CQ Race Ratings Changes, Part Two: Democrats Gain Ground

National Democratic Party officials, who regard the 8th District contest as one of their top takeover opportunities, have stepped in to assist wealthy attorney Alan Grayson’s bid to topple four-term Republican Rep. Ric Keller .

The party backing is on top of the hefty personal investment Grayson has made in his own campaign treasury, which as of Sept. 30 gave him a lead in overall receipts over Keller of $1.9 million to $1.4 million. And Grayson is running in a central Florida district, which includes part of Orlando, where demographic changes have helped the Democrats wipe out a longstanding Republican voter registration advantage.

Keller, however, fended off a vigorous Democratic challenge in 2006 by a 7 percentage-point margin. And though he escaped this year’s Republican primary on Aug. 26 with a narrow victory, the strongly conservative nature of attorney Todd Long’s challenge makes it unlikely that many of his Republican supporters would cross over to vote for Grayson. Keller, who received the endorsement of the Orlando Sentinel, has run ads portraying Grayson as an “ultra-liberal.”

• Florida’s 24th District (New Rating: No Clear Favorite. Old Rating: Leans Republican)

Facing a stiff challenge from Democrat Suzanne Kosmas, a former state representative, Republican Tom Feeney made an unusual attempt to put his single biggest political problem behind him: After months of deflecting questions about his past golfing trip to Scotland that associated him with disgraced lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Feeney ran an ad apologizing to voters for what he described as a lapse of judgment. Yet the mea culpa, rather than putting the matter to rest, appears to have done more to draw attention to Feeney’s vulnerability in a Republican-leaning east-central Florida district — which he helped design himself when he oversaw redistricting as state House Speaker.

Kosmas has received strong support from her national party and from EMILY’s List, the potent political action committee than supports Democratic women candidates who favor abortion rights. And unlike Republican incumbent Keller in Florida’s 8th District, Feeney was bypassed by the Orlando Sentinel editorial board, which endorsed Kosmas.

Democrats continue to hammer at Feeney for his connection to Abramoff along with his past alliance with Texas Republican Tom DeLay, a former House majority leader who resigned from Congress in 2006 under a cloud of ethics controversies. And Kosmas, whose $1.6 million in receipts as of Sept. 30 was competitive with Feeney’s $1.8 million, has been backed up by the more than $650,000 in independent expenditures committed to the race by the DCCC.

• Kentucky’s 2nd District (New Rating: Leans Republican. Previous Rating: Republican Favored)

A competitive race to succeed retiring seven-term Republican Rep. Ron Lewis is certainly no given, even though the major-party nominees, Republican Brett Guthrie and Democrat David Boswell, are both state senators with substantial political experience. Guthrie stands to benefit from the conservative leanings of voters in the 2nd District, a swath of west-central Kentucky, which gave 65 percent of its votes to Bush four years ago, and the GOP nominee raised almost twice as much money as Boswell.

But Boswell brought higher name recognition into the race as a former state agriculture commissioner who also served in the state House, and his social-issue conservatism has helped him compete in this district. And the DCCC — encouraged by the fact that incumbent Lewis, usually a landslide winner, slipped to 55 percent in 2006 — is spending heavily here.

• Louisiana’s 1st (New Rating: Republican Favored. Old Rating: Safe Republican)

Republican Steve Scalise easily won a May special election to succeed Republican Bobby Jindal , now the state’s governor. This was hardly a surprise in southeastern Louisiana’s 1st District, which takes in territory in and around New Orleans, north and south of Lake Pontchartrain, and is the state’s most rock-ribbed Republican region.

The challenge facing Jim Harlan, the Democratic businessman, is symbolized by the 70 percent its voters gave to Bush in 2004. None of the current 235 House Democrats represents a district that was that pro-Republican in the 2004 presidential contest.

CQ Race Ratings Changes, Part Two: Democrats Gain Ground

But Harlan is trying to offset that partisan disadvantage by putting substantial amounts of his own money into his campaign. This in turn drew the attention of the DCCC, which added him to the Red to Blue program.

While Scalise remains a strong favorite, his victory in a low-turnout special election against a hapless Democratic foe just six months before Election Day does not mark him as a shoo-in against such a well-funded Democratic opponent as Harlan.

• North Carolina’s 10th District (New Rating: Republican Favored. Old Rating: Safe Republican)

Republican Rep. Patrick T. McHenry is seeking a third term in North Carolina’s 10th, a Republican-leaning district northwest of Charlotte, but he faces a strong challenge from Navy veteran Daniel Johnson that has grabbed the attention of Democratic strategists.

Voters in the 10th gave President Bush 67 percent of the vote in 2004 and 65 percent of the vote in 2000. McHenry was elected in 2004 with 64 percent of the vote and was re-elected in 2006 with 62 percent of the vote. So a victory for Johnson, even given his late addition to the DCCC’s Red to Blue list, would be a significant upset. Yet Johnson, though outraised significantly by McHenry over the course of the election cycle, edged out the incumbent $239,000 to $194,000 over the year’s third quarter (July 1 to Sept. 30).

• South Carolina’s 1st District (New Rating: Leans Republican. Old Rating: Safe Republican)

Few races better illustrate the Democrats’ aggressive effort to put longtime Republican congressional strongholds into play by recruiting enterprising challengers. Democrats for years effectively ceded South Carolina’s 1st District, which takes in part of Charleston then hugs the coast to the North Carolina border. Henry E. Brown Jr. , the four-term Republican incumbent, won with 60 percent in 2006 and didn’t even draw a Democratic challenger in 2004. But this year, the Democrats nominated businesswoman Linda Ketner, who is said to be running a well-disciplined campaign — aided by a stunning fundraising advantage.

Ketner reported raising $1.6 million through Sept. 30, nearly doubling the $861,000 Brown raised by the same date. Although $700,000 of Ketner’s receipts came from loans she made to her own campaign, she nonetheless outraised Brown among individual contributors by $829,000 to $551,000.

Brown’s campaign for re-election this time is complicated by Obama’s appeal at the top of the Democratic ticket to African-American voters, most of whom are Democrats and who make up about a fifth of the district’s electorate. Referring to incumbent Brown, Lee Bandy, a longtime political reporter for South Carolina’s The State newspaper, said, “If blacks turn out in the numbers we think they’re going to turn out, I think Henry could really be in trouble.”

• South Carolina’s 2nd District (New Rating: Republican Favored. Old Rating: Safe Republican)

The race in the 2nd District, in a swath of central and south South Carolina that hasn’t seen a competitive House contest in years, truly came out of nowhere. But Republican Rep. Joe Wilson , who is seeking a fourth full term, is getting a tougher than usual challenge from Democrat Rob Miller, an Iraq War veteran, whom DCCC officials added to their “Emerging Races” roster, a precursor to the Red to Blue program.

Though Wilson piled up $951,000 in receipts through Sept. 30, Miller raised a total of $497,000 that was respectable for a long-shot incumbent facing stiff partisan odds in his district. Here, too, the Obama factor could come into play, as more than a quarter of the district’s residents are black. Whites make up a minority of the population in four of the district’s 10 counties.

West

CQ Race Ratings Changes, Part Two: Democrats Gain Ground

• Arizona’s 3rd District (New Rating: Leans Republican. Old Rating: Republican Favored)

Seven-term Republican Rep. John Shadegg ’s long and usually strong hold on this GOP-leaning district in the Phoenix area has enabled him to maintain an edge over his vigorously campaigning Democratic challenger, tax attorney Bob Lord. But fundraising reports and recent polling in Arizona’s 3rd District indicate the race has tightened in recent weeks.

Shadegg still leads in fundraising with $2 million in receipts through Sept. 30. But Lord, whose early fundraising first brought him to the attention of party strategists, raised a solid $1.4 million. Lord’s campaign points out that the challenger raised more than twice as much money in the 3rd quarter as Shadegg, with $260,000 to $104,000.

Recent polling released by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee indicated the race was neck-in-neck at 44 percent for Shadegg and 45 percent for Lord, but a separate non-partisan poll commissioned by DailyKos showed Shadegg ahead by 9 percentage points, 48 percent to 39 percent.

Lord would have to overcome a significant generic Republican lean in a district that gave Bush 58 percent of the vote in 2004. Republicans account for 44 percent of the district’s registered voters, while Democrats constitute 30 percent, though a significant proportion — 27 percent — are not registered with either major party.

Shadegg could benefit from running on a Republican ticket headed by Arizona Sen. John McCain as the party’s presidential nominee.

• California’s 3rd District (New Rating: Republican Favored. Old Rating: Safe Republican)

Republican Rep. Dan Lungren — who represented a Southern California district for five terms ending in 1989 before serving two terms as state attorney general — settled into the GOP-leaning 3rd District in the Sacramento suburbs, easily winning general elections in 2004 and 2006. But in a rematch of the 2006 contest that he won by 22 points, Lungren is facing a stiffer challenge from Democrat Bill Durston, a physician and Vietnam veteran.

Durston has raised questions about Lungren’s ethical conduct, playing off a report by ABC News that the incumbent allegedly used a “loophole” to bill his campaign for a first-class trip to Hawaii. Durston, who has pledged not to accept political action committee money, also has sought to draw contrasts with Lungren on Social Security, health care, the war in Iraq and education.

Lungren retains a strong advantage in his district’s political landscape, and the $682,000 he raised through Sept. 30 (to $503,000) is not the kind of frantic fundraising pursued by incumbents who see themselves in serious political danger.

• California’s 26th District (New Rating: Republican Favored. Old Rating: Safe Republican)

David Dreier , the 14-term incumbent and ranking Republican on the House Rules Committee, represents the 26th, a Southern California district that is short of a GOP stronghold: Bush took 55 percent there in 2004. And Democratic challenger Russ Warner, a magazine distributor, has exhibited strong fundraising skills, with more than $1 million in total receipts that included $349,000 in money from his own pockets.

But Dreier’s receipts of $1.3 million, combined with funds left over from past campaigns, left him with nearly $2 million on hand through Sept. 30 to help him fend off Warner’s challenge. And Dreier has proved up to the test before, taking 57 percent in a 2006 rematch with Democrat Cynthia Rodriguez Matthews, who had held him to 54 percent two years earlier.

CQ Race Ratings Changes, Part Two: Democrats Gain Ground

• California’s 46th District (New Rating: Republican Favored. Old Rating: Safe Republican)

Only once in his 10 House elections has Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher received as little as 55 percent of the vote, and he took 60 percent in the tough Republican year of 2006. But Huntington Beach Mayor Debbie Cook is waging a more spirited challenge for the Democrats than Rohrabacher typically faces in the 46th District.

Cook argues that the outspoken incumbent has worn out his welcome in Congress and has grown out of touch with district voters. Cook used a recent ad to tie Rohrabacher to national problems such as unemployment and the Iraq war.

Yet there is a significant Republican base in this coastal Los Angeles district, which gave Bush 57 percent in 2004, and Cook has had to expend significant effort building name ID outside her home city. Rohrabacher’s fundraising — $467,000 in receipts — has been surprisingly modest for an incumbent, but Cook, at $271,000 on Sept. 30, is not one of the leading fundraisers among House challengers.

• California’s 50th District (New Rating: Republican Favored. Old Rating: Safe Republican)

The Democratic Party made a serious run at the 50th District, a San Diego-area seat, in 2006 after Republican incumbent Randy “Duke” Cunningham Jr. resigned and was convicted on federal bribery charges. And though Republican Brian P. Bilbray ’s successes at keeping the seat in GOP hands — by 5 points in a special election and 10 points in that year’s general election — initially appeared to diminish the interest of Democratic strategists, they have weighed in late in this year’s campaign behind their challenger, attorney Nick Leibham.

Leibham, who is seeking to improve upon educator Francine Busby’s performances in both 2006 contests, has nearly matched Bilbray at fundraising and was recently added to the DCCC’s Red to Blue list. The challenger put Bilbray on the defensive this week in a new ad that accused the incumbent of voting against extending the GI bill that aids veterans.

But Leibham continues to face an uphill battle against a well-funded incumbent in a district that in 2004 gave 55 percent to Bush, and Bilbray is well known not only for his current tenure but a previous three-term stint in the House that ran from 1995 to 2001.

• Idaho’s 1st District (New Rating: Leans Republican. Old Rating: Republican Favored)

Only in the kind of political environment currently hindering Republicans nationwide could a district such as Idaho 1 be in play. This is a conservative bastion that gave Bush 68 percent of its votes in 2004.

And even with the downturn in the GOP’s overall fortunes, this district would likely not be a battleground if its freshman Republican incumbent, Bill Sali , was not regarded even by many of his Republican peers as personally abrasive — a characterization that held him, despite his strong conservative credentials, to a 5-point margin in his 2006 open-seat race.

This has created an opening this year for Walt Minnick, the well-funded Democratic nominee whose name is familiar to some residents from his vigorous though unsuccessful bid as his party’s 1996 U.S. Senate nominee.

Sali has experienced a bad week. His campaign was forced to correct a campaign ad that incorrectly claimed Minnick opposed domestic oil drilling. More embarrassing, however, was a report by a local TV news crew in Boise that Sali and members of his campaign staff heckled Minnick during an interview after the candidates’ debate Tuesday night. After the incident, the AP reports, Sali said he was “trying to inject some light-hearted energy” into Minnick’s campaign.

CQ Race Ratings Changes, Part Two: Democrats Gain Ground

Added to this mix is Minnick’s fundraising proficiency: Through Sept. 30, he raised more than twice as much money as Sali. Minnick reported $2 million in receipts — boosted by a $713,000 loan he made to his own campaign — while Sali brought in $880,000. Minnick outraised Sali among individual donors $1 million to $301,000. Minnick’s end-game fundraising should be aided by his inclusion by the DCCC on the Red to Blue list.