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By Nathan L. Gonzales
Second in a series of profiles of committee independent expenditure directors.
Democratic operative Robby Mook’s entry into politics was a little dirty.
“I remember standing in front of the dump for hours,” Mook recalled. “Everyone takes their trash to the dump in Vermont, so that’s where you campaign.”
From a dump in Vermont to high-stakes presidential primaries to a top-tier Senate race, Mook has built his career by being in the middle of some of the biggest political battles in the country.
This cycle he’s in a critical position to help Democrats as they try to keep control of the House of Representatives.
Last week, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee reserved $28 million in TV ad time to defend 40 districts. Because of campaign finance law, that money will be spent in independent expenditures, an effort Mook will direct.
You wouldn’t expect a party to put a 30-year-old in charge of tens of millions of dollars — the DCCC spent $75 million in IE money last cycle, according to the Campaign Finance Institute — but Democratic strategists believe Mook has the experience and the temperament for the job.
The son of a physics professor and a hospital administrator, Mook grew up in Sharon, Vt. Technically, he was born in New Hampshire (because that’s where the nearest hospital was located), and ties to both states have come in handy.
It seems like politics has always been a part of Mook’s life, whether attending a rally for Bill Clinton in Burlington as a middle-school student or organizing a phone bank for the president four years later.
In ninth grade, Mook auditioned for the school play, and the head of the theater department also happened to be a state legislator running for re-election.
“It was one of the funniest auditions I had ever seen,” former state Rep. Matt Dunne said in a recent phone interview from Vermont, where he is running for governor as a Democrat.
Mook secured a role in “The Imaginary Invalid,” a French comedy by Moliére, and volunteered for Dunne in his spare time.
“Robby was clearly more interested in my campaign than in the play,” Dunne said. “We had a little sense there was a political gene in him.”
After high school, Mook went off to Columbia University, where he studied the classics because he always wanted to read Greek. He didn’t take a single political science course in college, but he continued learning politics during the summers.
As Dunne climbed the political ladder, he hired Mook as the first paid staffer for Vermont House Democrats before Mook had even finished his undergraduate degree. But it wasn’t an easy time as Democrats lost their majority.
After college, Mook worked as field director for Vermont Democrats’ coordinated campaign in 2002, another tough year in which Republicans took over the governorship after five terms of Howard Dean (D). But Mook followed the former governor onto the national political scene when Dean launched his presidential bid.
Mook started as Dean’s deputy field director in New Hampshire, where he finished second to Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.), and then shifted to Wisconsin, where the former governor finished third.
After staying with the Dean campaign “until the bitter end,” as Mook put it, he signed on with the Democratic National Committee and was get-out-the-vote director for the Wisconsin coordinated campaign. Kerry narrowly won the state but lost the election.
Mook’s résumé is dotted with wins and losses, but he’s unfazed by it. “I think you learn more when you lose,” Mook said. “I’m glad I’ve had both.”
In 2005, Mook managed Democrat Dave Marsden’s win for state delegate in Virginia, taking over a Republican open seat, and in 2006 he ran the Democrats’ coordinated campaign in Maryland when Martin O’Malley (D) knocked off Gov. Bob Ehrlich (R) and Benjamin Cardin (D) defeated Michael Steele (R) for the open Senate seat.
In 2007, Mook returned to presidential politics, this time for Hillary Rodham Clinton.
He started as Clinton’s state director in Nevada, which rose in prominence after the Senator’s loss in Iowa and re-emergence in New Hampshire. Clinton won Nevada’s popular vote, though Barack Obama won more delegates.
Mook shifted to Ohio for Clinton, then to Indiana. After the pressure cooker of the Clinton campaign, Mook landed in New Hampshire, in the middle of one of the most competitive Senate races in the country.
Mook first volunteered for Jeanne Shaheen in 1996 when she first ran for governor and he was still in high school, but in 2008 he managed her race and led her to victory over incumbent Sen. John Sununu (R).
“I know from the outstanding job he did running my campaign that his energy and positive attitude are limitless. He is undaunted by challenges, and his political skills are unparalleled,” Shaheen said.
She isn’t the only one impressed by Mook.
“I’ve seen Robby in action in a lot of races. Clearly he’s the right man for the job,” DCCC Chairman Chris Van Hollen said. “He shares my view that we have to draw a sharp contrast on the issues that matter to voters.”
The Maryland Congressman hired Mook last year to be the DCCC’s political director, but after he “proved himself superbly in the specials,” Van Hollen entrusted him with the IE for the rest of the cycle. Mook directed the independent expenditures for special election victories in Pennsylvania’s 12th and New York’s 23rd, where a strong third-party candidate, Doug Hoffman, emerged to complicate the race.
Mook’s “ability to quickly change and go after Hoffman, to quickly retool, showed strong political instincts,” said Jon Vogel, the DCCC’s executive director who also ran the committee’s IE in 2008.
Vogel compared Mook’s job to running a factory, moving lots of product very quickly through a system. In this case, the product is polls, television ads and direct-mail pieces. “It’s a nerve-racking job,” Vogel said from experience. “Every strategic decision has a risk.”
“I try to stay out of the Beltway process bubble because what actually matters is the direction of the country, and that’s determined by who is in the majority,” Mook explained.
After working side-by-side with Vogel at the DCCC for more than a year, Mook is sequestered across South Capitol Street to the Fairchild Building and prohibited from strategizing with committee staff on dozens of campaigns.
But he won’t be alone. Van Hollen teamed him up with John Lapp, the former DCCC executive director who ran the IE in 2006 and advised as a consultant last cycle.
“It’s a tough climate and tough races, but he’s just the guy to do it,” Lapp said of Mook, whom he described as a “happy warrior” for his keen sense of humor and energy.
He’ll need both in an election cycle that seems to favor Republicans, in part because Democrats no longer have the common enemy of President George W. Bush.
“We’re running against a lot of very different candidates,” Mook said.
This story first appeared in Roll Call on July 27, 2010. 2010 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
By Stuart Rothenberg
Sometimes, you can almost hear the conventional wisdom and expectations shift, even when they are based on faulty premises.
I’ve heard dozens of times over the past few months that large Democratic losses in the House were inevitable this year because of sweeping Democratic victories in 2006 and 2008.
Indeed, on Monday’s edition of MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” host Joe Scarborough, a former GOP Congressman from Florida, echoed that point, asserting that a “realignment” in the House was inevitable this year, even if unemployment were at 4 percent.
The reality is quite different. When I first started talking to Republican and Democratic insiders in December 2008, none of them believed that anything was “inevitable” in November 2010.
Throughout the winter of 2008-2009 and the spring of 2009, strategists for both parties acknowledged that midterms were usually challenging for the party holding the White House.
Democrats noted that the combination of Republican retirements, Democratic incumbency and financial advantages, and new Democratic opportunities — resulting from demographic changes during the decade and stronger recruiting in GOP seats previously neglected — would keep their net losses low, probably in the single digits.
After losing 51 House seats over two disastrous election cycles, Republicans knew they had plenty of opportunities and held on to the hope that long-term trends would create a favorable climate for their resurgence. But they expressed concerns about the damage to their party’s brand and were deflated when, in late March, an upstate New York special election was won by a Democrat.
In May 2009, my newsletter, the Rothenberg Political Report, noted that “small Republican gains would seem the most likely outcome” of the midterms, adding that the House “is not at risk in next year’s elections.”
No wonder GOP prospects were so limited. President Barack Obama’s job approval in an April 2009 NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey stood at 61 percent approve/30 percent disapprove, and equal percentages of respondents (43 percent) said the country was headed in the right direction versus on the wrong track — a dramatic improvement from the previous November.
But while Democrats initially talked about keeping their losses to fewer than 10 seats, somewhere during the summer that number grew to a dozen and then to 15 seats.
In mid-September, I wrote in the Rothenberg Political Report that prospective GOP gains ranged from “only a handful of seats to a couple of dozen or more, depending on how things develop over the next year.” This much wider range reflected deteriorating national conditions for Democrats — Obama’s sliding approval numbers, declining right direction/wrong track results and a worsening in the Democratic Party’s image.
My point in resurrecting all these numbers and projections is that it was not always inevitable that Republicans would make large House gains, no matter what you may read and hear now.
Yes, House midterm election losses by the president’s party have often been substantial, as in 2006, 1994, 1982, 1974, 1966 and 1958. But at other times, the president’s party hasn’t done nearly so poorly, with either small gains or losses of fewer than 15 seats in 2002, 1998, 1990, 1978 and 1934.
Indeed, as many of us have repeatedly noted, the president’s party has gained seats in two of the past three midterm elections.
Let’s be clear about where we all would be if unemployment were actually at 4 percent right now.
Most of the hand-wringing about jobs and the economy would be gone, stronger employment numbers would mean a more vibrant economy (which almost certainly would mean higher federal and state revenues and lower deficits) and polling undoubtedly would show the president with better numbers, Congress with a higher approval rating and the Democratic Party more popular than it is now. Because of that, the huge enthusiasm gap that now exists and is likely to fuel GOP gains in November would be much smaller or nonexistent.
All of that would likely mean far smaller Democratic losses in the fall. Nobody, but nobody, would be talking about the inevitability of huge Republican House gains (or the possible loss of the House) if that were the case.
Actions, indeed, do have consequences. In this case, the combination of an aggressive Democratic agenda, a weak jobs recovery and a large deficit has created a political environment very different from the one 18 months ago, when Democrats won a special election in New York’s open 20th district by demonizing Republicans for waffling on, then opposing, Obama’s economic stimulus plan.
It’s very difficult to imagine Republican gains in the House of fewer than two dozen seats, and my own newsletter, after going race by race, recently placed likely GOP gains in the range of 28 to 33 seats, if not higher.
The House surely is at great risk, and anyone who asserts that Democrats are certain to maintain their majority after November is simply not worth listening to on the subject. The trajectory of this election cycle is clear. But don’t delude yourself. It didn’t have to be this way.
This column first appeared in Roll Call on July 29, 2010. 2010 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
By Stuart Rothenberg
The story of Florida gubernatorial hopeful Rick Scott (R) surely is one of the weirder stories in what is already an unusual political year.
Scott began his bid for the state’s top office as a political unknown who had run a company, Columbia/HCA, which was accused of defrauding Medicare and settled the case by paying fines and restitution amounting to $1.7 billion. That’s billion, with a “b.”
Now, Scott is the odds-on favorite to win the Aug. 24 GOP primary over state Attorney General Bill McCollum, making him his party’s gubernatorial nominee in the fall.
Scott would go into the general election no worse than even money against the likely Democratic nominee, state Chief Financial Officer Alex Sink, and Independent Bud Chiles, son of former Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles.
An attorney who came from a Kansas City, Mo., family of modest means, Scott started the Columbia Hospital Corp. in 1987. The company grew by buying hospitals until 1994, when Scott purchased HCA Inc., combining the two companies into one, Columbia/HCA.
That company continued to grow, but Scott left it in 1997, ousted by the company’s board of directors during the unfolding fraud investigation. According to Scott’s campaign website, by that time Columbia/HCA had “become the world’s largest health care company.”
After leaving Columbia/HCA, Scott bought or founded other health-care-related businesses. But perhaps his next dramatic move was the founding of Conservatives for Patients’ Rights, a national advocacy group “dedicated to the free market principles of choice, competition, accountability and personal responsibility in health care.”
CPR, started with $5 million of Scott’s money, was a vocal opponent of the public option that was espoused by many Democrats on Capitol Hill and in the White House. Scott appeared in many of the group’s TV spots.
When Scott, who has never run for office before, announced his bid for the GOP nomination on April 9, the Republican race looked like a foregone conclusion, with McCollum not seriously challenged for his party’s nomination.
An April 8-13 Quinnipiac University poll found McCollum leading state Sen. Paula Dockery (who dropped out of the primary in late May) 56 percent to 7 percent in the GOP race and Sink by 4 points in the general election. Scott’s own initial poll in the race showed him trailing McCollum 54 percent to 2 percent in the primary.
Scott’s late entry and massive media buy took everyone by surprise.
The first public survey with Scott in the race, conducted May 3-5 by Mason-Dixon Polling & Research, showed McCollum leading Scott 38 percent to 24 percent, with Scott’s name ID at 28 percent favorable/1 percent unfavorable. Ten days later, an Ipsos Public Affairs survey showed McCollum’s primary lead at 46 percent to 22 percent.
By early June, a Quinnipiac poll had Scott leading McCollum in the primary, 44 percent to 31 percent, while a McLaughlin & Associates poll for the attorney general found the GOP race even at 40 percent each.
An automated July 16-18 Public Policy Polling (D) survey showed Scott leading the primary 43 percent to 29 percent for McCollum.
Remember, the guy leading the Republican primary was forced out of his job because his company had to settle a massive fraud case that amounted to $1.7 billion. Again, that’s billion, with a “b.”
How did Scott get to this point, where he is likely to be the GOP nominee?
First and most obviously, Scott’s money made the difference. He has put at least $20 million into his race and outspent McCollum by about 2-to-1, according to a Scott campaign insider. His money has underwritten a blizzard of ads, and he was so fast out of the gate that his candidacy took people in the state, including McCollum, by surprise.
Second, Scott, bald and with a long neck, doesn’t look or sound like your usual politician. His TV ads, produced both by OnMessage Inc. and Nelson Warfield, have effectively presented him as a force for change and McCollum as a career politician. Those are perfect messages this cycle.
Even a McCollum TV endorsement spot featuring popular former Gov. Jeb Bush (R) has not moved the needle for the attorney general, and Scott campaign strategists believe that multiple McCollum endorsements, including those of former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and former House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas), have only reinforced the change/politics-as-usual contrast that has benefited Scott so heavily.
Third, Scott appears to have benefited from an early McCollum mistake that presented the insurgent with an opening.
Shortly after the Arizona Legislature passed the state’s controversial immigration enforcement law, McCollum commented, “I don’t think Florida should enact laws like this — quite that far out.” A week later, after the Arizona Legislature amended that law, McCollum expressed his support for it. Two days later, when asked again about the Arizona law, McCollum responded, “We don’t need that law in Florida.”
Finally, although McCollum and his allies have hammered Scott in paid media over Columbia/HCA’s $1.7 billion settlement, voters seem to be ignoring Scott’s warts, whether because they are more concerned with how government is affecting their lives or they have become so cynical about politicians that none of them look like bargains.
If this isn’t an isolated case, it raises questions about the efficacy of personal attacks against candidates who otherwise can reasonably present themselves as vehicles for change.
It’s hard to believe that Scott would be doing as well if he were running in any other cycle or, possibly, against a different kind of opponent. But this may just be the perfect cycle for him, both in the primary and in the general election. Democrats ought to be careful about treating him as a weak general election opponent.
This column first appeared in Roll Call on July 27, 2010. 2010 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
By Stuart Rothenberg
Republican insiders are quietly skeptical that the grandson of the late President Richard M. Nixon, attorney/businessman Chris Cox, will make it out of the Republican primary in New York’s 1st Congressional District.
Cox, 31, made a splash when he entered the race. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger held a fund raiser for him, and Cox bragged that his consulting team included former strategists from the John McCain Presidential campaign, including Mark Weaver and Mark Salter. The candidate’s father is chairman of the New York State Republican party.
But Cox’s campaign hasn’t been smooth. Former McCain advisers have left the campaign, and, in an interview, the candidate, who lived and worked in Manhattan before moving to a relative’s house in Suffolk County, wasn’t able to explain how he would create jobs.
Cox now appears to be trying to make himself the Tea Party candidate, a strange development given his political bloodlines, Princeton education and the $1 million he has already loaned his campaign.
Cox, 31, is engaged to Andrea Catsimatidis, 19, whose father is a billionaire businessman and owns, among other things, the Gristedes supermarket chain.
Businessman Randy Altschuler appears to be the favorite in the GOP race in a district that takes in the eastern half of Long island. Attorney George Demos is also in the Republican race, and he has hired veteran consultant/guru Arthur Finkelstein. The Republican nominee will take on Democratic Cong. Tim Bishop in the fall in a contest that bears watching.
Republican Sharron Angle is trying to raise money by asking people to send a Pink Slip to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid. It's not going to win any awards for creativity, but with amount of money she's raising, it's tough to criticize.
Sharron Angle's Pink Slip to Harry Reid
Right now, Democrats look poised to lose five to eight seats, and any net loss short of that would have to be regarded with relief by Democratic strategists. But as recent developments in Nevada and Illinois have demonstrated, things can change quickly in the fight for control of the Senate. Click here to read Stu's latest column on the Senate.
Here are our latest Senate ratings.
#- Moved benefiting Democrats
*- Moved benefiting Republicans
Takeovers in Italics
Pure Toss-Up (1 R, 2 )
Bennet (D-CO)
OH Open (Voinovich, R)
PA Open (Specter, D)
Toss-Up/Tilt Republican (3 R, 3 D)
Reid (D-NV)
FL Open (Martinez, R)
IL Open (Burris, D)
IN Open (Bayh, D)
KY Open (Bunning, R)
MO Open (Bond, R)
Toss-Up/Tilt Democrat ( 0 R, 3 D)
Boxer (D-CA) *
Feingold (D-WI) *
Murray (D-WA) *
Lean Republican (2 R, 2 D)
Burr (R-NC)
Lincoln (D-AR)
DE Open (Kaufman, D)
NH Open (Gregg, R)
Lean Democrat (0 R, 0 D)
--none--
Republican Favored (1 R, 0 D)
Vitter (R-LA)
Democrat Favored (0 R, 1 D)
CT Open (Dodd, D)
Safe Republican (11 R, 1 D)
Coburn (R-OK)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Isakson (R-GA)
McCain (R-AZ)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Shelby (R-AL)
Thune (R-SD)
KS Open (Brownback, R)
ND Open (Dorgan, D)
UT Open (Bennett, R)
Safe Democrat (0 R, 6 D)
Gillibrand (D-NY)
Inouye (D-HI)
Leahy (D-VT)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Schumer (D-NY)
Wyden (D-OR)
By Stuart Rothenberg
Until about 10 days ago, I agreed with the conventional wisdom that control of the House of Representatives was up for grabs this fall but that Republicans had yet to put the Senate into play. I no longer believe that.
The chances that the next Senate will have a Republican majority are not great, but even three months ago there were not enough Senate seats in play to imagine a Republican gain of 10 seats. Now there are, with 11 Democratic seats definitely competitive.
But at the same time that Republican prospects have brightened overall, they suddenly look less bright than previously in at least a couple of states: Nevada and Illinois.
Just a few months ago, Democratic nominees Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in Nevada and Illinois state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias looked like sure losers in their races, but their candidacies have been resuscitated by their GOP opponents.
Even Republican political operatives acknowledge privately that former Nevada state Assemblywoman Sharron Angle has been an even worse candidate than they had thought. And while recent polling in the Silver State may overstate Reid’s prospects in the fall, it seems clear that the contest has evolved from being purely a referendum on Reid and President Barack Obama to being a choice between Reid and Angle.
That’s a far less advantageous position for the challenger and a far better one for Reid. Angle’s prospects have now slipped from being a clear favorite to only 50-50.
Reid remains a political basket case, but he certainly has a fighting chance in a contest of two unappealing nominees. And Angle has the benefit of a Republican wind at her back that could still turn into a gale-force wind. Republicans might want to ship Angle out of the country for a few months to improve her prospects.
In Illinois, polls suggest the race remains tight, but Republican Rep. Mark Kirk’s reputation has been hurt, creating another contest between two damaged candidates. This race, as one political wag noted, is now “the crook versus the liar.”
That’s an improvement for Giannoulias, whose own reputation with voters has been poor for months and who has the added problem of a damaged Democratic brand in Illinois.
If Kirk has indeed stopped the bleeding, as some Republicans insist, he may be able to take advantage of a favorable political environment. But this race could be competitive all the way to Election Day, a disappointing fact for Republican strategists who once expected Kirk to put the race away sooner rather than later.
Giannoulias’ weak fundraising is a disappointment, of course, since it reflects a lack of Democratic enthusiasm for him. And while Obama is helping him raise the money he needs to run a competitive race, that won’t say much about the Senate nominee’s fundamental appeal.
So where does the fight for the Senate now stand beyond Nevada and Illinois, which have become more competitive? Democrats are now very likely to lose Senate seats in North Dakota, Arkansas, Delaware and Indiana.
Pennsylvania and Colorado remain tossups, though Keystone State Republican Pat Toomey appears well-positioned, financially and strategically, against Democratic Rep. Joe Sestak. Colorado’s primary is still more than two weeks away.
Three more Democratic seats, which I didn’t regard as particularly competitive six months ago, now could possibly change hands: Wisconsin, Washington and California.
In Wisconsin, incumbent Sen. Russ Feingold and challenger Ron Johnson are running even in two automated polls that have their critics: Rasmussen Reports and Public Policy Polling, a Democratic firm.
If you had any doubt that the race is in play, all you need do is watch Feingold’s first TV spot, in which the Senator accuses Johnson of wanting to “hand over the Great Lakes to the oil company” for drilling. The ad isn’t merely intended to firm up Feingold’s image or remind voters about his accomplishments. It’s an attack spot.
Johnson, a businessman and first-time candidate, is running against spending, the deficit and Washington. He’s a classic “change” candidate in an anti-Washington, anti-politician environment. Though he is likely to make a mistake or two as a candidate, Johnson is a threat to Feingold.
In Washington state, challenger Dino Rossi (R) is running slightly ahead of Sen. Patty Murray (D) in a Rasmussen survey but narrowly behind in three others. In all recent surveys, Murray is under 50 percent on the ballot and in a competitive contest.
Rossi has already run two statewide races, losing one very narrowly, so he understands how to be a candidate. If the national economy hiccups between now and November, the challenger will have the opportunity to ride a Republican wave. Murray has a slight edge in the race, but it’s a serious contest.
The 11th Democratic seat at risk is the one held by California Sen. Barbara Boxer, and I will readily admit that I’ve been skeptical about former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina’s prospects.
As a longtime HP stockholder, I knew of the criticism of Fiorina, and I have a very hard time believing that California will send a pro-life, conservative Republican to the Senate. But if Massachusetts voters can hand the late Democratic Sen. Edward Kennedy’s seat to Republican Scott Brown, it’s probably unwise simply to dismiss Fiorina’s chances entirely.
Polls continue to show Boxer in trouble, with mediocre job ratings and unimpressive showings in general election ballot tests. Just as important, Fiorina is a quality candidate — poised, smart and with the kind of personal resources that allow her to run a full-scale campaign.
In 1994, California Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D) survived an aggressive challenge from wealthy businessman Michael Huffington (and his Greek-born wife, Arianna), probably because the challenger’s hiring of an illegal immigrant became a major issue at the end of the contest. Sixteen years later, California is less receptive to Republican candidates. But Boxer is not and never has been as highly regarded by California voters as Feinstein.
Can Fiorina win? Six months ago, I would have said “no.” Today, my answer is “maybe.”
Of course, Democratic prospects in the Senate, as in the House, depend on the size of the GOP wave. At least four Republican seats — Kentucky, Ohio, Missouri and Florida — are at risk, and any Democratic gains in those states would further lengthen the GOP’s long-shot opportunity to get to 51 seats. (I don’t regard any other Republican-held Senate seat as at-risk.)
Right now, Democrats look poised to lose five to eight seats, and any net loss short of that would have to be regarded with relief by Democratic strategists. But as recent developments in Nevada and Illinois have demonstrated, things can change quickly in the fight for control of the Senate.
This column first appeared in Roll Call on July 22, 2010. 2010 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
By Stuart Rothenberg
Last week, the folks at Moore Information, a long-time GOP survey research firm based in Portland, Oregon, distributed a poll memo asserting that Democratic Senator Ron Wyden, who has been in the Senate since winning a special election in 1996, is vulnerable this year.
Was I skeptical? Sure. But I read on because in a year such as this, any Democrat might be in trouble, even those who haven’t had tough re-elections in the past.
The memo, conducted for GOP Senate hopeful Jim Huffman, included data about the generic Senate ballot (voters preferred a Republican to a Democrat by 11 percentage points), a Wyden re-elect (44% re-elect/45% new person) and an so-called informed ballot test conducted after information was presented about the candidates’ backgrounds.
The memo also included an Obama job approval and a right direction/wrong track question, in addition to a couple of questions about issues.
No, there was no initial Wyden-Huffman ballot, no Wyden ID (with favorable and unfavorable) and no Huffman ID.
When I asked pollster Bob Moore for that data, he declined to produce it, noting that the campaign had not authorized its release.
Obviously, those crucial poll results weren’t released because they contradict the conclusion that Wyden is vulnerable. They almost certainly showed Wyden far ahead on the ballot test and with strong favorable ratings.
In fact, most recent Oregon Senate polls have found Wyden at or above 50% when matched against Huffman and leading the Republican by from 10 to 20 points.
A quick check of the two candidates’ pre-primary April 24 FEC reports showed Wyden with $3.7 million in the bank to Huffman’s $224,000.
Given how favorable the national political environment is for Republicans, Wyden may well find himself in a tougher race this time than he had in 1998, when he won with 61%, or in 2004, when he won with over 63%.
But simply asserting that an incumbent is in trouble doesn’t make it so, and nothing in the Moore Information memo suggests that it’s true. In fact, leaving crucial information out suggests that the Huffman campaign has something to hide.
By Stuart Rothenberg
When I met Bethlehem Mayor John Callahan (D), I was impressed. Democratic insiders had told me he would be a good candidate, and they were right.
He’s articulate, personable, and able to talk about his accomplishments in a persuasive way. He’s also a proven vote getter and a strong fundraiser. His June 30 FEC report showed just under $1 million in the bank, only $55,000 less than what incumbent Cong. Charlie Dent (R) showed in his report. Callahan has raised $1.4 million this cycle to Dent’s $1.7 million.
Maybe that’s why I was so surprised to receive a press release from the Callahan campaign recently attacking former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani – or as the press release described him, “High powered Wall Street Attorney Rudy Giuliani.”
“We may never know just how much money Rudy Giuliani’s high powered Wall Street law firm made from Congressman Dent’s bailout vote, but it’s clear that Giuliani is here to return the favor,” Callahan was quoted as saying in his campaign’s release.
The so-called bank bailout vote may well be a good issue for Callahan, and his effort to connect Dent to “Wall Street special interests,” another phrase in the release, is understandable and standard political fare.
But does Callahan really want to run against Giuliani, who probably has a pretty good image in the district from his years as New York City Mayor after the 9/11 attack?
Callahan, who is running in Pennsylvania’s politically competitive 15th Congressional District, is one of the few Democratic challengers who has a chance of knocking off a GOP incumbent in this very Republican political environment. But running against “America’s Mayor” may not be the best way of defeating Dent, a moderate Republican who is every bit as good of a candidate as Callahan is.
By Nathan L. Gonzales
Former GOP Rep. Tom Tancredo, who ran for the Republican presidential nomination in 2008 and is known nationally for leading the charge against illegal immigration, is seriously exploring a run for governor of Colorado as an Independent and will announce his intentions soon.
“We cannot win the governorship in the current environment,” Tancredo said in an interview with the Report on Wednesday, “The two Republican primary candidates are not electable.”
Former Rep. Scott McInnis was the front runner for the GOP nomination until serious allegations of plagiarism surfaced, charges that some Republicans believe have mortally wounded his campaign. Businessman Dan Maes is also running for the Republican nomination, but questions about his tax returns have him on the defensive as well.
Since the filing deadline passed on May 27 and the primary is less than three weeks away (August 10), Tancredo cannot join the GOP race.
“There is no way left to do it as a Republican,” Tancredo said, explaining, “I have to get so many things in order, but believe me there’s an option.” The former congressman said he’d have an announcement within the next couple of days. According to other sources, he’s interviewing potential running mates for an Independent bid.
But even an Independent bid would take some maneuvering.
The filing deadline for third-party candidates passed on June 15, but according to one Colorado political source, Tancredo is exploring the possibility that he may be able to get on the ballot if a currently filed third party candidate drops out. In that case, Tancredo may be able to get his name on the ballot as a replacement.
Some Republican strategists are concerned that if Tancredo is able to get on the ballot, he would split votes with the Republican nominee, essentially handing the governorship to Denver Mayor John Hickenlooper, the likely Democratic nominee. Gov. Bill Ritter (D) decided not to seek re-election.
As for Tancredo, he says that scenario wouldn’t be his fault.
“I’m not doing it to the party, the party is doing it to itself,” Tancredo said.
By Stuart Rothenberg
When former state Supreme Court Justice Chet Traylor entered the Louisiana Republican Senate race, more than a few political journalists took notice, hyping the GOP primary challenge to Sen. David Vitter. Not surprisingly, Politico was particularly robust in talking about the new danger for Vitter, who has had some public embarrassments.
A week after Traylor entered the race, Politico reporter Shira Toeplitz wrote that a controversy over Vitter’s response to a question about the President’s citizenship “immediately led to speculation that Vitter was making a play to the right in the wake of a new primary challenger.”
The Politico article quoted one Tea Party leader and activist as suggesting that Vitter was protecting his right flank. It didn’t even allude to some of buzz about Traylor’s political and personal weaknesses, and it conveniently ignored those who doubted Vitter’s comments had anything to do with the new ‘threat” from Traylor.
Now The News-Star (Monroe, Louisiana) reports that Traylor has “his own ethical questions,” and even experienced Louisiana political strategists openly contemptuous of Vitter doubt that Traylor can raise enough money and mount a full-blown challenge quickly enough to seriously threaten Vitter in the state’s August 28 primary.
Vitter has plenty of critics and almost as many enemies in the state, but he has always figured out where he needs to be politically to retain his seat, and there is no evidence yet that Traylor will become a serious threat to the senator in the GOP primary.
Reporters like to write about Vitter because it gives them the opportunity each time to detail his juicy past problems, but until there is evidence that Traylor is making headway in his uphill bid, the Republican primary isn’t much of a story.
By Nathan Gonzales
New York Sen. Charles Schumer (D) is stockpiling money for a reelection race that hardly exists and has more cash on hand than the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee through June.
Schumer, a former DSCC Chairman, showed $23.8 million on hand through June and is up by at least 20 points in public polling. Meanwhile, the DSCC had $21 million in the bank and a growing list of vulnerable seats.
The cash disparity is notable considering Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) is in jeopardy of losing reelection this year and Schumer is jockeying with Illinois Sen. Dick Durbin (D) to become his replacement.
But how much leverage can Schumer have in a potential leadership race if his party and some of his colleagues go down in flames this fall while he sits on millions of dollars?
Unlike the House side, the DSCC has a very narrow cash edge over the National Republican Senatorial Committee, so Democrats could use any help they can get. We’ll see if that help comes in the form of a check from Schumer.
By Stuart Rothenberg
The folks at the Democratic National Committee’s communications shop apparently believe that those of us — political analysts and handicappers, campaign professionals, journalists and political junkies — who have spent years following Congressional elections and dissecting polls are idiots.
And because we aren’t real sharp, we need the DNC to explain things to us. I guess we are supposed to forget that the committee is an advocacy group and that its primary goal is electing Democrats, not dispassionately reporting on campaigns and projecting election outcomes.
The DNC’s memo, “Putting Voter Sentiment and Recent Polls in their Proper Perspective,” came only days after House Democrats erupted in anger following White House Communications Director Robert Gibbs’ acknowledgement that Democrats could lose control of the House in the fall. As such, it needs to be seen as part of Democrats’ efforts to push back against Gibbs’ very accurate but impolitic assertion.
The memo includes selected poll numbers from various sources to make two major points: The 2010 midterms won’t be anything close to the political waves of 1994 and 2006, and the party faithful “have every reason to be hopeful that we can weather a treacherous political climate and maintain strong majorities in the House and Senate.”
Of course, for every national poll number that seems to lend credence to the DNC’s argument, there is one that it happens to omit that undercuts the memo’s fundamental point.
For example, while the DNC memo uses the president’s job performance numbers from two recent polls that showed him with a net positive rating (50 percent approve/47 percent disapprove in the ABC/Washington Post poll and 52 percent approve/44 percent disapprove in Bloomberg’s survey), the most recent NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll (45 percent approve/48 percent disapprove) and Gallup’s July 5-11 survey (46 percent approve/47 percent disapprove) showed a net negative approval for President Barack Obama.
Gallup’s most recent Obama weekly approval rating of 46 percent (July 12-18) is identical to President Bill Clinton’s 1994 pre-election Gallup approval rating (Nov. 2-6), just days before the Democratic Party got slaughtered in Clinton’s first midterm.
The DNC memo addresses generic ballot results only in passing, noting that “generic support for Republicans this year is nowhere near that of Democrats in 2006.” In October 2006, the Washington Post survey showed Democrats with a 13-point advantage, but the most recent ABC/Post survey had Republicans only up by a single point.
Apparently someone at the DNC hasn’t figured out that that’s a 14-point swing in the generic, and a swing that large is likely to produce a considerable swing in House seats.
Interestingly, Gallup’s generic ballot, which the firm asserts has proved to be a “highly accurate predictor of the national vote for the House of Representatives in midterm election years,” has shown the two parties roughly even among registered voters throughout the year.
If you take that as good news for Democrats, think again. This far out from Election Day, Democrats usually have an advantage. But midterm elections are all about turnout, and Republicans normally have a turnout advantage.
That’s why the folks at Gallup note that “the closer the registered voter results get to an even split, the better Republicans can expect to do, given usual turnout patterns.”
This year, of course, Republican enthusiasm is high — the highest since Gallup started asking its relative enthusiasm question in 1994 (“Compared to previous elections, are you more enthusiastic about voting than usual, or less enthusiastic?”). Moreover, Gallup’s net enthusiasm score is “the largest relative party advantage Gallup has measured in a single midterm election-year poll.”
I should note that some of the DNC’s observations are on the money. Yes, the Republican Party’s image is still in the tank. And yes, Obama is more popular now than President George W. Bush was at the time of the 2006 midterms. But those statistical realities are not news to those of us who follow elections, and they may have only a small effect on the size of the Republican wave in November.
Finally, it’s interesting that the DNC memo relies solely on national survey data. Trying to understand the fight for the House and Senate by looking only at national numbers is like driving a car with one eye closed.
District-level and statewide poll data show Democratic candidates in anywhere from dangerous to terrible shape.
The Democratic generic ballot has dropped precipitously in most competitive Congressional districts, and many Democratic incumbents, both in the House and Senate, are performing horribly in ballot tests.
How bad are the Democratic numbers? About as bad as they were in 1994, and about as bad as Republican numbers were in 2006.
We have no way of knowing for certain how badly Democrats will be punished by voters in November. But unless things turn around completely, the damage will be severe. Both the House and now the Senate are at risk.
Gibbs may have been undiplomatic to admit the obvious. But Democrats don’t look in touch with reality when they waste their hard-earned credibility distributing memos that guarantee that their party will “maintain strong majorities” in both chambers of Congress.
This column first appeared in Roll Call on July 20, 2010. 2010 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.
By Nathan L. Gonzales
White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs created a firestorm by admitting that the House majority is in play, but House Democrats should be more worried about his subsequent analysis rather than his political prognostications.
“But I think there's no doubt there are enough seats in play that could cause Republicans to gain control. There's no doubt about that,” Gibbs said on Meet the Press on July 11. “This will depend on strong campaigns by Democrats.”
Did you catch that?
This fall’s elections will depend how individual Democrats campaign, not the performance of the President. And it sounds an awful lot like the spin coming out of the Democratic losses in Virginia and Massachusetts not long ago.
Gibbs’ remarks probably weren’t accidental or merely off the cuff analysis. That’s not how White House operatives normally operate. Given that, Gibbs’ comments have to be seen as part of the messaging coming out of the White House.
Nine days before Gibbs sat down with David Gregory, veteran Washington Post reporter Dan Balz wrote a piece about Democratic prospects in November, and senior Obama advisers David Axelrod and David Plouffe sounded similar themes.
“Plouffe and other Democratic strategists say Obama will play an important role in making the case that the Republican Party is one of obstruction and indifference,” Balz wrote, “But they think the outcome in November will depend as much on the skill of candidates in mobilizing potential supporters who are now disinclined to vote”
Again, the emphasis is on the candidates – not the national political context.
“The Democratic National Committee has begun a program designed to increase turnout in November among the first-time and irregular voters who backed Obama in 2008,” Balz wrote later in the piece, “But advisers say many of these voters won't show up in November unless candidates make personal connections with them.”
Again, it’s incumbent upon Democratic candidates to make the personal connection with voters. If they don’t, it’s their own fault.
House Democrats have good reason to be paranoid, because the White House has already started laying down the argument that if the party gets clobbered in November, it’s because it ran too many Creigh Deedses and Martha Coakleys and not because voters are upset at the President and the direction of the country.
The July 19, 2010 print edition of the Rothenberg Political Report is on its way to subscribers, but here is the introduction to the House overview:
