? MA-Sen: Yeah, we all knew Elizabeth Warren would be leading in the Democratic primary, but did anyone think her margin would be this big? Click the link for the full numbers at Daily Kos Elections.
Senate:
? NE-Sen: The Nebraska Democratic party is adding at least $220K to the (at least) $210K it's already spent on an early ad touting Ben Nelson's bi/non/post/anti-partisan cred. That's a lot of money this far out from e-day.
Gubernatorial:
? WV-Gov: The DGA has a new poll out from the Mellman Group which shows Dem Earl Ray Tomblin up 46-36 over Bill Maloney. Mellman's last survey had Tomblin up 47-33. That's still quite a lot of undecideds this near to election day, and I'm really not sure what to make of it. But if Tomblin is this close to 50, Maloney would have to make almost a clean sweep of those who haven't made up their minds in order to pull off a win.
House:
? IL-14: Did Joe Walsh just say that the media will protect Obama as he seeks re-election because he's black? Why yes, yes he did. Click the link for the full, disgusting quote.
? MI-11: SHOCKER! Rep. Thad McCotter, we hardly knew ye (thank god). The Michigan Republican says he's dropping out of the presidential race (lol) and will likely seek re-election. The linked article also says that GOP state Sen. Mike Kowall plans to announce a primary bid today, so maybe McCotter is trying to step on that.
? MN-08: I guess that answers that question: Just a couple of weeks ago, state Rep. Carly Melin said she was "keeping an open mind" about a possible congressional run against GOP freshman Chip Cravaack. Now she's gone ahead and endorsed one of the Democrats already running, Duluth City Council Member Jeff Anderson, so presumably she's taken herself out of the race.
? ND-AL, ND-Sen: The blog North Decoder breaks the news that former Dem state Rep. Pam Gulleson will run for federal office? but not, as had been discussed, for the open Senate seat, but rather for the open House seat instead. InForum has more on this unexpected move.
This leaves the Democrats with a hole to fill in the more important Senate race, though, since control of the chamber could turn on this seat. However, former state AG Heidi Heitkamp, or her brother, former state Sen. Joel Heitkamp, could still potentially run. And in what I'm sure is no coincidence, Democratic pollster Garin-Hart-Yang (on behalf of parties unknown) released a month-old poll (PDF) showing GOP Rep. Rick Berg, who is running for Senate, leading Generic Dem 44-40. I wouldn't read too much into that, since that's about as favorable a pairing as you can come up with (i.e., flawed, flesh-and-blood Republican vs. Democratic Jesus). I also don't like the job approvals question, since it does the whole "excellent/good/fair/poor," which almost seems calculated to yield a bad number for whoever you ask it about, as long as you lump "fair" with "poor."
? OH-03: That crummy, low-resolution PDF of the new Ohio map that everyone's been using simply doesn't show just how insanely the city of Columbus was gerrymandered to create a Democratic vote sink. I even have to wonder if that was an intentional bit of subterfuge on the GOP's part, even going so far as to let the county label of "Franklin" cover up one of the most egregious bits. But thanks to jeffmd's hard work, we can now bring you a detailed Google Maps view of the district. Even Rorschach would blush:
Other Races:
? NJ-St. Sen.: Looks like the show's over for Carl Lewis. As we told you on Wednesday, in an extremely unusual about-face, the Third Circuit Court of Appeals vacated its decision that allowed Lewis, a Democrat, to appear on the ballot this fall. Yesterday, the court ruled that Lewis could not, in fact, be on the ballot. Lewis could still appeal to the full Third Circuit or the Supreme Court, but neither body has to hear his case. I wonder if this might not actually be a good outcome for Lewis, since he was running in a heavily Republican district and would likely have gotten pasted in November. Now, he's raised his profile and can perhaps try again in a better seat next time ? perhaps against freshman GOPer John Runyan in NJ-03.
Grab Bag:
? Census: The Census Bureau just released its first post-2010 census batch of data from the American Community Survey (aka ACS). This much richer data set includes all kinds of demographic information that isn't covered by the census itself (which really only aims to county raw population totals and a few very basic statistics).
? Pennsylvania: It's starting to feel like this one is dead in the water. A whole slew of Republican state legislators (and even more here) are saying they oppose the GOP plan to award the state's electoral votes by congressional district (instead of the traditional winner-take-all system). I haven't seen a precise whip count, but except for a lone remark from Gov. Tom Corbett the other day, the momentum seems like it's entirely against this legislation.
? Polling: Democracy Corps has a new poll out that covers 60 GOP-held "battleground" districts. Their findings are a bit tough to summarize, but it basically sounds like what we've observed in most other polling: President Obama and the Democrats are seeing their numbers drop, but so are Republican incumbents (identified by name in this series of questions).
? Votes: We're always on the lookout for odd-duck House votes ? the kind which don't break along normal party lines. These weirdo roll calls can sometimes illuminate factions or fissures within each party, as we saw with the budget resolution votes earlier this year. The latest addition to the bestiary is the stopgap spending bill which unexpectedly failed in a vote on Wednesday. Forty-eight largely teabaggish Republicans sided with Democrats to sabotage the legislation, unhappy (of course) that the bill didn't cut spending enough. You can play around with the full roll call at the link.
? WATN?: Uh, this is weird. Meg Whitman is reportedly going to be named the new CEO of Hewlett-Packard. Does that mean Carly Fiorina will become CEO of eBay?
? West Virginia: Tom has the usual miscellany for West by God.
Redistricting Roundup:
? IL Redistricting: This is a serious "WTF?" moment. Even though Democrats passed Illinois' new congressional map months ago, only now is Jesse Jackson, Jr. complaining about it ? and trying to claim that the map may violate the Voting Rights Act. That's almost impossible to figure, since the plan preserved three black districts and one Hispanic seat, making it hard to argue that there's been any dilution of minority voting strength. Jackson and the state's two other African American representatives, Bobby Rush and Danny Davis, are refusing to help Democrats defend a (meritless) GOP lawsuit over the map, and Jackson's also been busy sending a letter to the president accusing the Obama DoJ of enforcing VRA claims less vigorously than Bush's did!
What I presume is really going on here is that JJJ is upset that ex-Rep. Debbie Halvorson recently said she's exploring a primary against him, seeing as her hometown got drawn into Jackson's new 2nd District. It's a challenge that seems almost crazy on its face, since IL-02 is 54% black by voting age population, which means the Democratic electorate is even more so. So even if Halvorson (who is white) does follow through, Jackson should be just fine. Fortunately, it's hard to see Jackson's petulance going anywhere, but it's still grating nonetheless. I wonder if there's something else he wants, other than for Halvorson to go away.
I also have to take exception to this line in Shira Toeplitz's piece, where she says: "Earlier this year, Illinois Democrats crafted the most controversial and aggressive new Congressional map so far this cycle." Shira knows I respect her work a great deal, and link to and rely on her often. But I simply don't see how the Illinois map could possibly be the "most controversial" of the cycle ? not when Texas Republicans drew a map with no new Hispanic seats (despite 90% of the state's growth over the last decade coming from Latinos), and particularly when that map has been opposed on preclearance grounds by the DoJ and is almost certain to get at least partly overturned by the three-judge panel in San Antonio. When it comes to controversial maps, Texas wins that Pepsi challenge any day of the week.
? NV Redistricting: The Nevada judge hearing the state's redistricting dispute has done something you rarely see a judge do: He's offered a timeline for when he might complete his ruling. Judge James Russell says he expects to reach a decision by Nov. 15, which would give the parties sufficient time to appeal his verdict. (Nevada's filing deadline is about three months later.) He also ordered his three special masters to complete a first-draft map by Oct. 21, but no word on whether he'll make that map public. (I'd assume he'd have to, so that the attorneys can make arguments about it, but we'll see.)
? Redistricting: An interesting piece in the Boston Review on redistricting in general uses a computer model to demonstrate just how screwed by geography Democrats are when it comes to drawing House seats. While this is something most observers already appreciate intuitively, these researchers lay it out much more starkly. You'll have to click the link to get the full picture, but here's a taste:
The problem for Democrats is clear in Indiana?s new districts. They create large Democratic majorities in the biggest cities, but the smaller Democratic clusters along the rivers and railroads are overwhelmed by their solidly Republican surroundings. As a result, a state with a roughly even split of Democrats and Republicans will probably continue to have an overwhelmingly Republican congressional delegation.An apolitical districting procedure won?t remove this geographic bias. We wrote a computer program to assign randomly each voting precinct to a congressional district without regard to that district?s partisanship or racial composition. The program only ensures that districts have equal populations and are geographically contiguous. For each of our thousands of simulated districting plans, we examined the share of districts that Republicans would win in the event of an overall tie between a Democratic and a Republican candidate for president, suggesting an electorate split along party lines. Averaging over our simulated plans, we discovered that Democrats could only expect to win a little more than three of Indiana?s nine districts?not much better than under the new redistricting plan.
The results are striking in other states as well. The graph displays the share of seats in the U.S. House and state legislatures that Republicans can expect to win in the event of a tied popular vote (we focused on states for which we had appropriate data from the 2000 presidential election). In sixteen of nineteen states, our party- and race-neutral simulations produced maps that lean Republican, sometimes overwhelmingly so.
It just goes to show how redistricting mandates which demand that political considerations go ignored are anything but fair.
Source: http://feeds.dailykos.com/~r/dailykos/index/~3/TTIytfoyKZc/-Daily-Kos-Elections-Morning-Digest:-9-23
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