CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
Oct. 21, 2008 – 6:01 p.m.
CQ Politics’ House Rating Changes Topped by Bachmann Blow-Up
By Marie Horrigan, Rachel Kapochunas and Jesse Stanchak, CQ Staff
Under usual circumstances, the fact that CQ Politics now slightly favors the Democrats to win the formerly tossup races for the Florida House seats held by Republicans Ric Keller and Tom Feeney might be the biggest grabber out of the following roundup of our latest six ratings changes.
Or maybe it might be the race for the at-large House seat in the Republican stronghold of Wyoming, where Democratic businessman Gary Trauner — who two years ago came within 1 percentage point of ousting Republican Rep. Barbara Cubin — finds himself in a too close to call contest against Republican Cynthia Lummis, who is running in lieu of the retiring incumbent.
Or maybe it would be the news from Oregon’s 5th District, where the Republicans’ once-high hopes for the open-seat race to succeed retiring Democratic Rep. Darlene Hooley have faded badly, as have their hopes for the open-seat race to replace retiring Republican Rep. James T. Walsh in upstate New York’s 25th District.
But for political drama, we just can’t top Minnesota’s 6th District, which is suddenly hosting one of the nation’s hottest races — because of highly controversial partisan remarks made by Michele Bachmann , the district’s freshman Republican incumbent.
Although Democrats had long branded Bachmann as a conservative hard-liner, and recruited a relatively centrist challenger in former state transportation secretary Elwyn Tinklenberg, the incumbent nonetheless looked to be cruising to a relatively easy victory in her Republican-leaning district — that is, until she dropped her “anti-A” bomb, stating on national television that Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama and unnamed members of Congress might have “anti-American views.” The huge flap that ensued has made Bachmann a much more visible target for Democratic activists nationwide, who in turn have poured money into Tinklenberg’s campaign to fuel a late-campaign blitz.
Because of the overall conservative tone in her district, CQ Politics still considers Bachmann a slight favorite for re-election, but will be watching further developments very closely.
The one thing that ties all six of the following ratings changes together is that they all signify stronger chances for the Democratic candidates — following the trend for most of CQ Politics’ changes throughout this campaign year.
• Minnesota’s 6th District (New Rating: Leans Republican. Old Rating: Republican Favored)
Bachmann has a penchant for controversy, and her outspoken conservative views have made her a popular guest on cable TV news shows. But the storm she created just a couple of weeks before Election Day carries an unusual degree of political risk.
Speaking Friday on MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews,” Bachmann said of Obama, “I’m very concerned that he may have anti-American views. That’s what the American people are concerned about. That’s why they want to know what his answers are.”
Unwilling to leave it there, she later responded to a question by Matthews about whether there are un-American members of Congress by saying, “I wish the American media would take a great look at the views of the people in Congress and find out are they pro-America or anti-America. I think people would love to see an expose like that.”
Democrats see a major opportunity in a backlash to Bachmann’s remarks, particularly after Colin Powell, the former Army general who served as secretary of state under Bush, cited Bachmann’s comments as part of the reason he decided to endorse Obama over Republican John McCain for president. The five Democratic incumbents in Minnesota’s eight-member House delegation issued a statement that said Bachmann’s statements were “embarrassing.”
“For Michele Bachmann to go on national television and say that members of Congress should be investigated for ‘anti-American views’ calls into her judgment and her ability to work in a bipartisan way to put the interests of our country first in this time of crisis,” the statement said.
CQ Politics’ House Rating Changes Topped by Bachmann Blow-Up
On Tuesday, Tinklenberg’s campaign announced he had raised more than $1 million from donors across the country since Bachmann’s MSNBC appearance, and on Monday the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Monday announced it was pouring $1 million into the district for independent expenditure ads against Bachmann.
The race already has been expensive. Bachmann reported raising $2.4 million and had $1.4 million on hand through Sept. 30 while Tinklenberg raised $1 million and had $357,000 on hand on the same date.
The biggest obstacle for Democrats seeking to turn this race against Bachmann is the overall Republican lean of the 6th District, which runs from suburbs north and east of the Twin Cities to St. Cloud in the central part of the state. Larry Jacobs, director of the Center for the Study of Politics and Governance at the University of Minnesota, described the district’s conservative tilt as “hard-wired.”
Jacobs predicted the “anti-American” blast would cost Bachmann votes and would reduce her lead over Tinklenberg, but that voter demographics ultimately would decide the race in her favor. “The dice are loaded here,” he said of the district’s composition.
Voters in the 6th gave President Bush his strongest result among the state’s House districts in 2004, with 57 percent of the vote.
• Florida’s 8th District (New Rating: Leans Democrat. Previous Rating: No Clear Favorite)
In his past races, Keller had been able to count on a consistent, though diminishing, Republican voter registration advantage in his central Florida district, which includes part of Orlando. But there have been demographic changes to the district, including a growing number of Hispanic residents, and the GOP registration lead is no more. Closing figures for voter registration in Florida were released Sunday and indicate that Democrats officially hold a registration edge in the 8th, 39 to 37 percent.
That spells major trouble for the four-term Republican incumbent, according to political scientist Aubrey Jewett of the University of Central Florida.
After winning easily in his 2002 and 2004 contests, Keller had to campaign hard to achieve a 7-point victory in 2006 over a Democratic challenger, Charlie Stuart. And this year’s Democratic candidate, lawyer Alan Grayson, is much better-funded that was Stuart, having poured millions in personal funds into his campaign. A chunk of his money has gone into a battery of TV ads. “It’s certainly starting to look like Grayson might win this thing,” Jewett said.
Keller just narrowly won his Aug. 26 Republican primary over a conservative political newcomer, lawyer Todd Long, which was widely seen as a sign of increased vulnerability.
Democrats think this is one place where Obama’s coattails could help produce a House upset for the Democratic candidate. Obama visited Orlando this week and is believed to be contributing to the increased Democratic registration in the district.
• Florida’s 24th District (New Rating: Leans Democratic. Previous Rating: No Clear Favorite)
Democrat Suzanne Kosmas, a former state representative who once appeared a long-shot challenger to Republican Feeney, now appears to hold an edge in their race in Florida’s 24th District — a swath of the east-central part of the state which includes Orlando suburbs and part of the Space Coast.
CQ Politics’ House Rating Changes Topped by Bachmann Blow-Up
This might have seemed a highly unlikely scenario as recently as 2004, when Bush was taking 56 percent in the 24th — and Feeney, who helped design the district in his previous role as state House Speaker, was running unopposed for re-election.
But that was before the name of Jack Abramoff, the convicted Washington influence peddler, became part of the political conversation in the district. Feeney was one of several House members who took golfing trips to Scotland that they later learned were financed by Abramoff.
After long stating that he had done nothing unethical and paying reimbursement for the trip, Feeney was unable to tamp down criticisms by Kosmas and other Democrats. So he took the unusual step of apologizing to his constituents in a paid ad this summer, labeling the trip a “rookie mistake.” Yet the Orlando Sentinel’s editorial board noted the Abramoff flap in its recent endorsement of Kosmas.
“It was always almost on the front burner and it was easy to move it to the front burner,” Susan MacManus, political scientist at the University of South Florida, said of the Abramoff connection.
Republicans also now hold just a 3 percentage-point voter registration edge in the district. “I think it leans Democrat for the Feeney race,” MacManus said.
• Wyoming’s At-large District (New Rating: No Clear Favorite. Old Rating: Leans Republican)
Lummis, who has some statewide name ID from her past tenure as Wyoming treasurer, should have a clear shot to winning the state’s sole House seat as the Republican nominee. There are twice as many registered Republicans as Democrats in Wyoming. Yet the national political environment that has been working toward the Democrats’ benefit and against the Republicans is coming to bear even here.
Recent polling indicates Lummis is in a statistic tie with Democrat Trauner, who lost the 2006 contest to Cubin by just 1,012 votes. A poll released Friday by Research 2000 gave Trauner a 1-point lead over Lummis, 44 percent to 43 percent. The findings were consistent with a poll Survey 2000 released three weeks earlier that had Lummis and Trauner tied with 42 percent apiece.
And Trauner again is exhibiting his knack for fundraising. He reported $1.3 million in receipts and $596,000 on hand through Sept. 30, while Lummis, who weathered an expensive GOP primary, raised $957,000 and had a much smaller pool of $202,000 left on hand for the final weeks of the campaign.
• New York’s 25th District (New Rating: Democrat Favored. Old Rating: Leans Democratic)
The writing is on the wall for the race to succeed 10-term incumbent Walsh, and it’s not good news for his Republican Party. Democratic nominee Dan Maffei — who in 2006 ended Walsh’s long string of easy re-election wins by hold him to a margin of under 2 percentage points — essentially never stopped running, and has established an overwhelming fundraising lead over the Republican nominee, former Onondaga County Legislature Chairman Dale Sweetland.
Maffei reported raising $1.9 million and had $599,000 on hand through Sept. 30. That gave him a 4-to-1 cash advantage over Sweetland, who reported raising $334,000 and had $137,000 in hand by the end of the quarter.
Sweetland has a fair degree of name ID in Syracuse, the 25th District’s biggest city and the population anchor in its eastern end, from his days there as county council chairman. And the district, though generally trending Democratic, is hardly a slam dunk for the party, as presidential challenger John Kerry edged Bush there in 2004 by just 2 points.
CQ Politics’ House Rating Changes Topped by Bachmann Blow-Up
But Sweetland entered this race late as a second choice after the original candidate recruited by party officials dropped out in late March citing health concerns. Sweetland needed to post blockbuster fundraising totals in the third quarter of the year, which runs July through September, to have the resources necessary to launch a strong final campaign push for the seat, and he appears to have fallen short of that horizon.
The Democrats made the 25th District race an early and top priority for the election cycle, and the cash-strapped National Republican Congressional Committee can offer little help to Sweetland.
• Oregon’s 5th District (New Rating: Democrat Favored. Old Rating: Leans Democratic)
This is a good example of how the Republicans seem to be affected by Murphy’s Law, which states that anything that can go wrong will go wrong.
GOP strategists saw an opportunity when six-term Democratic Rep. Darlene Hooley unexpectedly decided to retire, leaving open a Willamette Valley district so closely divided between the parties that it went to Bush for president by 1 point in 2004. And the GOP had a ready candidate in businessman Mike Erickson, who lost to Hooley by 11 points in his 2006 debut as a House candidate but showed a willingness, welcomed by party pros, to reach deep into his own pockets to fund his campaign.
Although the Democrats produced a politically experienced contender in state Sen. Kurt Schrader, it appeared until midyear that Erickson might be able to go toe-to-toe with him. But Erickson drew a strong challenge for the May 20 primary from former state Rep. Kevin Mannix, who previously had run for governor, and Mannix floated an allegation that Erickson — who campaigned as an anti-abortion candidate — had once paid for a girlfriend to have an abortion. The charge got major play in the local press, and Erickson’s explanation that he had not intended to pay for an abortion did not impress many voters.
Although Erickson held on to win the primary, the controversy halted his momentum. A recent Survey USA poll showed Schrader with a strong 51 percent to 38 percent lead.
Erickson’s campaign treasury was seen as his ace in the hole, and he did report receipts of more than $2 million as of Sept. 30. But nearly $1.7 million of than, or more than three quarters of his total, was self-funded by Erickson. Schrader’s receipts of more than $1 million dollars included a much smaller infusion of $130,000 of his own money.
Worse for Erickson is that he had just $41,000 left at the end of September, while Schrader still had more than $230,000 on hand.
Comments
I tried to tell CQ months ago when they were saying the RNC money was the "ACE In the HOLE", that the Dem Canidates were very well funded already from the DNC, and that is why the DNC had no dough. I'd rather have no money and be ahead then have no money and be pitifully behind. Same way with MCCain CQ wrote all this stuff about how the RNC had such a great cash advantage and could help McCain. RUbbish, when I see so little insight from CQ it makes me sad.
I can tell you this. After hearing Bachmann's lunacy I dropped $25 into Tinklenberg's campaign, though I can ill afford it. If she calls me "unAmerican" again I'll give him $100!
I also donated to the Tinklenberg campaign after hearing the nonsense from Bachmann. Pro America from New Jersey!
And $100 from Oregon for Mr. Tinklenberg. Ms. Bachmann is exactly the type of person we don't need in Congress. You don't agree with my positions? Well then, you must be un-American. 8 years of this rubbish is enough.
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