CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
Oct. 28, 2008 – 5:12 a.m.
CQ Politics’ Balance of Power Scorecards: New Rating Changes Stretch Dems’ Advantage
By Greg Giroux, Rachel Kapochunas, Marie Horrigan, Annie Johnson and Michael Teitelbaum, CQ Staff
Read the transcript of an online discussion of CQ Politics’ race ratings with Bob Benenson.
With the nation’s political atmosphere producing mostly dark clouds for the Republican Party and the strong organizational advantages built by the national Democratic Party fully on display, the trend in this year’s partisan battles for congressional control continues to flow strongly in the Democrats’ favor.
With just a week to go before Election Day, CQ Politics’ 13 latest changes to its competitiveness ratings of U.S. House races, 12 show stronger — though in most cases, far from certain — chances for the Democratic candidate.
It appears to have reached the point at which a favored Democratic candidate has to commit a major gaffe to fall into any significant risk. That is the case for veteran western Pennsylvania Rep. John P. Murtha , who recently described his home region as “racist” while explaining the challenge faced Democratic presidential Barack Obama in appealing to its large constituency of working-class whites.
Although Murtha later apologized for the remark, it energized Republican Party efforts to boost William Russell, the surprisingly well-funded GOP challenger in the state’s 12th District. Although Murtha, who is seeking an 18th full term, was re-elected with 61 percent of the vote in 2006 and ran unopposed as recently as 2004, CQ Politics changed its rating on the race to Democrat Favored from Safe Democratic.
But the damage that Murtha inflicted on himself was offset over the past week by Minnesota Republican Michele Bachmann ’s plunge from relatively political security to high vulnerability, after she suggested in a national television interview that Obama might hold “anti-American views” and that the media should do an investigation to determine if there are members of Congress who are anti-American.
Bachmann’s race against Democrat Elwyn Tinklenberg in Minnesota’s 6th District has slipped from Republican Favored before the flap to its current rating of No Clear Favorite, with a brief layover at Leans Republican last week.
No House member has had as bad a week as Alaska Republican Sen. Ted Stevens , who was convicted on Monday in federal court in Washington, D.C., on felony charges of failing to report substantial gifts he received from business interests in his home state.
Although this turn evidently places Stevens at even greater risk of losing his seat to Anchorage Mayor Mark Begich, his Democratic challenger in next Tuesday’s Senate election, it does not change CQ Politics’ Senate Balance of Power scorecard — since the race already was rated as Leans Democratic.
The scorecard continues to show Democrats favored to win five Senate seats currently held by Republicans, with four others rated No Clear Favorite and three in the Leans Republican category, which means those races are still competitive. With only one of their own seats in serious play, in the Louisiana race rated Leans Democratic, the potential for Democratic gains ranges from big to huge.
With the moves of two more Republican-held House seats from No Clear Favorite to Leans Democratic, the outlook for serious Democratic gains in that chamber is solidifying. There now are 10 contests for GOP seats that favor Democratic takeovers, while Republicans can say that about only 1 Democratic seat. As a result, CQ Politics’ House Balance of Power scorecard now shows Democrats as favored to 239 seats, three more than they currently hold, while Republicans are favored to win 169 seats, or 30 fewer than they currently hold.
Still, the Democrats’ hopes of staging a major double-digit gain in the House continue to depend on the party winning most of the 27 contests that CQ Politics currently rates as No Clear Favorite tossups — 21 of which are for Republican seats. The CQ Politics team will focus closely on those races over the next week to determine which have moved to favoring one or the other party just before Election Day.
The following is a roundup of the latest 13 rating changes:
CQ Politics’ Balance of Power Scorecards: New Rating Changes Stretch Dems’ Advantage
Alabama’s 2nd District (New Rating: No Clear Favorite. Old Rating: Leans Republican)
When Democratic officials recruited Bobby Bright to run for the seat left open by eight-term Republican Rep. Terry Everett in this strongly Republican-leaning district, they did so specifically because the country boy turned Montgomery mayor was far from the stereotype of a liberal Democrat. So it was not surprising when the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), which has run an expensive independent expenditure campaign backing Bright, produced a TV ad with a photo of him in hunting camouflage with a gun slung over his shoulder.
The political history of the southeastern Alabama district still suggests an inherent Republican advantage, and the GOP had a strong and very well-funded candidate in state Rep. Jay Love. But Bright has burnished his efforts to build a profile as a conservative Democrat by obtaining the endorsements of the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of conservative-leaning House Democrats; the Business-Industry Political Action Committee, which mostly endorses Republican candidates; and perhaps the biggest surprise, state Sen. Harri Anne Smith, a staunch conservative who lost narrowly to Love in the July Republican primary runoff.
Republicans, though, assert they will win by persuading voters that Bright would go to Washington and be a foot soldier for the liberal House Democratic leadership. After using a football analogy arcane to all but fans of the district’s Auburn University and arch-rival University of Alabama, Love campaign spokesman Todd Stacy said, “He’s on the wrong team, so he’s trying to convince people that teams don’t matter. Well, teams do matter.”
California’s 4th District (New Rating: No Clear Favorite. Previous Rating: Leans Republican)
Tom McClintock, a strongly conservative Republican state senator, no longer holds a clear lead in the race to succeed embattled GOP Rep. John T. Doolittle as the campaign heads into its final days. Democratic nominee Charlie Brown, a former Air Force lieutenant colonel, continues to gain local and national support despite the northeastern California district’s usual conservative lean. A string of regional newspapers, including The Sacramento Bee, have endorsed Brown’s campaign, describing him as holding moderate and independent views, And even Republican strategists continue to mark this race as one of the most competitive in the nation.
The anti-tax group Club for Growth has put money into the race on McClintock’s behalf, as have several additional conservative groups. McClintock retains high name recognition as the conservative candidate who ran in the 2003 California gubernatorial recall election won by more moderate Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger . The district has traditionally been conservative territory where President Bush received 61 percent of the vote in 2004. And Brown caught some serious flak this summer over his attendance at a 2005 rally against the Iraq war that spurred an angry dispute about whether a protestor had hung a representation of a U.S. soldier in effigy (an event that Brown said he was at only as an observer).
But the Republican brand in the district appears to be enduring residual damage from Doolittle’s past ties to influence peddler Jack Abramoff, which forced the once-popular incumbent into a close 2006 race in which he defeated Brown by just 3 points. McClintock himself as had to fend off “carpetbagger” charges, as he is running for the House far from his longtime base in Southern California.
Colorado’s 4th District (New Rating: Leans Democratic. Old Rating: No Clear Favorite)
Republican Rep. Marilyn Musgrave is struggling to secure a fourth term against Democrat Betsy Markey. a former Senate aide to Colorado Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar . The political environment is favorable for Democrats in Colorado, where Barack Obama is now favored to defeat John McCain in the presidential balloting and where Democratic Rep. Mark Udall is highly likely to win an open, currently Republican Senate seat.
Colorado’s 4th, which includes Fort Collins and Greeley in the north as well as the state’s vast eastern plains, is more conservative-leaning than the state at large. But Obama appears likely to poll more competitively in the 4th District than previous Democratic presidential candidates. And Markey is better-funded than 2006 Democratic nominee Angie Paccione, who lost to Musgrave by 2.5 percentage points in 2006.
Musgrave was best known following her 2003 arrival in Congress as a conservative activist on social issues in general and as a staunch opponent of same-sex marriage. She has more recently shifted her focus more strongly to more esoteric district-related issues such as water supply and transportation.
Florida’s 18th District (New Rating: Republican Favored. Old Rating: Safe Republican)
CQ Politics’ Balance of Power Scorecards: New Rating Changes Stretch Dems’ Advantage
Republican Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen has been in Congress for more than 19 years and remains strongly favored to win a re-election in the Miami area district that would boost her seniority over the two-decade mark. But after a long series of lackluster Democratic challengers, Ros-Lehtinen this year has drawn a more persistent long-shot opponent in businesswoman Annette Taddeo. Her upstart campaign has drawn expression of support from Democratic leaders such as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, Majority Leader Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland and Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz , all of whom have appeared in the district on Taddeo’s behalf, and New York Hillary Rodham Clinton , who endorsed the political newcomer.
The latest boost for Taddeo came when the DCCC added her to its “Red to Blue” program to assist Democratic House candidates who are making strong challenges to take over Republican seats.
But Taddeo faces big obstacles in the deep well of support for Ros-Lehtinen, particularly among the district’s substantial constituency of her fellow Cuban-Americans, and a generic Republican edge in a district that gave Bush 54 percent of its votes in 2004. The Republican incumbent also held a huge fundraising edge going into the campaign’s final three weeks.
Illinois’ 10th District (New Rating: No Clear Favorite. Previous Rating: Leans Republican)
The re-rating of this race isn’t due to any slipup by four-term moderate Republican Rep. Mark Steven Kirk , who hasn’t made any missteps in the rematch of the 2006 race in which he defeated Democrat Dan Seals by 7 percentage points. Kirk is exceptionally well-funded, with $4.8 million raised through Oct. 15, and he’s touting a voting record that is among the most independent-minded among House Republicans. History also shows that many rematch challengers do worse on their second try.
But there is plenty of evidence to suggest that Seals is running closer to Kirk than he did two years ago in a slightly Democratic-leaning swing district that includes some affluent suburbs north of Chicago. Seals began his second campaign not long after he lost his first, which helps explain why he’s raised more than $3 million, one of the highest totals in the nation for a challenging candidate. The DCCC, which gave Seals’ 2006 campaign very limited assistance, has spent more than $1 million on this year’s race. And if there is a coattails effect anywhere from Obama’s presidential bid, it should be in this district in the Illinois senator’s home state — which even in 2004 favored Democrat John Kerry for president over Bush by 5 percentage points.
Indiana’s 9th District (New Rating: Democrat Favored. Previous Rating: Leans Democratic)
This southeast Indiana district features the fourth consecutive race between Democratic Rep. Baron P. Hill and Republican Mike Sodrel. Hill has won twice, 2002 as the incumbent and 2006 as the challenger after Sodrel narrowly won the seat in 2004. So yet another cliffhanger race seems a plausible outcome.
But this latest showdown doesn’t appear to be as close as any of their previous encounters. Independent polls give Hill a double-digit lead. This is quite a change from the presidential year election four years ago, when Sodrel was able to unseat Hill in part because Bush had long coattails and Sodrel was able to paint Hill as too culturally liberal for the district. With economic issues dominating voter concerns in this election and Republican McCain struggling to carry the longtime Republican stronghold of Indiana in the presidential contest, Hill appears to be on much firmer political ground.
Louisiana’s 4th District (New Rating: No Clear Favorite. Previous Rating: Leans Republican)
This northwestern Louisiana district in and around Shreveport has a conservative lean, and Republican Rep. Jim McCrery , who is retiring this year, has regularly won re-election with ease. But the candidate field hasn’t yet been set: primary elections on Oct. 4 didn’t produce outright winners, so runoff elections on Nov. 4 — the national Election Day — will determine the nominees in a general election, which will be held out of sync on Dec. 6. With so much uncertain, CQ Politics deemed a tossup rating more appropriate for this race.
The favorite for the Democratic nomination is Paul Carmouche, who took 48 percent of the first-round vote and is expected to defeat opponent Willie Banks, a bankruptcy trustee. The Republican primary matches John Fleming, a physician, and Chris Gorman, a transportation company executive.
CQ Politics also is changing the rating of this race because Obama now is favored to win the presidential election and the Democrats are practically assured of significantly adding to their majorities in the House and the Senate.
CQ Politics’ Balance of Power Scorecards: New Rating Changes Stretch Dems’ Advantage
Here’s how that is tied to the Louisiana 4 election: A Democratic victory would embolden the Democratic base and dispirit the Republican electorate in the district. This is not unlike the circumstances two years ago that allowed Texas Democrat Ciro D. Rodriguez to upset Republican Rep. Henry Bonilla in a runoff election one month after the Democrats made big gains to clinch a House majority. The DCCC will be better positioned financially to help its nominee than its partisan counterpart, the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC).
Maryland’s 1st District (New Rating: No Clear Favorite. Old Rating: Leans Republican)
Democrat Frank M. Kratovil Jr., a county prosecutor, looked to be a distinct underdog when he launched his bid for the eastern Maryland House seat that had been held for nine terms by Republican moderate Wayne T. Gilchrest . But Democratic officials sensed opportunities in the rift within Republican ranks caused by Gilchrest’s Feb. 12 primary defeat at the hands of conservative state Sen. Andy Harris — which deepened in early September when Gilchrest, embittered by the hammering he took from the conservative group Club for Growth that backed Harris’ primary challenge, endorsed Kratovil to succeed him.
The $1.3 million the DCCC has poured into the district in the form of independent expenditures have boosted Kratovil’s chances, and a series of major newspaper endorsements have helped him raise his profile. Kratovil himself took in a striking total of $1.5 million through Oct. 15. This was well short of the $2.7 million that Harris raised, but the Republican nominee spent a big chunk of that money on his primary campaign against Gilchrest.
It will, nonetheless, take a strong closing push for Kratovil to pull off an upset in a district that just four years ago gave 62 percent of its presidential vote to Bush. Harris also has received outside assistance, most of it in the roughly $440,000 in independent spending from the Club for Growth and its PAC.
• Minnesota’s 6th District (New Rating: No Clear Favorite. Old Rating: Leans Republican)
Freshman Republican Bachmann’s well-publicized comments raising questions about Obama’s devotion to the nation have continued to drag down her campaign, even though her district — which stretches from suburbs of the Twin Cities to St. Cloud — has a distinct conservative lean that should benefit her. Two separate polls indicated that once heavily favored Bachmann is in a statistical dead heat with Democrat Tinklenberg, a former state transportation secretary.
A survey released Monday by Minnesota Public Radio and the Humphrey Institute indicated that Bachmann trailed Tinklenberg by 2 percentage points, 45 percent to 43 percent, even as Republican Sen. Norm Coleman held a decisive 14 percentage-point lead among district voters in his race to hold off Democrat Al Franken that is a statewide tossup. A separate poll released Friday by SurveyUSA indicated that Tinklenberg led Bachmann 47 percent to 44 percent.
The NRCC, which appeared poised to pour substantial resources into independent expenditures in the district, last week pulled out of the race, leaving Bachmann on her own — even as Tinklenberg announced a flood of new donations from Democrats outraged by Bachmann’s comments. Her political survival now depends strongly on whether she maintains the loyalty and can turn out voters among a Republican base that boosted Bush to 57 percent of the district’s vote in 2004, the president’s best district showing in a state he narrowly lost to Kerry.
Ohio’s 16th District (New Rating: Leans Democratic. Previous Rating: No Clear Favorite)
Republican Rep. Ralph Regula is retiring after representing the Canton area in the House for 36 years, and CQ Politics kept a tossup rating on the race to succeed him ever since it was clear that a pair of rather evenly matched state senators — Republican Kirk Schuring and Democrat John Boccieri — were the likely nominees. Schuring has political strengths that include a long legislative service record and higher name familiarity among voters.
But CQ Politics is re-rating this race as giving Boccieri a slight edge. This is because of the Democratic trend nationwide and in Ohio, and also because of a heavy investment in the district by the DCCC on Boccieri’s behalf. The DCCC put more than $1.6 million into independent expenditures in Ohio 16 though Sunday — or half a million dollars more than Schuring had raised for his own campaign through Oct. 15. So it’s as if Schuring is running against two opponents instead of one.
Pennsylvania’s 4th District (New Rating: Democrat Favored. Previous Rating: Leans Democratic)
CQ Politics’ Balance of Power Scorecards: New Rating Changes Stretch Dems’ Advantage
Democratic Rep. Jason Altmire entered this campaign facing a potentially threatening rematch of his 2006 victory over Republican Melissa Hart, who is seeking to reclaim a district near Pittsburgh that she held for three terms. But Altmire appears to have put some distance between himself and Hart. The national and state political environment for Democrats appears to be as favorable as it was two years ago, when Altmire ousted Hart by a 4 percentage-point margin, and Altmire is running this time with the benefits of incumbency.
Pennsylvania’s 12th District (New Rating: Democrat Favored. Previous Rating: Safe Democratic)
When a incumbent who has been in the House for more than 34 years finds himself being lampooned in a skit on NBC’s Saturday Night Live — as was the case for Murtha last weekend — you know he has at least hit a bump in what appeared a smooth road to another term.
Murtha, a senior member of the Appropriations Committee, is a titanic political figure in southwestern Pennsylvania, and also is well-known in national Democratic and Republican circles for his denunciations of the Bush administration’s handling of the Iraq war. But the 76-year-old incumbent has been in hot water after telling the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette earlier this month that “there is no question that western Pennsylvania is a racist area.”
Murtha’s Republican opponent is William Russell, a retired Army lieutenant colonel who’s raised $2.8 million through Oct. 15, much of it from small donors who have responded to Russell’s expensive direct-mail campaign. Murtha held only a tiny lead in an independent survey released last week that Murtha’s campaign said was not credible.
Yet Murtha’s campaign doesn’t appear to be taking the challenge lightly, as it is publicizing endorsements from the Post-Gazette and also pointed out that Russell didn’t graduate from West Point, as had been incorrectly claimed in a communication by a Republican-leaning PAC that is backing Russell. CQ Politics still considers Murtha a heavy favorite to win, though he will probably take less than the 61 percent he received in 2006 against Republican county commissioner Diana Irey.
Virginia’s 11th District (New Rating: Democrat Favored. Old Rating: Leans Democratic)
It is a very unfavorable time to be a Republican in northern Virginia, as Republican businessman Keith Fimian is finding out in his difficult campaign against Democratic nominee Gerry Connolly, a county supervisor who is well-known locally. Virginia’s 11th, which is dominated by populous Fairfax County, was trending Democratic even before Obama moved out to a lead over McCain in Virginia in his effort to become the first Democrat to carry the state for president since incumbent Lyndon B. Johnson did so over another Arizona senator, Barry Goldwater, 44 years ago to lose Virginia.
Virginia’s 11th normally is a few points less Republican-leaning than is the state at large, so Fimian would need to win an enormous amount of crossover support from Obama voters to pull off what would now appear to be a huge upset.
Comments
With the mounting bad news for their campaign, McCain/Palin will have no choice but to go increasingly negative in their attacks. Anybody else see this leaked 527 spot? http://digg.com/2008_us_elections/Leaked_Pro_McCain_527_Negative_Ad_Small_Town_Fear_Itself/
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