CQ TODAY ONLINE NEWS
Oct. 8, 2008 – 12:01 a.m.
Dems Gain in Five of Six New CQ Politics Rating Changes
By Greg Giroux, CQ Staff
With less than four weeks remaining until Election Day, the incumbent party in several major races is facing intensifying competition. That fact is acknowledged in the latest six rating changes by CQ Politics, summarized below.
As has been the case throughout the 2008 election cycle, the Democrats are gaining ground in more races than are the Republicans. Of the six contests — five for U.S. House and one for governor — that are analyzed below, five of the changes reflect stronger chances for the Democratic Party, which is expected to increase its majorities in both the House and Senate in the Nov. 4 elections.
The ratings on three of the contests have been revised to “No Clear Favorite,” which is CQ Politics’ category for the most competitive — and most unpredictable — contests. Republicans Marilyn N. Musgrave of Colorado’s 4th District and Phil English of Pennsylvania’s 3rd District are now in toss-up races, as is the sole Democrat in this group of ratings changes, Rep. Paul E. Kanjorski of Pennsylvania’s 11th District.
CQ Politics also sees Democratic challengers in two districts — one in Florida and one in Indiana — waging increasingly competitive bids against Republican incumbents.
And, in the one statewide race on this roster, Democrats now have a clear edge in their quest to capture the open governor’s seat in Missouri.
The contests on which these ratings changes have been executed are listed below in alphabetical order by state.
New Rating: No Clear Favorite
Old Rating: Leans Republican
Musgrave is as likely to lose her bid for a fourth term as she is to prevail over Democratic nominee Betsy Markey, a businesswoman and former aide to Colorado Democratic Sen. Ken Salazar . Musgrave is trying to extend and Markey is trying to end a long Republican hold in a district that takes in vast parts of northern and eastern Colorado.
The ratings change is prompted by surveys that show a close race, and by Markey’s fundraising, which is better than that of 2006 Democratic nominee Angie Paccione at a similar point in the campaign cycle. Paccione took 43 percent of the vote in a three-way race and held Musgrave to 46 percent, the worst showing for a House winner in the 2006 election.
Democrats have long argued that Musgrave focuses too strongly on her socially conservative views. Musgrave, though, has since her 2006 campaign more vigorously touted her efforts on district-related issues such as water resources and transportation. The Denver Post, which editorially opposed Musgrave in her first three House campaigns, endorsed her 2008 re-election effort, saying on Friday that “Musgrave got the message” after nearly losing her seat and “has worked hard on the Agriculture and Small Business committees and fought to increase exports of Colorado beef and grain.”
Still, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the well-funded political arm of House Democrats, has begun making independent expenditures in hopes of boosting Markey’s chances in Colorado’s 4th. Defenders of Wildlife Action Fund on Sunday reported spending $665,000 on an independent television ad campaign in opposition to Musgrave.
Dems Gain in Five of Six New CQ Politics Rating Changes
The 2008 election year is shaping up as a good one for Colorado Democrats. While Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama is unlikely to win a district that backed President Bush with 58 percent of the vote in 2004, he is polling competitively enough against Republican rival John McCain statewide to suggest that he could limit his deficit in Colorado’s 4th to single digits.
New Rating: Leans Republican
Old Rating: Republican Favored
Democrat Joe Garcia’s campaign to oust three-term Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart continues to show signs of strength. Some recent polls show Diaz-Balart leading but receiving less than 50 percent in a matchup with Garcia. The most recent, released Monday by the Spanish-language television network Telemundo showed Diaz-Balart up by just 43 percent to 41 percent for Garcia.
The 25th District leans Republican, but not by an overwhelming margin: Bush received 56 percent of the vote there in 2004.
Garcia is a former Miami-Dade County Democratic Party chairman and former executive director of the Cuban American National Foundation. That latter credential is key to his ability to compete with Diaz-Balart, a fellow Cuban-American. South Florida’s large Cuban-American constituency has long leaned Republican because of that party’s history of strong opposition to the communist Castro regime in Cuba. Democrats contend they are making inroads among these voters.
But Garcia is reaching beyond this core constituency to other demographic groups in the 25th District. He notes that Democratic registration in the district continues to grow, including among African-Americans — whom Garcia suggests may show up in higher numbers this fall to support Obama’s bid to become the nation’s first black president.
Garcia, who has demonstrated over this election cycle that he can raise funds, was included in the DCCC’s program that provides added assistance for priority challenger candidates. The program is known as “Red to Blue,” a reference to the political maps that color districts and states as “Republican Red” or “Democratic Blue.”
New Rating: Republican Favored
Old Rating: Safe Republican
Republican Rep. Mark Souder still is strongly favored to win a eighth term next month in a Fort Wayne-based district that is strongly Republican-leaning. But CQ Politics is keeping an eye on Democratic lawyer Michael Montagano, who is hoping to unseat Souder.
Dems Gain in Five of Six New CQ Politics Rating Changes
Democratic strategists were encouraged to again test the waters in Indiana 3 after Souder took an underwhelming 54 percent of the vote in 2006 against Fort Wayne councilman Thomas Hayhurst. That was down from the 69 percent Souder had racked up in 2004, as Bush took 68 percent in the district.
Souder has never relished campaign fundraising, and Montagano actually had more money in his campaign account than Souder at the end of June. Updated figures, through Sept. 30, are due to be filed with the Federal Election Commission by Oct. 15.
The DCCC last week included Montagano as one of its latest inductees to the “Red to Blue” program for competitive Democratic challengers. That’s also a signal to political action committees that House Democrats see Indiana 3 as a winnable race and a worthwhile investment.
New Rating: Leans Democratic
Old Rating: No Clear Favorite
Polls show Democratic state Attorney General Jay Nixon has moved out to a lead over Republican Rep. Kenny Hulshof , who presently represents the northeastern 9th District, in the contest to succeed retiring one-term Republican Gov. Matt Blunt .
Nixon’s edge is partially attributable to his own political strengths. Nixon is wrapping up a four-term tenure as attorney general, an office to which he was first elected in 1992, and he ran two vigorous though unsuccessful challenges to incumbent Republican senators John Danforth in 1988 and Christopher S. Bond in 1998. He has higher name recognition than Hulshof, who represents one-ninth of the state in Congress.
Nixon is also benefitting from some Republican weaknesses. Blunt — who is the son of Missouri Rep. Roy Blunt , the House minority whip — was viewed as a rising star when he won the 2004 race for governor just before his 34th birthday. But Blunt had mediocre approval ratings during his term, and he decided not to run for re-election.
And Hulshof, while held in high regard by most of his House constituency in northeastern Missouri, is hindered somewhat in that he’s a member of the congressional Republican Party that is held in low esteem by most of the voting public.
New Rating: No Clear Favorite
Old Rating: Leans Republican
Dems Gain in Five of Six New CQ Politics Rating Changes
Seven-term Republican Rep. Phil English hasn’t been vigorously challenged for more than a decade in northwestern Pennsylvania, in part because he combined a mostly conservative voting record — all right with the voters who gave 53 percent to Bush in 2004 — with somewhat stronger sympathies to organized labor than those held by most House Republicans. But he’s facing a determined Democratic opponent in Kathy Dahlkemper, who touts her business experience running an arboretum.
A SurveyUSA poll taken in late September for the Capitol Hill newspaper Roll Call had Dahlkemper ahead by 49 percent to 45 percent, essentially a statistical dead heat. But CQ Politics’ decision to change the rating is influenced more by the decision of the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC), the political arm of House Republicans, to air an advertisement in Pennsylvania’s 3rd — three weeks after the NRCC paid for a poll in Pennsylvania’s 3rd that surely showed a very close race.
The NRCC ad says Dahlkemper has “wacky ideas” on energy. The DCCC also has been active in the district, airing a TV ad that criticizes English on Social Security.
New Rating: No Clear Favorite
Old Rating: Leans Democratic
Moving this Democratic-held district to No Clear Favorite from Leans Democratic is an exception to the general trend that House races are moving in the Democrats’ direction. Independent surveys show a competitive race between Kanjorski and Republican Lou Barletta, the mayor of the northeastern Pennsylvania city of Hazleton.
This is a rematch of a 2002 race that Kanjorski won by 14 percentage points, in a district that includes Scranton and Wilkes-Barre. But Barletta is more prominent now, largely because his vigorous activism against illegal immigration has given him fairly high name recognition for a non-incumbent and appears to be peeling away some of the Democratic support long enjoyed by Kanjorski, who was first elected in 1984.
One independent survey released Sept. 17 showed Barletta leading Kanjorski, 44 percent to 35 percent, and McCain running even with Obama in a district that is ancestrally Democratic but culturally conservative. Later that day, the DCCC responded with a Democratic poll that said Kanjorski was ahead, 48 percent to 39 percent. The DCCC said that the poll showed that Kanjorski had a “strong lead,” though it didn’t release the results of any poll questions beyond two that cast Kanjorski in a better light than Barletta.
Kanjorski has a huge campaign treasury, but the DCCC’s continued heavy spending in Pennsylvania’s 11th — it reported putting more than half a million dollars into independent expenditures through Oct. 6 — is a clear indication that Democratic officials really think Kanjorski is in trouble.
Comments
CQ, you should try not to succumb to group though. Missouri is a competitive political state, and so Blunt has many supporter and detractors, but the right track/wrong track in the state is actually very positive (which is something that can't be said for the rest of the nation). He also had about a +10 fav/unfav in mid '07, and while Nixon had good ratings, too, he wasn't as well known as Blunt. It would have been a close fight.
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