI investigation, then indicted, then tried a month before the Election and convicted with only one week of campaigning left. It is a testament to Stevens’ immense stature that Begich only prevailed by a few thousands votes. No other incumbent could have remained within single-digits after becoming a convicted felon.

Begich’s election keeps the Democrats’ hope of reaching 60 seats alive and dependent on a Georgia runoff and a Minnesota recount. It also leaves Sarah Palin no immediate path to join the Senate, rendering moot the speculation that she might have run in the spring special election that would have probably followed a Stevens victory. Some say that Palin might challenge Senator Murkowski in the GOP’s 2010 primary, but that would undoubtedly be a dangerous path to take.

I would also like to point that the current landscape looks exactly like my final Senate ratings I released the week-end before the election:

All seven GOP-held seats that I had rated as likely or lean Democratic (Alaska was in the latter group) have turned blue.
The two GOP-held seats that I had rated as likely or lean GOP (Mississippi and Kentucky) were won by the Republican incumbents.
The two GOP-held seats that I had rated as toss-ups (Georgia and Minnesota) remain undecided.

This goes to show that there were no upset results in this year’s Senate races, and while Gordon Smith and Ted Stevens resisted longer than we might have expected, that was due more to delays in counting than in the closeness of their races: Jeff Merkley won by 3% and Begich by more than 1%, margins that in other states would have been enough to lead for much quicker calls.

Original post, four hours ago: With 14,000 more Alaska ballots counted out of the 24,000 that will be tallied today, Mark Begich has more than doubled his lead to 2,374 votes. The remaining ballots are currently being counted, and the Division of Elections expects to release more results between 4pm and 5pm (that’s between 8pm and 9pm ET).

The race is technically not over yet, but Stevens would need to win about 65% of the remaining ballots, making it difficult to imagine how he could overtake his opponent. More to come in the coming hours.

9 Comments | AK-Sen | Permalink
Posted by Taniel

A busy day in Senate politics

November 18, 2008

The stakes might not be as high as those of Election Day, but the next 24 hours will be crucial for the future of three Senate seats: One Senator will be disciplined, another will claim victory and a third will be one step closer to emerging victorious.

In Alaska, all of the remaining 24,000 ballots (about 8% of the total of votes cast) will finally be tallied. For now, Democratic nominee Mark Begich leads by 1,022 votes. As I explained on Friday in my analysis of where the outstanding ballots are located, Ted Stevens has no more obvious reservoir of votes as his strongholds have finally reporting. On the other hand, the state’s most Democratic area has also finished counting, so the fate of the election is in the hands of Juneau, where Begich did very well, and the Anchorage region, where both candidates have strong districts.

Due to the time difference, we should not expect any results before late afternoon/early evening. If the margin between Begich and Stevens is within 0.5% tonight (it now stands at 0.35%), a recount can be requested - but that shouldn’t prevent us from having an infinitely clearer idea of who is likely to represent Alaska in the next Congress.

—

Ted Stevens at least (temporarily) dodged one bullet as the Senate’s Republican caucus delayed an internal vote on whether to expel Stevens until Alaska’s count is over. But the day of reckoning has arrived for Joe Lieberman as Senate Democrats are currently holding a meeting on how to discipline their party’s former vice-presidential nominee.

Last week, momentum seemed to be building in favor of Lieberman retaining his Homeland Security chairmanship; then, a number of high-profile Senators (including Lieberman-ally Tom Carper) spoke out against Lieberman, suggesting that Lieberman could lose the chairmanship after all. But the AP reported yesterday that a deal had been struck to allow Lieberman to keep the prized chairmanship, but strip him of the gavel of lesser subcommittees. The vote will be held via secret balloting, so we are unlikely to know any vote breakdown (results are expected within the next few hours).

If Lieberman is indeed stripped of his chairmanship, the new congressional parlor game will undoubtedly be to guess whether Lieberman jolts to the Republican caucus, though it would most certainly be unfair for Lieberman to claim that the treatment he is receiving is unfair or unusual. The New Republic’s Jonathan Chait points out that no sitting congressman had backed a member of the opposite party since 1964 when two Democrats supported Barry Goldwater, and that resulted in their losing their seniority. Lieberman’s decision to help Norm Coleman in Minnesota has also put Lieberman at odds with his caucus.

—

Finally, in Minnesota, the State Canvassing Board meets today to certify the results of the November 4th election, even though there could be some drama as the Franken campaign is seeking to block the certification to force the counting of hundreds of rejected of absentee ballots.

In another unexpected twist, the certified margin is now expected to be a lead of 215 votes for Norm Coleman - up from the 206 vote margin we had been stuck at for the past week. A mandatory audit of 200 precincts netted nine extra votes for the Republican Senator, giving him a slightly larger cushion. (This is also a warning to Democrats that, despite the emerging conventional wisdom, a recount is not guaranteed to boost their candidate.)

The recount will start tomorrow - though some counties will not launch the process before Thursday or Friday. Updated tallies are expected to be posted daily, but remember that the biggest changes are unlikely to happen until December 16th, when the Minnesota canvassing board convenes to review challenged ballots.

6 Comments | AK-Sen, Lieberman, MN-Sen | Permalink
Posted by Taniel

Roller coasters: Begich solidifies lead, CA-04 tightens

November 15, 2008

You can blame Alaskan election officials for their dreadfully slow counting pace, but you can’t fault them for not spending that time preparing ridiculously detailed lists of which ballots we should expect to be tallied at what time. Their latest release, which came out late last night, provided a counting timeline by region, informing us that about 14,000 of the remaining votes would be tallied today.

And when the Alaska’s Division of Election finally updated their totals this evening, it was once again Mark Begich who gained the most, extending his lead from 814 to 1022 votes (or 0.35%).

There are still more than 25,000 ballots to be counted, and the state will get through them on Monday and Tuesday. On paper, that is more than enough for Stevens to reverse the tide but the situation is now looking more precarious for the incumbent Senator: If the state’s counting timeline was respected, it means that all outstanding votes from the conservative stronghold Mat-Su valley (which includes Sarah Palin’s Wasilla) were processed today, so that there are no more ballots to be counted in the region that would be most likely to fuel a Stevens comeback.

On the other hand, the state’s most pro-Begich area (the so-called “Region IV,” based in Nome) also finished reporting today - meaning that the Democrat’s biggest reservoir of votes has also exhausted its resources. However, Begich is in the lead and it is up to Stevens to now close that gap. That a third of the day’s votes came from the GOP’s strongest area does not bode well for Stevens.

Still to be counted - based on the timeline listed above coupled with this results map - are:

Thousands of absentee ballots from Juneau: This is an area in which Begich did very well, especially in the two districts in which almost half of the remaining votes are located (the 2nd and the 5th), both of which went for Begich by double digits.

Thousands of absentee ballots from Fairbanks: This is an area in which the candidates were about tied, making it unlikely that that the remaining ballots will break decisively in one direction or another (the 8th district went for Begich big, the 11th and 12th for Stevens big - but they should balance each other).

About 15,000 ballots (both early and questioned) from Anchorage and its suburbs. Both candidates have good results in various areas of this region, and the ballots appear to be fairly evenly divided, making it difficult to predict how these ballots will break - but the one thing that we know is that Stevens will have to perform very well here if he is to close the gap.

Meanwhile, the situation is somewhat more confused in CA-04, where new tallies continue to pour in daily without our having a clear sense of where the numbers are coming from nor how many ballots remain to be counted. As of last night, Republican nominee Tom McClintock led by more than 1,200 votes - but the margin was cut to 533 this morning. It has now risen up to 691.

The reason for this roller coaster is that the margin is tightening dramatically every time Democratic-friendly Nevada County is releasing new tallies - while McClintock is gaining when El Dorado County (where he leads narrowly) counts more votes. These two counties still have tens thousands of uncounted ballots, but the biggest contingent of remaining ballots will come from Placer County, which has not released any new tally since November 5th - meaning there are tens of thousands of absentee and early votes remaining to be counted there. McClintock won 50.8% of the vote of that county so far, but it is impossible to predict how this race will end until we get a better idea of how Placer’s absentees are breaking.

4 Comments | AK-Sen, CA-04 | Permalink
Posted by Taniel

Begich grabs lead as Alaska finally counts its ballots

November 13, 2008

In a dramatic day that turned the Alaska Senate race on its head, 60,000 ballots were tallied and Mark Begich came from behind to surge into an improbable 814 vote lead, inching Democrats closer to their 7th Senate pick-up!

When the day started, the Democratic nominee trailed by more than 3,000 votes with more than 90,000 ballots left to be counted. The state’s Division of Elections (which has transformed Alaska’s ballot counting into a farce for the second time in just a few months) deigned to finally turn its attention to those ballots - and with results coming in from across the state, Begich performed strongly enough among absentee and early voters to more than erase Stevens’s advantage.

The race is far from over, however. About 35,000 ballots remain to be counted, certainly more than enough for Stevens’s to make up his deficit. The remaining ballots will not start being counted until Friday, and the counting might extend all the way to the 19th (see my calendar of upcoming events).

Yet, Mark Begich should now be considered slightly favored. For one, Begich gained throughout the day, underscoring that many of his voters chose to cast an absentee or early ballot; second, all the districts that decided to wait a few more days to count their remaining votes are rural districts that Begich handily won in the original count. In other words, Stevens’s strongholds have mostly reported and it is difficult to see how the incumbent Senator could reverse today’s trend.

Today’s events are a huge - though perhaps temporary - relief for Democrats, who were left shell-shocked on Election Day by Stevens’s lead in what they considered to be a relatively safe pick-up. (I had left the state rated lean take-over rather than likely take-over because of Stevens’s stature in the state.) Even if Stevens was kicked out from the Senate, Republicans would have been likely to keep the seat in a special election given how reliably conservative a state Alaska has proven itself to be.

Begich’s comeback might also be a relief for Senate Republicans, who were not looking forward to having to take disciplinary actions against the longest-serving member of their party. And if Stevens fails to pull ahead when the remaining ballots are counted, it could mean a closed door to Sarah Palin’s ambitions, as rumors had it that the GOP’s former vice-presidential nominee is considering running for Senate if a special election has to be called.

Unfortunately for Democrats, Begich was not able to pull Ethan Berkowitz along with him. Berkowitz was clearly favored to defeat Republican Rep. Don Young heading into Election Day, but the embattled incumbent pulled what is perhaps the biggest upset of the 2008 cycle and is looking to hold on to his lead as he is currently ahead by more than 15,000. That means that it is now practically impossible for Berkowitz to come out on top and that AK-AL will likely be called soon in the GOP’s favor. [Update: As expected, the AP has called AK-AL for Young.]

In other counting/recounting news from around the country:

CA-04: Republican nominee Tom McClintock has slightly expanded his lead over the past two days as counties continue to count the tens of thousands of absentee ballots that are left to be counted. There are still enough votes for Charlie Brown to come from behind but there is no evidence for now that absentee ballots are likely to favor him. We should expect more updates in the days ahead.

OH-15: Both candidates are in full campaigning mode as they seek to contact the hundreds of voters who cast a provisional or flawed absentee ballot and now have to verify their identity or provide additional information. The margin between Stivers and Kilroy has held at 146 votes for most of the past week, but tens of thousands of provisional ballots remain to be counted - and Democrats are confident that Kilroy will pick up the most votes. These ballots will start being tallied on Saturday, but we should not expect to see any result before Thanksgiving.

Meanwhile, there is nothing to expect from Minnesota’s Senate and VA-05 until the votes are certified and recounts are launched.

No Comments » | AK-AL, AK-Sen, CA-04, OH-15 | Permalink
Posted by Taniel

Both parties confronted with painful Senate dilemmas

November 11, 2008

As Congress prepares for a lame-duck session that could start next week, both Senate caucuses are getting ready to confront rogue members of their own party.

On the one side, Democrats are taking action against the man who just eight years ago was their vice-presidential nominee. On the other side, Republicans have to figure out how to deal with their longest-serving member who just happens to be a convicted felon. (The upcoming count of thousands of Alaska ballots could also spell the end of Stevens without his colleagues’ intervention.)

For now, most of the action is taking place on the Democratic side as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid informed Joe Lieberman that he could be stripped of his chairmanship of the Homeland Security. Since then, contrary reports have circulated about whether Lieberman was offered a smaller committee, whether he might join the Republican caucus if he is stripped of his chairmanship and whether Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton have privately defended him.

What we do know is that Reid will call for a vote over Lieberman’s chairmanship at next week’s meeting of the Democratic caucus next week. The vote will take place via secret balloting, making the process much more unpredictable. Democrats have no plans to kick Lieberman out of their caucus as of now, so any such decision would have to be Lieberman’s alone. (The Connecticut Senator has kept a liberal enough persona that it is hard to imagine him caucusing with the GOP; Reid himself has said, after all, that Lieberman has been a more reliable vote for many Democratic caucuses than many of his own Senators.)

53 Democrats will participate in this vote: all the sitting Senators except Barack Obama and Joe Biden as well as the six newly elected ones (the two Udalls, Shaheen, Warner, Merkley and Hagan). The only tea leaves we have to read for now are Chris Dodd and Evan Bayh indicating that they do not want to punish Lieberman, while Chuck Schumer and Dick Durbin are said to be lobbying against him. Schumer’s position could influence members of the 2006 and 2008 class, all of whom have had a long relationship with the DSCC chairman.

Obviously, any hint Obama provides as to how he would want Lieberman to be treated could have a big influence. His spokesperson released a vaguely-worded statement to TPM today, indicating that Obama did not want to stand as a referree on the chairmanship question and he did not mind the Connecticut Senator staying in the Democratic caucus. The two matters are of course entirely separate, and Lieberman could risk further backlash if he is seen as blackmailing his colleagues into leaving him in his post in exchange for his staying in the caucus.

Meanwhile, the Republican caucus is unable to rejoice in the Democrats’ trouble since they have a fish to fry: the potential re-election of Ted Stevens, who was recently convicted on felony charges. It would be up to Harry Reid to call a floor vote over whether to expell Stevens, but both parties want Republicans to take the first step here: For Democrats to take the lead could be seen as politicizing the matter, and for the GOP to let them do so would make them look weak on corruption.

Mitch McConnell is reportedly holding discussions with his colleagues about how they should proceed, but South Carolina Senator Jim DeMint has made it his personal crusade to oust the Alaska Senator. Last week, DeMint indicated that he would press the full Senate to hold an expulsion vote. Now, he is planning a somewhat scaled-back effort: calling for a vote to expel Stevens from the Republican caucus. Either move would force the hand of the Senate leadership and precipitate matters more quickly than Reid and McConnell might be wanting to proceed and it would indicate that Stevens’ colleagues are unwilling to wait for his appeal to be completed.

If Stevens survives the full count of last Tuesday’s ballots and is then expulsed from the Senate, all bets are off as to who would replace him. Mark Begich would surely wage another bid in the special election that would be held in the spring, but is it plausible to expect any Democrat to win in Alaska after their disappointing results over the past six years? This could very well be a golden opportunity for Sarah Palin to move to Washington after all.

7 Comments | AK-Sen, CT-Sen, Lieberman | Permalink
Posted by Taniel

Calendar of upcoming events

November 10, 2008

This might have been the first Monday in weeks without a 6pm wave of Rasmussen presidential polls, but there are plenty of other events to look forward to! With three Senate seats remaining in limbo, the 2008 cycle is far from over - but it is sometimes difficult to know what we are waiting for and when we should expect to see some resolution.

Why it takes Alaska so atrociously long to count ballots (especially after their primary debacle) will most probably remain a mystery to us all, but there are other questions that have more obvious answers: When will Minnesota’s recount start, for instance, and when should we expect results? When will Alaska to start counting the tens of thousands of ballots that have remained intact? Here is a handy calendar of upcoming events:

November 10th: Deadline for Minnesota counties to canvass and certify their results. It remains unclear how many counties still have to report their updated tallies.

November 12th: Alaska expects to get through about 50,000 it has left to count, as the state’s election division informed us in this press release and in this strangely detailed chart of how many ballots will be counted on Wednesday in different parts of the state.

November 18th: Minnesota Canvassing Board certifies results, allowing for the recount to begin.

November 19th: Alaska has to finish counting and reviewing all early and absentee ballots, the complete geographic chart of which is available here, once again courtesy of the state Elections Division.

November 24th: Certification of the results in VA-05

November 25th: Certification of Alaska’s results

December 2nd: Georgia Senate runoff

December 4th: In VA-05, whichever candidate comes out trailing in the November 24th certification can ask for a recount.

December 5th: Minnesota (re)counting must end.

December 6th: LA-04 general election (preview)

December 15th: Electors convene in every state and cast their presidential and vice-presidential ballot.

December 16th-19th: Minnesota canvassing board meets to finish assembling recount results.

January 6th: Congress convenes to count the electoral votes cast on December 15th.

January 20th: Inauguration

3 Comments | AK-Sen, MN-Sen | Permalink
Posted by Taniel

Absentees, provisionals, recounts and runoffs: Update on the 10 remaining congressional seats

November 7, 2008

Three days have passed since Election Day, but there are still a number of undecided races, pending recounts and uncounted provisional, early and absentee ballots. Here’s a rundown of these contests and where they stand, starting with the presidential election:

North Carolina: The Tar Heel state was called for Obama yesterday, completing a stunning Democratic sweep in a state that voted for George W. Bush by 13% in 2004. Democrats also picked up a Senate seat (Hagan defeated Dole by 9%), kept the governorship and the lieutenant governor. (Correction: Democrats did not expand their majority in the state legislature, as a reader points out.)

Missouri: McCain is holding on to a 6,000 vote lead, a large enough margin that several media outlets (including MSNBC) have called the state for the Arizona Senator. That would mean 2008 one of the only elections in the past century that the Show Me State has not sided with the winner.

Nebraska’s 2nd district: Obama did not win Montana or North Dakota, but it looks like he might still grab one of Nebraska’s electoral votes. McCain still leads by a few hundred votes in this Omaha-based district, but there are still more than 15,000 early and provisional votes to be counted. The Omaha World Herald thinks those should be enough for Obama to grab the lead.

Omaha’s totals are further further evidence that voters held back from voting Democratic all the way down the ballot even as they cast a ballot for Obama, as Omaha’s vulnerable Republican Rep. Terry survived with 52% of the vote. In other words, the Democrat’s presidential candidate outperformed a local Democrat in a conservative area!

At the Senate level, three races remain undecided now that Oregon has gone Democratic:

Georgia: Saxby Chambliss has barely missed the 50% threshold, and though there are still a few thousand ballots left to be counted it is difficult to see them going in the Republican’s direction by a big enough margin for him to cross the threshold. This would mean that the race is going to a runoff, about which we will surely have more to say in the weeks ahead. Both candidates have already started campaigning, as Jim Martin is already up with an ad appealing to Obama’s popularity (yes, this is Georgia) and as Chambliss is scheduling McCain (and perhaps Palin!) to stump with him. Both campaigns have the same preoccupation: Keep their supporters energized.

Minnesota: There are no provisional, early or absentee ballots left to be counted in this race, but the Coleman-Franken gap kept shrinking yesterday. Why? As counties go back to verify their totals and tabulations, they discover mistakes and typos and correct them. As a result, Franken’s deficit is now down to 239 vote. Whatever the margin by certification, there is no doubt that the race will head to a recount… which would not be held until December. The recount would be conducted by hand, and election officials would try to determine the intent of the voter on ballots that the machine has not recognized. That could mean as much as 6,000 voters being added to the total, making the outcome wildly unpredictable.

Alaska: This race could keep us occupied for weeks - months even. Ted Stevens’s advantage stands at 3,257 votes with tens of thousands of absentee and provisional ballots left to be counted (estimates put the number of remaining votes between 50,000 and 74,000). However, these ballots will not be counted for about 10 days (taking us back to the absurd GOP House primary in late August which took weeks to be resolved). If Stevens wins, there are signs that he will be kicked out of the Senate - perhaps as early as in the late November/December session. That could mean that Alaska is forced to hold a special election sometime in the spring. Given that Begich couldn’t put Stevens away, could he win against another Republican - Palin or Parnell, for instance?

If Democrats somehow win all three of these races, they could still get to 60 Senate seats - but Republicans have a slight edge in each for now. As for the House:

AK-AL: The race is unlikely to be called until the tens of thousands of remaining ballots are counted, but Republican Rep. Don Young probably has too large a lead to lose his seat. His victory would be the biggest upset of the 2008 cycle - and a remarkable survival for an incumbent that was first expected to lose the primary, then the general election.

CA-04: In a conservative race Democrats were feeling increasingly optimistic about, Charlie Brown could be headed to his second heart-breakingly close race in a row. Republican McClintock has been increasing his lead since Wednesday morning and is now ahead by 709 votes. But there is still an estimated 48,000 uncounted votes that should be processed in the days and weeks ahead, so this is still anyone’s game.

CA-44: This is a race that was on no one’s radar screen, and I do mean no one. Yet, Republican Rep. Calvert is leading 51% to 49% (or 4,000 votes) with tens of thousands of absentee ballots left to be counted. Calvert has a clear edge heading into extra innings, but we should still keep an eye on the race.

MD-01: Things are looking good for Democratic candidate Frank Kratovil in this conservative open seat. He has more than doubled his lead since Wednesday morning and is now on top by 2,003 votes. There are a significant number of ballots left to be counted, but Andy Harris would have to win 59% of them to save the seat for Republicans.

OH-15: A massive counting glitch by the AP led them to overstate Republican candidate Stivers’s lead by 12,000 vote for much of Tuesday night and Wednesday, but that has now been fixed: Only 136 votes separate Stivers from Mary Jo Kilroy (who already lost a close race in 2006), with thousands of provisional ballots left to be counted, especially in Kilroy-friendly Franklin County. Two years ago, Kilroy cut her opponent’s advantage by half after provisional ballots were counted, gaining about 1,500 votes. That is giving Democrats hope she can replicate those gains this year and give her party a third Ohio pick-up.

VA-05: Tom Perriello’s lead jumped from 31 votes to more than 800 yesterday, and has now settled at 751. Perriello has a clear advantage and has declared victory, but some counties are still reviewing their results and an undetermined number of absentee ballots remain to be counted. So advantage to Democrats here, but this could be headed to a recount.

WA-08: Ballots have to postmarked by Tuesday, November 4th to be valid, and only about 70% of all estimated votes have been counted. We should not get a final result in this race until next week. But Rep. Dave Reichert looks to be relatively well positioned as he is slightly increasing his lead the more votes are being reported, especially in King County, the Democratic part of the district. Reichert now leads by a relatively comfortable 5,000 votes.

As of now, Democrats stand at 19 net pick-ups (255 seats), and are not at risk of losing any more seat of their own. That means that the possible range is from +19 to +26 - though the final number is likely to be far closer to lower number as a Democratic pick-up is looking improbable in AK-AL and CA-44. On the other hand, Democrats are looking very well positioned in MD-01 and VA-05.

14 Comments | AK-AL, AK-Sen, CA-04, CA-44, GA-Sen, MD-01, MN-Sen, MO-Pres, NC-Pres, NE-Pres, OH-15, VA-05, WA-08 | Permalink
Posted by Taniel

And we go on

November 5, 2008

Call it post-Election withdrawal. There is something unsettling about the first few days after an election, when political junkies realize that the simplest acts of their daily routine have become meaningless. There is no tracking poll by Research 2000 to wake up to, nor any reason to refresh Gallup.com at 1pm. Wednesday afternoons will not bring us the latest CNN/Time delivery, nor will Monday evenings be the occasion of a Rasmussen extravaganza. We will have no new campaign ad to dissect for months, nor will we excitedly react to the DCCC’s latest Tuesday night expenditures. And looming on the horizon are no debates, infomercials, town halls and Election Nights.

Thankfully, there still are a dozen uncalled congressional races - including some looming recounts and a few runoffs. This will certainly not provide the same level of excitement as we lived over the past month, but hopefully enough to satisfy some of our thirst for electoral drama.

Here is a run-through of the 4 remaining Senate races (Democrats have picked-up 5 already, while incumbents have survived in KY, LA and MS):

Alaska: This is simply incredible. Just 8 days after being convicted on 7 felony charges, Ted Stevens is not only alive - but he is ahead! With nearly all precincts reporting, he leads 48% to 46,5%, a difference of about 3,500 votes. However, 40,000 absentee ballots have to be counted, which is obviously a significant number that could change a lot in the race. In typical Alaska fashion (remember the Young-Parnell primary?), counting those absentee ballots is not likely to start for a few days and could take a few weeks.

Georgia: Chambliss looked set to pass 50% throughout the night, but as African-American neighborhoods reported less his percentage dwindled down and as thousands of previously unreported early votes were accounted for. The totals now have Chambliss ahead at 49.8%, with Jim Martin at 47%. The Atlanta Journal Constitution and the AP have called a runoff, which would take place on December 2nd and surely become a heated multi-million battle.

Minnesota: As many had predicted, the Coleman-Franken dogfight has turned into the tightest Senate race in the country - perhaps even the tightest congressional contest. Coleman and Franken traded leads throughout the night - every few minutes, even, around 4am as the last precincts were reporting. Now, Coleman - who has declared victory - is holding on by the tiniest of margins (less than 500 votes) with some provisional ballots evidently still being counted and some counties adjusting their totals. The race appears set to go to a recount, which might not be resolved until December! For now, the advantage goes to Coleman.

Oregon: Republican Senator Gordon Smith is holding on to a 9,000 vote lead with 77% of estimated votes counted. However, only about half of Multnomah County (Portland)’s estimates votes have been counted, and Merkley is likely to gain tens of thousands more votes there than his opponent. Given where the outstanding votes are slated to come from, Merkley is still favored to come out ahead (Blue Oregon is following the results with great detail).

At the House level, Democrats have already picked-up a net 19 seats and all of their seats have been called, so the 8 remaining races are all on Republican turf:

AK-AL: Truly stunning. Republican Rep. Don Young is leading 52% to 44% though with 40,000 absentee left to count the AP is holding off a call. Young seemed to be the most vulnerable of all Republican incumbents, but Alaska once again proved to be a tough state for Democrats to win in. If Young pulls it off - and it looks like he will - this will go down as the biggest upsets of the 2008 cycle.

CA-04: Two years after losing a close race to Rep. Doolittle, Democrat Charlie Brown is trailing by just 400 votes against Republican candidate McClintock. There are many absentee ballots left to be counted, however, and we will probably not know the result for a while.

LA-04 and LA-07: In these two districts, the election yesterday was only a primary. The general election will be held in early December. The former is a toss-up, the latter leans Republican.

MD-01: With all precincts reporting, Democratic candidate Kratovil has a 915 vote lead in this conservative open seat. There are about 32,000 absentee ballots to be counted, so this could go either way.

OH-15: Mary Joe Kilroy is in the same situation she was in two years ago. She was expected to beat GOP Rep. Pryce, trailed by 3,000 on Election Night and cut that led by half after provisional ballots were counted. Now, Kilroy was expected to beat GOP candidate Stivers but she fell so far behind on Election Night that the AP and CNN called the race for her opponent. The race was later uncalled. It’s unclear what is going on at the moment. CNN has Stivers leading by 12,000 while other outlets have a 321 vote margin… If the race is tight, it will likely not be decided for more than a week as there are many provisional and absentee ballots that will have to be counted.

VA-05: Tom Perriello led through the night against Republican Rep. Goode in what would have been the biggest Democratic upset of the night but the margin tightened today - Goode even took a 400 vote lead for a few hours. In the latest reporting, Perriello is back on top by 81 votes (!). There are still provisional ballots to be counted, and this is sure to go to a recount.

WA-08: Only 41% of the district is reporting, making it difficult to know what is going on between Rep. Dave Reichert and Democratic challenger Darcy Burner. Reichert has a 1,500 lead now, but this has a long way to go.

All gubernatorial races have been called - yes, even the Greoire-Rossi match-up! Neither Prop 8 nor Prop 4 have officially been called by the AP or by CNN as millions of absentee votes might still remain, but there is no question that the road looks tough for gay rights advocates.

At the presidential level, Missouri has been called for McCain by some outlets but not others, while Obama maintains a narrow lead in North Carolina which has also not been called. Also up in the air is NE-02’s electoral votes, as we await further counting.

3 Comments | AK-AL, AK-Sen, CA-04, GA-Sen, MD-01, MN-Sen, OH-15, OR-Sen, VA-05, WA-08 | Permalink
Posted by Taniel

Down-ballot polling: Hagan closes strong, Georgia heading to runoff, GOP set to pick up PA-11

November 3, 2008

The gigantic amount of presidential polling that has been released today leads me to do something I haven’t done for a while: devote a separate post to congressional polling. There is a large number of competitive Senate and House races, and they have tended to be overshadowed by the presidential race, so we might as well give them more room tonight.

At the Senate level, most of the attention tomorrow should be devoted to those races that look the most unpredictable, starting with Minnesota where there is no consensus as to which candidate has the lead. Al Franken and Norm Coleman have come out ahead in a number of surveys over the past few days, and the main disagreement between different outlets appears to be over the Barkley factor. Some surveys find Barkley drawing disproportionately from Democrats (for instance today’s SUSA poll), while others find him playing less of a spoiler effect, in which case Franken does much better.

In Georgia, meanwhile, three new polls suggest that the Senate race is likely to head into a runoff. Chambliss comes narrowly ahead in all three but there are very few undecided left for him to get over 50%. Furthermore, we know that at least SUSA predicts African-Americans to make up the same share of the electorate as they did four years ago (26%, up from 25%); given that African-Americans make up 35% of early voters (which are likely to be more than half of all voters), it would mean that tomorrow’s voters are overwhelmingly white for the racial breakdown to be at the 2004 level.

In the two races that are rated lean take-over in my latest ratings, Kay Hagan and Mark Begich confirm that they have the lead; Hagan especially appears to have pulled ahead even more in the final days, possibly because of the controversy over Dole’s Godless ad.

At the House level, both parties get good news: Democrats are looking good in AK-AL and their incumbents in NH-01 and IN-09 are heading into Election Day in a better position than most would have predicted a few months ago. Furthermore, VA-05, a district that has only recently been added to the list of competitive districts, looks ripe for a pick-up.

On the other hand, the GOP is poised to pick up PA-11, as Rep. Kanjorski is finishing in as week a position as he started. And SUSA’s dual polls from Minnesota bring good news to Republicans, as Erik Paulsen is not only alive but slightly ahead in MN-03 while Rep. Bachmann has stopped the bleeding.

Minnesota, Senate race: Coleman leads 44% to 39% in a SUSA poll, with 15% going to Barkley; Coleman led by 2% two weeks ago. Barkley draws 15% of Democrats and only 8% of Republicans.

North Carolina, Senate: Kay Hagan leads 51% to 44% in a PPP poll, expanding her lead and coming ahead by 15% among those who have already voted. Hagan leads 50% to 43% in a SUSA poll; she led by 1% two weeks ago.

Alaska, Senate: Mark Begich leads 49% to 42% in a Hayes Research poll.

Georgia, Senate: Saxby Chambliss leads 48% to 46% with 4% for Buckley in a PPP poll. Chambliss leads 48% to 44% in a SUSA poll, with 5% for Buckley; SUSA predicts blacks will make up 26% of the electorate; the two candidates are tied if we recalculate it with blacks making up 31% of the electorate (they made up 35% of early voters). Chambliss also leads 48% to 44% in a Strategic Vision poll.

New Hampshire, Senate: Jeanne Shaheen leads 48% to 42% in UNH’s final poll conducted Friday through Sunday.

North Carolina, Governor: Bev Perdue leads 49% to 48% in a PPP poll.

Washington, Governor: Christine Gregoire leads 50% to 48% in a University of Washington poll and in Strategic Vision.

Safe(r) seats: Mark Warner leads 62% to 36% in a PPP poll of Virginia’s Senate race. Jay Nixon leads 54% to 39% in a SUSA poll of Missouri’s gubernatorial race. Mitch Daniels leads 60% to 37% in a PPP poll of Indiana’s gubernatorial race.

In AK-AL, Democratic challenger Ethan Berkowitz leads 49% to 43% in a Hayes Research poll.

In MN-06, Michelle Bachmann leads 46% to 45% in SUSA, a margin that is well within the MoE; it’s a slight improvement for Bachmann over Tinklenberg’s 47% to 44% lead 10 days ago.

In MN-03, GOP candidate Erik Paulsen leads 46% to 41% in SUSA after seizing a 1% lead a few days ago and trailing by 3% last month.

In PA-11, Republican challenger Lou Barletta leads 51% to 45% against Rep. Kanjorski in a new SUSA poll.

In VA-05, GOP Rep. Goode only leads 50% to 47% in the latest SUSA poll; he led by 13% a month ago and by 34% in August.

In IN-09, Democratic Rep. Baron Hill leads 53% to 40% in a Research 2000 poll.

In NH-01, Rep. Shea-Porter leads 46% to 41% in UNH’s final poll conducted Friday through Sunday. Rep. Hodes leads 52% to 31% in NH-02.

I imagine a few more congressional polls might be released by mid-day tomorrow, but that will probably not change the fact that we have not seen any independent polling from a huge number of House races that are currently listed as vulnerable on my House ratings. And in some districts in which polling was released, we might not have gotten numbers in more than a month or two (say AL-02 or CO-04, for instance). This means that the results in a number of House races will be largely unpredictable and we should expect some big surprises - just as in 2006.

No Comments » | AK-AL, AK-Sen, GA-Sen, IN-09, IN-Gov, MN-03, MN-06, MN-Sen, MO-Gov, NC-Gov, NC-Sen, NH-01, NH-02, NH-Sen, PA-11, VA-05, VA-Sen, WA-Gov | Permalink
Posted by Taniel

Senate rating changes: With Democrats certain to expand majority, 7 races to watch

November 2, 2008

There are no more doubts that Democrats will have a significantly expanded majority in the 111th Congress. A grand total of five GOP-held seats are now rated likely or safe Democratic: Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado, New Hampshire and Oregon. (As I explain below, Jeff Merkley’s now being clearly favored is not due to the size of his lead as much as to the fact that Oregon’s Election Day has by and large already passed.)

While an upset is certainly possible in some of the races listed above, most of Tuesday’s Senate action will take place in 7 states: Alaska, North Carolina, Minnesota, Georgia, Kentucky, Mississippi and Louisiana. Some of them are currently leaning for one party or another, but all remain highly competitive.

The Senate races that look the tightest heading into Election Day tend to overwhelmingly break towards one party, and this year it is these seven seats that are likely to heavily break one way or another. To get to 60 seats, Democrats need to win five of them - and at least two (Mississippi and Kentucky) appear to be trending away from them in these final days of campaigning. And that Georgia’s race could head to a runoff is of course the biggest Senate wild card, potentially prolonging the fight all the way until December 2nd.

Democrats should also not ignore Louisiana, a state about which little is said though the two parties genuinely disagree about the state of play. There has been very little non-partisan polling of the race, and the bottom line is that this is the first truly competitive statewide election occurring after Katrina displaced New Orleans residents. No one really knows how to poll the state, and though Senator Mary Landrieu is favored going into Tuesday’s vote, an upset cannot be ruled out.

A reminder about the meaning of these ratings: A race that is classified as “leaning” remains highly competitive and the opposite result would not be surprising; the rating is merely meant to indicate that one candidate has gained an edge. A race is classified as “likely,” meanwhile, when the opposite result is still conceivable but would be considered a huge upset. Finally, a race is classified as “safe” when an upset would shock the very core of American politics.

Alaska, toss-up to lean Democratic: It has only been six days since Ted Stevens’s conviction, but the Alaska Senate race has been radically transformed. The incumbent Senator had fallen in a hole after his late July indictment but had managed to battle his way into a dead heat. His electoral fate looked to be entirely dependent on the outcome of his high-profile trial, and Stevens would probably have won re-election had he been acquitted; but it took a reconfigured jury only a few hours to find him guilty on all seven counts on Monday. Since then, bad news has accumulated for Stevens: Rasmussen and Research 2000 found him trailing by 8% and 22% respectively, and countless Republicans called for Stevens’s resignation - including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Alaska Governor Sarah Palin. Their repudiation helps the Democratic argument that Stevens is too discredited to even be able to bring back earmarks to the state.

In any other state and against any other incumbent, a late October conviction and such pile-up by members of one’s own party would be enough to swing the race to the safe takeover category. But this is Ted Stevens, perhaps the politician that has the most towering dominance on his state’s politics anywhere in the country. The now-convicted felon is trying to rally Alaskans around him by arguing that the trial’s verdict was the work of outside forces trying to influence Alaska. While Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich is now clearly favored, Stevens’s political obituary should not be written before Tuesday night.

Georgia, lean Republican to toss-up: With Libertarian Allen Buckley is holding in the mid single-digits, the most plausible scenario in this unexpectedly competitive Senate race is that no candidate crosses 50%, sending incumbent Senator Saxby Chambliss and former state Senator Jim Martin in a high-stakes high-profile runoff. Very few October polls have found any breathing room between the two candidates, with Martin doing significantly better among registered voters - a model that Georgia’s early voting data suggests could be closer to Tuesday’s vote. And with this stunning boost in African-American turnout, an outright Martin victory on Tuesday is perhaps more plausible than Chambliss’s crossing 50%.

Both parties have poured in millions in the final stretch, but all of that will pale in comparison to the resources that will be invested if the race goes in the runoff. It is doubtful that Barack Obama, if he becomes President Elect, would want to be associated with the race too closely as a defeat would then risk undermining his mandate before he even starts governing, but there is no question that the state will be swamped by both parties’ top surrogates. It’s an open question as to who would be most favored by a runoff. On the one hand, Republicans would have an easy time arguing that Democrats should not be given full powers if Obama is elected and if his party makes Senate gains elsewhere; on the other hand, special elections tend to favor whichever party is more enthusiastic - and in 2008 that would be Democrats.

Mississippi, toss-up to lean Republican: Senator Roger Wicker has been slowly improving his re-election prospects ever since he was appointed Senator 11 months ago, confirming the Democrats’ contention that Gov. Barbour’s ploy to delay this special election from March to November was meant to help Wicker. The NRSC has put few Democratic candidates on the defensive as much as Musgrove: They have hammered him on his gubernatorial record, accused him of costing the state jobs and of being involved in shady transactions, taken veiled shots at his family life and at his efforts to change the state flag to no longer reflect any Confederate heritage, and described him as an “out of touch” liberal who supports Hillary-esque policies and the homosexual agenda.

In one of the GOP’s most ingenious tricks, they have sought to weaken Musgrove’s hold on the black vote. On the one hand, they are charging that Musgrove supports Barack Obama to lower his support among white voters; and they are exploiting the fact that Musgrove cannot appear to close to Obama or to African-American voters to run ads on black radio accusing Musgrove of neglecting African-Americans. The two latest polls (conducted by Rasmussen and Research 2000) showed Wicker pulling ahead to a high single-digit lead, suggesting that the Republican offensive has been working.

All of this said, victory remains in sight for Ronnie Musgrove, and the race is only moving to the “lean” category. The former Governor has been elected statewide before, and he enjoys strong name ID. The DSCC has heavily invested in the race and has sought to drive up the importance of economic issues by waging a populist campaign - for instance accusing Wicker of voting to increase his pay raise. Most importantly, black turnout is a big unknown here: If African-Americans vote at a higher pace (as they have been in the early voting of other Southern states) and boost their share of the electorate, all bets are off.

Oregon, lean Democratic to likely Democratic: This race’s new rating is somewhat deceiving: It is not meant to describe the size or the ease of a Merkley’s victory (in fact, I only moved the race out of the toss-up column eight days ago) as much as the fact that it looks like Merkley has already won the race. As the entire voting in Oregon is conducted via mail, which means that the vast majority of voters have already sent in their ballot. Election Day has already passed in the state, and a number of polls released over the past few days show that Gordon Smith has remained stuck in the low 40s, trailing widely among those respondents who said they had already voted. Merkley’s margin will not be large enough for a Smith victory to be ruled out, but the incumbent Senator would have to perform very well among the last batch of mailed ballot to keep his seat.

New Hampshire, lean Democratic to likely Democratic: For a few weeks in September, It looked like Sununu might be climbing back as he regained his footing among independents, aired hard-hitting ads attacking Shaheen’s gubernatorial record and portrayed himself as an energetic maverick; but the economic crisis and the GOP’s collapse in late September halted any momentum Sununu might have been enjoying.

Besides that short period of shifting momentum, this race has been remarkably stable for more than a year. Former Governor Jeanne Shaheen was already dominating incumbent Senator John Sununu before she announced her candidacy. In fact, she has only trailed in only two polls - an ARG poll from December 2007 and a Rasmussen poll from September 2008; both surveys had Sununu up big, and both seemed like complete outliers. (ARG and Rasmussen’s next surveys corrected themselves and showed Shaheen regaining a commanding advantage.) While Shaheen’s edge isn’t big enough for a Sununu comeback to be ruled out, it is hard to conceive of an incumbent prevailing after being consistently stuck in the low 40s and a GOP hold would have to be considered as one of the biggest upsets in modern politics.

This leads to the following rankings of all 12 states that could switch over on Tuesday:

Safe take-over: 1. Virginia
Likely take-over: 2. New Mexico, 3. Colorado, 4. New Hampshire, 5. Oregon
Lean take-over: 6. Alaska, 7. North Carolina
Toss-up: 8. Minnesota, 9. Georgia
Lean retention: 10. Kentucky, 11. Mississippi, 12. Louisiana

Full rankings available here.

3 Comments | AK-Sen, GA-Sen, LA-Sen, MS-Sen, NH-Sen, OR-Sen | Permalink
Posted by Taniel

Congress: Hillary’s impact, Dole’s second godless ad, Stevens’ plea and the NRCC’s hit on Murtha

October 31, 2008

One of the most puzzling developments of the past few days has been Hillary Clinton’s transformation from a boogeywoman Republican use to scare conservative voters away from Democratic candidates into a working class heroin praised by the GOP’s presidential ticket!

Hillary’s new ambiguous position on the American political scene was confirmed by two new ads airing in red states. In Mississippi, Roger Wicker is using her as a stand-in for Washington Democrats in a spot that urges voters not to “send a failed ex-Governor to support Hillary’s liberal agenda:”

Meanwhile, in conservative Kentucky, Bruce Lunsford is touting Clinton’s support. Not only will the New York Senator visit the state a second time Sunday to boost Lunsford, but footage of her first visit a few weeks ago is now being highlighted in a new Lunsford ad:

That’s right, a Democratic Senate candidate in Kentucky is doing his best to tie his fate to Hillary Clinton’s popularity. Who could have predicted that a few months ago? Given that Mississippi and Kentucky are both red states that McCain is likely to win by wide margins, the discrepancy between Wicker and Lunsford’s ads is somewhat curious - though perhaps not dramatically so.

Democrats enjoy a large registration advantage in Kentucky, but conservative-minded blue-collar Democrats have become reliable Republican voters. It is precisely that constituency that Clinton championed in the latter half of the primary, and Kentucky’s Democratic voters rewarded her with a resounding 35% victory in the late May contest. Today, Lunsford is looking to mobilize the Democratic base by proving to Kentucky’s Democratic voters that he belongs to the Clinton wing of the party rather than to the Obama wing - whatever those distinctions came to mean in the last few months of the Obama-Clinton showdown.

—

In North Carolina, the entire Senate campaign has come to a scratching halt and has been replaced by the controversy over Elizabeth Dole’s “Godless” ad. Kay Hagan filed a defamation lawsuit, but that is not preventing Dole from firing another shot. This is not about “Hagan’s faith,” the new ad says, but about the “fact” that she attended a party thrown by Godless Americans. The concludes by asking, “If Godless Americans threw a party in your honor, would you go?”

Elizabeth Dole is putting all her re-election hopes on this one attack against Hagan - not that she has a choice. After Kay Hagan’s forceful response, Dole would be admitting that her initial ad was a disgrace if she backed down, so she is accepting the showdown. At the very least this new ad no longer juxtaposes Hagan’s image with a woman’s voice announcing that there is no God.

It is nearly impossible to predict what impact such attacks have, so we will have to wait until Tuesday night to see whether it allowed Dole to discredit Hagan and mount a comeback or whether it backfired. One factor to take into account, of course, is the jaw-dropping early voting turnout rate (already 60% of the total 2004 vote), which means it is probable than more than half of voters already cast their ballot as this controversy is heating up.

—

In Alaska, Ted Stevens is trying to convince voters to re-elect him despite his guilty verdict. In a new ad in which he talks directly to the camera, Stevens insists he is innocent and seeks to cast the trial and its conclusion as non-Alaskans trying to intrude in Alaska affairs:

As we discovered over the past few months, there is a powerful anti-lower 48 current in Alaska (even Todd Palin was a member of the Alaska Independence Party, after all), and Stevens is trying to channel that anger to get voters to not only forgive him for his conviction but to also rally around him. If anyone can pull this off, it’s probably Stevens, who is as towering a figure in his home state as any politician in the country, making it easier for him to appeal to voters’ Alaskan pride.

—

In House races, both parties are making last-minute expenditures - and the NRCC is by far making the biggest splash. It has bought $465,000 worth of air time against Democratic congressman Jack “Western Pennsylvanians are racist” Murtha. That’s a very substantial sum of money to spread over just 4 days, especially when it comes to the NRCC. The Republican committee has budgetary difficulties and it has pulled the plug on an number of highly endangered incumbents (Musgrave in CO-04, Bachmann in MN-06, Knollenberg in MI-09, …).

For the NRCC invest this much money in this seat at the last minute means that they are very confident that Murtha’s comments have made him highly vulnerable. If Murtha loses Tuesday night (which is very possible), it will mark a stunning upset that just two weeks ago was unthinkable; if Murtha wins by a comfortable margin, this is one $465,000 that Republicans who’ll go down in tight races will be particularly bitter about.

Meanwhile, the DCCC is spending modest expenditures in at least two GOP-held seats in which they had yet to invest: FL-18 and NJ-05. Both districts are rated likely Republican in my recent House ratings, and polls in both have suggested that the once-comfortable GOP incumbents risk being upset on Tuesday. The DCCC’s last-minute push could help make the most of this - but it is certainly getting late.

2 Comments | AK-Sen, FL-18, KY-Sen, MS-Sen, NC-Sen, NJ-05, PA-12 | Permalink
Posted by Taniel

In Senate races, it’s the season of bizarre ad wars

October 29, 2008

We will need to be removed from the excitement of daily ad releases to get a sense of which 2008 ads will be remembered as the most vicious, but Elizabeth Dole’s spots will certainly be in contention. A few months after portraying Kay Hagan as a yapping dog, Dole is now airing an ad accusing her opponent of… atheism:

In September, Hagan attended a fundraiser in Boston sponsored by 30 people and organized by fundraising powerhouse ActBlue; the event was held at the home of one of the founders of Godless Americans PAC, a group that works to remove religious references from the public sphere. Dole’s ad features footage of members of that group appearing on various shows to defend their position before connecting all of them to Hagan.

In what is surely the ad’s most twisted moment, an image of Kay Hagan appears at the end of the spot while a woman’s voice says “there is no God.” The juxtaposition is meant to suggest that the voice is Hagan’s, when it is not hers. (Demonstrating further that Dole is channeling Jesse Helms, whose seat she occupies, this ad comes just a few days after Dole sent out a gay baiting mailer to North Carolina households.)

Needless to say, it is difficult to win as an atheist anywhere in America - even more so in a state like North Carolina that remains conservative - so the attack could hurt Hagan if it takes hold. That said, such brutal ads are even more likely to backfire by making a candidate seem excessively nasty and desperate, especially if the media jumps in to point out that the ad’s problems.

An attack is is unlikely to work unless it latches on an impression voters already have of a candidate and reinforces their doubts. In this case, there seems to be very little in Hagan’s background that can confirm the ad’s “accusations,” as Hagan appears to be a regular attendee at her Presbyterian Church and as her pastor has already cut a radio ad on her behalf.

In Kentucky, meanwhile, Bruce Lunsford is running an ad in which a Mitch McConnell impersonator is chased around by two threatening dogs who are first made to sniff a book entitled “McConnell’s record:”

As bizarre as this ad is, Politico points out that it is a quasi-exact remake of an ad that McConnell ran against the Democratic incumbent he was facing in 1984. That might make it difficult for the GOP to accuse Lunsford of anything else than copying them, but threatening to let the dogs out on your opponent doesn’t strike me as the most gracious campaigning tactic.

In Oregon, finally, Gordon Smith’s new ad underscores just how precarious his position is. Smith devotes the last third of his ad to attacking Constitution Party candidate Dave Brownlow as being “too liberal:”

Why would Smith waste his time on a candidate who is polling in the mid-single digits (5% in the latest SUSA survey)? Oregon Republicans have been grumbling for months that Smith went too far to the center by airing ads touting his relationship with Ted Kennedy, Barack Obama and John Kerry - perhaps leading a number of disgruntled conservatives to desert him in favor of the candidate of the (right-wing) Constitution Party. That Smith is now feeling like he has to blast Brownlow illustrates how Smith has put himself in an uncomfortable situation and is now looking increasingly desperate.

Smith’s ads comes in the heels of a new NRSC ad that urges Oregon voters to not give Democrats an undivided government in Washington, making it the second spot the NRSC has run that assumes an Obama presidency. (The first ran in North Carolina.) Don’t forget that Smith that Oregon’s Election Day is not next Tuesday, as all the vote is conducted via mail and ballots need to be returned by that November 4th; in other words, all voters have already voted or are voting right now - making these ads the last salvos in the Oregon Senate race.

Beyond these latest ads, the Senate battle continues in Alaska, and those who thought Stevens would go away quietly will be disappointed. Stevens, now a convicted but not-yet-sentenced felon, returned in his home state today to campaign in the home stretch to Tuesday’s vote and the Anchorage Daily News reports that his campaign is by no means admitting defeat. Their hope is that the conviction will trigger a backlash against “outside influence.”

4 Comments | AK-Sen, KY-Sen, NC-Sen, OR-Sen | Permalink
Posted by Taniel

Senate: Ad wars intensify as GOP brings in child abuse, Dems exploit Stevens verdict

October 28, 2008

The news that the DNC will tap into a $10 million line of credit to be split equally on House and Senate races means that the DSCC and DCCC has $5 million more than what they had budgeted for the campaign’s final week, allowing them to put even more House races in play and increase their spending against Sens. McConnell and Chambliss.

That makes for that much more excitement in the campaign’s closing week - and given how much more vicious ads have become in recent days, we should expect quite a few fireworks. It is no surprise, of course, that the nastiest of recent attack ads comes from the NRSC’s efforts to discredit Al Franken in Minnesota. This latest spot is a compilation of all of the GOP’s attacks on Franken, strung together in an incredibly hard-hitting sequence. Franken “lashes out at those who disagree,” “humiliates minorities”, “demeans women,” “makes child abuse a joke” and “laughs at the disabled:”

The problem for Republicans is that the ad wars in the Minnesota Senate race might very well have exhausted their effectiveness. There are, after all, diminishing returns in political advertisement, and the GOP has been airing the same attacks since the spring. Furthermore, the fact that the Minnesota contest is is a three-way race with Independent Party candidate Barkley means that Coleman and Franken have to win on the strength of their base, making any attack less effective. Finally, the negative tone of campaigning has taken a toll on both of the major party candidates and allowed Barkley to progress; that means that the NRSC’s ads are as likely to get Franken voters to peel away to Barkley as they are to get Coleman voters to vote for a third party in disgust.

Note that the NRSC appears to have launched a broad child abuse offensive against Franken… confirming that Minnesota’s Senate race will go down as the most vicious of this year’s contests. Their latest mailer to Minnesota households features a cartoonish Franken telling children to “come on in…” The mailer has ignited a firestorm in the final week of campaigning, as the state’s Democratic Party has vehemently denounced the mailer and Senator Coleman has had to condemn the tactics used by his national party.

But child molestation-themed attacks apparently extend beyond Minnesota! They are also the focus of a new NRSC ad aimed at Jim Martin in Georgia. The spot starts with footage of a young woman in a bathing suit and proceeds to accuse Martin of not supporting making soliciting children for prostitution a felony. “Liberal extreme,” charges the ad, before listing other allegedly radical position Martin holds - like his refusal to make English the official language:

Given how late the NRSC is starting to air its anti-Martin ads, there isn’t that much time left to discredit him (except if the election goes to a December runoff, of course), which is why the GOP is unloading what looks like its entire oppo file in one ad. I also doubt how much ads featuring footage of seductive women ever move the electorate, as going for racy just makes an ad look ridiculously over the top; witness these stunningly hilarious robocalls in a California House race or the infamous Arcuri ad from 2006.

In New Hampshire, meanwhile, Jeanne Shaheen has released a powerful new ad. Not only is it focused on the economy (though this race has been hardly contested, neither side has gone personal), but it uses Sen. Sununu’s words against him - always the most effective tactic to use in political ads. After an average voters tells the story of his struggles paying for health care, the ad features audio recording of Sununu saying “stop complaining about health care costs” - repeatedly:

This ad is a reminder of how much the financial crisis hurt Republicans. Not only did it close the door on candidates like Sununu who were closing the gap in the first half of September, but it made the issues Democrats would rather talk about (like health care and Social Security) suddenly relevant. An ad like this one would be effective in any environment, but it becomes even more powerful when voters are worried about their subsistence.

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As expected, Democrats are making the most of Ted Stevens’ endorsement by putting other endangered GOP Senators on the defensive over their ties to the convicted Alaskan. Republicans are doing their best to distance themselves from Stevens (McCain called for him to step down this morning, Palin followed his lead after not quite daring to do so yesterday, and McConnell called it a “sad but serious day” and pledged that Stevens will “be held accountable”), but that is not enough for Democrats who want to press their advantage.

Democrats are calling on Norm Coleman, Gordon Smith and Elizabeth Dole to return campaign donations they received from Stevens over the years. This would not represent that significant an amount of money, of course, but the Democrats’ goal is not to deprive their opponent of a few thousand dollars but to push coverage of the Stevens conviction in the local press and tie the incumbents they are facing to the convicted Senator. Stevens was, after all, the longest serving Republican in the Senate, with ties to many of his colleagues.

In a year in which the GOP brand is at an all-time low, Stevens’ conviction further tarnishes the party’s image and could thus damage those incumbents - especially Coleman and Smith - who are in danger mostly because of the political environment.

As for the Alaska Senate race, it now clearly leans Democratic though Stevens is such a towering figure in state politics that an upset cannot be entirely be ruled out. Ivan Moore, an Alaska-based pollster whose surveys we have been looking at carefully for the past few months, is now saying that the race is over - but he awknowledges that he (mistakenly) thought the same after Stevens was indicted. If Stevens somehow wins, it would only be the beginning of his troubles: Would the Senate expell him? Would the Republican leadership dare abandon a Senator that has been part of their caucus for decades?

9 Comments | AK-Sen, MN-Sen, NC-Sen, NH-Sen, OR-Sen | Permalink
Posted by Taniel

Stevens convicted on all seven counts

October 27, 2008

It was the biggest outstanding question left in the 2008 cycle, and it has just been resolved: Senator Ted Stevens has just been convicted on seven counts of lying about gifts worth more than $250,000 on financial disclosure forms.

This is first and foremost a major blow for Stevens, and a stunning fall for the towering figure of Alaska politics. The Alaska Senator now faces up to five years in prison, and his legal troubles are only the beginning. Two weeks ago, I noted that prosecutorial mishandling and disregard for defense rights should make us at least somewhat uncomfortable with a guilty verdict, but that has little to do with the verdict’s huge political fallout: Stevens is up for re-election in 8 days, and it’s difficult to see how he can survive this.

Stevens fell in a deep hole in the polls in the immediate aftermath of his July indictment, but he had battled his way back to a dead heat in most recent surveys. The news of his sweeping conviction (on all counts) will now dominate Alaska’s news coverage over the next eight days, and Stevens will come under pressure to resign.

Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich has just become the clear favorite to pick-up the seat, and Democrats are one seat closer to their dream of a 60 seat super-majority. And even if Stevens somehow prevails next Tuesday, he would face expulsion, though he could perhaps delay that procedure until an appeal is heard.

Alaska thus joins Virginia, New Mexico, Colorado and New Hampshire as GOP-held seats in which a Democratic victory is likely - bringing the total to 5 seats.

But the damage could reverberate beyond the Alaska Senate race. Stevens is no ordinary politician, he is the longest serving Republican in the U.S. Senate and he represents the home state of the GOP’s vice-presidential nominee. At the very least, this will cost McCain one of the last news cycle he has available to change the narrative and tighten the race. Today was going to mark a Republican offensive on Obama’s “redistributive” goals, but the verdict will be the day’s dominant political story, obscuring the presidential race - and that is great news for Obama.

At worst for the GOP, the verdict could lead the media to talk about other stories of alleged political corruption like those facing Don Young and even Palin with troopergate. It could also mean trouble for Republicans who have received contributions from Stevens. Al Franken already tried to make this into an issue against Sen. Norm Coleman. And any hope Alaska’s Rep. Don Young had to survive have probably just been crushed, as Young’s own ethical problems will be tied in to Stevens’s fate and lead Alaska voters to reject the state’s Republican establishment. Could this also endanger McCain-Palin’s hold on Alaska’s 3 electoral votes?

5 Comments | AK-AL, AK-Sen | Permalink
Posted by Taniel