A Road Well-Traveled in Drive to Hold Power: Destroy the Opposition

By Stuart Rothenberg

I had to chuckle when I read reports that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada is preparing to run a decidedly negative campaign this year, with an unnamed adviser saying Reid would “vaporize” his opponent.

That’s not exactly a new standard for the Nevada Democrat, who understands full well how to run a campaign and what he’ll need to do to win a fifth term.

But the report in Politico, followed by reverberations in other media outlets, reminded me that there is no secret to how Democrats will try to hang onto their large majorities in the House and Senate next year if the national political environment is unfavorable: Destroy the opposition.

That strategy is standard operating procedure for incumbents, regardless of party, and it has been used for years. If your own negatives are high, drive up your opponent’s. Make him or her as unpopular as you are, and voters will be faced with a different kind of choice.

It won’t be a matter of which candidate voters like; it will be a question of which of the two unappealing candidates has the experience or has delivered for constituents. Voters will take the devil they know, not the devil they don’t know, vulnerable incumbents will hope.

You can expect Connecticut Sen. Chris Dodd (D) to use the same tactic against his eventual Republican challenger if he can’t move his own numbers dramatically before Republicans pick a nominee against him.

GOP strategists particularly on the House side used this approach repeatedly from the mid-1990s through the 2006 election, when they found themselves overwhelmed by a partisan wave that they couldn’t hold back.

Their strategy for a decade was clear: Hit the Democratic challenger again and again and yet again just for good measure to be sure that the opponent’s name identification is upside down (a higher unfavorable than favorable rating).

Indeed, that’s exactly what then-Sen. Jesse Helms (R) did to then-Gov. Jim Hunt (D) 25 years ago in North Carolina’s 1984 Senate race, when Helms came from behind to beat the once-popular challenger by almost 4 points.

Reid’s strategists apparently have been watching New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine’s (D) re-election bid, noting his success in driving up Republican Chris Christie’s negatives, even if they believe that Corzine waited too long to unload on his opponent. Still, there’s a problem here.

While Corzine has boosted Christie’s negatives, it hasn’t helped the governor in the ballot test. His standing — in name identification, job performance and the ballot test — haven’t budged.

Second, while the scorched-earth strategy often works for vulnerable incumbents, it doesn’t always work. If it did, Republicans would not have lost the House and Senate in 2006. They certainly tried to do what had proved to be successful — and what Reid’s strategist has promised to do.

When a party, or a candidate, is unpopular, it (or he) isn’t an ideal messenger. Republicans used the same tactics in 2006 and 2008 that had proved effective since they took control of Congress in 1994, but the political environment had shifted and their attacks didn’t stick on Democratic challengers the way they once had. Republicans weren’t deemed credible messengers, so their attacks fell flat.

For Harry Reid, that’s potentially a serious problem.

Multiple polls all show the same thing: Silver State voters have soured on the Senate Majority Leader. In many respects, his numbers look like Corzine’s. But unfortunately for Reid, he isn’t likely to have the benefit of a third-party candidate siphoning votes away from his Republican opponent.

In the eight head-to-head ballot tests conducted by three different polling firms over the past two months pitting Reid against either state Republican Chairwoman Sue Lowden or businessman/unsuccessful candidate Danny Tarkanian (R), Reid has drawn 39 percent to 43 percent of the vote.

Going back to May, there have been six different surveys testing Reid’s name identification. His “unfavorable” ratings in the six have been as follows: 54 percent, 50 percent, 46 percent, 50 percent, 52 percent and 50 percent.

In January, just days after President Barack Obama’s inauguration, a Republican poll found Reid’s unfavorable rating to be 47 percent, and shortly after the 2008 election, a Research 2000 poll for Daily Kos (D) showed the Senator’s unfavorable rating to be 54 percent.

The Senator showed $8.7 million in the bank at the end of September, and he has aired TV ads. But as long as his negatives remain high, and as long as his eventual GOP challenger has the resources to compete, Reid will be in for a fight. And he can’t allow his race to be merely a referendum on his performance.

Anonymous threats to “vaporize” the opposition may make a cute quote in a newspaper story, but they sound less intimidating from the campaign of a candidate with unfavorable ratings in the low 50s. Still, it’s probably the only strategy available to the Senate Majority Leader.

This column first appeared in Roll Call on October 26, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

New Jersey Governor Moved to Toss-Up

Recent polls confirm the closeness of the New Jersey gubernatorial race, reflecting the inability of Republican challenger Chris Christie to keep the contest as a referendum on unpopular Gov. Jon Corzine (D). Instead, Democrats have made the contest recently about Christie.

Independent Chris Daggett continues to show well in the polls, sometimes reaching the upper teens in ballot tests. As we noted earlier, the stronger Daggett’s showing, the better chance that Corzine can eke out a narrow victory with between 40% and 45% of the vote.

While Corzine’s image has not improved, his attacks on Christie have successfully raised questions about the challenger’s integrity. And the Governor continues to try to make the contest into a partisan race by bringing big-name Democrats into the Garden State.

But Corzine’s continued weakness (both in terms of poor job ratings and high personal “unfavorable” rating) still gives Christie a potential path to victory in the contest’s final days..

While our fundamental analysis of the race has not changed, the combination of recent polling – including Daggett’s strength – and Corzine’s success in changing the dynamic of the race suggests that the Governor now has a reasonable chance of winning the three-way contest with well under 50% of the vote. Move from Lean Takeover (Republican) to Toss-Up.

Here are our latest gubernatorial ratings. 2009 races in italics.
# - Moved benefiting Democrats
* - Moved benefiting Republicans

Lean Takeover (4 R, 5 D)

• CA Open (Schwarzenegger, R)
• HI Open (Lingle, R)
• RI Open (Carcieri, R)
• VT Open (Douglas, R)
  
• KS Open (Parkinson, D)
• OK Open (Henry, D)
• TN Open (Bredesen, D)
• VA Open (Kaine, D)
  
• WY Open (Freudenthal, D)

Toss-Up (4 R, 7 D)

• Brewer (R-AZ)
• Gibbons (R-NV)
• FL Open (Crist, R)
  
• MN Open (Pawlenty, R)
• Corzine (D-NJ) #
  
• Culver (D-IA)
  
• Paterson (D-NY)
  
• Ritter (D-CO)
  
• MI Open (Granholm, D)
• PA Open (Rendell, D)
• WI Open (Doyle, D)
  

Narrow Advantage for Incumbent Party (1 R, 2 D)

• GA Open (Perdue, R)
• Patrick (D-MA)
  
• Strickland (D-OH)

Clear Advantage for Incumbent Party (3 R, 3 D)

• Rell (R-CT)
• AL Open (Riley, R)
• SC Open (Sanford, R)
• Quinn (D-IL)
• ME Open (Baldacci, D)
• NM Open (Richardson, D)
  

Currently Safe (6 R, 4 D)

• Herbert (R-UT)
  
• Heineman (R-NE)
• Otter (R-ID)
• Parnell (R-AK)
• Perry (R-TX)
• SD Open (Rounds, R)
  
• Beebe (D-AR)
• Lynch (D-NH)
• O'Malley (D-MD)
• OR Open (Kulongoski, D)

Will the Buckeye State Swing Back to the GOP in 2010?

By Stuart Rothenberg

Get out your map and draw a big fat bull’s-eye on Ohio. The state looks to be a test of whether the GOP can bounce back strongly after two terrible election cycles, and that makes it a possible bellwether of what’s going on nationally.

Not quite three years ago, a Democratic wave in Ohio swept Republicans out of all but one of the state’s top offices. Then-Rep. Ted Strickland won the governorship, bringing former state Attorney General Lee Fisher along with him as lieutenant governor. Richard Cordray won the state treasurer’s race, Marc Dann was elected attorney general and Jennifer Brunner was elected secretary of state.

The lone Republican elected statewide, by the narrowest of margins, was Mary Taylor. Taylor, 43, won election as state auditor with 51 percent, a margin of fewer than 50,000 votes out of more than 3.8 million cast.

Taylor’s victory was all the more surprising given that her party’s nominee for governor, Ken Blackwell, drew just 37 percent — more than 460,000 fewer votes than Taylor. Then-Sen. Mike DeWine (R) drew just 44 percent in his unsuccessful bid for re-election.

It wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that after controlling the state for years, the Ohio GOP got slaughtered in 2006 and again in 2008. In addition to losing the state’s top offices, the party lost a U.S. Senator, four U.S. House seats and its majority in the Ohio House of Representatives over the past four years.

But timing is everything in politics, and Ohio once again looks like a barnburner in next year’s midterm elections.

Strickland’s opponent in his race for re-election will be former Rep. John Kasich (R), 57, a high-energy populist conservative who will have to defend himself against Democratic attacks that he was a managing director at Lehman Brothers, the financial services firm that declared bankruptcy in 2008 and helped trigger the nation’s financial crisis

Strickland, 68, starts as the favorite in the race, though his job approval numbers aren’t as stratospheric as they once were.

The race is worth watching not only because of the state’s size and reputation as a swing state, but also because Ohio’s governor is one of three statewide officeholders on the state Reapportionment Board, which draws the state legislative districts after the next census. Plus, if Kasich wins, he could have a hand in deciding who carries Ohio in the 2012 GOP presidential primary.

Republican Taylor is one of the other members of the Reapportionment Board, and she, too, will have a fight on her hands. To challenge her, state Democrats have recruited Hamilton County Commissioner David Pepper, 37, a former Cincinnati city councilman.

A graduate of Yale and Yale Law School, he is the son of former Procter & Gamble CEO John Pepper. Most observers believe that Taylor, who served in the state Legislature and is a certified public accountant, will begin the race with a slight advantage, but this no slam-dunk for her.

The third vote on the Reapportionment Board belongs to Ohio’s secretary of state. But the incumbent, Brunner, is running against Fisher for the open-seat Democratic Senate nomination. Party insiders have urged Brunner to drop her Senate bid, and she is likely to come under continued pressure to do so after her third-quarter fundraising was so weak. But she recently reiterated her intention to stay in the race.

Brunner’s open seat looks to be a battle between state House Minority Leader Jennifer Garrison, 47, a Democrat from Marietta, and Republican state Sen. Jon Husted, 42, a former Speaker of the Ohio House. Democratic insiders had expected Franklin County Commissioner Marilyn Brown (D) to be their party’s nominee, but she unexpectedly dropped out of the race earlier this month.

The two other statewide contests are also interesting, though for different reasons.

DeWine is now running for one of his old jobs — attorney general. The post is currently held by Cordray, 50, who won a special election to fill the vacant office after Dann was forced to resign after becoming embroiled in a sexual harassment scandal.

In the state treasurer’s race, Kevin Boyce (D), 38, who was selected by Strickland to fill the post when Cordray become attorney general, faces state Rep. Josh Mandel (R).

Boyce, who is black, previously served on the Columbus City Council. Mandel, who is Jewish, was undergraduate student body president at Ohio State University and served two tours of duty in Iraq as a member of the Marines. Mandel, 32, represents a normally Democratic Cuyahoga County (Cleveland)-based legislative district in the state House.

Given the youth of many of the statewide hopefuls (five are under 45), some of the winners are likely to show up in future gubernatorial and Senate races.

Next year’s Senate race is also crucial. With moderate Republican George Voinovich retiring, a Democratic win by either Fisher or Brunner would put another liberal Democrat in the Senate, while a victory by former Rep. Rob Portman (R) would confirm that the state had swung back to its competitive norm.

Two House seats, Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy’s Columbus-based 15th district and Rep. Steve Driehaus’ Cincinnati-based 1st, will also be at risk. Republicans need to win at least one, and possibly both, to have a chance to have the kind of banner year that they are hoping for.

This column first appeared in Roll Call on October 22, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Landscape Shift Means More Trouble for House Democrats

By Stuart Rothenberg

Already prepared to deal with challenging midterm turnout dynamics that favor the GOP, national Democratic strategists now find themselves looking at higher unemployment numbers, potentially divisive foreign policy decisions and a president who lacks the luster that he had immediately after his inauguration.

This new political reality has a significant effect on the election prospects of dozens of Democratic candidates for the House, whether incumbents, challengers or open-seat hopefuls.

More than a dozen Democratic Members who were already headed for competitive contests now find themselves in even more serious danger in next year’s midterm elections. Before the election cycle ends, most of them are likely to be underdogs for re-election.

Those at greatest risk represent Republican-leaning or conservative districts, as well as districts where a big turnout for Barack Obama by African-American and younger voters helped Democratic candidates for Congress.

The list of Democratic freshmen most affected by the national shift includes Reps. Bobby Bright (Ala.), Walt Minnick (Idaho), Frank Kratovil (Md.), Travis Childers (Miss.), Harry Teague (N.M.), Steve Driehaus (Ohio), Mary Jo Kilroy (Ohio) and Tom Perriello (Va.).

Three of those freshmen — Kratovil, Driehaus and Kilroy — face rematches, while Teague is being challenged by former Rep. Steve Pearce (R), who gave up his seat to run for the Senate.

Given midterm issues and the current political environment, Democrats seem certain to lose at least two of those four seats, with a loss of three quite probable and a Republican sweep of all four certainly possible.

Though the next tier of at-risk Democrats initially appeared slightly less vulnerable, Reps. Betsy Markey (Colo.), Suzanne Kosmas (Fla.), Bill Foster (Ill.), Eric Massa (N.Y.) and Mark Schauer (Mich.) also find themselves in significantly more trouble.

Alan Grayson (Fla.), who started off in this group of freshmen, now looks worse off after his self-inflicted wound on the House floor, even though Republicans do not yet have a top-tier challenger.

One way to look at Democratic problems is to focus on open seats. With Republican Reps. Mark Kirk (Ill.), Jim Gerlach (Pa.) and Mike Castle (Del.) running statewide, Democrats might look like a lock to make important open-seat gains. But they aren’t, at least not yet.

Democrats could well win all three, but Republicans have recruited potentially strong candidates in the Illinois and Pennsylvania districts, and they have good pickup opportunities of their own in the open seats being vacated by Democratic Reps. Charlie Melancon (La.) and Joe Sestak (Pa.).

At the moment, Democrats are likely to pick up two GOP-held seats: Castle’s and that of freshman Rep. Anh “Joseph” Cao (La.).

Of course, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has made a significant recruiting effort to put additional Republican-held seats into play by recruiting challengers to Reps. Charlie Dent (Pa.), Patrick Tiberi (Ohio), Mary Bono Mack (Calif.), Lee Terry (Neb.) and, yet again, Michele Bachmann (Minn.). But the overall direction of the cycle makes it much more difficult for those Democratic challengers than it would have been in 2006 or 2008.

If House losses in the 2010 elections are limited to the districts already mentioned, some Democratic insiders will breathe a huge sigh of relief, since net Democratic losses would be only in the eight- to 15-seat range. That would mean the political environment didn’t drown plenty of Democrats in potentially dangerous districts.

A gain of 12 to 15 seats would be a good showing for the GOP, but it would be a disappointment to overly optimistic Republicans who expect gains of at least three dozen seats.

Over the past two cycles, Democrats were able to defeat popular Republican incumbents because voters were so dissatisfied with President George W. Bush and his party. GOP incumbents who hadn’t been in trouble for years suddenly found themselves in tough races.

This cycle, Democratic strategists hope to avoid the same fate for long-term incumbents such as Reps. Loretta Sanchez (Calif.), Ike Skelton (Mo.), Bart Gordon (Tenn.), Vic Snyder (Ark.), Rick Boucher (Va.) and Chet Edwards (Texas), as well as for more recently elected Members who don’t yet look highly vulnerable, including Reps. Christopher Carney (Pa.), Larry Kissell (N.C.), Glenn Nye (Va.) and John Adler (N.J.).

The shift in national mood has boosted GOP fundraising, and Democratic strategists must hope that core constituencies aren’t disappointed by how Congress ultimately deals with health care reform or how the president handles Afghanistan and Iran.

But November 2010 is still a long way off. Democrats could win another House special election next month, and we don’t yet know how Congress will ultimately deal with health care, what will develop in Afghanistan and Iran, or where the economy will be. But even if the news is more upbeat for Democrats a year from now, the new political landscape is bad news for the dozen or so House Democrats at greatest risk.

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

New Print Edition: Missouri Senate & New York 29

The October 16, 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 quarterly 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:

Missouri Senate: Family Matters
By Nathan L. Gonzales

A Senate race between the Carnahans and the Blunts in Missouri won’t have a lot of surprises, but there could be plenty of suspense.

Secretary of State Robin Carnahan (D) and former House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R) come from the Show Me State’s most prominent political families and are slated to face off in next year’s U.S. Senate race to replace retiring Sen. Kit Bond (R).

At the beginning of the year, Republican strategists were not particularly optimistic about holding the open seat. But as the national political environment has shifted and the threat of a serious GOP primary has faded, Republicans are growing more optimistic.

But Carnahan is the probably the best candidate Democrats could have wished for. She comes from a well-liked political family, holds statewide office, and isn’t burdened by a legislative voting record her opponents can dissect.

The race will likely come down to the national environment and campaign tactics and strategy. And if history is any guide, this should be another barn-burner. Subscribers get the full story in the print edition of the newsletter.

New York 29: Partisan Guns Blazing
By Nathan L. Gonzales

Republicans may lose yet another congressional seat in New York this fall, but they’re hoping that their Empire State comeback includes defeating freshman Cong. Eric Massa (D) in the 29th District next year. Subscribers get the full story in the print edition of the newsletter.

Is the New Jersey Gubernatorial Race a Tossup?

By Stuart Rothenberg

Anyone in his right mind would now have to rate next month’s gubernatorial election in New Jersey as a tossup. After all, virtually every poll shows the race within the margin of error, and some recent surveys show Gov. Jon Corzine (D) leading GOP challenger Chris Christie.

Moreover, climbing out on a limb to give one of the candidates an advantage in a virtual dead heat isn’t the best way to guarantee that your percentage of “correct calls” remains high so that you can send out a press release after the elections to brag about how astute you are.

But this column is about analysis, scenarios and best guesses, and since I still believe that Christie has the single best chance of winning the Garden State governorship, I see no reason to crawl completely off the limb I’m on. But, I must admit, I’m not oozing with confidence.

As I noted a couple of weeks ago in a column, Corzine’s numbers are going nowhere fast — in other words, he is not “gaining” on Christie. He remains stuck pretty much where he has been for many months — in the 39 percent to 42 percent range, even in a just-released Quinnipiac University survey.

The public’s view of the governor remains heavily negative in three recent polls that show a dead heat. A Public Policy Polling (D) survey found Corzine’s name ID at 55 percent unfavorable, while Fairleigh Dickinson University had his unfavorable rating at 54 percent and Quinnipiac showed it at 53 percent.

Christie’s unfavorable numbers weren’t good — 44 percent in PPP’s survey, 42 percent in the FDU poll and 40 percent in Quinnipiac’s — but they weren’t nearly as bad as Corzine’s.

In the FDU survey, a stunning 69 percent said Corzine’s performance as governor was only fair or poor. In Quinnipiac’s, 56 percent of likely voters disapproved of how he has handled his job. These numbers suggest that Corzine won’t get many voters who are still undecided.

One Republican strategist I talked with recently equated Corzine’s political positioning to that of a “beached whale,” adding, “We can’t move his numbers, and he can’t move his numbers.”

But if Corzine’s numbers haven’t moved, Christie’s have — down. The erosion in Christie’s standing has made the race tight.

While the GOP challenger was around 50 percent on the ballot test in July and August, he has slid into the low to mid-40s in most recent surveys, all but erasing his lead over Corzine. His personal negatives have risen correspondingly.

Independent Chris Daggett seems to be drawing enough votes away from Christie to make it possible for the governor to sneak into a second term with less than 45 percent.

While about half of those polled say they don’t yet have an opinion of Daggett (the number is a stunning 73 percent in Quinnipiac’s poll), Daggett has qualified for public financing, participated in a televised debate and been endorsed by both the Sierra Club and the Newark Star-Ledger.

But nobody is entirely certain how Daggett will do on Election Day.

The recent PPP survey showed Daggett drawing 13 percent, while an early October SurveyUSA poll put him at 14 percent, the same as the new Quinnipiac poll. Surveys that don’t include a three-way ballot test (requiring respondents to volunteer their preference for him) put Daggett in the mid-to-upper single digits. FDU showed him at 17 percent in a three-way ballot test but only 4 percent when respondents had to volunteer his name.

Unlike Corzine and Christie, who are guaranteed one of the top two positions on the ballot in each county, Daggett’s ballot position in each county was decided by random drawing.

Daggett lucked out in two counties, Gloucester and Bergen, the state’s most populous county, drawing the third spot behind the two major-party nominees. But elsewhere, he is buried among the nine other Independent and third-party hopefuls.

“If Daggett is going to get 17 percent of the vote, it will be because people are actively searching for him on the ballot, not because voters simply are dissatisfied with Corzine and Christie and looking for someone else to vote for,” says Matt Friedman of PolitickerNJ.com, an astute observer of New Jersey politics and of the gubernatorial contest.

But ballot placement is only one of Daggett’s problems.

Independent candidates often lose support toward the final weeks of a campaign, either because they come under attack or, more often, because their supporters start to worry about “throwing away” votes on a candidate who can’t win. (Veteran Democratic and Republican operatives argue that, for a number of reasons, Daggett has no chance to win the election.)

In the 2006 Texas gubernatorial race, for example, two Independent candidates, Texas Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn (who was elected as a Republican) and entertainer Kinky Friedman, drew a combined 38 percent in a mid-September SurveyUSA poll. A month later, the two candidates combined for 35 percent in another SurveyUSA poll, and a week before Election Day they drew 38 percent. When the votes were counted, however, Keeton Strayhorn and Friedman combined to draw 30 percent, significantly below what surveys had shown.

Christie has started to criticize Daggett’s tax plan, and he is almost certain to argue in the coming weeks that since the Independent candidate can’t win, a vote for Daggett is, in fact, a vote for four more years of Corzine. Whether Christie is successful with that message will determine who wins, Corzine or Christie.

Daggett is the single best thing to happen to Corzine politically. In a two-man contest against Christie, the governor would have little chance to win. But a three-way race presents a very different dynamic.

If Daggett’s number on the ballot test slides to the low double digits (10 percent to 12 percent) or below, Corzine almost certainly will lose. On the other hand, if Daggett gets at least 17 percent, the governor should win. If Daggett’s showing falls into the 13 percent to 16 percent range, either major-party candidate could emerge victorious.

This column first appeared in Roll Call on October 15, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

New York 23: Another Train Wreck for House Republicans?

By Stuart Rothenberg

While Republican prospects for the 2010 Congressional elections are improving and the GOP is likely to win at least one, and quite possibly both, of this year’s gubernatorial elections, the special election to fill an open seat in New York’s 23rd district is trending the other way.

A lack of campaign resources and a classic political squeeze from the left and the right have severely damaged the prospects of Republican Dede Scozzafava, a six-term state Assemblywoman from Watertown.

While initial polling showed Scozzafava leading Democratic attorney Bill Owens and Conservative Party nominee Doug Hoffman, Owens has caught Scozzafava in recent private polling, and Hoffman continues to gain strength, making him a considerable factor in the contest and a growing problem for Scozzafava down the stretch.

GOP insiders have grown extremely nervous about the race. They worry about Scozzafava’s poor fundraising, lack of a compelling message to Republican base voters and weak showing in polling in the crucial Syracuse media market, which makes up about 30 percent of the sprawling district.

“She needs a solid win in the Syracuse area, and she isn’t getting anything close to that,” one veteran dispassionate analyst from the area said. “And she is having problems raising money from Republicans, who point to her support for ‘card check’ and President [Barack] Obama’s stimulus package and say that she isn’t a real Republican.” Not a single House Republican voted for the stimulus bill.

Heavy TV advertising by the Club for Growth, which is backing Hoffman, in all three major media markets has peeled conservative voters away from the Republican, and GOP insiders worry that the bleeding will continue. Hoffman is also on TV, portraying Scozzafava as a “fake” Republican and a liberal Albany politician.

So far, conservative critics of Scozzafava have complained primarily about her record on taxes and spending, but some expect that her liberal positions on social issues, including abortion and gay marriage (which is mentioned in Hoffman’s spot), will soon become more of an issue. Both Scozzafava and Owens favor abortion rights, while Hoffman does not.

However, the Republican just received the endorsement from the National Rifle Association, and it could be important in fashioning her appeal to right-leaning voters in the district.

Meanwhile, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has slammed the Assemblywoman as a “typical Albany politician” in TV ads that charge that she supported tax breaks that her company benefited from “while raising taxes on you.”

While the National Republican Congressional Committee is advertising heavily for Scozzafava and doing everything it can to help her, the combined advertising of the DCCC, the Owens campaign and the Club for Growth has been overwhelming the Republican nominee. Scozzafava is now finally on the air in the Syracuse market, but she is simply not carrying her weight on TV.

“If Dede doesn’t raise money and get on TV, there is only one direction for her to go, and it’s down,” a thoughtful Republican said.

Democratic insiders, however, remain cautious about Owens’ chances in the race, noting that although Obama won the district narrowly, the party has no political infrastructure there. The Democratic performance in the district is 47.5 percent, according to the National Committee for an Effective Congress, a Democratic group.

Some Republicans worry that while the national environment has shifted significantly to their advantage from where it was when Democrats won a special election in northeastern New York earlier this year, Scozzafava is unable to take advantage of the shift, in part because of her record on taxes, support for a Democratic state budget and support of the stimulus package.

“Intensity is a huge problem. She doesn’t have a message to appeal to Republican voters who care about bigger government and higher taxes,” one Republican said.

GOP insiders also note that, as was the case in the 20th district special election, Democrats have once again picked a nominee who does not have a legislative record.

“Democrats got their blank-slate candidate, so we have nothing to hit him on,” groaned one Republican strategist who is familiar with the race.

Strategically, there are two big things to watch in the race. Do Democrats who like Scozzafava’s record in the Assembly and her position on key issues “come home” to Owens as Election Day nears, draining Scozzafava of one of her sources of support? And does Hoffman continue to peel more Republicans away from the Assemblywoman?

Owens, who is not insisting on a public option in the health care reform bill and does not support gay marriage, is a registered Independent. Yet he just received the endorsement of the Working Families Party even though Scozzafava’s husband, Ron McDougall, is a United Auto Workers member and president of one of the state’s central labor councils.

Capitol Hill Republicans are doing what they can to show that Scozzafava would be a part of their team.

NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions (Texas) has publicly embraced her, and on Friday Rep. Jeb Hensarling (Texas) released a statement endorsing her as “the only Republican who can win” and invoking the name of Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to try to mobilize Republican voters behind Scozzafava. Hensarling and Sessions, of course, are largely unknown back in the New York district.

With three weeks to go, this contest is very much up for grabs. The three-way race makes for a number of possible scenarios, including ones that have Scozzafava finishing first, second or even third. She is in real trouble.

This column first appeared in Roll Call on October 13, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

New York 23 Moved to Toss-Up/Tilt Democratic

Battling Democrat Bill Owens, the DCCC, Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman, and the Club for Growth, it's getting tougher to see how Dede Scozzafava (R) and the NRCC keep this seat in GOP hands. Read more about the race in Stu's Roll Call column. We're moving the race from Pure Toss-Up to Toss-Up/Tilt Democratic, which would be a takeover for the Democrats.

And we're moving Cong. Alan Grayson (D- Florida's 8th District) from Toss-Up/Tilt Democratic to Pure Toss-Up. But the Republican nomination remains up in the air.

Here are our latest House ratings. 2009 races in italics.
#- Moved benefiting Democrats
* - Moved benefiting Republicans

Pure Toss-Up (2 R, 12 D)

• AL 2 (Bright, D)
  
• FL 8 (Grayson, D) *
  
• ID 1 (Minnick, D)
• IL 10 (Open; Kirk, R)
• MD 1 (Kratovil, D)
• MS 1 (Childers, D)
• NH 1 (Shea-Porter, D)
• NH 2 (Open; Hodes, D)
• NM 2 (Teague, 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 (1 R, 4 D)

• CO 4 (Markey, D)
• FL 24 (Kosmas, D)
• IL 14 (Foster, D)
• MI 7 (Schauer, D)
• NY 23 (Open; McHugh, R) #
  

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: 48
Republican seats: 17
Democratic seats: 31

Nevada Senate Moved to Toss-Up

With recent polls continuing to show Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) trailing potential GOP challengers in next year’s midterm election, Reid’s hold on his Nevada Senate seat looks increasingly questionable. We are moving the seat from Narrow Advantage for Incumbent Party to Toss-Up.

We are also moving two other Democratic-held Senate seats, Arkansas (Blanche Lincoln) and Colorado (Michael Bennet) from Clear Advantage for Incumbent Party to Narrow Advantage for Incumbent Party, based on their standings in polling and the improved quality of recent Republicans who have entered those contests.

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, 3 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) *
  

Narrow Advantage for Incumbent Party (2 R, 3 D)

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

Clear Advantage for Incumbent Party (1 R, 0 D)

• FL Open (LeMieux, R)

Currently Safe (11 R, 11 D)

• Bennett (R-UT)
• 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)
• 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)

Delaware Senate: Race Is Turned Upside Down by Castle’s Entry

By Stuart Rothenberg

Count me as at least moderately surprised that Rep. Mike Castle (R-Del.) announced on Tuesday that he will run for the remaining four years of now-Vice President Joseph Biden’s Senate term.

Castle, who served eight years as Delaware’s governor, from 1985 to 1993, has had plenty of opportunities to run for the Senate. Each time, he took a pass, even though Republican strategists drooled at the thought that he might be a candidate.

But when the Congressman, who turned 70 earlier this year, announced his Senate candidacy, he turned a layup for Democrats into an exceedingly competitive contest, assuming that state Attorney General Beau Biden (D) enters the race.

Castle “spent his entire summer moving up and down the state and talking to people,” said one GOP insider close to the Congressman. “He loves Delaware. He loves policy. He likes to campaign. It’s what he does. So in the end, I wasn’t shocked.”

Castle is the only Republican in the state who could give the GOP a chance of winning the Senate seat, currently occupied by appointed Sen. Ted Kaufman (D), who was widely seen as a place holder for Beau Biden, the son of the vice president.

Castle was first elected to the state House in 1966. Since then, he has served in the state Senate, as lieutenant governor (under Republican Gov. Pete du Pont), as governor and, since 1993, as Delaware’s lone Congressman. That means that he has run statewide 12 times during the past 30 years.

Castle won re-election (admittedly against nominal opposition) 61 percent to 38 percent last year and 57 percent to 39 percent in 2006 — two of the worst election cycles in recent memory for Republicans.

Still, there is no doubt that Delaware, once regarded as a swing state, has swung reliably into the Democratic column. The state has gone Democratic in the past five races for governor, president and Senate, and Democrats hold solid majorities in both chambers of the state Legislature. Castle and state Auditor R. Thomas Wagner Jr. are the only Republicans elected statewide.

A press release from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee issued minutes after Castle’s announcement shows a number of lines of attack that the party will direct at the Congressman.

After noting Castle’s “four decades in politics,” the release hit the Congressman for having “built-up a record of supporting ... George Bush’s economic policies, including tax cuts for the super-wealthy, that drove Delaware’s economy into a ditch — and now won’t support any of the Obama-Biden plans to fix it.”

Democrats hope to portray Castle as the past and Beau Biden, 40, as the future, something they did at least somewhat successfully in 2000, when then-Gov. Tom Carper (D) defeated longtime Sen. Bill Roth (R).

Efforts to paint Castle as an extension of George W. Bush, however, won’t be easy, since the Congressman is widely regarded as one of the few moderate Republicans left in the House.

As CQ’s Politics in America 2010 notes, Castle “was one of only three House Republicans to vote for all six of the new Democratic majority’s signature bills at the start of the 110th Congress,” and he has supported embryonic stem cell research, Amtrak reauthorization and legislation to combat global warming.

Beau Biden has far less political experience and demonstrated vote-getting ability than Castle.

Beau Biden worked as a federal prosecutor before joining a Wilmington law firm in 2004. Two years later, he ran for Delaware attorney general, winning narrowly, 53 percent to 47 percent. A member of the Army National Guard, he recently returned from a tour in Iraq and has not yet announced his political plans.

Since Delaware’s attorney general is up for election next year, Beau Biden would be risking his current office by jumping into a difficult Senate race against Castle.

Democratic insiders acknowledge that Castle will be a formidable nominee and they hope that Beau Biden will run for the seat, even though a loss to Castle would be embarrassing to the vice president.

“If Beau doesn’t run and Republicans win the seat, the vice president hasn’t saved himself from embarrassment,” one Democrat argued, noting that the national media certainly would take note of a Republican victory regardless of whether the Democratic nominee was named Biden.

“Ultimately, the pressure is on Joe to produce the strongest possible candidate to save the seat,” agreed one Republican observer with extensive knowledge of the state’s politics. “And that means Beau Biden.”

Republicans now have credible candidates in both President Barack Obama’s former Illinois Senate seat and Biden’s Senate seat, and the uneven track record for the incumbent party in similar cases has to be a cause for concern among party strategists (See Obama, Biden Seats in Danger?, July 29).

Both Castle and Biden are likely to be well-funded, as outside groups certainly would spend heavily on the race in the expensive Philadelphia and inexpensive Salisbury, Md., media markets.

It would be easy to rate the Delaware Senate race as a tossup, and that certainly would not be an unreasonable place to put it. But Castle begins ahead in the early polling conducted on a hypothetical Castle-Biden contest, and the overall cycle currently looks to favor the GOP nationally. Moreover, until Biden actually announces his candidacy, he could still decide against taking on Castle.

Even given the state’s Democratic bent, that’s enough reason to give Castle a slight edge. And that’s more than enough reason to give the DSCC indigestion and the vice president’s office a severe migraine.

This column first appeared in Roll Call on October 8, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Virginia Governor Moved to Lean Takeover

According to the latest Washington Post survey, former Attorney General Bob McDonnell (R) leads state Sen. Creigh Deeds (D) 53%-44% with a little more than three weeks before Election Day. The poll confirms that Deeds has squeezed everything he can out of the controversy surrounding McDonnell's graduate school thesis, but is still trailing the Republican. We're moving the race from Toss-Up to Lean Takeover.

Here are our latest gubernatorial ratings. 2009 races in italics.
# - Moved benefiting Democrats
* - Moved benefiting Republicans

Lean Takeover (4 R, 6 D)

• CA Open (Schwarzenegger, R)
• HI Open (Lingle, R)
• RI Open (Carcieri, R)
• VT Open (Douglas, R)
  
• KS Open (Parkinson, D)
• Corzine (D-NJ)
• OK Open (Henry, D)
• TN Open (Bredesen, D)
• VA Open (Kaine, D) *
  
• WY Open (Freudenthal, D)

Toss-Up (4 R, 6 D)

• Brewer (R-AZ)
• Gibbons (R-NV)
• FL Open (Crist, R) *
  
• MN Open (Pawlenty, R)
• Culver (D-IA) *
  
• Paterson (D-NY)
  
• Ritter (D-CO)
  
• MI Open (Granholm, D)
• PA Open (Rendell, D)
• WI Open (Doyle, D)
  

Narrow Advantage for Incumbent Party (1 R, 2 D)

• GA Open (Perdue, R)
• Patrick (D-MA)
  
• Strickland (D-OH)

Clear Advantage for Incumbent Party (3 R, 3 D)

• Rell (R-CT)
• AL Open (Riley, R)
• SC Open (Sanford, R)
• Quinn (D-IL)
• ME Open (Baldacci, D)
• NM Open (Richardson, D)
  

Currently Safe (6 R, 4 D)

• Herbert (R-UT) *
• Heineman (R-NE)
• Otter (R-ID)
• Parnell (R-AK)
• Perry (R-TX)
• SD Open (Rounds, R)
  
• Beebe (D-AR)
• Lynch (D-NH)
• O'Malley (D-MD)
• OR Open (Kulongoski, D)

McMahon, WWE Seek Mainstream Credibility

By Nathan L. Gonzales

The day before Linda McMahon (R) officially announced her candidacy for Senate, political reporters at major media outlets received a glossy black folder from World Wrestling Entertainment Inc. that included full-color brochures, press clippings, a DVD and a personalized cover letter from the WWE’s chief operating officer, which mentioned her potential run against Sen. Chris Dodd (D-Conn.).

Since McMahon’s announcement, political coverage has been reduced to poor puns, and because of the stigma surrounding professional wrestling, her candidacy has largely been dismissed.

But stranger things have happened in politics.

The McMahon family has proved to be very successful in the entertainment world, and the combination of a crowded Republican primary, Linda McMahon’s commitment to spending considerable personal money, and Dodd’s soft poll numbers creates a scenario where she could win.

And even if she doesn’t win the nomination, the WWE stands to gain more of the mainstream credibility that it craves.

The WWE clearly realized that every story that mentions McMahon will also mention the company.

“It was strictly done to educate people about WWE,” Robert Zimmerman, WWE’s vice president of public relations and corporate communications, said of the slick media packets. “There’s been a lot of evolution in the company that the media has not been paying attention to.”

The WWE has recently been touting itself as a PG company after a few years of racier content. That will be used by McMahon’s opponents.

Zimmerman spent six years as vice president of public relations for Fox News beginning in 1998, so he’s familiar with the political players and publications in Washington.

The promotional DVD that reporters received in the packet was less than a week old because it included a clip of former “The Price Is Right” host Bob Barker hosting WWE’s “Monday Night Raw” program on Sept. 7. It also included a couple of quick clips of McMahon without identifying her. According to Zimmerman, the DVD was the regular corporate “sizzle reel” that is updated every six months or so.

Simultaneously, McMahon launched her Senate campaign in an unorthodox manner.

On Sept. 16, she handed over her reins as CEO to her husband, Vince (who is already WWE chairman and is the face of the company), and commenced a weeklong television buy in the expensive New York City market almost a year before the Aug. 9, 2010, primary. Approximately 25 percent of general election voters in Connecticut watch NYC television.

The campaign rollout included television ads during the Notre Dame football game and on the season premiere of “Saturday Night Live,” as well as full-page ads in the New York Times and Hartford Courant. It’s just the beginning of what McMahon says will be a $30 million campaign. Most of that will come from her own pocket because she’s not accepting contributions from political action committees and she’s capping individual contributions at $100.

Veteran Republican media consultant Mike Murphy was openly critical of her strategy.

“Wresting [sic] Queen McMahon to run/lose for Senate in CT. Idiotic, but it will cost Simmons $$. Shame on her payday seeking R consultants,” Murphy wrote on his Twitter account, going after McMahon’s consultants, which include media consultant Scott Howell, pollster Hans Kaiser and former National Republican Senatorial Committee Political Director Mike Slanker.

Murphy’s not the only GOP consultant grumbling. But the premise of the criticism, that McMahon absolutely can’t win, may be wrong.

“She’s more serious than people realize,” according to a Senate GOP strategist who is not taking sides in the race. “She’s hired smart people and taking their advice. Most businesspeople don’t [when they run for office].”

Murphy’s criticism implies that McMahon’s consultants are taking advantage of her naiveté.

In reality, the 61-year-old Greenwich resident helped grow the WWE from 17 employees to 500 employees and a company that made more than $525 million in revenue last year. The Stamford headquarters, complete with WWE flag, is visible off Interstate 95.

“None of the McMahons are stupid people,” said Dave Meltzer, editor of Wrestling Observer Newsletter. “They’ve far and away built the most successful wrestling business in history.”

McMahon’s political interest is not a surprise. She’s personally contributed to both parties in recent years (slightly more to Republicans) and was recently appointed by Gov. Jodi Rell (R) to a position on the state board of education.

As a company, the WWE has been involved in registering young voters through the Smackdown Your Vote program, and both President Barack Obama and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) delivered video messages to WWE events. Behind the scenes, Lowell Weicker, a former governor and Senator, has served on the WWE board since 1999.

“This is a race to create an image of her,” one GOP consultant said of McMahon’s initial tactics. “My guess is that she wanted to prove she’s a serious candidate and shape the talk about her,” another GOP strategist explained.

McMahon has to walk a fine line between touting her credentials as a successful businesswoman and not being defined by wrestling or her husband. She doesn’t mention the WWE by name in her ads.

Aside from the large shadow of the business, it remains to be seen how McMahon transitions to the role of candidate. “She’s not a dynamic public speaker,” according to Meltzer, who has been covering the wrestling industry for 38 years. “But she’s very smart.”

Former Rep. Rob Simmons currently leads in polls testing the GOP primary, but that’s largely a function of higher name identification. State Sen. Sam Caligiuri is also in the GOP race along with former Ambassador to Ireland Tom Foley and libertarian economist Peter Schiff. Foley has personal money and should be able to raise it, and Schiff is raising money from libertarians across the country.

With no runoff, someone could win with significantly less than 50 percent of the vote. And based on Dodd’s current poll numbers, the GOP nominee, whoever it is, will have a fighting chance in the general election. It’s unclear whether the May convention will winnow the field.

It took extraordinary circumstances and a crowded field to get former wrestler Jesse “The Body” Ventura elected governor of Minnesota. He won the 1998 race as the Reform Party candidate with 37 percent, while then-St. Paul Mayor Norm Coleman (R) received 34 percent and state Attorney General Skip Humphrey garnered 28 percent. Ventura was a more charismatic figure.

“They’re not immune to making bad decisions,” Meltzer said of the McMahons, citing the infamous single season of the XFL, Vince McMahon’s failed football experiment, and an unsuccessful restaurant in Times Square as evidence. “Sometimes they taxed themselves and tried to do too much.”

In this case, Linda McMahon really doesn’t have a lot to lose, except for a few million dollars.

If she runs a serious campaign, there is virtually no risk of damaging the family business she helped build that will likely be passed down to her son, daughter and son-in-law, wrestler Triple H.

“If Vince flopped, that’s a different story,” Meltzer said. When the XFL failed, “it took an aura away from Vince” and the business suffered. In this case, there is only an upside for the candidate and the company. “In the fans’ eyes, she’s just Vince’s wife.”

This story first appeared in Roll Call on October 6, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Vote for Us — We Aren’t Nearly as Bad as the Other Guys!

By Stuart Rothenberg

Next year’s elections are starting to look like a choice between bad and worse, if we are to believe the most recent batch of polling data, including the consistently reliable NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.

The Sept. 17-20 survey, conducted by Democratic pollster Peter Hart of Hart Research Associates and Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies, shows President Barack Obama’s job approval at 51 percent, down 10 points from April.

Congress’ job approval, in contrast, has fallen by only 6 points over the same time. But of course, Members of Congress shouldn’t take anything positive from that. With an approval rating of 22 percent in the most recent survey, they don’t have much further to fall.

The two worst bits of news for Democrats are the narrowing of the Democratic advantage on respondents’ preferences for next year’s elections and the dip in the Democratic Party’s ratings.

In October of last year, 49 percent of registered voters polled said they wanted a Democratic-controlled Congress, while only 36 percent said they preferred a Republican-controlled Congress. That’s a hefty 13-point Democratic advantage.

The September poll, however, has the Democratic edge down to 3 points — 43 percent to 40 percent over the GOP.

It’s worth noting that the wording of the question used by the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll to measure voters’ partisan preferences in the next election differs from that used in many (probably most) other surveys.

Most pollsters (including recent surveys by Bloomberg, Franklin & Marshall and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research for Democracy Corps) use a variation of the Gallup generic question — “If the elections for Congress were being held today, which party’s candidate would you vote for in your Congressional district — the Democratic Party’s candidate or the Republican Party’s candidate?”

That’s not an unreasonable wording, but Peter Hart prefers the question as posed in his NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll to measure generic preference: “What is your preference for the outcome of next year’s Congressional elections — a Congress controlled by Republicans or a Congress controlled by Democrats?”

“We had two different questions [to measure generic sentiment] in our 1994 September and October surveys,” Hart, whose extensive work in political polling undoubtedly makes him one of the nation’s most accomplished and respected pollsters, told me in a recent interview. “We found out that the [traditional] generic ballot question didn’t help us see what was coming. [The question we now use] gave us better insight into what happened.”

Hart speculates that since some respondents know the name and party of their incumbent Member of Congress, they insert that name mentally into the question being asked, thereby altering the intended purely “generic” nature of the question.

The decline in the percentage of voters who want Democrats controlling Congress is worrisome for Democratic strategists because the public’s image of the party has also eroded.

In February, 49 percent of respondents had very or somewhat positive feelings toward the Democratic Party, while 31 percent had somewhat or very negative feelings toward it.

In September, the NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found only 41 percent with very or somewhat positive feelings and an almost equal 39 percent with very or somewhat negative feelings.

You might assume that the GOP has benefited from this Democratic decline. Don’t. The Republican Party’s image has improved so little since February that it might as well as have not improved at all.

In February, 26 percent of respondents had a very or somewhat favorable view of the Republican Party, and in September, that number had inched up to 28 percent. Meanwhile, the party’s combined negatives fell from 47 percent to a still far-too-high 43 percent.

Republicans argue that the midterm elections will be a referendum on Obama and on Democratic control of Congress, so the public’s attitude toward the Democrats is far more important than how they feel about the GOP.

While I certainly agree with the direction of that assessment, it’s unwise to dismiss the low GOP numbers cavalierly.

Negative ratings as high as the Republican Party is now carrying give Democratic candidates and campaign committees an opportunity to demonize GOP candidates, possibly limiting the damage to Democrats in the midterms.

In October 2006, NBC News/Wall Street Journal polling showed the Democratic Party with only a net +4 in image (39 percent positive/35 percent negative) among registered voters, while the GOP’s was -13 (35 percent positive/48 percent negative). Democrats gained 30 House seats.

Two years later, in October 2008, the net Democratic advantage among registered voters was a mere single point (39 percent positive/38 percent negative), while the Republican Party’s image was far worse, a net of -17 (31 percent positive/48 percent negative). Democrats gained 20 more seats.

Of course, it’s certainly important to note that both elections were “about” George W. Bush and the Republican Party, and that even if the GOP’s image remains upside down (higher negatives than positives), the party is likely to gain House seats next year.

It is difficult for the Republican Party to improve its image right now, but the party surely will need a far more favorably inclined public before it crawls entirely out of the deep hole that it now is in. Some new spokesmen might be a start.

This column first appeared in Roll Call on October 5, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

Delaware Senate Moved to Lean Takeover

Cong. Mike Castle's (R) entry into the U.S. Senate race to fill the remainder of Vice President Joe Biden's term dramatically alters the dynamic of the race.

Even if Attorney General Beau Biden (D) runs for the open Senate seat – certainly not guaranteed given the cordial relations between Castle and Joe Biden over the years, and the fact that Castle would be filling only the last four years of Biden’s unexpired term -- Castle, the former governor who has been elected statewide for over 25 years, has the early advantage in the race.

An early March Public Policy Polling (D) survey had Castle leading Biden 44%-36%. Susquehanna Polling & Research (R) showed Castle up 55%-34% in late April. And a Sept. 30 Rasmussen Reports poll had the Republican ahead 47%-42%. The latter survey also showed that both men are very well-liked. Castle was at 61% favorable/34% unfavorable and Biden 60% favorable/32% unfavorable.

We're moving the Delaware Senate seat from Currently Safe for Democrats to Lean Takeover for the GOP. However, even if Beau Biden takes a pass on the contest, the combination of the state’s Democratic bent and Castle’s popularity strongly suggest a very competitive contest.

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, 2 D)

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

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

• Burr (R-NC)
• Vitter (R-LA)
• Reid (D-NV)
• Specter (D-PA)
  

Clear Advantage for Incumbent Party (1 R, 2 D)

• FL Open (LeMieux, R)
• Bennet (D-CO)
• Lincoln (D-AR)

Currently Safe (11 R, 11 D)

• Bennett (R-UT)
• 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)
• 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)

New Print Edition: Kentucky Senate & Ohio 12

The October 2, 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 quarterly 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:

Kentucky Senate: That’s What He Said
By Nathan L. Gonzales

Open seats are usually tougher to defend for the incumbent party, but in the case of Kentucky in 2010, Republican strategists are more than happy to start with a clean slate.

Almost immediately after Sen. Jim Bunning (R) narrowly won a second term in 2004, Democrats started thinking about his next race. A number of top elected officials eyed the contest, but the Democratic field narrowed to state Attorney General Jack Conway and Lt. Gov. Daniel Mongiardo, whom Bunning defeated five years ago. Subscribers get the full story in the print edition of the newsletter.


Ohio 12: A Day Late and a Dollar Short?

Even Democrat Paula Brooks’s political foes see her as a formidable candidate. But many of them think that she may have chosen the wrong district and the wrong cycle to run for Congress.

Early last cycle, the Democrat explored a run in the open 15th District race. She eventually deferred to fellow Franklin County commissioner Mary Jo Kilroy (D), who won the general election at a time when Democrats had the wind at their backs.

Now Brooks is running in the neighboring 12th District, but she’ll likely face a dramatically different environment in the mid-term election, and she’ll have to knock off incumbent Cong. Pat Tiberi (R) to get to Congress. Subscribers get the full story in the print edition of the newsletter.

New Jersey Governor: Don’t Believe the Corzine Surge Just Yet

By Stuart Rothenberg

The gubernatorial race in New Jersey has not changed fundamentally recently, no matter what you may read in poorly produced Associated Press stories distributed by the Democratic Governors Association, the Democratic National Committee or Gov. Jon Corzine’s (D) campaign.

I’ve become accustomed to crazy rumors and assertions at the end of campaigns, and most of them are baseless.

A couple of days before Election Day 2006, CBS executives planning the network’s coverage were in a frenzy about a possible Republican surge that challenged all of their assumptions about the election and disrupted their plans for election night. After checking around with reliable pollsters, I told them the sky wasn’t falling on Democrats.

In other years, when Republicans were headed for gains, I’ve heard late rumors about Democratic surges that were equally untrue.

A Wednesday AP story reporting that Corzine “is closing the gap in the New Jersey governor’s race” and has “pulled to within 4 percentage points of Republican Chris Christie” is technically true but gives such a distorted view of the contest that it can only mislead readers.

The same impression was left by reports on newjerseynewsroom.com, an independent news site, on Bloomberg.com and in the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Describing Corzine as closing the gap or pulling closer conveys the impression that Corzine is gathering support and increasing his standing in the contest. He is not. He hasn’t moved in the Quinnipiac University poll (or in other polls, for that matter) since the beginning of the year.

Corzine’s chances of winning re-election now are no better than they were a month ago. The governor continues to be stuck between 38 percent and 42 percent in the ballot test, where he has been for many months, and the fundamentals of the race continue to favor the Republican challenger.

Corzine was at 39 percent among likely voters in the newest Quinnipiac survey, not much different from his 37 percent showing at the end of August, his 40 percent showing in early August or his 38 percent showing in mid-July.

The most recent Quinnipiac poll showed Christie leading Corzine by 4 points because the Republican’s vote has slipped from 46 percent or 47 percent in other Quinnipiac surveys to 43 percent. In turn, Independent candidate Chris Daggett’s number in the ballot test has risen to 12 percent in the most recent Quinnipiac poll, up from the 7 percent to 9 percent he had been drawing in other recent Quinnipiac surveys.

There is no statistically significant movement from late August to late September among likely independent voters.

Corzine’s attacks on Christie have driven the challenger’s negatives up, as the DGA points out, so that Christie’s personal ratings are only 38 percent favorable/38 percent unfavorable. Of course, what the DGA forgot to mention is that Corzine’s ratings are 34 percent favorable/56 percent unfavorable — much worse than Christie’s.

No, Corzine’s unfavorable ratings haven’t moved, but that’s because his name identification is high and voters already viewed him unfavorably before the race began. The governor’s job approval mirrors his name ID ratings at 36 percent approve/58 percent disapprove. (A month ago, Corzine’s job rating was little different at 34 percent approve/60 percent disapprove.)

Quinnipiac’s latest poll found that the top campaign issue by far for likely voters is taxes (41 percent, compared with the second most important issue, the economy/unemployment/jobs, which drew 17 percent). And which candidate has the advantage on that issue? Christie “is the big winner” on that issue, Quinnipiac University Polling Institute Director Maurice Carroll says.

Quinnipiac found that 61 percent of likely voters (and 71 percent of likely independent voters) said that property taxes — the single most salient issue in polling — would likely go up if Corzine is re-elected, while only 34 percent of likely voters (and 38 percent of likely independent voters) thought property taxes would go up if Christie wins next month.

What evidence should you look for if the fundamental dynamics of the race are changing?

Corzine’s numbers in the ballot test need to show some life. Ballot tests a year out don’t mean a great deal, especially if the candidates haven’t spent money or engaged, but this race has been active for months and state voters have seemed more focused on politics earlier than in the past.

Alternatively, a full-scale shift of Christie voters to Independent Daggett would suggest that Democrats had made Christie an unacceptable alternative to the governor, giving Corzine a chance to squeeze out a win with just 40 percent of the vote in a three-way race.

But that has not happened yet, and the bigger concern for Corzine is that Daggett voters will move away from him and toward Christie as the election nears and Daggett voters decide that they want to be with a winner, or that voting for an Independent is a “wasted” vote.

Corzine still has a month to change the contest’s dynamics, and nobody can predict what surprises or mistakes are yet to come. But the new Quinnipiac poll doesn’t show that much has changed, no matter what hype you read in a lot of the news coverage.

This column first appeared in Roll Call on October 1, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.

2009-2010 Gubernatorial Ratings

Here are our latest gubernatorial ratings. 2009 races in italics.
# - Moved benefiting Democrats
* - Moved benefiting Republicans

Lean Takeover (5 R, 5 D)

• CA Open (Schwarzenegger, R)
• FL Open (Crist, R)
• HI Open (Lingle, R)
• RI Open (Carcieri, R)
• VT Open (Douglas, R) #
  
• KS Open (Parkinson, D)
• Corzine (D-NJ)
• OK Open (Henry, D)
• TN Open (Bredesen, D)
• WY Open (Freudenthal, D)

Toss-Up (3 R, 6 D)

• Brewer (R-AZ)
• Gibbons (R-NV)
• MN Open (Pawlenty, R)
• Paterson (D-NY) *
  
• Ritter (D-CO) *
  
• MI Open (Granholm, D)
• PA Open (Rendell, D)
• VA Open (Kaine, D)
• WI Open (Doyle, D) *
  

Narrow Advantage for Incumbent Party (1 R, 3 D)

• GA Open (Perdue, R)
• Culver (D-IA) *
  
• Patrick (D-MA) *
  
• Strickland (D-OH)

Clear Advantage for Incumbent Party (4 R, 3 D)

• Herbert (R-UT)
• Rell (R-CT)
• AL Open (Riley, R)
• SC Open (Sanford, R)
• Quinn (D-IL)
• ME Open (Baldacci, D)
• NM Open (Richardson, D)
  

Currently Safe (5 R, 4 D)

• Heineman (R-NE)
• Otter (R-ID)
• Parnell (R-AK)
• Perry (R-TX)
• SD Open (Rounds, R) *
  
• Beebe (D-AR)
• Lynch (D-NH)
• O'Malley (D-MD)
• OR Open (Kulongoski, D)

Parties Solidifying Redistricting Plans

By Nathan L. Gonzales

Republicans were at risk of falling further behind Democrats in organizing for the post-2010 round of redistricting, but a new group led by former Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) and former Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) is looking to fill the gap.

Redistricting may seem like a far-off exercise, but both parties are solidifying their strategies to tackle the expansive and expensive decennial task. Making America’s Promise Secure, the group headed by Lott and Gingrich, is a 501(c)(4) focused on the GOP redistricting effort.

Until now, the two parties have taken different approaches to tackling the electoral, analytical and legal components of the redistricting process.

Traditionally, the Republican National Committee centralized the GOP effort while Democrats relied on a coalition of outside groups. But passage of the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act in 2002 left Republicans scrambling to reconfigure their traditional strategy, since the RNC used to fund the redistricting tasks with soft money. Democrats, meanwhile, because they had not relied on soft money to fund their redistricting efforts in the past, have been viewed as better positioned ahead of the 2011-2012 redraw.

“We saw a need and stepped up to fill it,” said Charlie Black, chairman of the MAPS Board of Directors.

Earlier this year, Republicans were in the conversation stage while Democrats were hitting their stride. This spring a group of former high-level operatives from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee formed the National Democratic Redistricting Trust to lead the legal leg of the party’s redistricting tripod.

The group’s trustees include former DCCC executive directors Brian Wolff and John Lapp and former DCCC Political Director Peter Cari. Prominent Democratic attorney Bob Bauer, who is married to White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, is the chief counsel for the group.

During the last round of redistricting, many Democrats felt like they couldn’t match the Republicans’ legal resources, so the redistricting trust is the Democratic effort to bolster that component of the party’s strategy.

Democrats believe that a trust — and not a 527 or 501(c)(4) — is the most flexible structure for this particular purpose, since other traditional tax-exempt structures aren’t appropriate and the group does not support specific candidates.

“We’re putting together a national legal advisory board along with state-by-state legal teams in cooperation with Congressional delegations and state delegations,” said Brian Smoot, the trust’s executive director and a former DCCC political director. “And we will be undertaking legal research and drafting strategic memos for each state.”

Foundation for the Future, a 527 organized in July 2006, will continue to lead the analytical component of redistricting for the Democrats. The coalition, which includes the Association of Federal, State, County and Municipal Employees, the National Committee for an Effective Congress and other Democratic groups, seeks to provide Democratic caucuses in each state with data, mapmaking software and demographic projections.

The Democratic National Committee convenes regular meetings with the key players in the party to make sure everyone is on the same page.

Democrats have left the analytical work to Foundation for the Future and the legal work to the redistricting trust. MAPS is seeking to fill both roles on the Republican side and provide a new home for the stable of Republican operatives who traditionally work on redistricting through the RNC.

The RNC, which appointed Tennessee National Committeeman John Ryder to head the redistricting committee this spring, will still have a role in redistricting, but many GOP strategists agree that they shouldn’t spend hard dollars on a task that can be done by an outside group using soft money.

The passage of BCRA, which eliminated soft money, severely limits Members’ involvement in the process. That’s why it is critical for former Members such as Gingrich and Lott and ex-Reps. Bob Walker (R-Pa.) and Vin Weber (R-Minn.) to be involved. Making America’s Promise Secure, the National Democratic Redistricting Trust and Foundation for the Future are not subject to federal contribution limits.

This spring, the RNC also signed on GOP redistricting authority Tom Hofeller as an outside consultant, but strategists believe he could eventually have a dual role as an outside consultant with MAPS as well.

“We want to provide the best umbrella for all experienced people who want to be involved to work on redistricting,” said Black, a lobbyist with BKSH & Associates Worldwide and a former senior adviser to Sen. John McCain’s (R-Ariz.) 2008 presidential bid.

Democrats “have a permanent organization and never stopped,” Black said. “We felt some urgency, but we still have plenty of time.”

MAPS, with the help of national Republican data and technology firm Intell360, is looking to take on the laborious and expensive process of analyzing the data. There is a need to collect and reformat the data (including election results and voter registration) in such a way that it can be easily merged with the new census data when it becomes available.

Then the data needs to be put in a usable format, coupled with mapmaking technology and made available to state caucuses or national groups at a minimal price. And key elected officials, staff and attorneys that will be involved in the redistricting process need to be trained.

“We’re trying very hard to be one-stop shopping, under the law,” said MAPS Executive Director Michael Smith, an Ohio field operative who was working for a 527 called Majority America and is closely tied with House Minority Leader John Boehner’s (R-Ohio) staff.

MAPS is also seeking to lead the Republicans’ legal strategy by incorporating many of the party’s attorneys with experience on redistricting, including Ben Ginsberg, Mark Braden and Cleta Mitchell.

While there is some skepticism that one organization can do it all, MAPS is working quickly to corral the experienced redistricting talent on the Republican side.

“They’re the first out of the gate and have some heavyweights on their side,” said one House GOP aide, who expects MAPS to go through some growing pains.

This story first appeared in Roll Call on September 24, 2009. 2009 © Roll Call Inc. All rights reserved. Reprinted with permission.