KS 3 Moved to Toss-Up

Kansas Cong. Dennis Moore's surprise announcement that he would not seek reelection next year creates an instant headache for the Democrats. Barack Obama won the 3rd District 51%-48% in 2008, but Republicans are going to be running very strong at the top of the ticket next year (in races for governor and the U.S. Senate) and Democrats will have difficulty holding onto a seat that Moore made to look safer than it really is. The candidate fields are far from settled, but for now, the seat vaults from Currently Safe to Toss-Up.

Here are our latest House ratings.
#- Moved benefiting Democrats
* - Moved benefiting Republicans

Pure Toss-Up (2 R, 14 D)

• AL 2 (Bright, D)
  
• FL 8 (Grayson, D)
  
• ID 1 (Minnick, D)
• IL 10 (Open; Kirk, R)
• KS 3 (Open; Moore, D) *
  
• MD 1 (Kratovil, D)
• MS 1 (Childers, D)
• NH 1 (Shea-Porter, D)
• NH 2 (Open; Hodes, D)
• NM 2 (Teague, D)
• NY 23 (Owens, D)
  
• OH 1 (Driehaus, D)
• OH 15 (Kilroy, D)
• PA 6 (Open; Gerlach, R)
  
• PA 7 (Open; Sestak, D)
• VA 5 (Periello, D)
  

Toss-Up/Tilt Republican (1 R, 1 D)

• LA 3 (Open; Melancon, D)
• WA 8 (Reichert, R)
  

Toss-Up/Tilt Democratic (0 R, 4 D)

• CO 4 (Markey, D)
• FL 24 (Kosmas, D)
• IL 14 (Foster, D)
• MI 7 (Schauer, D)

Lean Republican (2 R, 0 D)

• CA 3 (Lungren, R)
• CA 44 (Calvert, R)
  

Lean Democratic (0 R, 3 D)

• AL 5 (Griffith, D)
  
• NY 24 (Arcuri, D)
  
• NY 29 (Massa, D)
  

Republican Favored (9 R, 0 D)

• AK A-L (Young, R)
• CA 45 (Bono Mack, R)
• MI 11 (McCotter, R)
• MN 3 (Paulsen, R)
• MN 6 (Bachmann, R)
• NE 2 (Terry, R)
  
• OH 2 (Schmidt, R)
• OH 12 (Tiberi, R)
  
• PA 15 (Dent, R)
  

Democrat Favored (2 R, 11 D)

• AZ 5 (Mitchell, D)
• CA 47 (Sanchez, D)
  
• DE A-L (Open; Castle, R)
• GA 8 (Marshall, D)
  
• LA 2 (Cao, R)
  
• MO 4 (Skelton, D)
  
• NY 19 (Hall, D)
• NY 20 (Murphy, D)
• NC 8 (Kissell, D)
  
• OH 18 (Space, D)
• PA 10 (Carney, D)
  
• TX 17 (Edwards, D)
• VA 2 (Nye, D)

Total seats in play: 49
Republican seats: 16
Democratic seats: 33

Sarah Palin? Frankly, My Dear, I Don’t Give a Damn

By Stuart Rothenberg

If you are planning on reading a column about former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin’s presidential prospects, you will be deeply disappointed.

I don’t know whether Palin will run for president in 2012, and right now I don’t really care. Most in the media do care, of course, which is why they can’t seem to stop buzzing about her book, her book tour and her political intentions. You’d think the Iowa caucuses were right around the corner.

Even “real” news programs, such as CNN’s “State of the Union,” hosted by John King, spent too much time for my taste on Palin last weekend, both during the program’s political roundtable, during an interview with former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R) and then during an unnecessarily long piece about her book.

Most — maybe all — of the current media coverage of the race for the Republican presidential nomination in 2012 will be irrelevant for anyone who wants to know whom the GOP will nominate to take on President Barack Obama three years from now. There will be so many other developments over the next two years that will color that race that Palin’s book will be barely an asterisk.

Of course, if you are simply looking for entertainment rather than trying to understand how the next GOP presidential field will develop, then it’s certainly reasonable to pay attention to anything Palin, as well as to every speech by Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney or former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

There are many in the media who will wax poetic about Palin and the 2012 race, so you won’t have trouble finding people who want to talk about the contest, even though there is no race now and there won’t be one for many, many months.

Ultimately, you have a simple choice: Do you get more enjoyment out of watching “The Biggest Loser,” “CSI” or “The Office,” or would you rather watch politics? If your answer is politics, then following all of the speculation about Palin and other potential candidates is the right thing for you to do.

And if you hate politics, you can watch Palin the way you watch any other pseudo-celebrity — on “Oprah” or “Entertainment Tonight.”

But don’t think for even a moment that any chatter now about the 2008 Republican nominee for vice president has any bearing on the 2012 GOP contest.

True, who will be in the race and who is raising big money for “next time” matters, but you don’t need to follow the Palin book tour or opinions about Pawlenty’s last speech to do that.

Even with their victories in the Virginia and New Jersey gubernatorial races, the Republicans are pretty much irrelevant now. That’s not terrible for them, and it’s not unusual for the “out” party to be irrelevant.

All of the nation’s focus right now is on Obama, and almost every day there is some news item that seems to put the White House or the Democratic Party in an unflattering light.

Whether it’s unemployment, the deficit, health care, Afghanistan, the president bowing to the emperor of Japan or the ill-advised comments from a single Florida House Democrat, Democrats seem to have more problems than they need.

Democratic activist Al Sharpton commented over the weekend how happy he was that Palin is getting so much attention. The more attention, she gets, said the Rev. Sharpton, a man who is no stranger to media attention or to self-induced controversy, the better for the Democrats.

That may be true today, but not 10 months from now, when the midterm elections are likely to be about Obama no matter what wacky things Palin does now.

Yes, both the national media and Democrats are likely to keep Palin in the spotlight as long as possible.

For the media, the former governor of Alaska is a celebrity with an “interesting” family, while for Democrats, she is an easy target — a political lightweight of uncertain substance, who drives “tea party” conservatives into a euphoric frenzy but divides the GOP into two very different camps.

Palin may or may not be particularly relevant in early 2012, as the first states begin to select delegates to the next Republican National Convention. Right now, I’d guess she won’t. But that’s still two years away, so I’m not going to spend much more than a few seconds thinking about it.

Instead, I’m going to watch the last episode of “The Office,” which I missed.


This column first appeared in Roll Call on November 19, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

PA Senate Moved to Toss-Up

Democrats are headed for a primary war between Sen. Arlen Specter (D) and Cong. Joe Sestak (D) while former Cong. Pat Toomey (R) awaits the winner. Earlier in the year, many people weren't giving Toomey a shot at winning statewide, but he could benefit from the Democratic primary and a potentially favorable political environment and is now running even in general election polls. We're moving the Pennsylvania Senate race from Narrow Advantage for the Incumbent Party to Toss-Up.

Here are our latest Senate ratings.
#- Moved benefiting Democrats
*- Moved benefiting Republicans

Lean Takeover (0 R, 1 D)

• DE Open (Kaufman, D)

Toss-Up (4 R, 4 D)

• KY Open (Bunning, R)
  
• MO Open (Bond, R)
• NH Open (Gregg, R)
• OH Open (Voinovich, R)
• IL Open (Burris, D)
• Dodd (D-CT)
• Reid (D-NV)
• Specter (D-PA) *
  

Narrow Advantage for Incumbent Party (2 R, 2 D)

• Burr (R-NC)
• Vitter (R-LA)
• Bennet (D-CO)
• Lincoln (D-AR)
  

Clear Advantage for Incumbent Party (2 R, 0 D)

• Grassley (R-IA)
• FL Open (LeMieux, R)

Currently Safe (10 R, 12 D)

• Bennett (R-UT)
• Coburn (R-OK)
• Crapo (R-ID)
• DeMint (R-SC)
• Isakson (R-GA)
• McCain (R-AZ)
• Murkowski (R-AK)
• Shelby (R-AL)
• Thune (R-SD)
• KS Open (Brownback, R)
• Bayh (D-IN)
• Boxer (D-CA)
• Dorgan (D-ND)
• Feingold (D-WI)
• Gillibrand (D-NY)
• Inouye (D-HI)
• Leahy (D-VT)
• Mikulski (D-MD)
• Murray (D-WA)
• Schumer (D-NY)
• Wyden (D-OR)
• MA Open (Kirk, D)

2009 Election Results Show How the Context Has Changed

By Stuart Rothenberg

The discussion about whether the election results earlier this month reflected local factors or constituted a referendum on President Barack Obama creates a false choice.

Candidate quality, fundraising and local issues are always significant factors in gubernatorial races. But the national political and economic environment creates the context within which those state races are fought, and the context creates a perspective that voters use to make their choices.

It is as simple as this: If George W. Bush was still in the White House, Democrats would have won the New Jersey and Virginia gubernatorial races. In that sense, Republicans won both races because Barack Obama is president.

But local concerns undoubtedly were paramount in New Jersey, where an unpopular governor was seeking another term from voters who disapproved of his performance in office.

The state’s budgetary problems were Gov. Jon Corzine’s (D) undoing, and as Monmouth University Polling Institute Director Patrick Murray argued so persuasively in a post-election memo, his toll plan from last year drove turnout and produced huge majorities for Republican Chris Christie in two GOP-leaning counties, Monmouth and Ocean.

Virginia was less of a referendum because the sitting governor couldn’t seek re-election. That allowed other factors, including the context, to be more important. Bob McDonnell (R) outspent Creigh Deeds (D) on TV, and Deeds handed Republicans an issue when he botched an answer about his position on taxes.

The argument that each gubernatorial contest was simply a referendum on the president’s performance simply doesn’t hold water.

Obama’s job approval stood at 57 percent in New Jersey, so if the election in that state had been primarily about Obama, Corzine would have won. And in Virginia, one in five voters who approved of the job the president was doing voted for McDonnell.

Moreover, the victory of Democrat Bill Owens in New York’s 23rd district is further evidence that voters weren’t merely sending an anti-Obama message on Election Day. If that’s all Nov. 3 was about, Owens couldn’t have pulled out a narrow victory.

On the other hand, Owens’ victory doesn’t prove that Obama wasn’t a drag in New York, only that other factors in what was a weird race anyway trumped the national context.

The gubernatorial results should remind us that context matters and that over the past six months, the political context has changed dramatically.

In February, Democrats held on to an upstate New York Congressional seat because now-Rep. Scott Murphy (D) ran as the candidate of change and of action on the economy, while Republican Jim Tedisco ran as an opponent to the new president’s stimulus package. Did voters really want to go back to Bush, or did they want to give Obama a chance?

Now, Obama owns the economy — the rising unemployment, in particular. The deficit is growing. His health care agenda — or at least Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s (D-Calif.) health care bill — has generated emotional opposition in many quarters.

Unlike 2006 and 2008, Republicans running in 2009 didn’t have to spend all of their time during this year’s elections on the defensive because of Bush. He is finally yesterday’s news (though I expect Democrats will try to bring him back for the midterm elections).

In Virginia, McDonnell could talk about his own agenda without having to explain where he agreed or disagreed with Bush. And McDonnell interjected Democratic Congressional initiatives, particularly cap-and-trade, into his gubernatorial race every chance that he could. He tried to make Deeds embrace the national Democratic Party’s agenda or distance himself from it, knowing that either way, Deeds would lose support from liberals or swing voters.

In New Jersey, while Corzine tried to inject Bush into the race, voters clearly thought the race was about the governor. Democratic turnout was down across the board. Had Bush still been in the White House, Democratic turnout would have been higher and independents would not have gone nearly so heavily for Christie. And Corzine would have been able to make Bush a major issue.

Again, that doesn’t mean the New Jersey race was “about Obama.” But it does mean that the Obama presidency hung as a cloud over Corzine’s candidacy.

This has considerable meaning for the 2010 midterms. Now it will be the GOP who can push the “culture of corruption” argument that Democrats used so successfully in the recent past. Now Republicans will complain about high unemployment numbers, about causalities in Afghanistan and the administration’s foreign policy and about the government’s inability to get H1N1 flu shots to the American public.

Moreover, as we are already seeing with health care reform, the internal contradictions of the Democratic Party are becoming apparent. For the past year, the national media have been focused on internal Republican divisions. But now, a fracturing in the Democratic ranks is likely to give plenty of fodder for journalists, columnists and talking heads. This is likely to further erode Democratic poll numbers.

There is nothing unnatural about this, of course. It’s the inevitable result of a party gaining more than 50 seats over the past four years, including in districts that are conservative and lean Republican. And it always happens when one party controls both chambers of Congress and the White House.

So if you want to believe either that the 2009 elections were primarily about Obama or that he was irrelevant, go right ahead. But you’ll be wrong.

This column first appeared in Roll Call on November 16, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

New Print Edition: Pennsylvania Senate & Michigan 7

The November 17, 2009 print edition of the Rothenberg Political Report is on its way to subscribers.

The print edition of the Report comes out every two weeks. Subscribers get in-depth analysis of the most competitive races in the country, as well as updated House and Senate ratings, and coverage of the gubernatorial races nationwide. To subscribe, simply click on the Google checkout button on the website or send a check.

Here is a brief preview of the introduction to this edition:


Pennsylvania Senate: Primarily Focused
By Nathan L. Gonzales

Democrats came up short of a filibuster-proof majority on Election Night 2008, but Sen. Arlen Specter’s party switch in April finally gave them the 60 seats they desired.

The Democratic primary, Specter’s softening numbers among Republicans and Independents, and a shifting national political landscape has turned a virtually safe Democratic seat into a competitive general election contest. Subscribers get the rest of the story in the print edition of the Report.

Michigan 7: Schauer Power
By Nathan L. Gonzales

Mark Schauer is no stranger to winning in competitive districts, but winning reelection next year could be the Democrat’s greatest feat yet.

In a state with deep economic troubles and a competitive gubernatorial race at the top of the ticket, Schauer will have to work hard to hold onto a district with deep conservative and Republican roots.

And Republicans are even more energized after taking over Schauer’s former state senate seat just a couple weeks ago in the heart of the congressional district. Subscribers get the rest of the story in the print edition of the Report.