Election Insights and Analysis

Blong Xiong for CA-21

2012-02-22T06:57:00.000-08:00

Blong Xiong has announced he'll enter the CA-21 race as a Democrat. He was #1 on the Democratic wish list, because Dean Florez was never going to run. He's Hmong and there's a sizable Hmong population in Fresno. Here's his life story. How's your Hmong?

Of course, most of that sizable Hmong population in Fresno is in his district, which only has roughly 70,000 people. The congressional district has 10 times that many people and only 4% of them are Asian. (Edit: It's been pointed out to me that the Hmong community is actually in the neighboring CA-22)

I wouldn't consider him top tier, but I wouldn't underestimate him. This is the Central Valley and the Democrats don't have a long bench there. So he's a good get and I'm betting that his campaign account will have a lot of checks with Hmong names on them by the end of the day.

He might want to update his website.

Republican Presidential primary Delegate Allocation Rules

2012-02-21T10:41:00.000-08:00

I can't say all of this is 100% accurate, but it's what I've been able to conclude for the February 28-March 6 primaries. This info comes from Green Papers and FHQ.

Michigan: There are only 2 at large delegates. Whoever wins the primary wins both. So while the media will jump on who "won," but that might not be who wins the most delegates. Because their delegates were halved, the Michigan GOP is awarding 2 delegates for each congressional district won. If the person who loses the primary wins 8 congressional districts to his opponents' 6, he wins delegates 16-14.
It's really not important to "win" Michigan. It's important to win districts.

Arizona: This is a straight winner-take-all. So it is really important who wins the primary. I'd guess that even if Romney or Santorum collapse they'll probably win 5 districts. so a big win in Michigan could be 20-10. In Arizona, it's 29-0.

Washington: This is a congressional district state. Whoever wins any of the 10 districts gets 3 delegates. The remaining 10 delegates are awarded proportionally. So expect Ron Paul to get 1 and the winner might get 4. The real battle, as with Michigan, is the congressional districts. Santorum should win WA-4 and WA-5 easily. The rest should be up for grabs.

Alaska: This is straight proportional. The 27 delegates are nothing to sneeze at, but both Romney and Santorum should do similarly, even if one wins by 10.

Georgia: Forty-two of the delegates are awarded based on congressional district, and 30 are based on statewide results. Georgia has a twist. If you get over 20%, you get delegates. If you get 20% or less, you get 0. So 20% of the statewide vote gets you 0 delegates, but 20.1% gets you 6. Romney doesn't anticipate winning here, but 20% or less would be a disaster.

It's similar for congressional districts. If one candidate gets 50% of the vote in a congressional district, he'll get all 3 delegates. If not, the leader gets 2 and the 2nd place finisher gets 1. While it's possible that Romney will win the minority-majority congressional districts, his goal here is to get 2nd in each district. Losing 48%-22% is the same as losing 37%-33%.

Idaho - While Idaho has 32 delegates, I believe only 26 are at stake on Super Tuesday. The rest will be decided at the convention. I think it's winner-take-all for the other 26.

Massachusetts - They award 3 delegates per congressional district proportionally. Romney is polling strong in Massachusetts and should get 2 in each district. The final 11 statewide delegates are dolled out proportionally, with a 15% threshold.

North Dakota - Another straight proportional. So it's mostly irrelevant.

Ohio - Major Super Tuesday prize and one that Santorum could walk away with a lot of delegates. These rules are like Georgia's in that the winner statewide gets all 15 delegates if he gets 50%. If he doesn't than anyone getting 20.1% gets a share of delegates.

There are also 48 delegates allocated by congressional district and Ohio has a mix of Santorum's two core voters, evangelicals in the western part of the state and blue collar union guys in the east. Districts like OH-8 would seem good for Romney, because the income levels are higher, but this area is more social conservative. Romney might be able to grab OH-1 and 3, but I don't see anything else.

Oklahoma - This is similar to Ohio, except the cut-off is 15%+ of the vote to be included in proportional. Santorum should walk away with 15 delegates from the CDs, but might not have a big haul. statewide.

Tennessee - Similar to Ohio, with 3 delegates per district and proportional above 20% for at-large.

Vermont - Here, Romney can take all the delegates if he gets a majority. If not, it's proportional. There are only 17 delegates at stake, but holding Romney under 50% is key for Santorum.

Virginia- Oops. There's no way to sugarcoat this. Romney will get all 13 at large delegates for getting a majority of the votes and then another 33 for winning the 11 districts. Gingrich would keep Romney down here, but I don't see how Paul wins any delegates.

Conclusions
There are some positives and negatives for each candidate. The big prizes appear to be Idaho, Virginia, and Arizona, simply because they are winner-take-all. Virginia favors Romney, because neither Gingrich nor Santorum are on the ballot, and the other two appear to be in his base.

Georgia, Tennessee, Ohio, Oklahoma, and Washington could all give Santorum a disproportionate share of the delegates, but he needs support for Gingrich to dry up for Georgia.

CA-30 Berman's supporters whine

2012-02-19T09:02:00.000-08:00

Once again, Howard Berman's supporters are calling for Brad Sherman to leave the CA-30 congressional race and run in CA-26. It's pretty pathetic, really. If he'd like to avoid a primary against Sherman, Berman should run in CA-26. After all, Sherman doesn't have a problem running against Berman.

CA-30 has nearly 3 times as many of Sherman's constituents as it does Berman's. More of Henry Waxman's current constituents are in the district than Berman's. More than 75% of Berman's constituents are in CA-29. That district is now 69% Hispanic and Berman feels he can't win it.

Berman's people successfully derailed Brad Sherman getting the Democratic party endorsement. That the Democratic party was leaning toward Sherman says a lot about who is the better candidate and who should consider going elsewhere.

To sum up, Berman has abandoned his district and moved to Sherman's and has been whining ever since that Sherman hasn't surrendered the district to him.

Santorum and Gingrich strategy

2012-02-14T18:54:00.000-08:00

Santorum isn't trying to win enough delegates to get the nomination. Neither is Gingrich. People keep hoping that one will drop out and then the other will solidify the anti-Romney vote, but the problem is that they can't. Neither has the resources to compete in every state. If you look at their schedules you can see they're not trying.

In the 9 contests so far, Santorum and Gingrich have both finished top 3 in only 3 states.

Their best scenario for Romney's competitors is for Gingrich to win in the south, Santorum in the Midwest and Ron Paul to steal some delegates everywhere else. That way theydeny Romney a majority. So they're conceding Arizona. and Virginia. And Massachusetts. Santorum has to hope that Gingrich runs strong in Georgia, Tennessee, and Oklahoma, so he can concentrate on Ohio, Michigan, Washington, and North Dakota. North Dakota is non-binding, so I'd guess it's low priority for Romney.

I'm sure both Gingrich and Santorum would like to get the momentum to compete everywhere but I'm guessing you won't see the two of them going hard after the same state on February 28, March 3, or March 6. It's even possible that Santorum leaves Alabama and Mississippi to Gingrich on March 13 and goes hard after Hawaii, Missouri, and Illinois.

Brokered Convention

2012-02-14T10:56:00.000-08:00

Even though few delegates have been awarded and Rick Santorum only has 4 himself, the talk of the Internet is a brokered convention.

It's highly unlikely.

It's important to know how delegates are selected. Delegates used to be party insiders, big donors, and politicians who'd make decisions in secret smoke filled rooms. That doesn't happen anymore, especially since you aren't going to find too many convention halls that allow smoking. Delegates are largely selected through primaries and caucuses. This year, roughly 1,930 of the 2,286 delegates will be selected this way. These delegates are bound to vote for who won them. For the most part, the delegates are selected by the campaigns. The campaigns will submit a list of names to the secretary of state, in primary states, or party leadership, in caucus states. If the candidate wins the delegates, then the person on their submission is a delegate.

This person could be anyone, as long as they live within the jurisdiction where the delegate is awarded from. In California, 3 delegates are awarded for each congressional district, so each campaign must submit three delegates and three alternates for each congressional district. These people have no loyalty to the party. In many states there is no party registration, so they don't have to be Republican there. They're likely loyal only to the candidate.

Some unbound delegates will be bound by the convention, but there could be 300+ unbound delegates. The nomination fight could be so close that 50 or 75 delegates going one way or another could decide things. But they'll be deciding between the top two candidates and no one else.

In 2008, I was one such person, as my name was on a list the McCain campaign submitted to the California Secretary of State. At the time my name was submitted, I'd volunteered on one campaign, knew no one affiliated with the country or state parties, and I'd never donated enough to anyone to be listed on Opensecrets.org. When I went to the convention, I was going to vote for John McCain and no one else.

If I am a delegate this year, I'll approach it the same way. I'm obligated to vote for whoever I represent and won't be switching to someone else, unless my candidate releases me from that obligation. Even in the event that no one has the majority.

First, this is my candidate, the one I believe in. So why would I jump to someone else? Second, I'd have an obligation to my congressional district and my candidate that I'd vote a certain way. Finally, I don't think nominating a candidate who the public hasn't voted for and hasn't been vetted by them is a good idea. I'm not leaving Tampa feeling proud of myself that I got to decide the candidate and who cares what everyone else thinks? If we want a candidate people will vote for in November, the Republican Party can't just throw someone at the public and tell them that we didn't care about their input before but do now.

I'm sure some people will object and say that Mitt Romney isn't as good a candidate as Paul Ryan. I need to put the good of the party first. It's not up to me to decide what the good of the party is. It's up to the millions of primary voters. And I'm not going to usurp that authority.

If Mitt Romney has 1,100 delegates and Rick Santorum has 800, while Gingrich and Paul have another 300, either Romney or Gingrich will get the nomination. The delegates will stick with the person who put them there.

Joe Baca gets Democratic endorsement

2012-02-13T07:59:00.001-08:00

It was touch and go apparently.

Steve Bennett exits CA-26

2012-02-12T08:28:00.000-08:00

http://www.vcstar.com/news/2012/feb/11/bennett-exits-us-house-race/

Democrat Steve Bennett's exit form the CA-26 race is good news. He was the Democrats' best candidate. His presence, however, could have split the Democratic vote so that Linda Parks and Tony Strickland would've advanced to November. Both are likely to caucus with Republicans, but Parks is quite unpopular with influential Republicans who know the district, while Strickland is enormously popular.

Parks is a better bet in beating Strickland in November than any Democrat. She could get Democrats behind her and also take the center. With a Democrat, the center will be up for grabs. If Strickland is the only acceptable candidate, then there's no bad news here.

Super Tuesday

2012-02-12T07:37:00.000-08:00

Washington is going to get forgotten. Arizona and Michigan are the Tuesday before Washington and Super Tuesday is the Tuesday after.

Because Washington occurs before Super Tuesday, the straw poll results are non-binding.

A presidential straw poll will be taken at the precinct caucuses and the state party will release the results. Those results will be meaningless. The straw poll will have nothing to do with who ultimately wins Washington’s delegates, but the media will announce a “winner” on March 3, just as they erroneously announced Pat Robertson as the winner in Washington state in 1988.

This makes the caucuses even less relevant and not somewhere you want to focus your energies on.

Georgia has a congressional district system. If someone clears 50% in a congressional district, they get 3 delegates. If not, then the #1 vote getter gets 2 to the #2 vote getter's 1. Statewide will be proportional, although delegates will only go to those who finish with 20% or more of the vote.

Thus, GA-4, 5, and 13 are worth the same as GA-3, 9, and 14. I don't know Georgia electorally, but I'd guess there will be a difference how urban and rural Republicans vote.

Ohio has a similar system. There, there's a difference regionally. The Eastern part of the state is Santorum country. His protectionist pro-union positions fit perfectly here. He should win OH-6, 7, 11, 13, 14, and 16 fairly easily. The rest of the state should be up for grabs. Ohio has a good share of social conservatives in the rest of the state, which should help Santorum, but Republicans fiscally won't be union members.

Romney's best shot for delegates in Ohio and Georgia is to hope that the results are more South Carolina and Florida than Missouri and Minnesota. He needs to do very well in urban and suburban congressional districts, many of which will have few Republicans.

There'll be other March 6 primaries. Oklahoma represents very little opportunity for Romney and he'll likely leave the state to Santorum and Gingrich. Tennessee is proportional, as long as no candidate makes 50%. In Virginia, only Romney and Paul ar on the ballot. Massachusetts, Vermont, and Idaho figure to favor Romney.

Texas districts delayed again

2012-02-06T15:51:00.000-08:00

In Texas The court wants the parties to reach a settlement and gives them more time.

In California they decide to impose an illegal map because they don't think there's enough time. What's funny is that the Texas primary is two months BEFORE California.

California Congressional Update (Part II)

2012-02-06T11:27:00.000-08:00

29th District: R: -0.4% D: -1.1% (Safe Democratic)
You’d think that with how long they’d been waiting for a San Fernando Valley congressional district that Democrats would be tripping over each other to run here. L.A. city councilman Tony Cardenas has a clear field right now. It’s worth noting that with the Bob Filner and Howard Berman being replaced by Hispanic Democrats there might only be 3 White Democrats in the 29 Southern California districts from Los Angeles to San Diego.

30th District: R: +0.2% D: -0.5% (Safe Democratic)
While a Berman is no different than a Sherman to us Republicans any election aficionado will have to appreciate this race. Howard Berman has stepped up his fundraising and is almost at parity with Brad Sherman. Each has at least $2.8 million C-O-H and will likely raise a lot more.

When you’re about this kind of money who spends more is mostly irrelevant. In fact, I wonder what value it’ll have at all. Any Democrat who’ll be voting knows who both are and it’s not like one of them is going to present a position different from the other. I have no idea what they’ll be saying in advertising. I think it comes down to retail politics, who people like better. Sherman attends a lot of community events and may have the advantage here.

Mark Reed, the Republican who lost to Sherman in 2010, is back for another losing campaign. Susan Shelley is a name on the ballot, who might take Republican votes away from Reed, especially since Reed has yet to file an FEC report. I think he’s established enough that she won’t take many votes.

Reed will either win the June primary or finish second and that’ll leave Berman and Sherman to fight it out for a sure November win. That’s the best scenario for either of them. They’ll have to fight it out in June, for risk of finishing third, and no one wants to go through two races like this if they don’t have to.

If anyone thinks that Berman or Sherman will drain away Republican votes from Reed, I’ll ask them to spend an evening at Galpin Ford with the San Fernando Valley Republican club. It’d be interesting to see what would happen if Berman and Sherman both advanced. Redistricting Partners’ Paul Mitchell believes that many Republicans would leave the congressional race blank, rather than vote for either Democrat. So they could decide the race or sit it out.

31st District: R: -1.1% D: -0.1% (Lean Democratic)
The Republicans have a candidate with high name recognition and a huge bank account and he hasn’t put a dime of his own money in yet. Miller has had ethics issues and is seen by many as an underwhelming candidate.

Former state senate minority leader has some Republicans more enthusiastic and Miller will have a huge cash advantage but that won’t be as big a deal for Dutton as he’s representing much of this area now, while Miller hasn’t done so. People in Rancho Cucamonga don’t need to learn about Bob Dutton.

The Democrats had two underwhelming candidates until Redlands Mayor Pete Aguilar jumped into the race. A Hispanic mayor should be a good candidate but Redlands is a city of 69,000 people. So he’s only represented a small part of the district, while Dutton has represented a lot more.

Even though I favor the Republican candidates here, the district leans Democratic and the loss in Republican registration should be alarming.

36th District: R: -0.7% D: -0.0% (Likely Republican)
The Democrats have cut the Republican registration advantage in the district and I still think they have little chance. Bono Mack has won comfortably in each of her elections, even in the heavily Democratic years of 2006 and 2008, when Barack Obama won the district. Palm Springs mayor Steve Pougnet came closest, he lost by 9 points, but he’s passed on the race. Bono Mack’s opponent is an emergency room physician. I can’t see Democrats winning a district where Bono Mack is running against some guy and the district is more Republican than the old one.

41st District: R: -0.4% D: -0.0% (Leans Democratic)
This is a majority Hispanic district, one that Barbara Boxer won comfortably. It should go Democratic. Yet there are problems with that. This is Riverside County and Democrats don’t win elections in Riverside County. It’s one thing for a Democrat to get more votes in a statewide race, it’s another for Riverside County Democrats to get the votes for local candidates. The Republicans are running county supervisor John Tavaglione, who has won there even with the Democratic lean.

The Democrats, on the other hand, aren’t running a Hispanic. They’re running a gay Asian whose big election victory is winning a seat on a community college board. I’m not demeaning him for being gay, but this isn’t West LA. Riverside isn’t nearly as progressive. Hispanics tend to be less tolerant of homosexuality than other groups. This isn’t the San Gabriel Valley and there are very few Asians in the district. The candidates have similar fundraising numbers, so there’s no advantage there In most other Riverside County elections Tavagilione would be a heavy favorite but the districts registration advantage favors the Democratic party.

47th District: R: -0.4% D: -0.2% (Leans Democratic)
This district is Democratic enough that it should elect a Democrat and state senator Allen Lowenthal should be a good candidate. Yet he’s not an incumbent and this district does contain Republican areas of Orange County. The Republican nominee should be strong with Long Beach city councilman Gary DeLong, former congressman Steve Kuykendall, and self-funder Troy Edgar.

51st District: R: -0.6% D: -0.6% (Safe Democratic)
This is another district where a Hispanic Democrat should replace a White one. Former state senator Denise Moreno Ducheny and current state senator Juan Vargas are the only two announced candidates. I’d expect a Republican to get in, which would make June the real election.

52st District: R: -0.5% D: -0.2% (Leans Republican)
This district has a Republican incumbent, Brian Bilbray, and it still has a 3 point Republican registration advantage. Whitman and Fiorina won comfortably and the weakest statewide candidate, Mimi Walters, nearly won. The Democrats have a good candidate in Scott Peters, who is Chair of the Port of San Diego. I think it’s more Likely Republican than lean, but without polling I’ll stick with lean for now.

Jews becoming more Republican?

2012-02-05T22:48:00.000-08:00

I've been saying for a while that Massachusetts, the New York metro, and Palm Beach County, all moving right, have one thing in common, large Jewish populations. I had no evidence Jews were becoming more Republican. Perhaps I was on to something. People have been perplexed why Jews lean so Democratic for years. After all, they tend to wealthier, better educated, and they tend towards individualism. People like this tend to be Republican.

Of course, Democratic deny it's happening. You can't address a problem until you admit there is one.

California Congressional February Update (Part I)

2012-02-03T19:54:00.000-08:00

There are so many districts to talk about that I'm splitting this into two parts.

Voter registration numbers and Q4 fundraising numbers came out on the same day early this week. Yes! On the same day. That sounds like Christmas. To you too? Below are half of the key districts. The numbers in the first line are the change in registration since 2011:

1st District: R: -0.6% D: -0.6% (Safe Republican)
This is Wally Herger’s safe Republican district. Only one Republican, Peter Stiglich, has reported any fundraising to the FEC, and his total of $3,934 really puts him at the same starting point Doug Lamalfa and Greg Cheadle. Democrat Jim Reed actually leads the fundraising race, although he only had $7,706 C-O-H at the end of 2011. Since he’s the only Democrat in the race, he will advance likely win the primary, but he has no hope of winning the general election.

2nd District: R: -0.2% D: -0.3% (Safe Democratic)
There is a large field of Democrats, including favorites Norman Solomon and Jared Huffman. You already have three Democrats who’ve raised over $300,000, a good sum for a challenger. This should be a great race in June. Like Reed, Republican Dan Roberts will win the primary and he too will win the general election.

3rd District: R: -0.5% D: -0.5% (Leans Democratic)
You now have a field of five Republicans looking to take on Democrat John Garamendi. Kim Delbow Vann is the only one to show significant fundraising and has to be thought of as the favorite at this point. It’ll be interesting to see whether the Republican here will get help from the NRCC or outside groups. Garamendi can keep raising money until the general election and doesn’t have to spend anything to get there. There are a number of California Republicans who have Garamendi at the top of their list of Democrats to topple, so I’d guess there will be money in here.

7th District: R: -0.4% D: -0.2% (Leans Republican)
Democrat Ami Bera has nearly $1 million C-O-H, a sizeable sum for an incumbent, let alone a challenger. Lungren hasn’t raised as much, but he does have $521k C-O-H and he will get outside help. Lungren did survive 2006 and 2008, so he’s weathered the toughest Democratic years. The seat moved 2 points more Democratic. That could be enough to push Bera over the top and a lot of experts have the district as a toss-up.

I anticipate the Republican nominee, let’s call him Mitt, to win this district, so I can’t see calling a race against a battle tested Republican a toss-up.

9th District: R: -0.0% D: -0.7% (Leans Democratic)
This is the first district where there was a difference in the parties’ change in registration. The drop in Democrats, without a similar drop in Republicans, may make this race more competitive than people imagine. Like Bera in CA-7, the challenger, Republican Ricky Gill, has outraised the incumbent Jerry McNerney. McNerney hasn’t shown a lot of strength. But he’s an incumbent in a Barbara Boxer district.

10th District: R: +1.0% D: -1.2% (Likely Republican)
I doublechecked these numbers and apparently the district has gone from D+4.8 registration to D+2.6. That’s pretty dramatic. Jeff Denham is a fundraising powerhouse whose survived tough races in the legislature. Jose Hernandez is an astronaut… He actually has a good quarter for a newbie, but this is an uphill battle for him. Fiorina won the district handily and Whitman won it by a few points. If it really has moved to the right, Denham is bulletproof.

16th District: R: -0.6% D: -0.5% (Likely Democratic)
Jim Costa is probably safe, but this is the Central Valley and Costa won in a recount in 2010. It’s tough to see him losing to Brian Whelan. Whelan is pretty much some dude, but everyone else has passed on it.

21st District: R: -0.9% D: -0.8% (Leans Republican)
David Valadao would appear to be a strong favorite, because his current opponent, John Hernandez is some dude. Democrats are hoping for former state Sen. Dean Florez and are trying to get Fresno City Council Member Blong Xiong as their back-up candidate. Since the primary will likely be a walk for the Democrat, any candidate has time to raise money for November.

24th District: R: -0.5% D: -0.3% (Leans Democratic)
Abel Maldonado’s fundraising is good for a challenger, but he keeps pumping it with his own money right before the fundraising reporting deadline and then taking it back a few days later. This is a silly game and Lois Capps needs a serious challenger. Thomas Watson and Chris Mitchum have raised virtually nothing, but one could still beat Maldonado if the tea party gets behind them.

I’d like to move this race to Likely Democratic, but this is a 50-50 district and Maldonado could be a good candidate if he gets his act together.

26th District: R: -0.3% D: -0.3% (Toss-up)
Democrats are lining up five deep for this seat, although Steve Bennett may get the party endorsement. There’s a lot of jockeying going on with the Democrats, while Tony Strickland appears to have sown up a spot in November. There are no other Republicans in the field, and none will challenge him, and he raised $318,000 on his first day in the race.

Linda Parks may be making the suicidal decision to run as “no party preference.” That’ll cause most of whatever Republican support she has to dry up, as Republicans will vote for Republicans. There are too many Democrats for her to get significant votes from there and there probably aren’t enough centrist independent voters to finish in the top two. Of course if the Democratic vote is spread out wide enough, she could scrape in.

California Voter Registration is Out

2012-02-01T07:39:00.001-08:00

There's good news and bad news. The bad news is that Republican registration dropped by 140,000 since last year. The good news is that democrats are similarly bleeding voters and dropped 132,000.

The bad news isn't that bad. The parties tend to drop each year after an election year. The good news isn't that good, because Democrats gained 1,049,000 voters in the last election and have only lost 284,000 since then.

Registration will jump this year, just as it has in other Presidential election years. In 1996, 2000, and 2004, it jumped slightly higher for the GOP than the Democrats. Of course in 2008, the Democratic jump was enormous and the GOP's was relatively small.

The Republican Party isn't becoming any more unpopular than the Democrats. A push isn't terrible, because it's not like we're getting parity any time soon. I'm sure they don't mind it either.

The California Supreme Court is insane

2012-01-27T10:38:00.000-08:00

I see no other explanation. The court says that they will stay the state senate maps, if the referendum qualifies, as per the law. And they'll substitute the same maps they just stayed. Do they know what stay means? It means that you temporarily set aside the law until the matter is resolved. Yet they're doing the opposite. I don't see how this is legal.

California Friday morning notes

2012-01-27T09:44:00.000-08:00

Today the California Supreme Court will decide which districts will be used for 2012. One of the issues is what "likely" means.

The Democrats finally have a candidate for the swingy 21st. Hernandez heads the Central California Hispanic Chamber of Commerce. That hardly sounds like a seasoned electoral veteran, but outsiders sell these days. I'll keep this one at Lean Republican.

The Democrats also have a candidate for the 42nd, Michael Williamson. This is a district Meg Whitman won 60%-33% and is a suicide mission for Williamson. I don't know why people run in these races. Is it really worth all your time and money?

Apparently, someone else figured out top 2. I thought I'd be the only one.

A group called Independent Voter Network has commissioned some polls. It mostly confirms my belief that Republicans will vote for Republicans and vice versa. It is worth noting, however, that adding a Democrat as an independent to the CA-30 race does suck more Republican voters away. In CA-52, the Democrat/independent takes Democratic voters.

California Republican Party Chairman Tom Del Beccaro has endorsed Tony Strickland for CA-26. This is a bit of a surprise. New party rules mean that it's unlikely the party will endorse any candidate. Del Beccaro's endorsement would seem to carry similar weight. It's not surprising that he'd endorse Strickland or that Strickland would be the first, and perhaps only, candidate Del Beccaro endorsed. Strickland is very close to party leadership.

LA City Council Redistricting

2012-01-26T11:31:00.000-08:00

The first City Council maps have come out. Of course everyone has a complaint. New census data shows Los Angeles is now 48.5% Latino, 28.6% white, 11.3% Asian and 9.2% black. There are 15 seats and they are trying to have 5 Latino majority seats. That's reasonable. If you could get more than that without silly gerrymandering, you should. There are no guaranteed Asian seats. There are, however, once again 3 African-American influence seats. An African-American influence seats is one where Blacks aren't in the majority but they so dominate the CVAP, an African-American is sure to win election.

Asians are 11.3% and get Koreatown divided up. African Americans are 9.2% and get 20% of the seats. Now, that's power.

Presidential vote and House vote

2012-01-25T06:15:00.000-08:00

I've heard some people say that the only way the Democrats take back the House is if Obama wins in a landslide. His coattails could carry the party to victory in the House. There's a certain logic to it, as people often vote down the ballot how they vote for President. History shows us otherwise. There have been three recent landslides in re-election, Richard Nixon in 1972, Ronald Reagan in 1984, and Bill Clinton in 1996.

In their election, Nixon and Clinton had House votes that were pretty close to their two party Presidential vote. The Republicans were weak in 1980, so Reagan could only take them so far. Yet when Reagan and Nixon won big in re-election, their party did worse in the House.

The two party numbers are used to compare apples to apples in both the President and the House. The presence of Ross Perot threw off the Presidential numbers. The House vote suggests that we probably should probably assign more of Ross Perot's votes to Clinton, instead of going proportionally.

I don't have a definitive idea for why this happens. The voters each added in their re-election runs probably voted regularly for the other party and so no reason not to keep doing that. That might explain the disparity in the re-election, but not the House vote drop.

This chart adds three Presidents who ran for re-election who didn't win big. Carter's presidential vote and House vote both sharply declined. The Republican House vote percentage in George Bush's election year was the lowest any President has gotten when he won and the lowest when a candidate lost since 1960. So, it shouldn't be all that surprising the numbers went up.

The most hopeful model for Barack Obama is George W. Bush. His percentage when he was elected was much lower than Obama. That might make the comparison moot. Bush's party didn't do that well in the re-election. It's possible that if Bush had gotten 54-55% of the vote, the Republican Party wouldn't win any more votes.

I can't definitively say that Democrats won't get 55.6% of the vote if Obama wins in a landslide. There's just no reason to think they will do any better than they'd do if he lost. Of course, if he loses that means the Republicans will have an initial Presidential election and that's often very good for his party.

Strickland raises $318,000... in one day

2012-01-23T15:08:00.000-08:00

If there's any doubt that Tony Strickland is backed by the entire California Republican base, then his one day haul of $318,000 should dispel it. Most challengers haven't raised $318,000 overall, and that includes those who've been at it a year. This total is what a senate candidate can get in a one day money bomb.

Occupy Newt

2012-01-22T18:12:00.000-08:00

I usually don't throw a lot of opinionated stuff in here, but I can't resist. The anybody but Romney people perplex me. They really will choose anybody, because Mitt once was pro-choice, Romneycare, and well, I'm not sure what else.

I like Newt. He's loaded with ideas, funny, and he was Speaker during a good period. But come on:

1. He sat on a couch with Nancy Pelosi. This wasn't an explicit endorsement of Pelosi's environmental policies, but Newt did talk about what he agreed with Nancy on.

2. His marriages. Now, I'm libertarian, so I'm judging him. That's between him, his wives, and Jesus. Yet my social conservative friends are judging Mitt negatively because he was once pro-choice. This guy cheated on his wives. I don't see how you can be "pro-family" and be okay with that.

3. "Right wing social engineering" The Ryan budget was something the whole party chose to rally around, whether establishment or tea party. And Newt tore all that down in one interview. You might say that Newt backed off that, but it showed that Newt is a prima donna who doesn't work well with others. Those that served with him in the House say that he was a terrible leader and you can see that because he's the only Speaker I know of that's ever been thrown out by his own party. I think Newt would spend his Presidency fighting with Republicans.

4. Earmarks. Newt is the father of earmarks.

5. He was giving advice to Freddie Mac while they were bringing down the economy.

6. His support of the individual mandate, something he was still pushing a year ago. I'm even giving him a pass for lobbying for Big Pharma to create the prescription drug plan. If they did it for seniors in need, that's one thing, but it's welfare for the rich. Okay, maybe I'm not quite giving him a pass.

7. His attack on capitalism. The core of my beliefs is individual responsibility. I believe that other people shouldn't be responsible for me. If things don't go my way, I don't ask government to bail me out. What Romney did at Bain was amazing. He didn't ask for a government hand-out or expect someone else to do it. He went in to troubled companies and most of the time succeeded in turning them around. Having had my own business, I know how important people like this are.

And they're vilified by the left and the Occupy movement. And Newt has taken the Occupy rhetoric and hammered it on Romney. He's confirmed that wealthy people are evil robber barons who live off the misery of others. That's entirely inaccurate, but when a Republican says it, the left's argument is bolstered.

I can defend Romney better than he can defend himself, but I understand looking for an alternative to Romney. Just because Newt zings the media in interviews doesn't make him it.

Dutton in for CA-31

2012-01-18T11:25:00.000-08:00

As expected, term-out California State Senator Bob Dutton (R-Rancho Cucamonga) has announced he'll challenge Congressman Gary Miller in CA-31. It's something how the dam broke as soon as Jerry Lewis announced his retirement.

Having two Republicans in the field is ideal. They won't scatter the vote and there's a chance both could be top two.

Likewise, CA-26 was waiting on Elton. Linda Parks and Tony Strickland both jumped in. Both are good candidates, although Parks is considered a RINO by many Republicans. That'll test the top two.

Unfortunately, Republicans lost their best candidate for CA-16 when Fresno City Councilman Clint Olivier decided not to run. This is the only district Republicans lack a top flight candidate. I have no idea who Brian Whelan is, but he has yet to report raising any money to the FEC.

The Democrats, however, lack any candidates for CA-21, an open seat. Democrat Blong Xiong also a Fresno City Council member,is being pushed to run. Former state Sen. Dean Florez is thought to be a top tier candidate, but it's been three weeks since Michael Rubio decided against running and he has yet to indicate what he's doing one way or the other. It's four and a half months until the primary and nine and a half until the general election. Xiong thinks it's a tough time frame, but people have won and gotten in later.

San Bernardino Dominos

2012-01-12T20:45:00.000-08:00

The long-rumored Jerry Lewis retirement became official today and that resulted in domino after domino dropping. We'll start with the easier district.

CA-8: This is the rural/desert/mountain district that's very Republican. Up until today four Republicans had entered the race, the most notable being Victorville mayor Ryan McEachron. If you've never heard of Victorville, then you realize we're not talking a major metropolis here.

It didn't take long for the race to attract bigger names. San Bernardino County Supervisor Brad Mitzelfelt and Assemblyman Paul Cook of Yucaipa jumped in immediately. That gives you six Republicans and one Democrat running for the seat. If another Democrat joins, the top two primary could be a disaster for the GOP. It's possible the Republican vote could be so spread out none of them make November. I know that sounds far-fetched in such a Republican district but there aren't that many votes to go around.

CA-31: Lewis' announcement brought several other announcements. Congressman Gary Miller abandoned his challenge to fellow Republican Ed Royce in CA-39 and announced he'd run here. House Speaker John Boehner and NRCC Chairman Pete Sessions immediately endorsed the move. Miller currently represents none of this district, as his current district is just to the west.

Miller has had some ethics issues and he's not a great fit for the district. He does, however, have a lot of money in the bank.

Miller's immediate switch and the endorsement of Pete Sessions means that Congressman David Dreier won't run here. Dreier is well connected with Republican leadership and they're not going to endorse someone else if he's interested. If Dreier isn't running here he'll likely retire. Of maybe he'll do a kamikaze run for the senate as Congressman Kevin McCarthy suggests.

Redlands Mayor Pete Aguilar immediately announced he'd run as a Democrat. He's a stronger candidate than the current Democrats in the race.

San Bernardino County District Attorney Mike Ramos, a Republican, announced he wouldn't run for the seat.

State Sen. Bob Dutton, who was the Senate minority leader until this month, had indicated he was considering running here and has yet to rule it out.

California State Senate Supreme Court Case

2012-01-10T12:45:00.000-08:00

The plaintiffs and defendants argued on "likely' to qualify. They'll decide soon. One question before the court is whether "nesting," a remedy proposed by the plaintiffs would violate the Voting Rights Act. Nesting is combining two assembly districts to make a senate district. The districts can be drawn so that they don't violate the VRA. As the chart below shows the districts wouldn't be better for Republicans than the current ones.

Note that the yellow districts on the right are up in 2012. The blue are up in 2014. How that would break down in nesting is anybody's guess.

Herger, Lewis to Retire

2012-01-10T06:21:00.000-08:00

Between the time I went to bed and woke up two California Republican congressmen retired. Wally Herger (CA-1) and Jerry Lewis (CA-8) are both hanging it up. Herger has been in congress for 25 years. Lewis has been there for 33. Lewis was faced with a dilemma. He could run in CA-8, most of which is in his current district, or in the far more competitive CA-31, where he lives. He's said he doesn't want to move. Neither option was likely very appealing.

Doug LaMalfa is set to announce for CA-1. Obviously he's been in touch with Herger about his retirement. Colonel Pete Stiglich and Gregory Cheadle already were running. They likely will position themselves as tea party Republicans.

A number of Republicans have been vying for CA-8, but none have yet to announce for CA-31. Congressman David Dreier represents more of CA-31 than Lewis and is an obvious candidate. He's indicated he will run. He not only hasn't committed to a district but has insisted the districts won't be final.

Below are charts of the current California candidates. A green background is an incumbent or incumbent's party. A yellow one is a challenger. Blue is an open seat. There are now 9 open seats. On the end are the two party shares for Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina in the 2010 Gubernatorial and Senate elections. The column at the far left is what the consensus of the prognosticators (Cook, Rothenberg, Roll Call, Sabato).

Mitt Romney's record at Bain

2012-01-08T15:42:00.000-08:00

Mitt Romney's record at Bain is going to be a big deal in this election and it's a question of how the narrative will take. The Democrats are saying he destroyed companies and people's lives. I scoured the web for info and didn't find much on successful companies. No one writes about that. Let's start with companies that were started or saved while Romney was CEO of Bain.

This is a partial list. I can't find a more complete list, there were over 100 companies, so I'll just go with these. I can't find the employee counts on many of these companies. So I only listed those that I could find.

The argument against Romney:

1. Romney can't provide how many jobs were also lost during this period.

2. These are current employee counts and Romney has been gone from Bain since 1999. So he can hardly be credited with them.

3. Bain was only one investor in many of these and he was just one person among many at Bain.

4. These companies would've probably hired just as many people if Bain hadn't gotten involved.

Because the fact checkers can't verify all the information and some of it happened after he left, the numbers are regarded as "bogus." Usually you don't dismiss something you can't prove is wrong, but that's the determination. Staples very likely wouldn't exist without Bain. While the company seems to be a no brainer now, it wasn't then. Tom Stemberg couldn't get investors. Even Romney dismissed it at first. If Romney doesn't invest in Staples, one assumes Office Depot, which was founded the following year, would've come up with the idea. They might be successful, even though they were beaten by Staples.

Here are the failures, which are very well documented:

They don't add up to the successes, but since the successes don't count Romney is a net -4,325.

1. Three of these companies, GS Industries, DDI Corp, and Dade International, failed after Romney left Bain. Apparently a company with smart management that succeeds after he leaves doesn't relate to Romney, but the ones that fail are.

2. Waters, like many of the companies acquired by Bain, was in trouble. Companies in trouble often shed jobs. Kind of like what GM and Chrysler did. Waters now employs 3,500 people and is very successful. Obama can be credited with the success of GM and Chrysler which later rehired many of the employees let go. It doesn't count for Romney.

3. When a company fails, it's irrelevant that Bain is only one investor and Romney is only one person at Bain. There's no evidence the decision to lay off employees was made by anyone other than management. It's all his fault.

4.The companies listed were all troubled when Bain got involved and were available at a good price because they were in danger of failing. It's likely that most of them would've failed within a year or so if Bain didn't get involved. While we assume businesses like Staples would've succeeded without Romney, we know that these companies which failed after he left would've also succeeded without Romney.

If the Democrats win this argument, Republicans are truly inept.

Elton Gallegly Retiring

2012-01-07T09:23:00.000-08:00

He's finally made up his mind. It's a little bit of a surprise since he indicated we'd be surprised where he was running, but Gallegly has wanted to retire for years. This'll open up CA-26 for either Tony Strickland or Linda Parks. If both run, it'd be an excellent test of my top two theory. There are currently five Democrats. If this district goes 47%D 47%R in June, it's possible the Democrats could finish 15%-11%-9%-8%-4%. If there are only two Republicans and they finish 28%-19%, they'll both advance. The GOP will win a swing district without competition in November.

Member v. Member Congressional Races Part 2

2012-01-05T19:59:00.000-08:00

LA-3: Landry(R) v. Boustany (R)
It was inevitable that two Republicans were going to face off in Louisiana. Landry was savaged in the process. His district was divided four ways between the 1st, 2nd, 3rd, and 6th in such a way that no district is made up of more than 24.5% of his constituents. Most of this district belongs to Boustany, so he'd appear to be the favorite. Landry, however, is tea party favorite and his popularity might not adhere to district lines.

Louisiana has an unusual primary system, that's similar to California. In California, everyone competes on June 5 and the top 2 move on to November. In Louisiana, everyone competes on election day, November 6. If one candidate gets 50%, he wins. If not, the top two compete in December. So this one will go all the way to election day. And maybe beyond.

MI-14: Clarke (D) v. Peters (D)
This one has ruffled quite a few feathers. Gary Peters, like Jeff Landry, had his district torn up so much that there's no new district where he has more constituents than anyone else. He could've challenged Republicans Mike Rogers or Thad McCotter, both of whom are in districts that Barack Obama won in 2008. The problem here is that even if he won that uphill battle, he'd have to defend the district from a Republican challenger every two years.

The other choices were MI-9, a district that is mostly Sander Levin's old MI-12, or MI-14, a majority Black district. The good news on MI-14 is that only 38.5% of it is currently repped by Hansen Clarke and it's a safe Democratic seat. The bad news is that Peters has upset the Black community, some of whom are accusing a White man of trying to steal something that belongs to the Black community.

Yeah, that's not going to look good.

NJ-9: Rothman (D) v. Pascrall (D)
This one couldn't have gone better for the GOP. The new NJ-5 consists of 79% of Republican Scott Garrett's district and 21% belonging to Democrat Steve Rothman. The district leans Republican, but Democrats' chances of taking the seat would increase if Garrett were challenged by Rothman. Rothman instead chose the 9th, as it's safe Democratic and has more of his constituents than Pascrall's. The Democratic party is none too happy about this.

OH-9: Kaptur (D) v. Kucinich (D)

Ohio was torn asunder because the state lost two districts. Only one new district is made up of more than 77% of the old one. This led to some difficult choices. More of each of their constituents are here and it's a safe Democratic district. Kaptur could've challenged Republican Bob Latta in OH-5, but that would've been a suicide mission, especially considering it wouldn't have included her Toledo base.

Kucinich, on the other hand, had a lot of choices. He was considering running in Washington state, so it's obvious he doesn't feel he needs his current constituents to win. Kucinich was left with three choices, challenge Kaptur, challenge Marcia Fudge (D) in a majority Black district, or take on Republican freshman Jim Renacci in a lean Republican district.

Initially this district had more of Kucinich's constituents. In the final deal, however, that was reversed, leading to speculation that Democrats were trying to get rid of Kucinich. Dennis isn't beloved in his own caucus. He elected to try here and we should see a knockdown drag out fight.

People think that Kucinich filing for this race ends his flirtation with running elsewhere, but Ohio has a March 6 primary. If Kucinich loses, he could still move to Washington and establish residency to run in their later primary. At that point he'd have nothing to lose if he made that decision.

OH-16: Sutton (D) v. Renacci (R)
This is only one of two Republican v. Democrat match-ups. Congressmen will almost always choose a safe seat they only have to beat a fellow party member once over one that they'll have to defend every two years from a well financed challenger. Betty Sutton's district was torn apart six ways. That meant she didn't have a constituent advantage anywhere but had choices. They were:

OH-4 (10% of her constituents) While Democrats would cheer the opportunity to take down Jim Jordan, only the Speaker has a more Republican seat.

OH-7 (14% of her constituents) She would've taken on Republican freshman Bob Gibbs in a lean Republican district. She probably considered it, but had better alternatives.

OH-9 (15% of her constituents) This one was already a little to crowded. She'd be unlikely to beat both Kucinich and Kaptur and running here with two other members of her caucus would really annoy Democrats.

OH-11 (17% of her constituents) This would mean challenging Marcia Fudge in a Black majority district. Even if she won, which was unlikely, she'd have big headaches. Just ask Gary Peters.

OH-13 (18% of her constituents) She had to seriously consider this one. It's a safe Democratic district that only had one of her caucus and wasn't majority Black. Since most of the district belongs to Tim Ryan, however, winning was probably a long shot.

OH-16 (21% of her constituents) This district has Sutton's home and the most constituents. It leans Republican, about the same as OH-7. I can see why she chose it, but I wouldn't have been surprised with a different choice.

There may be an additional primary battle in NC-4, but that's still up in the air.

Today's Stories

2012-01-05T19:03:00.000-08:00

Since Red Racing Horses is down, I'll post links to today's election stories on the blog.

Mike Michaud Pulls GOP Challenger in Maine

West Virginia Redistricting battle to be appealed to U.S. Supreme Court

Kentucky House panel OKs congressional redistricting plan

Broward Complaint about Allen West's District Could Blow Up on GOP

Redistrict Dave Wasserman
Hearing #AZ01 Paul Gosar (R) likely to announce soon that he will move to new #AZ04 to primary Paul Babeu (R) & Ron Gould (R)

CA-26

2012-01-04T14:39:00.000-08:00

There is huge potential for the GOP here. It's roughly going to be a 47%R-47%D seat in the primary. Democrats could go 16%-12%-8%-7%-4%. If there are two Republicans they can go 29%-18% and both advance to November.

Redistricting: Who's Been Helped or Hurt

2012-01-02T23:03:00.000-08:00

Redistricting is nearly finished, with only about 10 states left to go. So it's a good time to look district by district to see which congressmen will benefit the most and which are in the most trouble.

The chart below only has districts that either were competitive or may be competitive as a result of redistricting. If a district goes from 73% Obama to 80% or to 65% it won't be competitive. So it won't help or hurt either party. The Before and After are the percentage of vote Barack Obama got in 2008. I've excluded all the Texas districts except one, because different things happen to the districts in each. In both the Republican plan and the court plan, there's a new Corpus Christi district for Black Farenthold.

Farenthold looks like the biggest winner, but almost all of the Republicans helped go from competitive to non-competitive. Going down so far is just overkill. Republicans have been helped more than Democrats have been and hurt less than Democrats. If the Republican helped list went down to +2 it'd add a lot more districts.

There is, without a doubt, a few doozies on the Republicans hurt list, although they are almost exclusively in Illinois and California. Those two states figure big into the Democrats' plans. To get the majority back and be +25 they'll have to take all of these districts.

The Democrats hurt is almost exclusively North Carolina and California. There are actually 4 additional Democratic districts (CA-27, 32, 33, and 53) that could be on this list, but they are all still at Obama 61% or higher. That's a little out of reach for the GOP. Maybe later in the decade. There remains 4 vulnerable Democratic districts on this list.

You may see sites that say Democrats will pick up a few seats due to redistricting. They likely will. What you won't see is that Republicans have moved a number of districts off the endangered list.

Michael Rubio out in CA-21

2011-12-27T12:07:00.000-08:00

Democratic State Senator Michael Rubio announced today that he's dropping out of the race for CA-21.

This is a big blow to Democrats. Rubio is regarded as a rising star in the Democratic party. The Democrats don't run strong in the Central Valley, so they need things to go right for them. This is a district Fiorina won comfortably, but Whitman lost. The Democrats' bench isn't deep in the area, although Dean Florez would be a good candidate. If he declines, they could have a problem winning it.

I had this as a toss-up, but I'm moving it to Lean Republican.

Member v. Member Congressional Races Part I

2011-12-27T10:30:00.000-08:00

As the year closes, only 11 states have yet to complete redistricting. Of those, only New York is likely to produce a member v. member race. That makes it a good time to look at the races that will happen.

CA-30, Sherman (D) v. Berman (D)
Why it's happening: Redistricting has created a Latino seat in the San Fernando Valley that neither is likely to win. Howard Berman, and his allies, have suggested that Brad Sherman run in Ventura County, even though there's more Sherman territory in this district. It's always gracious when you get upset the other guy won't try to avoid a member v. member match-up and not consider you can do the same.

Who'll win: Brad Sherman put out a poll that had him winning, but I see this more as a toss-up.

CA-44, Hahn (D) v. Richardson (D)
Why it's happening: Neither of these candidates live within the district, but both like the district better than the one they live in. Hahn would have to run against the formidable Henry Waxman in CA-33 and there's more of her old city council district here. Richardson's new district, CA-47, has a Black CVAP of 8.3%. This district is 27.6%. She correctly assumes there's no way she could win that district. Additionally, that district might be won by a Republican. This one won't be.

Who'll win: it's tough to see Richardson winning here. She's bogged down with debt and an ethics scandal. The people she's counting on, African-Americans, have a history of supporting the Hahn family. While both are likely to survive top two it's tough to see the district's Republican minority voting for Richardson in the general election.

CA-39, Miller (R) v. Royce (R)
Why it's happening: Due to population shifts a district was created in Riverside that doesn't contain the territory of either and is likely unwinnable for them. That district leans Democratic. So if they win there they'll have a competitive race every two years. Here, you only need to win once.

Who'll win: Royce is more popular and has more money, but Miller has a good war chest. Royce is the favorite.

AZ-6, Quayle (R) v. Schwiekert (R)
Why it's happening: The Arizona redistricting commission created a safe Republican seat in an area represented by two Republicans. While the match-up isn't set yet they both likely view this seat the way Miller and Royce do in California.

Who'll win: Schwiekert. Quayle is lightly regarded and won a more Republican district by a similar margin that Schwiekert did.

IA-3, Boswell (D) v. Latham (R)
Why it's happening: Iowa went from five districts to four.

Who'll win: Latham. Latham has over performed in his district while Boswell's results have been lackluster.

IL-16, Manzullo (R) v. Kinzinger (R)
Why it's happening: Illinois went from 19 districts to 18.

Who'll win: Toss-up. Manzullo is a veteran who'll be 68 in March. Kinzinger is a freshman who'll be 34. You'd think the race would favor the veteran, but Kinzinger has more C-O-H and is regarded as a comer.

Los Angeles County Registration

2011-12-23T16:46:00.000-08:00

Current voter registration in Los Angeles County as of November 8, 2011:
* Democrat 2,222,917
* Republican 999,169
* Decline to State 970,633
* Other 152,218
Source: Los Angeles County Registrar

I find it amusing that we can't claim 1,000,000 Republicans in LA County.

The Propublica Artlicle

2011-12-23T10:52:00.000-08:00

The Propublica article has generated a lot of reaction all over the web. Basically Republicans are outraged that Democrats cheated and Democrats are saying they did none of the things in the article and that demographics and the Republican party "moving to the extreme right" in the last ten years. Dan Walters puts it best. The Democrats played politics. That's what they do. So did the Republicans. It wasn't as organized and there's no paper trail, but we didn't sit on our hands.

The idea that Republicans have been consistently losing popularity over the last decade is popular and incorrect. From 2000 to 2007 Republicans dropped 0.8% in registration, while Democrats dropped 2.9%. In raw numbers that was a 466,000 drop for Democrats and a 134,000 drop for Republicans. From 2009 to 2011 Democrats have dropped 0.5% and Republicans 0.2%. That's a Democratic drop of 152,000 and a Republican drop of 80,000.

Republicans have lost since 2000 and the Democrats haven't, but that was entirely based on the Obama registration drive in 2008. Democrats dropped more than Republicans during the first 7 years and the last 2. Democrats had an amazing one time blip. Anyone who actually does any research themselves can easily find this out. But they insist on repeating what's popular.

The low congressional seat total for Republicans isn't due to party unpopularity. It's due to the way congressional seats are allocated. Here's breaking down the seats by regions, with Democratic leaning, Republican leaning, and toss-ups.

In most of the state the congressional seat breakdown matches the Brown-Whitman percentages. The two areas that don't are the Bay Area and Los Angeles county. Let's look at the state as three regions: Bay Area, LA, and everywhere else.

In most of the state Republicans have an edge and do a bit better in the congressional seats. The GOP gets around 33% of the vote in the other two areas, and yet has 5% of the congressional seats. In other states Democrats yell that they get a greater percentage of the vote than the percent of districts Republicans have given them. In California? They don't bother to look at how a party that gets 43% of the vote statewide could end up with less than 30% of the assembly, senate, or congressional seats.

The Republicans can't fix this. They could increase their percentage of the vote by 10 points in LA county or the Bay area and pick up 0 seats. The Republican party has never been popular in these two areas and that's not going to change. The GOP is left to fight over the remaining 30 seats.

The Poor Republicans

2011-12-21T14:28:00.000-08:00

I'm a fairly partisan guy. I make no apologies that this blog is slanted toward the GOP. Dennis Prager always talks about the truth coming first. I want to stick to that.

The popular meme out there is how the Republicans were screwed on the congressional maps. There's another article out today. Let's get some truths out there. First, let's set aside one that's pushed to support Republicans losing seats.

The map isn't difficult for Republicans because of the party's declining popularity or extreme views. If not for the Democrats' 2008 registration success the numbers for Democrats would be horrible. Between 1990 and 2007 Democrats were losing voters at a much faster pace than Republicans and they still are. Since 2009 Republicans have lost 80,000 voters. Democrats have lost 152,000. In 2007 the gap between Democratic and Republican registration was the smallest it'd ever been.

The idea that the Republican Party didn't attempt to influence the decision making process is ludicrous. While I'm not aware of any grand strategy coming from party headquarters I know of a number of people who are very active in the party in L.A. county who testified about what they wanted to see on the map. While their testimony was valid, it was clearly partisan. It'd be naive to assume otherwise.

Democrats didn't get everything they wanted in Northern California. John Garamendi ended up with a district that is bizarre. They've taken Sacramento area Democrats and slapped on a bunch of rural Republican counties.

There are several other districts that were drawn oddly that help Republicans. CA-21 appears to be drawn so that Jim Costa will run in CA-16 and Dennis Cardoza would have to retire. That's what happened.

(Democratic) Hispanics were lobbying for two Hispanic districts in San Bernardino County. That seemed likely, but the final maps tacked on a lot of David Dreier voters in Rancho Cucamonga and Upland onto a district with the city of San Bernardino.For good measure they stretched the district to Relands to include Jerry Lewis' house. CA-31 was competitive enough to scare off Joe Baca, leaving Republicans with a district that they could have either one of two incumbents run.

The commission put very Democratic Long Beach into a district with some very red Orange County cities that it has little in common with. Incumbent Laura Richardson ran for the hills, or at least the neighboring CA-44. Republicans shouldn't be competitive in a district with Long Beach but they likely will be.

I'm not saying there aren't some bizarre lines that favor Democrats. CA-33 looks like it was drawn to make sure that the Republican South Bay couldn't be won by a Republican. CA-26 included all of Ventura County except Elton Gallegly's Simi Valley base.

I will reiterate. The congressional maps slightly favors Republicans. Republicans will likely lose seats because the current map favors them more. Republicans won't lose 5 seats, or 6 or 7 as Chicken Little proclaims. Unless the year turns very Democratic, Republicans should lose no more than 3 seats. If a Republican wins the White House the GOP will likely gain seats. I know the "experts" aren't saying this, but that doesn't make it less true.

Even The Murkiness is Getting Clearer in California

2011-12-21T09:44:00.000-08:00

Some California congressmen have yet to announce their intentions for 2012. There's been no press release, no public statement, and no mention of the new districts on their campaign website. Some of these representatives (e.g. Nancy Pelosi, Kevin McCarthy) are clearly running for re-election, while others (e.g. Sam Farr, Jackie Speier) haven't given anyone reason to think they won't. Each of them has a district and no one else in their party has announced a run. I'm finally going to give in and assume they are running.

There are three I've talked about before whose intentions are unknown. Jerry Lewis is a mystery. The 8th district contains a lot of his current district, but not his home. Yet that district now has a large field of Republicans running. This district is Safe Republican, so it's no surprise so many Republicans are taking a shot. Lewis has hinted he'll run in the more competitive neighboring 31st district, which does contain his home. No Republican has committed to the district, even though it figures to be highly competitive. Lewis' campaign website provides absolutely no clues on his intentions. If you clicked the link you find that there's nothing on the site. That's unusual for candidates who aren't running. They usually leave their campaign website as is and don't bother with it.

David Dreier figures into the mix in either CD-8 or CD-31. I'm just not sure how. I hope Lewis or Dreier runs in CD-31, as the Republicans need a strong candidate to win there.

Elton Gallegly hasn't been exactly mum on his plans. Last month he indicated he hinted to a run against fellow Republican Buck McKeon in the safe Antelope Valley/Santa Clarita/Simi Valley district which contains his home. This month his office responds with "Elton and I wish you a Merry Christmas."

I'm going to read between the lines here and say that he's avoiding the question. Okay, that's obvious. That sure doesn't sound like someone who is retiring. No Republican has jumped in, waiting for Gallegly's decision. While that hurts fundraising, whatever Republican does get in will surely be among the top two in the June primary. Only one Democrat reported any fundraising through Q3 2011 and his total was a meager $37,790. Tony Strickland could raise that in a few days.

PPP and New Mexico poll

2011-12-16T16:25:00.000-08:00

Public Policy Polling a Democratic firm is once again embroiled in controversy. They put out a poll this morning that has a larger Democratic electorate and a smaller Republican electorate than in 2008, the best year Democrats have had since the 80's. No one thinks they'll have a year like that in 2012 and that the electorate may be closer to 2010 than 2008.

No one in this debate understands why PPP's polls before elections are good and their polls prior to that are very Democratic. It's the pattern they went through in 2009-2010 when their polls were also very Democratic. They switched to a likely voter model from a registered voter model, around Labor Day 2010. Suddenly their electorates had a lot more Republicans and less Democrats. The numbers changed dramatically. Their likely voter model was strong. Their registered voter model is from Mars. I'm sure they'll switch again around Labor Day 2012 and then crow about how close they were, hoping we'll once again forget how inaccurate their polls were before then.

Redistricting Scorecard/Democratic Targets

2011-12-16T06:23:00.000-08:00

With Pennsylvania and Ohio pretty much completing redistricting this week, there are only two significant states, Florida and New York, which haven't completed redistricting. Texas remains in court and could result in gains of 3 or 4 for each side. Redistricting is hardly over but there won't be a lot of changes.

I get a bit more minute than the Washington Post and factor in seats other than those that'll be directly impacted by redistricting. So I only have Democrats losing 0.4 seats in Indiana but also have the Democrats even or slightly positive in Michigan, Ohio, and Pennsylvania. Republicans have a number of seats which would lean Democratic in most years. They've turned some into seats that lean Republican. That doesn't make them secure and Republicans will likely lose some of these.

If Republicans have a net loss of 1 seat, that's a huge victory, as they'll keep the congressional majority by 24 seats. Republicans don't need to gain seats to win the congressional elections.

If the Democrats want to hit 25 they'll have to win even more of these marginal seats. Here's a rough estimate of how they'll have to do:

They'll need to hold seats in Indiana, Utah, and North Carolina that look lost right now and they'll have to win 2-3 Republican seats in Michigan, New York, Ohio, and Pennsylvania, states where they're likely to start one seat behind.

I don't see this as doable, although it is possible.

Newt Can't Sink California for the GOP

2011-12-10T15:12:00.000-08:00

NBC LA thinks he would. Presidents do have an impact on congressional elections, but effect of coattails is overrated. People split their tickets. Incumbents usually exceed the Presidential candidate. In 2008 Barack Obama got a higher percentage of the vote in California than every Democrat statewide since 1990. He had long coattails, with the Democrats ending up with 257 congressional seats. He won 8 of the 16 congressional districts where Republicans faced a Democratic opponent. Democrats won none of those seats. Democrats took most of the seats Obama won nationwide, but couldn't manage to get one in California. Here's how incumbent Republicans did compared to John McCain.

Barack Obama got over 53% of the vote nationwide. He's unlikely to have a landslide again. So he should do worse than in 2008 in each state. He did around 6 points better than the average Democrat in California. So he overachieved even his nationwide percentage. It's difficult to believe that Obama will do better than he did in 2008, even with Gingrich. Democrats not only couldn't beat Republicans then but they got beat badly. If they couldn't do it under ideal conditions, they're unlikely to do it in 2012.

Of course there are a few districts that are more Democratic, but have moved that Democratic. Republicans could do worse with Gingrich as the candidate, but it's tough to imagine them doing worse than McCain. Republicans could suffer some losses in 2012, but I doubt Gingrich would really hurt them that much.

Bill Kristol's Fantasy

2011-12-08T11:38:00.000-08:00

Bill is still sad that Chris Christie, Jeb Bush, and Paul Ryan won't return his love. He thinks someone could enter on February 14 and still win. Setting aside the money and organization issues, this person wouldn't be able to get on the ballot.

By February 14, Bill's fantasy candidate will have missed the filing deadlines in Alabama, Arizona, Indiana, Illinois, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Vermont, West Virginia, Wisconsin, and DC. He'd have to hustle to file in Pennsylvania that day.

The only primary states he could get on the ballot would be California, Delaware, Montana, Nebraska, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon, and South Dakota. Even with the remaining caucus states, the maximum delegates might be about 25% of the total. I'm working on my math but that sounds like less than half.

We hear a lot about how voting patterns trend. Usually it's about demographics, but there are geographic trends too. Cook PVI is a measurement of how strongly congressional districts lean toward one political party compared to the nation as a whole. In order to make that determination we use the country's voting breakdown by party.

In 2000, the two party vote was Gore 50.3%, Bush 49.7%. Thus, a district where Gore got 55.3% would be D+5. In 2008, the two party vote was Obama 53.4%, McCain 46.6%. Thus, a district where McCain got 48.6% would be R+2.

By comparing the PVIs in 2008 and 2000 we can see which way a district is going. I've excluded Texas, Tennessee, Illinois, Hawaii, and Arizona, as these states had home state bounces for the candidates. I also excluded Indiana. The 2008 results were such an outlier of other results that I believe they're misleading. Other elections haven't indicated the state is turning blue.

This is a chart of California districts which are moving Democratic. While there are a lot of them, there are several factors to consider.

1. The change was only 6-7 points over two elections, the bare minimum to be considered trending.
2. Most of these districts are Safe Democratic. It doesn't help to become safer.
3. The districts have been changed so much that the current district might not have nearly the trend.

We do know that Herger and Campbell were moved to safer districts. McNerney and Capps are now in competitive districts. This may indicate a trend, but some of the new area might be trending the other way.

There are a lot of overwhelming numbers here, mostly 6-8 points. North Dakota and Montana have been trending Democratic, and that might bode well for Democrats as both districts will be open in 2012. Most of the rest of the Republicans were moved to safer districts. So the opportunity might not be there. The OR-1 movement likely indicates Democrats will hold this district in the special election.

This group contains seats moving Republican that are in the south, Ozarks, and Appalachia, all areas that have been talked about as trending. The good news for Democrats is that the districts aren't trending as fast on local races. Still, the districts will likely catch up to the Democrats in the next few years.

This is an interesting and sup rising group. We see that there was a heavy concentration in Massachusetts and the New York metro. It includes 6 of the 9 districts that aren't majority minority. Two of the three other districts are just off this list. This is why Republicans were able to win the NY-9 special (It moved 17 points!) and why the GOP should make sure the redistricted New York metro to have as many competitive districts as possible.

Six of the ten Massachusetts districts are on here and two others are just off this list. As with New York, one of the ones that isn't is majority minority. There figures to be opportunity in Massachusetts some time this decade. Since the Democrats hold all the seats any one that does will be one that presents a Republican opportunity.

Two Palm Beach-Broward, Florida districts are on here. These counties have a lot of people from New York and Massachusetts, so it's possible that some of the people trending Republican have made it down here. The two districts, like New York and Massachusetts, are heavily Jewish. I don't know if this is just coincidence or if it means something. Republicans aren't doing a lot better in heavily Jewish areas around Philadelphia and Los Angeles.

There may be a number of unexpected Republican opportunities some time this decade. The Democrats don't seem to have as many, especially since many of these districts got safer for the GOP.

Hints about California Congressional Decisions

2011-11-27T08:17:00.000-08:00

The Inland Valley Bulletin has an article today that looks at the San Bernardino County congressional races. There are some interesting take-aways.

1. The San Bernardino Republican Party is talking to both David Dreier and Jerry Lewis about running in the safe 8th district. There's been no indication Dreier is considering the district.

2. Dreier isn't mentioned for the 31st, even though it has more of his territory than Lewis'

3. The 3 people mentioned for the Democrats in CA-31 have all recently lost races. Actually they've lost them fairly badly.

a. Warner lost to Dreier in the San Bernardino section of the current CA-26 53%-36% in 2010 and 52%-40% in 2008, the most Democratic year you're going to get.

b. Wickman lost the assembly race 58%-42%.

d. Ramirez-Dean finished third in the superintendent of San Bernardino County Schools with 17%. The other two candidates had 61% and 22%.

The 31st may have a Democratic lean, but without a good Democratic candidate they won't win it.

8 Seats? Really?

2011-11-19T16:13:00.000-08:00

Aaron Blake at The Fix is analyzing the congressional races. Some of his analysis is good and some of it is coming from a horse's posterior. This is my favorite.

We could see the results spanning from a total wash to Democrats gaining eight seats.

Every single prognosticator, including the most pessimistic ones, has the Republicans with at least 12 safe seats. Since they have 19 now, they'd lose 7 if the ceiling collapsed in a Democratic wave. Not 8. The only two districts he might think Democrats can win are CA-25 and CA-49. Republicans have a decent size registration advantage in both seats, while Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina blew their opponents out in these districts. Heck, Mimi Walters had the 2nd worst Republican statewide performance in 20 years and won them by 10 and 3. If Democrats are winning districts like that, it's a huge Democratic wave where they're gaining at least 80 seats.

Gallegly v. McKeon

2011-11-17T17:03:00.000-08:00

Knock me over with a feather and call me Shirley. I didn't see this one coming. I assumed that Congressman Gallegly would run in the new CA-26 or retire. I didn't see him challenging Buck McKeon. Member vs. member races in the same party can get ugly and they don't get the party any additional seats.

The district was won decisively by Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina, so it's Safe Republican, something that can't be said about either man's current district. So there is a draw to run here. Gallegly has long roots in Simi Valley and likely would only want to represent the people he's known for years and year and not move. Yet Gallegly's contemplated retirement before. If he beats McKeon, will he do so again in 2014 or 2016?

Thee's no way both will make it to November. It's a safe district for the GOP, but there are enough Democratic votes where both Republicans can't beat a Democrat.

Referendum on the U.S. Congressional District Redistricting Plan

2011-11-16T13:08:00.001-08:00

It got no play with the Senate map referendum turned in but the date for the Congressional maps passed Sunday. I can't find anything indicating anyone turned in anything, but it's safe to assume this is dead.

Rep. Dreier promised us that these weren't the final congressional lines. His only avenue left is the Federal lawsuit. If I'm not mistaken, the only jurisdiction the Feds have is through the VRA. The state has jurisdiction on these maps and that lawsuit was dismissed.

At some point, congressmen Gallegly, Dreier, and Lewis are going to have commit to run somewhere.

The Relative Strength of Congressional Incumbents

2011-11-14T05:52:00.000-08:00

How applicable are Obama-McCain numbers to local congressional races? I compared how Obama did in each congressional district to how the incumbent Democrat did and McCain to how the incumbent Republican did. For open seat races, I compared the Democrat to Obama.

I excluded districts where a candidate ran unopposed and those that were significantly one-sided either way. The incumbent will win these races whether he performs above or below the Presidential candidate.

Incumbents average a lot better than their Presidential candidate. A rule of thumb is that incumbency is worth 3 points, but these numbers suggest it may be larger. The Democrats had a higher average, but this may be explained by the quality of Democratic challengers vs. Republican challengers. In some cases Republicans barely contested the seat. There were also a number of Democrats in southern legacy districts who continued winning even as their district started voting Republican at a Presidential level. Some of these congressmen didn’t survive the 2010 Republican onslaught, while others are retiring this year. You can see this in the list of Democrats who did the best compared to Obama. Many who did the worst compared to Obama also lost in 2010.

The Republican performances weren’t nearly as strong as the Democratic ones. While fewer Republicans who had strong performances will run in 2012, there are also several Republicans who ran further behind McCain than the Democrats ran behind Obama.

While there are several factors into how an incumbent performs, including the quality of the challenger, incumbents in a number of states performed similarly. I’ve highlighted those where one party’s incumbents did significantly better compared to Obama than Republican ones did compared to McCain. And vice-versa. I’ve highlighted those in yellow.

There were ten states where the Democratic incumbents ran significantly more ahead of Obama than the Republican incumbents did ahead of McCain. Of these, however, six are southern states where Democratic congressmen still manage to hold districts that vote Republicans on the Presidential level.

That’d explain the relative Democratic strength and Republican weakness in Georgia, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas. Keep this in mind when anticipating whether the GOP can pick up districts in these states. Fortunately, Republicans picked up a number of them in 2010. In 2012, North Carolina won’t be as easy as some people think it will.

It’s not surprising that Arizona Democrats ran far ahead of Obama, while Republican incumbents didn’t run far ahead of John McCain.
Knowing this, Democratic congressmen in them will once again be difficult to defeat in each of them.

The weak performance of Colorado Republicans is worrisome since the GOP has several potentially vulnerable incumbents. I’m surprised at the incumbents’ relative strength compared to Obama in Indiana, Minnesota, and Missouri, since Obama did very well in each of those states. Ohio Democratic incumbents did well enough to outweigh Dennis Kucinich, who has trouble appealing to anyone outside his base. Put Kucinich in anything close to an even district and he’ll lose.

The good news on the Republican side is the party’s strength, and Democratic weaknesses, in Iowa. There is a lot of opportunity there, especially if Obama is lackluster. California, Florida, Illinois, Michigan, New York, Ohio, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania all have vulnerable Republicans. Fortunately, Republicans have run very strong in these states.

On the other hand, low R+ PVIs in Texas could result in losses. If a court draws the map, Republicans there might be in trouble.

There were other states where neither Republicans or Democrats didn't have two incumbents. That makes any relative comparison of the two parties difficult, although one can see why Democrats lost both New Hampshire districts in 2010.

Incumbents are difficult to beat in a non-wave year. Most will be tough to beat, but those that aren't as strong will be vulnerable.

Ohio Election Day

2011-11-10T11:31:00.000-08:00

Somehow I'm still amazed how positive Democratic news is reported and positive Republican news isn't. I know. I know. I'm just being silly. Lose in the midst of the labor union win over the citizens of Ohio was that Ohio voters rejected the individual mandate by a greater margin. It's understandable if you didn't hear that because it gets less than half as many linked news articles. Most of them are conservative media like Newsmax.

If we look at the union win only one might say that Democrats are on the way back. If we look at the two votes together we wouldn't draw that conclusion. The unions in Ohio were able to frame the issue as an effort to destroy the working man and ensure that fires wouldn't be put out.

http://youtu.be/xfOCyDbgZU4

Who wants to be against that?

Of course that doesn't mean they'll vote Democratic in 2012. The public employee unions aren't running for President, Barack Obama is. You need to make a leap from "I think unions should have collective bargaining" to "I'm voting for a Democrat."

I'd embed a :30 issue 3 ad, but I haven't been able to find one on Youtube. I don't think they people supporting this one spent nearly the same money on it. And yet they got more votes. The individual mandate is tied directly to Barack Obama. The health insurance bill may even by regarded as his signature issue. And voters don't like it. I don't think Obama will win Ohio if he talks about the individual mandate. I'd guess that no Democratic candidates will talk about it either. Sherrod Brown, a strong supporter of Obamacare, may have trouble avoiding it.

The Ohio Conundrum

2011-11-07T22:48:00.000-08:00

Republicans in Ohio created an ambitious congressional redistricting map, one that would likely net them 12 seats to the Democrats' 4.

One problem. Democrats can get the map suspended if they get enough signatures for a referendum. Since they managed to get three times the necessary number to challenge SB5, this seems likely.

Realizing the difference between their map and a court drawn map would likely be vast, Republicans decided to negotiate with Democrats. Those negotiations fell apart. Now Republicans are left with a choice. How much to offer the Democrats. The good news is that even in a court drawn map three competitive seats look to be safe Republican.

The bad news can be seen below. These are the percentage of the vote Barack Obama got in each district. The first line indicates where they're at now. The second is what they passed. The third is the map from last week. And the last column is a court drawn map.

They were able to change OH-1 significantly, while not really impacting the remaining districts. Keep in mind they eliminated one Republican and two Democratic seats, and then put a new Democratic seat in Columbus. Hence the safer seats above.

The offer made OH-1, Cincinnati, much more competitive and put the Dayton district in play. The concern, of course, is what would happen to several other districts. Three Cleveland area Republican seats could go from 47-51% Obama to 52-56% Obama. And then there's the possibility a Toledo area seat might be drawn competitive.

The three big concerns are OH-4, OH-7, and OH-16. How much more should they offer? I'd put the line at making OH-10 and either OH-7 or OH-16 more competitive. You don't want to give up too much, because at that point you can roll the dice with the courts.

David Dreier

2011-11-04T05:19:00.000-07:00

“There’s a new federal court case just filed this week. And that will play a big role in making the determination, won’t it? It depends on the lines.”

As I speculated Congressman Dreier earlier is under the assumption that somehow the congressional lines will be overturned and he'll get a wonderful district just tailored for him. He's probably one of the few who think that the lawsuit has a chance at succeeding, it doesn't, and his optimism that new lines are going to be great for him also isn't shared by many. The lawsuit asks the court to draw the lines and I see no reason why the court will draw Dreier better lines. He may operating under the idea that he only wants to run in a district with San Dimas. Since he can't win the district San Dimas is currently in, it can't get worse.

He could win the 31st district, however, and no Republican, or Democrat for that matter, is currently running there. It isn't drawn to favor a Republican, but it's drawn so that a good Republican candidate can win. Many Democrats are upset at that. One of the lawsuits sought to invalidate the district and move some Hispanics from the neighboring 35th in. That'd mean Republicans wouldn't be able to win either the 31st and 35th. Be careful what you wish for, because it can be worse.

Beating Feinstein

2011-11-03T19:16:00.000-07:00

I have this theory, one I’ve mentioned before, that in the right circumstances with the right Democratic moderate, we could knock off a liberal heavyweight. The circumstances are right to knock off Dianne Feinstein. The man to do it is retiring Blue Dog congressman Dennis Cardoza. Cardoza is high profile enough to have strong crossover appeal and there is no real Republican candidate in the field.
Here’s how it’d happen:

In statewide elections California votes around 54% Democratic/39% Republican state with the rest going to minor parties like the Libertarians or Greens. This isn’t an electorate of 53% Democrats and 39% Republicans, but one where Republicans, Democrats, independents, and minor party voters vote 53% for the Democrat and 39% for the Republican.

Let’s assume we have Feinstein, Cardoza, and a low profile Republican in the race. If Cardoza can get 1/3 of the Republican vote and 1/3 of the Democratic vote, we’d end up with:

Feinstein 36%
Cardoza 31%
Republican 26%
Others 7%

Of course this isn’t a slam dunk. It requires a strong enough appeal among Democrats to give 1/3 of their vote to someone other than Dianne Feinstein. Feinstein is an established, well-liked senator, the type that would get 85-90% in past Democratic primaries. Cardoza would have to push hard to the moderate wing of the Democratic party, especially Hispanics and those from the Central Valley.

Harder than that is convincing 1/3 of Republicans to vote for someone who is going to vote Harry Reid majority leader, not Mitch McConnell. People who vote for a party will cast their vote for their party’s nominee even if that person has no shot. If some Republican leaders encouraged votes for Cardoza instead of the Republicans on the ballot you risk the backlash from Democrats that Cardoza is a closet Republican.

If the fall election is Feinstein vs. Cardoza, Cardoza’s path to victory is much clearer. Without a Republican nominee, Cardoza can pull 90% of the Republican vote (38% of 42%) and only 25% of the Democratic vote ((14.5% of 58%) and end up with a 52.5%-47.5% victory. No matter how much money she spends Feinstein will have a lot of trouble garnering much of the Republican leaning vote. So it’d come down to Cardoza getting a small, but not insignificant share of the Democratic vote.

Of course Cardoza is unlikely to run and Republicans may eventually get a strong enough candidate that Cardoza siphoning off one third of the vote won’t happen. I'd like to see if my theory could happen.

How a PAC sets the narrative

2011-10-27T21:52:00.000-07:00

House Majority PAC, a Democratic political action committee, released 12 polls today that they say shows Republicans are in serious trouble. Sure enough, the sheep in the media printed exactly that.

This poll is actually very good news for Republicans.

Wait a sec, you're saying. All these Republicans have higher don't elect than elect. That's 12 seats Republicans will lose. There are three problems with that narrative.

1. This is a poll by a Democratic pollster for a Democratic PAC. Nate Silver has talked about partisan polls being off by as much as 6 points.

2. They polled registered voters. While they chose not to release the in-tabs, PPP has repeatedly had polls all year with the Democratic share of the electorate higher than it was in 2008, a great Democratic year, and often larger D/R spreads than in that year. PPP claims they don't weight by political party. It just happens that way. Yeah, right.

3. They ask the question, "would you like to re-elect Rep. XYZ or prefer someone else?" That question isn't on the ballot. People often express their unhappiness with their congressman when the alternative is the perfect congressman they've made up. Congressmen will always do better, sometimes a lot better, when faced with an actual opponent.

Since they didn't release in-tabs we don't know how the "someone else" broke down by party. These days a good share of the Republican electorate is unhappy with their congressman. They may say they wouldn't re-elect, as long as the alternative was another Republican. When faced with their Republican congressman against a Democrat, they'll vote for the Republican they're unhappy with. Since PPP conspicuously didn't release the in-tabs we don't know how it breaks down.

I'm going to add 7 points to the congressmen and drop the "don't elect" 7 points for a Democratic challenger. I think that's conservative considering the problems above, all of which could add 4-6 points to the Republican's total. If we add the 7 we end up with:

AR-02 R51-42
CA-07 R50-47
CA-10 R45-42
CA-26 R49-41
CA-36 R50-48
CA-52 R49-44
IL-10 R49-43
IL-11 R48-45
IL-13 D46-40
IL-17 R46-42
WI-07 R50-44

Ok, we did all that and it doesn't look so great for Republicans. In half of them the Republican leads by 4 points or less. In 9 of them it's 6 points or less. These Republicans could lose. Yes, they could, but look closely at the districts. There are four of them, CA-26, IL-10, IL-11, and IL-17, that the experts have already declared Democrats are sure to pick up. So not only aren't they sure Democratic pick-ups, but they might actually be leaning Republican. Three other districts, AR-2, CA-52, and WI-7, have big enough leads that they should be definite favorites.

It's not all good news. CA-10 and CA-36 are far closer than expected. There are probably 4 districts that Democrats are more likely to flip than these 12. There are probably 9 Democratic districts that are likely to flip and there will be more once all the redistricting is done.

The Democrats may need as many as 20 districts beyond these 12 to get enough seats to flip the House. If they can't count very many of these, they certainly won't get anywhere near 20 others.

So, yeah, it's a good group of polls.

Cardoza out. Lewis in. But where?

2011-10-20T22:37:00.000-07:00

Dennis Cardoza finally made up his mind. He is, in fact, retiring. This hardly seems like news, because most people expected him to hang it up. Still, this is a relief to Republicans. Jim Costa will now be running in the 16th. Last year Jerry Brown won Cardoza's district by 11 points and Costa's by 19. Yet Cardoza coasted to victory, while Costa won on a recount. The 16th won't be easy for Republicans. Brown only won it by 9 points, however, so it's no sure thing for the Democrats either. Yet this is the only competitive district where Republicans don't have an incumbent considering or even a candidate at all.

Jerry Lewis, on the other hand, is in. He just hasn't decided if it's the 8th or 31st. The 8th is a Republican lock, regardless of who runs. The 31st is a lot more winnable with either Lewis or Congressman David Dreier. While Lewis is racked with indecision, Dreier appears to be waiting for the districts to get thrown out.

Other retirements are possible. Rep. Elton Gallegly is on everyone's retirement watch. Republicans have a strong bench in Ventura County, can you say Congressman Tony Strickland, but Gallegly is the best choice.

Anyone else? I'm going to speculate Maxine Waters will hang it up. Waters hasn't made her intentions known, despite having a district she could easily win.

Southern California Q3 Fundraising

2011-10-20T00:09:00.000-07:00

26th District
The national press has practically declared this district a Democratic pick-up. I don't see it. Both Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina won here. There's no declared Republican, but most of this district is currently represented by Elton Gallegly. Gallegly has $824k in the bank. The Democrats? They have two candidates. Neither of them has even submitted a fundraising report. Gallegly would be a strong favorite here. If he doesn't run, the Republican nominee might not be behind in fundraising.

30th District
Democrats are taking this one awfully seriously. Howard Berman and Brad Sherman have nearly $6 million in the bank between them. Republican Mark Reed has less than $4,000 in the bank. Despite that there's virtually no chance that both Berman and Sherman will make the general election. This district has 26% Republican registration with another 21% Decline to State and roughly 5% other parties. No matter how much money Berman and Sherman spend they won't convince Republicans or Republican leaning independents to vote for them. There simply aren't enough Democrats for the both of them.

31st District
There are no candidates in this district, a true oddity in a state where half the legislature trips over each other to run for congress. The conventional wisdom is that Jerry Lewis, who lives in this district, will run. David Dreier, another Republican without a district, has represented some of the most Republican parts of the district. The district slants only slightly Democratic. Both of these veteran congressmen have just under $800k cash-on-hand. Either would win. If neither runs, it'll be a toss-up, especially since, you know, there are no actual candidates.

36th District
Mary Bono Mack has taken all the Democrats have been able to throw at her in tough races all decade. Her C-O-H of $437k isn't impressive and her opponent, unlike many others, has started to raise money. The district did move slightly more Republican, however.

39th District
Ed Royce has been busy winning endorsements and went to the GOP Convention last month to lock up activists. Fellow Republican Gary Miller has more than $1 million in the bank, but Royce has $3 million. While no Democrat has declared, there are too many Democrats here for both to make November. I don't see Miller beating Royce.

41st District
Right now this is Republican John Tavaglione against Democrat Mark Takano. Both have raised similar amounts of money, but it isn't that much. There figures to be other candidates here, so no clear favorite is likely to emerge for some time.

44th District
This intriguing match-up is likely to actually have two Democrats go at it in November. Newly elected Janice Hahn has just been through a rough race. Laura Richardson hasn't. Isadore Hall is the wildcard in the mix. None of impressive war chests and Hall actually has the most right now. Hahn just spent over $1.5 million on a race where she was only raising money for a short time. Hahn has to be the favorite here.

47th District
Early favorites Steve Kuykendall and Alan Lowenthal haven't raised much money. Republican Gary DeLong has. Late entry Troy Edgar has as well, although almost all of it came from his own bank account. It's all green no matter where it comes from. This is another intriguing match-up.

51st District
This is a heavily Democratic district but there are enough Republicans that a GOPer would likely make it to November. Juan Vargas has more money, but Denise Ducheny is competing for the nod.

52nd District
Brian Bilbray has Republicans and Democrats on either side of him. While his fundraising has been mediocre, none of his rivals has much money.

The fundraising report, overall, was better news for Republicans. They have more challengers with strong bank accounts than the Democrats do and several of the open seats are still wide open. It's early, of course, but better to be ahead than behind.

Northern California Q3 Fundraising

2011-10-17T23:08:00.000-07:00

Third quarter Congressional fundraising is out on Opensecrets and the FEC's website. I assumed candidates put the district they're running in on their FEC filings. I thought it'd shed light on where some incumbents are actually running. David Dreier is listed in the 26th, his current district number, by the FEC and the 32nd by Opensecrets. His house is in the new 32nd, but he's unlikely to run there because it's too Democratic. The FEC has Jim Costa in the 20th, his current district, and Opensecrets has him in the 21st. He's running in the 16th.

The fundraising reports do have some interesting information.

2nd District
This district isn't especially interesting from a Republican point of view. No Republican is currently running. Democrats Jared Huffman, Stacey Lawson, and Norman Solomon all produced healthy fundraising reports. While this isn't a district the GOP can win, any Republican on the ballot will get 25-30% of the primary vote. With three strong Democrats, any Republican will move to the general. As long as one is on the ballot.

3rd District
Incumbent Democrat John Garamendi has only $112k cash on hand. Republican challenger Kim Dolbow Vann has $125k. While Dolbow Vann's fundraising total isn't great, it's surprising when a challenger has more C-O-H than the incumbent. This district contains only 20% of Garamendi's old district. In 2010, Democratic congressional candidates beat Republican candidates in this district 52%-48%. The 3rd is a prime pick-up opportunity for the GOP.

6th District
Doris Matsui has a Republican opponent, Erik Smitt. Smitt won't win, but at least the district will be contested.

7th District
Right now, Democratic challenger Ami Bera has 70% more C-O-H than incumbent Dan Lungren. This isn't that surprising since Bera ran in 2010, but that also makes him more dangerous. This may be the most competitive match-up in the general next fall.

9th District
The 9th may give the 7th a run for its money. This district is slightly more Democratic than the 7th, but both incumbent McNerney and challenger Gill have over $600k C-O-H.

10th District
Republican Jeff Denham is regarded as vulnerable, but neither of his Democratic opponents, Mike Barkley and Jose Hernandez, have filed fundraising reports. It's early, of course, but Denham has over $600k C-O-H and he's a fundraising powerhouse. Hernandez and Barkley may have to spend a lot of the money they do raise just to make the general.

16th District
While Jim Costa's fundraising numbers are hardly stellar for an incumbent, the GOP has yet to field an opponent here. Carly Fiorina won the 16th by 2 points, so it'll be one the Republicans will want to contest. Costa's colleague Dennis Cardoza lives in this district, but he's indicated he's unlikely to challenge Costa. Cardoza has $62k in his campaign account. That won't make the retirement speculation go away.

21st District
The 21st is a district Carly Fiorina won comfortably but Jerry Brown edged out Meg Whitman here. Both parties are running highly regarded candidates. Republican David Valadao and Democrat Michael Rubio haven't gotten their fundraising into high gear yet, but both have raised some money.

24th District
Both incumbent Democrat Lois Capps and Republican challenger Abel Maldonado have been strong fundraisers. Capps has more C-O-H, because she brought some cash in from previous cycles. The 7th and 9th slightly favor incumbents, but this district was almost equal in both the 2010 Senate and Governor races. Capps is an experienced rep and won't go down easily.

Moneyball

2011-10-17T07:38:00.001-07:00

I finally saw Moneyball last night, how statistical analysis changed the game of baseball. Before the ideas presented in the book, scouts judged players on their knowledge and intuition. They just knew what they saw. In politics, the experts just know what they know. They too don't think statistical analysis applies, but it does too. Here are a few.

Individual Predictions are Dicey
What happens overall is far more predictable. While statistical analysis can tell us what's likely to happen, it can't tell us what will always happen. Nothing happens every time. Thus, predicting several races is far easier than predicting individual races. The experts predict Republicans will lose four seats in Illinois because Democrats will be favored in each district. Favorites don't always win in anything. Republicans will win 1 or 2 of these districts. Which ones? No idea. Based on the odds I think Democrats will win 2.4 districts and Republicans 1.6.

Districts that lean Republican will eventually elect a Republican
A Democrat may win an R+3 in a Democratic year, but the next election is unlikely to have a higher number of Democrats, lower number of Republicans, or strong independent advantage. When things return to normal, most of these districts will go back to Republicans.

The 2010 Republican wave was very predictable because the Democrats had 257 districts but only a Democratic PVI in 192. Republicans have a positive PVI in 234 districts. A Republican majority is the normal state of things.

Party registration is like batting average
Batting average used to be sacrosanct, but it really was an okay stat that doesn’t predict results as better stats. It’s not how many people that are registered that counts. It’s how many people that vote. This may sound obvious, but too often people look at a 5 point Democratic registration advantage and think that means the Democrat will win. Democrats have a 14 point registration advantage in Pennsylvania, but exit polls have shown that they never have had more than a 7 point advantage with voters. It’s not universal, but Democrats tend to register a lot of people who don’t vote very often.

A wave year will only happen under certain circumstances
There are certain factors that lead to a wave year. Absent of them, a wave is rare. Presidents make big gains in their first election but don’t make big gains in re-elections, no matter how they do.

Issues need to be current and active to impact elections
In 2010 Democrats ran on “Republicans are going to kill Social Security.” It didn’t resonate because Republicans hadn’t passed a Social Security bill and the issue wasn’t a big deal. Democrats, on the other hand, passed a health insurance bill and that bill was still a big deal.

At some point political experts will realize that past voting is highly predictable of future voting. Until then, we’ll just go on their feel.

Redistricting Scorecard

2011-10-12T21:48:00.000-07:00

There's been a lot of talk about Republicans controlling redistricting in more districts, with The Washington Post and Cook Political producing scorecards. While I may dispute their ratings, their conclusions both say that there won't be a net gain for either party. As expected, Republicans probably won't be able to leverage their advantage into gains. But that's not the goal. The goal is to keep a significant seat advantage. So no net gain is a win for the GOP.

The numbers give the data of how the district voted in the Presidential race in 2008 and how the successor 2012 district voted. I assigned districts based on where incumbents are running and in ones where they aren't running, I used the closest open district. So far there have been over 100 districts moving in the Republicans' favor.

Democrats only have 72 which clearly have moved toward them. When it comes to new and eliminated districts the GOP is +1, while the Democrats are -2.

It's more important to look at those that have significantly moved one way or the other. Again, Republicans have the advantage, with a 61-43 advantage in districts moving 3 or more points each way.

There are still several states left to go, but there are no states where Democrats can expect to get a redistricting advantage of more than 1 or 2 seats. The only way the Democrats will regain the House is if the environment gives them a distinct advantage. Those years are rare and it doesn't look like one of those is coming for the Democrats in 2012.

Obama and the open seat

2011-10-04T00:13:00.000-07:00

With Obama running for re-election I was wondering how his performance will impact districts across the country. Most incumbent Democrats beat Obama's percentage in their district in 2008, while many incumbent Republicans exceeded John McCain's totals.

Open seats, however, don't have an incumbent's influence. Both candidates are challengers. Below are the Obama-McCain numbers and how the Republican did in the district compared to McCain.

What we get is half the congressional candidates doing better than John McCain and half worse. There was, however, nine Republicans running for an open seat that did at least 8.8 points worse than John McCain and none that did more than 8.8 points better. Republicans didn't go all out recruiting for open seats in 2008, as things didn't look good, and many of the candidates weren't well-funded. Overall, McCain did 2% better than all Congressional Republican candidates, including Republicans and that's reflected here.

What we do see here is that Republicans lost, sometimes badly, districts McCain won, even one where McCain got 63.6% of the vote. On the Democratic side, a Republican challenger won a district where Obama got 53.1% of the vote. I don't think that means that Democrats will won all open seats where Obama does better than that, however, since Republicans are likely to field better candidates in a better environment. Still, if Obama gets 55%-56% of the vote, Republicans aren't a good bet to win the district.

How you beat Henry Waxman

2011-09-27T00:22:00.000-07:00

Of course it wouldn't be easy to beat Waxman. He's an entrenched incumbent with $1 million in the bank. Yet California's top two could conceivably make for an interesting election. The authors envisioned three candidates, one on the right, one on the left, and one in the center, with the idea that more people would go to the one in the center.

As the recent special election in CA-36 showed voters in each party will gravitate to the most conservative or most liberal candidates. This is often true even if the voter considers him or herself a moderate. People who join a party and identify themselves as a member tend to go for the party endorsed candidate. A certain chunk of independents will do so also, as the candidate usually is more well known or better funded. There just aren't enough voters who vote in the middle to finish in the top two.

Waxman's CA-33 was won by Jerry Brown last year 54%-40%. In a 3 way race, a Republican will get enough of the votes to advance against Waxman. A strong Blue Dog candidate like former Congresswoman Jane Harman would get a lot of Democratic votes in the less progressive part of the district, south of the airport, but not enough to beat him with Democrats. We'd end up with a Republican 38%, Waxman 32%, Harman 22%, Other Republican 2%. In the resulting two way race between Waxman and the Republican in November Waxman wins easily.

If the primary ends up with Waxman having 32% of the Democratic vote and Harman 22%, then Harman would need one of two scenarios.

The first is that 2-4 Republicans split the vote to advance. That's only likely in a Democratic district if the candidates are equally as good or equally as unknown. It's unlikely that you'll get two strong Republicans in a safe Democratic district. Harman's hope would be that 2 or 3 Republicans are so unknown that they randomly split the vote. Even that is no guarantee.

Last year's 7th district primary had four Republicans and two Democrats, including incumbent George Miller. Even though the four Republicans each got at least 5% of the Republican vote, the Democratic challenger, John Fitzgerald, only managed 9,188 votes to Rick Tubbs 15,245.

Last year's 13th district primary featured two Republicans, who split the GOP vote 55%-45%. Democrat Challenger Justin Jellinic still fell 1,500 votes shy of the leading Republican.

It can happen, however. In the 19th district the two Democrats split the vote. Even though there were four Republicans, two of them were top two. The big difference between this election and the others is that there was no incumbent to suck up all the Republican votes.

The second scenario, one the authors of Prop. 14 were counting on, is the Blue Dog Democrat would win enough Republican leaning votes to beat the Republican. I'm skeptical of this scenario, since Republicans will vote for a Republican if one is in the race. The big question is in a race with two strong incumbents, like Brad Sherman and Howard Berman, one of them could possibly pull it off.

In a fall election between Waxman and Harman, Republicans would vote Harman because she's more of a moderate and would like to see Henry Waxman defeated. It's just that getting there would be difficult for a Blue Dog without a strong base of support. If Republicans want to beat Waxman they'd need to rally around a Democratic moderate who still had "Democrat" next to his or her name.

While I consider that Republican vs. Democrat is the most likely outcome of all primaries, there are 53 of them in California. As the 2010 19th district shows, there's liable to be at least one that doesn't turn out that way. It'll be interesting to see how the two candidates of the same party go after the other party's voters.

Redistricting 2001

2011-09-25T22:33:00.000-07:00

Conventional wisdom has it that the Democrats blew California congressional redistricting when they controlled the whole procedure. They opted for a plan that protected their incumbents. They also protected the Republican incumbents as a result.

In 2000, Mike Honda took an open seat, while Adam Schiff, Jane Harman, and Susan Davis knocked off Republicans. These seats were viewed as vulnerable, as well as those of Lois Capps, Cal Dooley, and Ellen Tauscher, all of whom won re-election with less than 53% of the vote. So the Democrats had a lot to protect. And they didn't lose any of these seats in the next five elections. So Democrats can say they succeeded in their goal.

While a lot has been made of the Democrats not winning any Republican seats, but Barack Obama won 9 of the 20 districts Republicans held at the beginning of the decade. Since Al Gore won none of them, there clearly was eventual opportunity in the seats. Democrats may just not have had good enough candidates to knock off Republican incumbents.

There were several Democratic incumbents who, if their districts had moved to the right, could've been in real trouble. They were able to make 31 of the 33 seats at least D+7, Democratic enough that a move to the Republicans was unlikely to endanger the seats.

While all the closest ones moved to the left between 2000 and 2008, George Bush won two of the districts in 2004 and nearly won a third. The Democrats probably made too many of their seats safer than they needed to, but while there were a few close calls Democrats held the seats. Could the Democrats have foreseen California's leftward move or that there'd be two Democratic wave elections? If the answer is yes, then the Democrats definitely blew it. If not, then the Democrats successfully held the seats they had.

California Congressional Ratings Changes

2011-09-21T21:30:00.000-07:00

Roll Call has finally gotten around to taking a look at California and they’ve actually gone beyond conventional wisdom that the Republicans are going to lose six seats. Okay, they mention that, but they actually look a little deeper at the seats. They correctly identify that Capps, Costa, Cardoza, McNerney, Garamendi, and Loretta Sanchez as all being NRCC targets.

They also identify Republicans who are potentially in trouble. They go a little beyond, however, listing Darrell Issa and Buck McKeon as potential targets. Both of them have never been threatened in a race and they’re in districts where Meg Whitman won by at least ten points.

Here’s an update:

CD-3: Lean Democratic
John Garamendi has two opponents, Rick Tubbs and Kim Dolbow-Vann. Garamendi ran for an open safe seat in November 2009 and underperformed. He did better last year but this district is more than 5 points more Republican than his old district. I’m not sure either Republican will put up a serious challenge, but then I’m not sure Garamendi is a strong incumbent.

CD-7: Lean Republican
Dan Lungren is battle tested and this district is only two points more Democratic than the old one was. Ami Bera is back and his performance was actually pretty good in a Republican year.

CD-9: Lean Democratic
Jerry McNerney won this district, while Meg Whitman was winning it at the gubernatorial level. Republicans insist that if it hadn’t been for the American Independent party candidate, they would’ve beaten McNerney. Ricky Gill is only 24 but he’s been a fundraising machine.

CD-10: Likely Republican
Jeff Denham has been through tough races before, but his only congressional race was a breeze. He’s a great fundraiser and strikes me as the sort of guy who’ll be around a while. He’s in a district that is five points more Democratic and that can’t be discounted.

CD-16: Likely Democratic (was Lean Democratic)
Jim Costa barely won in 2010 and this district is 6-8 points more Republican than his old one. He doesn’t have an opponent yet, however, and you can’t beat someone with no one.

CD-21: Lean Republican (was Toss-up)
It now appears unlikely any Democratic incumbent will run here. This is the Central Valley, a Republican stronghold, and Fiorina cleaned up here. Expect a David Valadao-Michael Rubio match-up to be interesting.

CD-24: Lean Democratic
I might not be giving Lois Capps enough credit here, but this district is 8-9 points more Republican than her old one, and her opponent, former Lieutenant Governor Abel Maldonado figures to be formidable.

CD-26: Toss-up
I have no idea why people are so up on the Democrats in this seat. They have a small registration advantage, but Meg Whitman won this district. Democrats have two candidates officially in and the Republicans have none. The GOP is waiting on Elton Gallegly and for good reason. While Barack Obama was winning his district in 2008, Gallegly was sailing to a 58%-42% win. Around 20% of the Obama voters voted for Gallegly. So he has less to fear than other candidates. If Gallegly runs, it’ll move to Lean Republican. If not, I’ll leave it here until the candidates sort out.

CD-31: Toss-up (Was Likely Democratic)
The rating was dependent on Joe Baca running here. He chose the neighboring 35th. There’s definitely a Democratic lean to this district, but with no candidates currently running I’m classifying it as a toss-up. If Jerry Lewis does run here, it’ll be Lean Republican.

CD-36: Likely Republican
Mary Bono Mack’s district got a little more Republican. Any rep who survived 2006 and 2008 and has a more Republican district is fairly safe.

CD-41: Toss-Up (Was Lean Democratic)
This district has a definite Democratic lean, but Democrats don’t have a history of winning in Riverside County. I’d want to be more impressed with Mark Takano before declaring him a favorite.

CD-46: Likely Democratic
Loretta Sanchez is a strong favorite, but this district moved to the right.

CD-47: Lean Democratic (Was Likely Democratic)
This is an open seat that leans Democratic but now that Republican congressman Steve Kuykendall has joined the fray.

CD-52: Likely Republican
This is district that Meg Whitman won, but also one where the Democrats have strong candidates. It could easily be classified Leans Republican but Brian Bilbray is an incumbent and I think incumbents tend to be pretty safe in non-wave elections.

People May Be Getting Impatient

2011-09-19T06:43:00.000-07:00

There remain 12 California congressmen who have yet to announce their intentions for 2012. People are assuming Davis, Farr, Pelosi, Speier, Nunes, McCarthy, and Waters are running and know where. It's still possible that Waters may retire but McCarthy isn't going to.

It's the other five that are annoying some people. Elton Gallegly's intentions are unknown and it's delaying any other Republican making plans. Candidates need time to raise money. If Gallegly isn't running he's handing the Democrats a head start.

My speculation is that he's waiting for Buck McKeon's decision. No one thinks McKeon will retire, but Gallegly may consider his seat. While most of Gallegly's district is in CA-26 his home and base of Simi Valley are in McKeon's safe CA-25.

Two of the other three are David Dreier and Jerry Lewis. Their decisions should be easier with Joe Baca's decision to run in the less competitive CA-35. The final congressman, Dennis Cardoza, has no easy decision. He either will challenge fellow Democrat Jim Costa or run in a district with little or none of his current territory.

Here are the updated charts with who is running for congress, in red, and who may, but hasn't announced. In the last two weeks the following has happened.

1. Wally Herger picked up an opponent in Jim Reed.
2. Alyson Huber decided not to run in CA-7.
3. Barbara Lee announced her re-election plans.
4. Joe Baca decided to run in CA-35.
5. Raul Ruiz announced he'll challenge Mary Bono Mack.

Joe Baca to run in CA-35

2011-09-13T00:00:00.000-07:00

In a move that should surprise no one, congressman Joe Baca decided to run in CA-35. The district is a safe Democratic district and assures his re-election. Democrat state senator Gloria McLeod declared for the district but there's no way she beats Baca. She may shift to the 31st. While this move helps Baca, it hurts the Democrats. Baca was their best candidate in the 31st and McLeod or Assembly member Norma Torres could've beaten any Republican in the 35th.

While Democrats have a registration edge in the 31st, Republicans David Dreier or Jerry Lewis would likely be slight favorites here. Both have huge war chests, strong name recognition, and currently represent GOP leaning parts of the district. Neither has announced their intentions.

Winning California Congressional Districts

2011-09-12T16:25:00.000-07:00

When looking at the congressional races, some people have been skeptical of the Republican chances. If Jerry Brown beat Meg Whitman by 10 points, 55%-45%, how could a Republican hope to win?

It’s pretty simple. Meg Whitman isn’t running against Jerry Brown for congress. In 2010, the high Democrat was Bill Lockyear, with 60.9% of the vote. The high Republican was Steve Cooley with 49.6%. These have pretty much been ceilings for both parties. Dianne Feinstein did better in 2006, with 62.9%. On the Republican side, Steve Poizner got 56.9% and Arnold Schwarzenegger got 58.9%. It’s possible the Democratic ceiling is slightly higher and the Republican ceiling is much higher, but I think these totals are safe extremes.

Cooley won 12 districts that treasurer candidate Mimi Walters also won. Lockyear won 26 districts that Kamila Harris also won. So we can pretty safely say that the Democrats will win 26 and Republicans 12 for the foreseeable future.

What about the other 15 that Cooley and Lockyear won? Those could conceivably be in play. Of course the Republicans won’t be running Steve Cooley against Kamila Harris in these 15 districts. But they might run a popular incumbent with a big war chest like Jerry Lewis in a district the Democrats appear to be favored.

Neither Meg Whitman nor Carly Fiorina won the 31st district, but Cooley got 54% of the vote. If Lewis runs here and Joe Baca doesn’t oppose him, I could easily see this district as Lean Republican.

Former Republican congressman Steve Kuykendall is running in the open 47th district, one that neither Whitman nor Fiorina did better than 46%. Cooley, however, did get 53.3%. Likely opponent, Democrat Alan Lowenthal, would be favored, but Kuykendall has a clear path to victory. This isn’t like the Massachusetts Senate race where Scott Brown had to beat the typical Republican by 7-10 points to win. Kuykendall needs to be 3% less popular than Cooley to do so.

The 33rd, which is at the bottom of the list, will be where Henry Waxman will be running. No one sees this district as a possible Republican pick-up, but it’s worth noting that a Democratic district is the only one on the list that’s perceived as fully safe.

How it’ll shake out depends on candidates and political environment, but the floor for the GOP, in the event of a Democratic landslide, is 12 seats. Meg Whitman won 15. Carly Fiorina won 21. Steve Cooley won 27.

The three districts that Whitman won that Mimi Walters didn’t will all have incumbent Republicans, Brian Bilbray, Mary Bono Mack and Jeff Denham. The environment doesn’t seem to be tilting one way or another. So the floor should be 15 seats. While many pundits are predicting a 4-5 seat Republican loss, I see a 4 seat Republican loss as the worst the GOP can do.

The districts that Fiorina won, but Whitman didn’t, are a bit trickier. We know that 3 Democratic incumbents and 1 Republican incumbent will be running in those 6 seats. Elton Gallegly may still run in one of the districts.

Without incumbents I’d put all six of these seats as toss-ups, but incumbents will push the lean. Thus, I have the 3rd,16th, and 24th as Lean Democratic and 7th as Lean Republican. I have the 21st and 26th as toss-ups, but Gallegly would push the 26th into a Lean Republican rating.

I’m standing by my prediction that Republicans will lose 1 seat, although I could see a range of Democrats +4 to Republicans +2 . The right Republican candidate in a few of the districts could push the GOP upper limit.

Republican California Popularity

2011-09-10T05:30:00.000-07:00

The current California meme is that the Republican Party has adopted an extreme racist agenda and that’s why they’re unpopular now. As we looked at earlier, Republicans generally get around 42-45% of the vote statewide. That’s not good, but you can’t claim an inability to get 33% of the state senate seats on a lack of popularity. Based on how popular Republicans are, the party shouldn’t get that few.

But has it moved to the “extreme right?”

Registration
Below are party registration statistics going back to 1972. The real story is actually how dramatically people are leaving both parties to become Decline to State, but that’s another post.

What we see here is that a 13 point registration gap is hardly unprecedented. It was much higher in the 1970’s and early 1980’s. In fact, since 1972 Democrats have lost 12% of the registration, while Republicans lost 6%. The high point of Republican registration was 1990, when the party had 39% of the registration, but still a 10% gap. In 2006, the registration share in both parties had dropped and the gap was at its lowest, 8%. So if the Republican Party moved to an extreme right wing agenda it happened very recently or California likes the extreme agenda.

Of course, in 2008 Democratic registration went up 2% and Republican registration went down 3%. That was pretty much the same in 2010, with small declines by both parties as people continue to move to decline to state.

In 2008, George W. Bush and the Republican Party were very unpopular, while the Democrats did a big registration drive for their exciting new candidate, Barack Obama. This jump had more to do with the GOP’s failure and the Democratic excitement than any analysis of an agenda. Some of those people remain conservative, but feel the GOP moved too far to the left on spending. The agenda wasn’t “extreme” enough for them.

You can’t use one year with extraordinary circumstances and say conclusively what it means. The best you can say that in 2010, a year of Republican resurgence nationwide, the Republican Party didn’t see a registration bump. So it’s possible that some people are turned off by the Republican agenda, but if they are the turn off is very recent. It’s not like the Republican pledge not to raise taxes is something new.

The Results
Below are the results for eight statewide races since 1990. When a senate race was in an off year it was assigned to the year two years ahead. The third party vote is eliminated so that Republican v. Democrat can be compared on the same basis.

The years 1990, 1998, 2002, and 2006 were fairly consistent, with Republicans getting between 44.3% and 46.0% of the vote. So GOP popularity at the polls remained fairly constant. Nationwide 1994 was a banner year for the GOP and was so here too.

Two thousand ten, however, marked the first real change in voting patterns. Democratic voting share jumped 3%. Of course one election isn’t enough data to prove anything substantially, but if it is a sign that Republicans are becoming unpopular in the state it’s a recent phenomenon, not one that’s been happening over time.

Lungren Commits

2011-09-08T00:07:00.000-07:00

Dan Lungren decided against challenging Tom McClintock for CA-4 and instead will run in CA-7. This is good news for Republicans, as the party will get good candidates for both seats, and Tom McClintock. Dan Lungren will have a tougher road.

September House Ratings Comparison

2011-09-05T23:09:00.000-07:00

Listed below are my current House race ratings along with those from Cook Political Report, Larry Sabato, Rothenberg Political Report, and Roll Call.

1. This list only includes states that have completed redistricting or states with 1 or 2 congressional districts that won’t vary much. There’s no way of knowing who will be in danger in states that haven’t finished redistricting.

2. Representatives in yellow have yet to commit to the districts listed and may run in different seats or retire.

3. The percentage of the vote Barack Obama got is listed for the old Republican district and the new one.

4. While there are three new California districts on the list that Barack Obama won there are three additional districts that he won but will be districts John McCain won. The recipients of this gift are Buck McKeon, John Campbell, and Ken Calvert.

5. Barack Obama didn’t win Justin Amash’s current district but will have narrowly won the new one. He is the only Republican congressman to have such a distinction.

6. Steve King, Renee Ellmers, Quico Canseco, Blake Farenthold will go from districts Obama won to district McCain won.

7. Once New Hampshire redistricting is done, both of those districts are likely going to be ones Barack Obama won.

8. Republicans hold three districts that have been eliminated.

9. There are five new districts that I believe the GOP will win easily.

10. Cook Political Report and Larry Sabato still include the old California districts, so assigning their ratings included some guesswork.

11. The Rothenberg and Roll Call districts with a light background are ones that both services have yet to rate.

Some additional notes for Democratic seats
1. The percentages are the share John McCain got.

2. John Barrow, Larry Kissell, and Brad Miller move from districts Barack Obama won to ones John McCain won.

3. IA-3 is listed here as Leonard Boswell’s district but could just as easily be listed on the GOP side as Tom Latham’s district.

4. Democrats hold two districts that have been eliminated.

5. There is one new district that the Democrats can safely be expected to win.

6. Republicans are favorites in 4-6 Democratic seats, while Democrats are favored in 5-7 Republicans seats. When including new and eliminated seats, Republicans are actually favored in more races.

Who's running for congress in California? Update

2011-09-03T08:34:00.000-07:00

Below is the latest update on who's running for congress in California. I've made a few changes.

1. If a district has a majority minority population, the ethnic group making that up is listed next to the cities. Thus, (A/B/H) is a district where the majority of the population is Asian, Black, and Hispanic

2. Candidates who've announced where they're running are in red. Candidates who have yet to do so are in Black. These include some incumbents and rumored challengers. Even though it's common knowledge that Nancy Pelosi is running for re-election and no mystery which district, she's in Black until she confirms it. Anna Eshoo confirmed her plans this week and is in red.

3. I've eliminated a column to better show who is running against whom. Incumbents have a green background, while challengers have yellow one. If a seat is open, both parties have a blue background. While I list multiple challengers together, I've listed a challenger in the incumbent's party separately. Gregory Cheadle is listed separately so that it's clear that Wally Herger is the incumbent.

David Dreier and Dennis Cardoza aren't listed, as there has been no indication which district they'll run in. Dreier may consider a San Bernardino district that Jerry Lewis doesn't run in or may be deciding to do nothing and hope that in a few months these districts are put on hold by the Supreme Court. Cardoza is rumored to be considering retirement.

Dan Lungren, Jerry Lewis, and Joe Baca are listed for districts they may run in. They could have easily been moved to other districts.

Since my last update, the following candidates have announced.

CA-3: Kim Dolbow-Vann(R) will challenge incumbent John Garamendi(D)
CA-15: Pete Stark(D) announced his re-election plans.
CA-18: Anna Eshoo(D) announced her re-election plans.
CA-21: Michael Rubio(D) will challenge for this open seat.
CA-26: David Cruz Thayne(D) is the second Democrat into a district Elton Gallegly has yet to commit to.
CA-28: Adam Schiff(D) announced his re-election plans.
CA-31: Joe Baca(D) decided that he's undecided whether he'll run in this district.
CA-32: Grace Napolitano(D) switched districts for her re-election. Roger Hernandez(D) dropped out.
CA-35: Norma Torres(D) became the second Democrat to declare for this open seat. If Joe Baca decides to run here, she may change her mind.
CA-37: Karen Bass(D) announced her re-election plans.
CA-38: Linda Sancehz(D) announced her re-election plans.
CA-47: Steve Kuykendall(R) announced his intention to run for this open seat.

Sanchezes Survive

2011-08-31T22:20:00.000-07:00

There have been eight California reps who hadn't made a decision where to run. I assumed Linda Sanchez was a goner, as there were Democratic incumbents in all the districts that were carved out of her current district. Maybe she'd carpet bag to San Bernardino or Riverside? That seemed questionable. It turns out she can stay where she is. Grace Napolitano did an about-face. A few weeks ago she announced her intention to run in CA-38, as she lives in the district. She's decided to run in CA-32, leaving CA-38 for Sanchez. Almost none of Napolitano's current district is in CA-32 and she could be seen as a carpetbagger. She isn't moving that far and I'm not sure that a rep from only a few miles away will be considered a carpet bagger in the Hispanic community. Hispanics tend to be more mobile than Anglos. So they might not identify a person as a "local politician," but as a "Hispanic leader."

The Other Shoe

2011-08-30T15:16:00.000-07:00

I've been perplexed what David Dreier and Jerry Lewis were waiting for. I speculated that since the senate map challenge didn't include anything on congress, I assumed that ship had sailed. Were they really going to try to get 500,000 additional signatures and spend more money. The answer is yes. First, they need to collect the 500,000 signatures in three months. Then they have to hope that the Supreme Court will set aside the current districts until after a referendum. Then they have to hope the court draws better districts. None of these things are guaranteed. They can go for it, but if it fails they'll have to run in these districts. They don't lose anything by preparing for that in the interim.

New York, New York

2011-08-29T15:45:00.001-07:00

I was looking through the Presidential voting numbers by congressional district and decided to index them against the national numbers to see how different the district was from the national average. For example, in NY-2 George W. Bush got 41% of the vote in 2000 and 46% in 2004. John McCain got 43% in 2008. When we adjust the percentages to the candidates’ national average we get that the district was D+9 in 2000, D+5 in 2004, and D+3 in 2008.

I noticed that Colorado, Nevada, Virginia, and Oregon districts were trending to the Democrats across the board. In Colorado the average district went from R+4 to D+2. Every district moved at least three points more Democratic. None of those were surprises.

What was a surprise was the states that are moving Republican. I expected to find Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and West Virginia on the list. I was very surprised Massachusetts moved so far to the right. MA-1 and MA-8 pretty much stayed the same. The other 8 districts, however, moved on average from D+13 to D+7. Since I included only 2000 and 2008, there was no John Kerry effect. Massachusetts isn’t moving to the GOP any time soon, of course, but this would explain how Scott Brown could win an election. A D+13 state would be out of the question, but if it was still moving right, a D+5 or D+6 state can be won by a Republican. This suggests Brown was no fluke and that there may be congressional opportunities later in the decade depending on how the state is redistricted.

The other state that surprised me was New York. On the surface it doesn’t look like a big deal. The state moved 2.3 points more Republican between 2000 and 2004 and another 1.1 points between 2004 and 2008. Some of the districts, however, moved heavily to Republicans. The 8 districts that moved an average of 8.7 points more Republican had one thing in common, they were white majority districts in the New York metro area. In fact, there was only one white majority district that didn’t move at least 5.3 points more Republican. While NY-14 didn’t move more Republican, the other Manhattan district, NY-8 went from D+30 to D+21. That doesn’t put the district in danger of flipping to the GOP, but NY-1, NY-2, NY-4, and NY-9 all moved Republican enough that a Republican nominee might win them. If not in 2012, then in 2016.

What this tells me is that there’s a chance that the White majority areas in Long Island, Brooklyn, and Queens may be moving enough Republican that GOP congressional challengers could win these districts within the next decade. The one hurdle they’ll have to overcome is that redistricting could push these districts out of reach. Republicans need to make sure that these districts aren’t gerrymandered and left similarly. Republicans will have a good chance in the ones that keep moving to the GOP. We don’t know which ones will, so they should go for an equal shot in all of them. They don’t need to worry about creating safe seats for King or Grimm. The areas is moving far enough to the right that almost any redistricting will create districts each can win.

The stories circulating out there are that Republicans will settle for a 21-6 map, because that would “fairly” take out one Republican and one Democrat. I don’t understand how settling for 22% of the districts in a state where even John McCain got 37% of the vote is fair. Right now 9 districts have a positive McCain PVI and another 4 are moving that way. There are another 3 that may get there this decade.

If a map that isn’t gerrymandered in favor of the Democrats enables Republicans to be competitive in 13 districts, or even just 9, settling for 6 seats is shooting themselves in the foot. New York represents the greatest opportunity for Republican pick-ups in the next decade. Unless the Republicans settle for a map that makes 21 Democratic seats safe.

What is Dreier counting on?

2011-08-29T09:58:00.000-07:00

I'm going to take a wait-and-see attitude. Anybody who has come to the conclusion that these are the final lines that people will run in in June of next year may have another think coming.

Set aside that the L.A. Times put in "think" instead of "thing." I count 16 California congressmen who have yet to announce their intentions. We can set aside Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Lee, Jackie Speier, Sam Farr, Devin Nunes, Kevin McCarthy, Susan Davis, and Maxine Waters. There's no indication any of them are retiring and none of them has a challenger either in their party or the opposition. They may have announced and there is just nothing on the web confirming it or may not feel the need to announce.

It's the other eight representatives that are up in the air. David Dreier appears to have the same attitude Jerry Lewis has that these aren't going to be the final lines. No one has made moves to challenge these lines, however, not even MALDEF, who sues pretty much everywhere. So I have no idea what mechanism they think will change the lines, let alone that new lines will be more favorable to them. You can put your head in the sand, but to what end? Declaring where you intend to run under these lines doesn't preclude changes.

The other six reps, Joe Baca, Dennis Cardoza, Linda Sanchez, Buck McKeon, Elton Gallegly, and Dan Lungren, either have two districts to choose from or may be weighing retirement. Gallegly may be waiting on McKeon's decision and will run in the safe CA-25 if McKeon doesn't. Linda Sanchez's current district is in the new 38, 40, and 44. Grace Napolitano is running in CA-38, Louise Royball-Allard is running in CA-40, while both Laura Richardson and Janice Hahn are running in CA-44. I have no idea what she'll do.

Kuykendall in the 47th

2011-08-24T22:48:00.000-07:00

Former Republican congressman Steve Kuykendall is running for congress again, a decade after his House stint. Steve was one of the first people I met when I accidentally got involved with politics and he was helpful at the beginning of filming "Where's The Party?" In fact, he was the first person we interviewed. Needless to say, I'm in his corner.

As I wrote earlier, L.A. County has some of the worst lines for Republicans. There's only one Republican leaning seat, as the Republican leaning South Bay-Torrance-Peninsula have been broken up into two districts. This seat should heavily favor a Democrat. There's no incumbent, however, and Steve Cooley did win the district. So it's certainly not impossible.

I expected Craig Huey to run here, but I'm happy to see Steve give it a go.

California State Senate Analysis

2011-08-24T05:56:00.000-07:00

I've been through the map and I don't see too much that's really out there. The 39th has a very odd shape but adding Escondido to it helps the GOP. The 12th, 14th, and 19th look more Democratic than I think they should be, but they're not so awful.

The biggest black mark I see is that Republicans will win at least 7 seats in 2014. Yet there are only 6 Republican senators in even numbered seats. Had the commission switched one of those seats, preferably the 28th, to 2012 the GOP would have one more seat after the 2012 election. Instead they'll have to wait two years. That one seat may make the difference in giving Democrats a 2/3 majority.
A possible negative for Democrats is that three senators who aren't up in 2012, Vargas, McLeod, and Calderon, are all running for congress. Calderon looks like a long shot, but the others could be favorites. If two of them win, a 27-13 Democratic advantage will be 25-13, not enough to raise taxes. That'd only delay things, however, since these are all safe Democratic districts. Once they have special elections the Democrats would get their 2/3 back.

Here's what to expect in 2012
3 - Wolk; Safe Democratic
7 - Desaulnier; Safe Democratic
9 - Hancock; Safe Democratic
11 - Leno; Safe Democratic
13 - Open; Safe Democratic
15 - Open; Safe Democratic
17 - Open; Safe Democratic
25 - Liu; Safe Democratic
33 - Open; Safe Democratic
35 - Wright; Safe Democratic

Add these 10 to the 14 Democrats already have and they have 24 seats locked up.

1 - Open; Safe Republican
21 - Runner; Safe Republican
23 - Emmerson; Safe Republican
29 - Huff; Safe Republican
37 - Walters; Safe Republican

Add these 5 to the 6 Republicans already have and they have 11 seats locked up.

In order to deny Democrats their 2/3 majority Republicans need to win three of the remaining seats.

5 - San Joaquin County - Toss-up
Republicans have a deep bench here, with businessman Chadwick Thompson, former assemblyman Greg Aghazarian, and assemblywoman Kristin Olsen all looking like possible candidates. Democratic assemblywoman Cathleen Galgiani is termed out, and will be the likely Democratic nominee.

Tom Berryhill has been talked about for this seat, as he lives in the district. He already has a senate district, the 8th, and is in office through 2014. I suppose that if you can retain your senate district while running for congress, you could do the same while running for the state senate. So he wouldn't be risking anything running here. He'd be the best candidate and the 8th would be safe Republican if he resigned that seat to run here.

19 - Santa Barbara - Likely Democratic
Former Democratic assemblyman Pedro Nava told the VC Star: "[This district] almost looks like someone drew it for me."

http://www.vcstar.com/news/201...

Um, yeah, it kinda does. Jason Hodge, a firefighter, and former assemblywoman Hannah Beth-Jackson are also likely to run as Democrats. Former Santa Barbara County Supervisor Mike Stoker may run as a Republican.

27 - Thousand Oaks - Toss-up
The biggest grudge match on the slate has Republican senator Tony Strickland against Democratic senator Fran Pavley. Both are strong candidates who currently represent opposite ends of the district. Strickland is extremely influential in Republican circles up and down the state and should have no trouble raising a lot of money.

31 - Riverside - Toss-up
This district does favor Democrats ever so slightly but they have a poor history of winning seats in Riverside County. Assemblyman Jeff Miller is in on the Republican candidate, while former Democratic assemblyman Steve Clute is also committed. Termed out Assemblyman Paul Cook is another possibility.

39 - San Diego - Likely Democratic
It looks like Assemblywoman Toni Atkins and assemblyman Martin Block will be lining up on the Democratic side. Nathan Fletcher would be a good candidate but he's running against Rep. Bob Filner for mayor of San Diego. Assemblyman Martin Garrick appeared to be a likely Republican nominee, but he was recently arrested on a DUI.

Democrats could have a 27-13 advantage after 2012, maybe even 28-12, but Republicans could deny them that and keep it at 26-14. If they get a referendum on the ballot, these districts might be shelved and they may use districts drawn up by the California Supreme Court. If they are slightly better Republicans could temporarily deny Democrats a 2/3 majority. If the referendum loses, Republicans are okay under these lines in 2014 when they'll pick up at least one seat.

The Sherman-Berman Conundrum

2011-08-23T14:21:00.000-07:00

Brad Sherman has released a poll which, like Janice Hahn's before him, is designed to get his fellow Democrat, in this case Howard Berman, to run elsewhere. The poll has Sherman at 42%, Republican Mark Reed at 26%, and Berman at 17%. This is a district that is 49% Democratic, 26% Republican, 21% Decline to State, and 4% other parties.

It seems unlikely Reed would only get 26% of the vote in a three way race with no other Republican, American Independent, or Libertarian alternative. In last year's most one-sided contest, the race for treasurer, Bill Lockyer got 58% of the vote, Mimi Walters 29%, and other candidates 13%. If there were no other right leaning candidate on the ballot Reed will get over the magic 30% mark, ensuring him of a slot in the fall.

Even at 26% he still advances. Setting aside the remaining undecided votes, the Sherman-Berman race would have to be 32%-27% for him not to. It's unlikely you'll get that close a Democratic race AND a Republican who can't get the Republican vote. What makes it hard for Berman is that while he could get a significant amount of Republican votes in a head-to-head with Sherman, he just won't siphon enough Republican votes from an actual Republican in the primary. If he can't win a greater share of Democrats Howard Berman is sunk.

California Republican Dilemma

2011-08-23T07:43:00.001-07:00

The big refrain when Republicans claim that the California Redistricting Commission gave them too few seats is: “They’re doing badly because they have an unpopular extreme philosophy that’s out of step with Californians.”

Nice sound bite. Except it’s not true.

In the average statewide race in 2006 and 2010 the GOP got 44.7% of the vote. That’s not good, but it’s hardly the GOP’s worst state in the country. And it’s not “an unpopular extreme philosophy.” In almost every election the GOP got above 40%, but the lowest total was 37% in the 2006 senate race.

On a congressional level you have some seats which were unopposed. I filled in an approximate number of votes based on other elections. The GOP got 42% of the congressional vote in 2006, 39% in 2008, and 44% in 2010.

So the worst Republicans have one in the last three elections is 37%. That’s likely the absolute floor. Yet right now Republicans have 35% of the assembly seats, 38% of the senate seats, and 36% of the congressional seats. Based on statewide vote totals this should be the worst Republicans can do.

Yet the GOP is expected to lose seats in all three contingents in less gerrymandered maps. And it’s not due to that extreme philosophy. To better understand this, we need to look at county by county vote totals for the typical race, the 2010 gubernatorial contest between Jerry Brown and Meg Whitman.

In San Diego and Imperial Counties Whitman got 52.6% of the vote. The GOP is expected to win 3 of 5 congressional seats, 60%. Someone has to win at least 3, so that’s about right. Let’s add the next three counties north of it, Riverside, Orange, and San Bernardino. These counties are a little better for Republicans. In the 5 counties the Whitman got 55.1% of the vote. Republicans are favored in 9 of the 16 contests in the 5 counties, 56.2%. So that’s about right.

It all falls apart when you add Los Angeles County. Republicans don’t do as well here and managed to get only 33.7% of the vote. As a result they only have 1 of 13 Los Angeles County seats, 7.7%.

When Los Angeles County is added to the total the Republican vote share drops to 45.2%. Yet there are only 27.6% Republican leaning congressional districts in the 6 counties.

It gets even worse if we add the Bay area. Whitman’s 29.5% showing is poor but it results in Republicans winning 0 of the 11 congressional districts. With those added in, the GOP drops to 40.7% of the vote. That’s low, but would still be 16.3 of the 40 congressional seats if they were assigned proportionally. Instead they only have 8, 20%.

Statewide Meg Whitman got 43.2% of the vote. Yet she won only 15 districts, 28%.

The problem that Republicans have is the size of the districts. Big districts hurt badly. Statewide they were shut out despite 43% of the vote in 2010.

So what’s the solution? Well, we aren’t going to a parliamentary system any time soon. So the GOP can’t get the seats awarded proportionally. The smaller the district, the more likely we’ll zone in on a Republican leaning area. The assembly has 80 seats, 20 of which are in L.A. County. Whitman won 3 of these. Of course 15% of the seats of the seats is still too low, but it doubles the 7.7% Republicans have in congressional districts.

So the answer is to increase the number of districts to a point where they’re small enough that Republicans take a greater proportion of seats. There’s a good reason to do that. In Texas the average legislator represents 168,456 people and the average senator represents 815,110. In Florida the numbers are 157,506 and 472,519. Finally, in New York it’s 129,474 and 313,243.

In California, it’s 466,775 and 933,550. That’s too many people. If California did it like the other three states, there would be 221-288 members of the legislature and 46-119 members of the senate, with Florida in the middle at 79. So increasing to 160 assembly seats and 80 senate seats would be a reasonable proposal. I’d go to 250 in the legislature, but that might be too big an increase to do all once. Californians do hate the lawmakers in Sacramento and would go for anything that’d dilute the power. Who knows, maybe some ordinary people would get elected.

The more seats and smaller districts will result in more seats Meg Whitman won. And that’s a referendum Californians could get behind.

Two Cagey Congressmen

2011-08-21T07:31:00.000-07:00

San Bernardino County will have three congressional seats in 2012, one that's safe Democratic, one that's safe Republican, and one that will be anywhere from likely Democratic to a toss-up depending on who runs. While many other congressmen were quick to announce their intentions after the new lines were released in late July, Joe Baca and Jerry Lewis have been notably silent. Both spoke with the Riverside Press-Enterprise and... we still know nothing. Baca may run in the safe 35th or the more competitive 31st. Lewis may run in the safe 8th or the more competitive 31st. In the article neither says what they're going to do, what'll factor into that decision, and when they'll decide.

Both these congressmen are 800 pound gorillas. Members of their own party will avoid the district they choose. So while two Democrats have committed to run in the 35th, they might switch to the 31st if Baca runs there. A Republican is committed to the 8th, but would likely reconsider if the Lewis chooses that district.

Left up in the air is David Dreier. A lot of Dreier's current district is in the L.A. County 27th, with some in the 28th and 32nd. None of these appear to be districts Dreier can win. Most of the remainder of his district is in the San Bernardino County 31st. As near as I can tell the 8th may contain some mountainy area from Dreier's 26th but few, if any people. The 31st would be the most obvious landing spot, but he could try the 8th if Lewis decides on the 31st.

Everyone is waiting on Lewis and Baca. They'll have to wait a little longer.

Janice Hahn leads imaginary election

2011-08-20T09:49:00.000-07:00

Janice Hahn released some internal poll numbers for a Democratic primary in the new 44th district. Hahn leads Laura Richardon 47%-24% with Isadore Hall getting 7% and 22% undecided.

That's great except there won't be a Democratic primary in 2012. So they could've polled Hahn's numbers on becoming Snow White at Disneyland. Isn't that where imaginary things happen? There will be a jungle primary next June. The district is 64% Democrats, 14% Republican, 18% Decline to State, and 4% other parties. The article isn't clear whether it's only Democrats who are polled, but if they're using words like "Democratic primary" that seems likely. There's no Republican in the race and that could change things. If the numbers are only Democrats, Richardson's 24% could be only 15% of the overall electorate. She might finish third.

The numbers do show Hahn leading Richardson, 47% to 26% one on one, the way the November election will be. If those numbers were to hold up, Hahn should win regardless whether this poll is Democrats or the whole electorate. And November 2012 is two elections from now.

Of course they aren't polling for results that'll happen 15 months from now or even 10 months from now. They're trying to encourage Richardson to run elsewhere and hope these numbers push her to that.

Schiff Commits

2011-08-19T12:13:00.000-07:00

To no one's surprise Adam Schiff is running in the 28th district. It remains to be seen if he'll get a serious Democratic challenger.

Evaluating California's Congressional Districts

2011-08-18T17:20:00.000-07:00

Who really benefits most from the new California congressional map? Does it make sense for the Republican Party to challenge them? It does, but only if it’s highly unlikely it could be worse if the court draws it. Why go through this process if it doesn’t benefit the GOP?

So I decided to analyze each area of the state and score it. My comparison is to what it could be if the California Supreme Court drew it. If the area doesn’t benefit either party, I scored it a zero. If it’s drawn to favor one party I gave it a 1. If it’s drawn to give a party a good edge, I gave it a 2. If it’s a gerrymander I gave it a 3. I’m skipping the Democratic areas in Los Angeles and the Bay area. These areas are so Democratic that they’d look the same regardless of the gerrymander.

Northern California (Districts 1-3)
These are currently two safe Democratic seats and one safe Republican seat. In the first draft there was two safe Democratic seats and one likely Republican seat, pretty much a Democratic gerrymander. The final maps have packed a lot of Democrats into the 2nd district, taking some Republicans into a 3rd district that only leans Democratic. It also restored the 1st district to safe Republican.

This is almost a Republican gerrymander. You don’t want to disrupt this.
Score: Republicans +2

Sacramento (Districts 4, 6, 7)
Right now there are one safe Democratic district, one safe Republican district, and one district that is lean/likely Republican. Democrats would crack Sacramento and make two safe Democratic districts, but that’s not going to happen in a neutral map. Unfortunately, the commission has packed Republicans into the 4th district and left the 7th district a toss-up.
Score: Democrats +1

Central Valley (Districts 9, 10, 16, 21, 22, 23)
We pretty much knew that there would be two safe Republican districts from Fresno to Bakersfield. Republicans would crack these districts. The commission made two districts that are pretty much Hispanic majority, so it was inevitable that there wouldn’t be a third Republican district.

The 9th and 10th are actually a little more Democratic than they were before, probably going from lean Democrat and safe Republican to likely Democratic and likely Republican. The 16th is similar to the current 18th district, but the 21st is a lot more Republican than the current 20th. Republicans lost this district on a recount in 2010 and it looks like it’ll be open. It’ll be a prime pick-up for the GOP.
Score: Even

Coast (District 24)
This district went from safe Democratic to a toss-up. This was likely to happen in a neutral map, so it isn’t a Republican gerrymander.
Score: Republicans +1

Ventura County (District 26)
This district should lean Republican. Instead it’s a toss-up/lean Democratic. It’s definitely a gerrymander but it isn’t one so blatant that Republicans can’t win here.
Score: Democrats +1

San Gabriel Valley (Districts 27 and 32)
In a Republican gerrymander there’s a district for David Dreier. This isn’t really a gerrymander. It was inevitable that Democrats would get two districts. I probably should score this even, but I’ll give it to the Democrats.
Score: Democrats +1

San Bernardino (Districts 31 and 35)
It seemed likely that there would be two safe Democratic seats here, but they’ve packed a lot of Democrats into the 35th and taken some Republicans from the 8th and put it in the 31st. The 31st still leans Democratic, but that Republicans have a shot here is a big benefit.
Score: Republicans +1

LA Coast (District 33)
There’s no two ways about this district being a Democratic gerrymander. It’s actually a little more Republican than the current 36th district, but probably isn’t possible for Republicans to win.
Score: Democrats +2

Riverside (Districts 36, 41, and 42)
May Bono Mack has gone from lean Republican to likely Republican. Ken Calvert has gone from lean Republican to safe Republican. All this while the Riverside district is possible to win, especially since Democrats don’t have a good bench here.
Score: Republicans +2

Orange County (Districts 39, 45, 46, 47, and 48)
The 39th, 45th, and 48th are all a little more Republican. They were probably safe Republican before, but that doesn’t hurt if the area moves Democratic. Republicans have the good fortune that the commission drew a Long Beach district into Orange County. I thought that’d only happen with a Republican gerrymander. The district is probably lean Democratic as an open seat, but that’s a lot better than the current Long Beach district.

The 46th is actually a touch more Republican than it was before, but not as Republican as it could have been. This is a Democratic gerrymander sucking in as many Hispanics as possible. The district is likely Democratic, probably the best Democrats could do here.

Assuming that at least one of the 39th, 45th, and 48th will move more Democratic this turns out to be a good redistricting for the GOP.
Score: Republicans +1

San Diego (Districts 49-53)
A Republican gerrymander would have three safe or likely Republican seats. A Democratic gerrymander would spread out the Democrats over more than two seats. The fifth district is the big question. While it could be better, it’s still likely Republican with Brian Bilbray running. Still, I’ll call it a push.
Score: Even

My calculation is that the map is Republicans +2. This certainly isn’t a Republican gerrymander. The gerrymanders for Republicans at least balance out the Democratic ones. At the very least this is a neutral map. I might be too generous scoring this for the GOP, but four districts that are gerrymandered Republican, CD-21, 31, 41, and 47 might be open seats. They could just tweak the map a little bit and turn these Democratic leaning open seats into safe ones and make seats with Democratic incumbents less safe. You want the seats that are competitive to be open.

I don’t think the GOP should take a chance on the supreme court drawing the map. Yes, Republicans could benefit, but I think they’re there’s at least a 50% chance they’ll get a worse map. Anything over 20-25% isn’t worth the chance.

Who we're waiting for in California

2011-08-17T17:17:00.000-07:00

In the last few days John Garmendi has decided to run in the 3rd district, Pete Stark in the 15th, and Anna Eshoo in the 18th. None of these are surprises, but what is a surprise is how slow some of the other congressmen are. These are the maps unless there's a successful lawsuit or a referendum gets on the ballot. A successful lawsuit by a group like NALEO probably won't change very many districts and each wouldn't change much. A referendum would put everything on hold, but there isn't a referendum drive yet the way there is for the state senate. It's not smart to count on a referendum that might not make the ballot. Even if it does, that doesn't mean the districts will be demonstrably different.

Let's go with who we're waiting for:

Dan Lungren
Why hasn't he announced? Lungren is probably evaluating his possibilities. Does he run in the 4th, almost certainly against fellow Republican Tom McClintock? It's a slam dunk Republican district, but McClintock is seen as the favorite since there's more of his old district here. His odds might be longer in the 7th, where he not only has Democrats lining up but possibly a Republican challenger. He may be in discussions with Tom McClintock, but I don't see anywhere else McClintock will want to run.

What are the consequences? Potentially dire. Two Democrats have announced and both look like strong candidates. Former congressman Doug Ose has expressed interest. Lungren doesn't want Ose or any other Republicans in because if there are too many the two Democrats could finish 1 and 2.

Jerry Lewis
Why hasn't he announced? Denial. Lewis keeps saying that these won't be the final lines. He seems to want the district drawn to his specifications, something that won't happen no matter who does it.

What are the consequences? Every day he waits hurts him. In 2010, Lewis only got 43% of the primary votes. Democrat Pat Meagher got 31%. Republican Eric Stone got 26%. Stone showed no fundraising, while Meagher's total was... well. meager. Lewis is likely to be on the tea party's radar this time because of his reputation as an appropriator. He's already got one Republican challenger. The Democrat will pull enough Democratic votes to get to November. So one Republican might be all that it takes.

Nancy Pelosi
Why hasn't she announced? Maybe she feels she doesn't need to. It's assumed.
What are the consequences? None. This is San Francisco.

Barbara Lee
Why hasn't she announced? She probably doesn't need to either.
What are the consequences? None. This is Oakland.

Jackie Speier
Why hasn't she announced? She's fairly new, so she's not going anywhere. Maybe she announced and I missed it.
What are the consequences? I could see a Democratic challenge but none is on the horizon yet.

Dennis Cardoza
Why hasn't he announced? He has nowhere to run now that Jim Costa has announced he's running in the 16th. He could try the 10th, but that's a likely Republican district. He could try the 21st, but that district will lean Republican and he doesn't currently represent any of it.
What are the consequences? He's missed the bus here. I see him retiring.

Sam Farr
Why hasn't he announced? It may be similar to Lee and Pelosi. He is 70 years old, so he could retire. But then he's younger than Pelosi.
What are the consequences? He can probably wait as long as he wants.

Devin Nunes
Why hasn't he announced? He might not need to. He's been unchallenged before.
What are the consequences? None.

Kevin McCarthy
Why hasn't he announced? Same as Nunes. This is the most Republican district in the state. He's now majority whip. He isn't going anywhere.
What are the consequences? I suppose he could get a tea party challenge, but it wouldn't go anywhere.

Buck McKeon
Why hasn't he announced? He could be considering retirement, although that's not likely given his position in congress.
What are the consequences? None. He's in McKeon country.

Elton Gallegly
Why hasn't he announced? Speculation is high that he might retire. His home and base are in McKeon's district, while his old one is now a toss-up.
What are the consequences? No Republicans have lined up yet, but that will change. He needs to get out in front if he's planning on staying.

Adam Schiff
Why hasn't he announced? No idea.
What are the consequences? Anthony Portantino is looking for somewhere to run. Schiff would prefer it be against Judy Chu. He shouldn't wait.

Karen Bass
Why hasn't she announced? I know she wanted a very different district, but she will run for re-election.
What are the consequences? Probably none, but she doesn't want a rich white Democrat challenging her here.

Joe Baca
Why hasn't he announced? The committee threw him a curve ball when they made his preferred district competitive. He's deciding whether he wants to leave San Bernardino.
What are the consequences? He's the only Democrat in San Bernardino County. He can choose his district in his own good time.

Maxine Waters
Why hasn't she announced? Click this link. If the first thing your website says is that you're innocent of corruption charges, re-election might not be the top priority. She might want to wait until the investigation is behind her.
What are the consequences? Waters is an older Democrat under ethics investigation in a district she doesn't live in that's becoming less Black and more Hispanic. No one has challenged her yet, but I think there will be.

David Dreier
Why hasn't he announced? His options are limited. He might be waiting to see if Baca abandons the 31st or Lewis retires.
What are the consequences? It really can't get worse for him.

Linda Sanchez
Why hasn't she announced? Other Democrats claimed the 34th, 38th, 40th, and 44th, so she doesn't have a district where she lives. That said, there are a bunch of new Hispanic districts in Southern California. I doubt she'd be considered a carpet bagger by a Hispanic population that understands moving for a job. She might be weighing her options and talking to people in each district.
What are the consequences? You snooze, you lose. Does she have a plan?

Susan Davis
Why hasn't she announced? I doubt she's retiring, but with Bob Filner retiring she's the only San Diego Democrat and there's an open seat next door. That's a better bet for other Democrats.
What are the consequences? Like Baca, she can probably take her own sweet time.

Could Bass or Lee be beat?

2011-08-16T19:25:00.000-07:00

The Voting Rights Act says, that minorities should be able to elect the candidate of their choice. Their choice is interpreted as being someone of the same ethnic group. After all, why would someone who is Hispanic choose anyone other than a Hispanic?

What the minimum population percentage is varies from state to state. In some back room the ethnic group's politicians determine the minimum percentage of their ethnic group so that they can keep their elected position. The candidate of their choice is determined as the person who wants to get re-elected. In many states the level is 51% CVAP. Not only does this elect the minority candidate, but usually elects him or her in a one sided race.

California is a bit trickier for Black candidates. While Blacks used to have majorities or near majorities in three Southern California districts there aren't enough Blacks there for anything close to that any more. A Black candidate can win in Los Angeles with a much lower threshold, because these districts often have a high percentage of Hispanics. Hispanics vote in low numbers and they don't have well established politicians to mount a challenge.

Black activists were able to manipulate the commission to spread the Blacks fairly equally into three districts that traditionally elect Black candidates. What the activists didn't count on was that Janice Hahn would determine that CA-44 was her best chance of staying in congress. She may win and end Laura Richardson's congressional career.

CA-37 is dissimilar enough to the current CA-33 to cause Karen Bass a potential problem. They've added middle class/upper middle class White areas like Century City, Mar Vista, and Rancho Park to her district. The White population has only increased 4%, but the Black population has dropped 5%. Thus, the White population now outnumbers the Black population. And this is an atypical Black population, since it contains middle income areas like Baldwin Hills and Ladera Heights. They tend to vote similar to lower income Blacks, but that could change. Upper income Whites vote differently than lower income Whites.

CA-37 has a comparable amount of people making $100,000 to districts with much lower Black CVAPs. The other LA districts with Blacks don't compare. In Oakland Barbara Lee has a similar increase in Whites and decrease in Blacks. No Republican is going to win either district, but maybe a progressive White candidate like Debra Bowen could. None have tried before, but the rules are all new this year in California. It's no longer taboo to challenge a Democratic incumbent and it might be acceptable for a White candidate to challenge a minority candidate.

California 43 and 44

2011-08-16T08:32:00.000-07:00

The Hahn family bread and butter has always been working class people. The poorer the better. Kenneth Hahn was widely loved in the African-American community and Janice Hahn trades on that. Yet this part of LA has elected African-Americans to congress even as it's become a Hispanic district.

Whoever can get Black community leaders behind them has a big leg up. Laura Richardson is... ethically challenged, so they might pass on her. I don't know much about Hall.

Ten or 15 years ago Hispanic elected officials were nowhere, but now there's a lot of strength. Napolitano, Roybal-Allard, and Becerra have all staked out seats. Tony Cardenas and Roger Hernandez are likely favorites in new districts.

Linda Sanchez has no district right now. There's no reason she can't run in the 44th. A Hispanic like Sanchez could win the 44th even after all these candidates have declared. The district is 49% Hispanic CVAP, so being able to do an interview in Spanish on KMEX can be very very important.

The 43rd is intriguing. It's plurality Black CVAP. That usually leads to a Black elected official, but no one has declared for this district. It's been assumed that Maxine Waters will run here, but she hasn't announced her intentions. She turned 73 yesterday. She could call it quits. Of course if she does, there'll be no shortage of Black candidates. Could a Hispanic win? The district is 33% Black/29% Hispanic CVAP. No Hispanic has won such a district, but that's only the case until someone does.

Commission Approves Maps

2011-08-15T10:56:00.000-07:00

The Citizens Redistricting Commission approved all the maps this morning, with them getting the minimum number of Republicans needed voting yes. Commissioner Mike Ward voted no on everything and makes some good points about the maps. Redistricting Partners takes this further, although it's difficult to see how they moved voting age citizens changed the maps.

GOP Chairman Tom Del Beccaro is upset about the state senate maps and he makes a good case. I don't know if there was any hanky-panky. There might not be any evidence of fire but there is a lot of smoke right now. Would the California Supreme Court give Republicans better maps? They should sue only if they think a map is near the bottom of what they can expect.

One thing that goes against Republicans is that there are 7 safe Republican even numbered seats, but only 6 Republicans in even numbered seats. The GOP could expect to make at least 1 even numbered seat, but the problem is that those seats aren't up until 2014. That should be fine then, but will hurt them in the next legislative session.

I'm interested to see how quickly congressmen who've been silent so far make their intentions known. If they delay there may already be challengers in the race. If they declare early, that might scare off opponents. Jim Costa declared for CA-16, leaving Dennis Cardoza with the choice to challenge Costa in the district or go elsewhere.

Ia Howard Berman reading my blog? In my analysis I mentioned that a Republican candidate should get enough votes to make the November election, leaving the Berman-Sherman loser to packing his bags and leaving congress. You can't predict now how Democrats are going to vote, but Berman could easily lose them by a few points.

So what do you do? Grab Republicans now. One thing Orlov doesn't mention is that Galpin Ford is where the San Fernando Valley Republican Club meets every month. At some meeting in the next six months Boeckmann will get up and tell Republicans there why Berman is better for Republicans than Sherman. Howard Berman will walk into a meeting no one ever imagined he would, make a short speech, and then take a lot of lumps from constituents who have never been happy with his legislative record. Berman will smile and attempt to defend his votes, without getting combative. It won't be pretty, but he'll make points on how his votes have been better for Republicans than what Brad Sherman voted. He'll probably emphasize how his work has benefitted their business.

Everyone knows a Democrat will win the election in November 2012. The question is which Democrat faces off against a Republican. Berman won't need Republican votes then. He can get by with Democratic votes. He needs them now. Most of the people there won't vote for Berman in June, but he doesn't need most of them. If Berman can grab 15% of Republican voters next June, say 5% of the total vote, that'd likely be enough to help him finish top two.

Who's running for congress in California? Part II

2011-08-13T16:35:00.000-07:00

Below are the remaining districts. I highlighted in blue the races where a party doesn't have a candidate. Republicans have a lot more blue than Democrats, because no one is going to be too quick to run in safe Democratic districts.

CA-29 is the district Hispanics wanted ten years ago. As soon as the maps were released L.A. City Councilman Tony Cardenas declared his candidacy. Sitting congressmen Howard Berman and Brad Sherman passed. Right now Cardenas is the only announced candidate, but that's likely not going to be for long. Senator Alex Padilla and Assemblyman Felipe Fuentes are possible candidates.

CA-30 is the big showdown district. Howard Berman and Brad Sherman are two heavyweight Democratic congressmen with big bank accounts. This will be a knock down, drag out fight and one that's likely to be decided in June, rather than November. One of the reasons is that a Republican would be a long shot to win this district. Because of that there's not liable to be more than one Republican candidate who garner votes. That candidate will get somewhere between 30-40%. If the Berman-Sherman race is tight neither candidate is likely to get more than 31-32% of the vote. And that's if no Green, Peace and Freedom, or other Democrat enters the race. There are often some fringe candidate who'll grab 0.5%-1.0% of the vote. That's going to make it too difficult for them to both finish first and second. I look forward to it.

In June, San Bernardino Democrats wanted congressman Lee Baca to run in the Ontario district. Baca demurred, wanting to run in the safer San Bernardino district. That's been reversed. The Ontario district is safe Democratic, but the San Bernardino district is only slightly Democratic. If Baca runs in CD-35, that'd leave CD-31 wide open. As Aaron Blake suggests this'd be the best landing spot for David Dreier. Upland and Rancho Cucamonga are loaded with Dreier voters and both cities are in this district. At the other end of the district there are Jerry Lewis Republican voters in Redlands, Loma Linda, and Grand Terrace. Lewis is likely to run in CA-8. Dreier has been regarded as doomed since the commission started its job. He might not be.

The 32nd is another new Hispanic district and Assemblymember Roger Hernández has already declared. Assemblymember Anthony Portantino may be his challenger. This should be another entertaining Democrat on Democrat district.

Mary Bono Mack is likely to run in CD-36. Steve Pougnet, the mayor of Palm Springs, has declined a rematch with Bono Mack. She might not get a quality opponent. This district is a little more Republican than Bono Mack's old district. She figures to be fairly safe here.

Rep. Grace Napolitano has decided on CA-38. She has a challenge from state senator Ronald Calderon in yet another Democratic face-off.

Linda Sanchez also lives in the district and she may want to avoid a grudge match against Napolitano. Her alternatives aren't great. She could move to San Bernardino or Riverside, but neither of those areas are in her district. Carpetbagging is always a questionable choice. Sanchez could run in CA-47. It's not a safe Democratic district and Alan Lowenthal is likely to beat her there. She'd finish third in the primary.

Craig Huey has told his supporters not to throw away their yard signs. The district Huey ran in last month, CA-36, was fairly blue but didn't include his home down on the PV Peninsula. That's currently in Rohrabacher's red district. His home will be in Waxman's district, one that'd be a real long shot for a Republican to win as an open seat, let alone against Henry Waxman.

The alternative for Huey is CA-47, which goes from Long Beach into Orange County. It doesn't contain his home but it's a few points more Republican than the new CA-33 and is likely to have no incumbent running. Huey would likely face off against Lowenthal in the fall.

CA-44 is likely to have a Hahn-Richardson face off in June and again in November. This was the second worst district in the state for Meg Whimtman, so no Republican is likely generate much support.

From 2004 to 2010 there were two new reps each year. In 2012 there are seven open seats, but there could be easily twice that many new reps. The Wild West indeed.

Who's running for congress in California?

2011-08-11T17:24:00.000-07:00

California will literally be the Wild West next year. Because the elections should be very wild. There are now 7 open congressional seats and there likely will be more. Most states don't even have 7 seats.

Due to the redistricting some incumbents' districts are too unfavorable to run in. So they're either running elsewhere, retiring, or in limbo. Lynn Woolsey and Bob Filner are retiring. Howard Berman and Brad Sherman are Democrats running against each other, while Ed Royce and Gary Miller are likely Republicans opposing each other. David Dreier, Elton Gallegly, Linda Sanchez, and Dennis Cardoza have been silent about their plans.

California's term limits are also contributing to the melee. Not only are there term limits in the assembly and senate but many city councils and county governments also have term limits. Normally a politician turned out into the street doesn't challenge his or her party's incumbent. That's off the table this year. I'd guess that so many are running because the districts are so different that 1) they aren't stepping out of line challenging their own party's congressman. 2) the congressman doesn't have a lot of home territory and may be weaker.

Another factor may be the Prop. 14 top two. In heavily Democratic districts, there might be enough Democratic votes for two Democrats to finish first and second. If that happens both advance to November. It should be easier for a challenger to beat an incumbent with Republicans up for grabs. Without knowing ideology, Republicans would likely vote against a Democratic inbument.

Listed below are the 53 districts and who is running in each. A candidate in red has either announced he or she is running in that district or has hinted that they are. Those in black are rumored to be interested.

Everyone has assumed that Tom McClintock and Dan Lungren, who both live in the new CA-7, will run in CA-4 and CA-7 respectively. McClintock has announced he will. The Sacramento Bee is reporting Lungren is considering that district also. The 4th is a safe Republican seat, but the 7th is a swing seat. So, the 4th is obviously more attractive. It doesn't do the Republican party any good when two sitting congressmen both run in a safe Republican seat. An assembly Republican could win it. It'll take a good candidate to win CA-7.

Dan Lungren has to ask why he has to take one for the team and run in a district he could lose. If they both insist on running there, they both can't win. Someone goes home with parting gifts. The question is whether Lungren has a better shot of knocking off McClintock in the primary in CA-4 or a Democrat in CA-7. It doesn't help matters much that the line of Democrats running in the 7th is now three deep.

Jerry Lewis has always confounded me, so I shouldn't be surprised he's continued to do so. CA-8 is an open safe Republican district that has much of his old district. It just doesn't have his home in Redlands, which is in CA-31. Lewis insists these won't be the final lines, so he's not making a decision. As if he gets to make that decision. Retirement is a possibility. While Lewis has been diddling, Greg Imus, a former assembly chief of staff and campaign manager has announced.

The Central Valley has a lot of crazy potential. Rep. Jerry McNerney has staked out CA-9, centered in Stockton. This helps him avoid Rep. Stark, as they were both drawn into CA-15. Rep. Jeff Denham would fit in very well in the Modesto centered CA-10, although he has yet to commit. This district has a good Republican lean, but is winnable for a Democrat. The major cities in Rep. Dennis Cardoza's district are in Stockton and Modesto. So either he challenges a member of his own party or tries an uphill climb in a less than hospitable district.

CA-16 was thought to be a good district for him. Carly Fiorina won the district, but Jerry Brown also did. The problem is that fellow Democratic Rep. Jim Costa just said he'll run in the district that has his base of Fresno in it. That's CA-16. There are three other Central Valley districts, CA-21, CA-22, CA-23. The latter two are very Republican and are likely featuring sitting Republican reps Devin Nunes and Kevin McCarthy. CA-21 would be a possibility but it contains none of his current district. Retirement is a possibility. Republican David Valadao has staked out the district. Democrats Dean Florez and Michael Rubio are circling but have yet to say if they are running there.

Finally, Judy Chu and Anna Eshoo have Democratic challengers who are reportedly ready to jump in.

I'll go to the remaining districts in the next post.

Wisconsin Senate Recall Elections

2011-08-10T23:39:00.000-07:00

It's amazing how we can have on set of election results and yet somehow both parties claiming victory.

Barack Obama won all 9 of the recall districts, 6 of which were Republican and 3 Democratic, while Scott Walker also did two years later. So these are clearly swing districts. A closer look shows that SD-32 leaned Democratic, while, SD-2, 10, 12, 14, and 18 had a Republican lean. It wouldn't be a surprise if the districts went either way. So Democratic victories shouldn't be a surprise. Last night the Democrats took the one district with a Democratic lean and a second district that had a Republican lean. The senator, however, recently had an affair with a 25 year old. His wife campaigned for his opponent. As Anthony Weiner and David Wu will tell you, it's tough to survive a sex scandal.

Democrats should have won both, even if they spent very little money. It wouldn't have been a surprise had the Democrats won any of the remaining four, especially if the electorate was leaning their way. Yet they didn't.

The Democratic goal was to retake the state senate. They failed. So any evaluation should begin and end there. Overall, Republicans got 53.4% of the vote, about what you expect in a normal year. So the Democrats haven't really won anyone over and the Republicans haven't either. If this is an indicator for 2012, it's one that says next year will be 50-50. That doesn't bode well for Democrats, as they can't retake the House in a 50-50 year and losing the senate would be fairly likely.

Yesterday only Republicans, despite there being toss-up districts

Democrats want Commission to Gerrymander for them

2011-08-10T10:48:00.000-07:00

Despite the addition of 5 new Hispanic majority districts to bring the total to 13, and 12 other districts less than 50% White, Democrats aren't happy. Apparently the committee didn't completely cave and disenfranchise all White Republicans. They're angry that a Hispanic Democrat might actually have to run in a competitive seat. The Voting Rights Act wasn't written to gerrymander every area of the to get a Hispanic district. No, they haven't maximized the number of possible Hispanic gerrymanders. They've just come close.

The VRA was passed so that states wouldn't crack cities. That's when you break-up a neighborhood to dilute the group's voting power. It was designed to provide minorities with equal opportunity, not provide extra opportunity and discriminate against Whites. I'm fine on increased Hispanic opportunities, but maybe Hispanics can actually win a district that isn't majority Hispanic, as Jaime Herrera and Raul Labrador did in 2010. At least they could have the decency to lie to us, and not have this coming out of Democratic HQ. Then we could pretend it was abut Hispanics and not just Democrats.

I'm guessing Baca is waiting for the commission to change the 31st to be more Hispanic before declaring. Of course he'll sue if they don't.

Prop. 14: How will California be different?

2011-08-08T11:41:00.000-07:00

If California follows Washington's lead, the primaries next year will be fairly boring. The incumbent and an opposing party challenger will go to the general election. Even the one open race was boring, with three Republicans and two Democrats splitting the vote as expected. One of the objectives of this proposition is to produce more moderate winners, but there's no indication of that here.

How will California be different?
Prop. 14 proponents may have wanted the more moderate candidate to win, but that will only work if moderates on both sides of the aisle band together. If voters stick to their own party in the primary the more ideological candidate is still going to win. This is what happened in the CA-36 special election. Thus the choices didn't include moderates.

We also haven't had a situation where two incumbents have run against each other. In CA-44 Democrats expect to get around 80% of the vote, with the Republicans getting 20%. If Janice Hahn and Laura Richardson face off, they are very lucky to finish top two and face off in November. The big question, which Washington doesn't address, is how those 20% who usually vote Republican will vote. They are likely to be pivotal in deciding the winner and may go heavily for the more moderate candidate. Will they go after these voters with a different pitch? Will they alienate Democratic voters by trying to position themselves to Republicans?

Democrats Howard Berman and Brad Sherman will face off in the 30th district. In the 2010 gubernatorial election Jerry Brown won this district 57%-37%. If it's similar in the primary and Berman and Sherman are close, a Republican is likely to win. One of the two incumbents won't advance to the general election. If Berman and Sherman split the vote 30%-27%, Democrats will need one or more Republican candidates to steal 11% of the vote. That'd save them for the general election. If it were Berman and Sherman, Republicans would decide the November race, not just be a factor. If 2/3 of them flock to one candidate that candidate could lose Democratic voters 34%-25% and still win.

Here's another possibility that probably won't happen, but is possible. Here was the CA-36 Special Election primary results:

What if the top three Democrats were closer in their vote totals, but only two Republicans ran?

You'd have two Republican running in a general election in a district the Democrats are very likely to win in normal circumstances. There's nothing far-fetched about each of the factors in this scenario but, with 53 congressional districts, 40 senate districts, and 80 assembly districts it's certainly possible.

Prop 14: Washington State

2011-08-06T17:09:00.000-07:00

I'm going to do a more complete analysis of Prop. 14 implications, which I've hit on here and here. I'll do an in depth analysis in the next week in several parts.

Washington has had a top 2 primary in 2008 and 2010. While that's not a lot of data to go on, there are some learnings.

If you total the voting percentages for Republicans and right leaning third parties (Libertarian, Constitution) you end up with a remarkably close approximation for the general election. For a couple of races it's 0.1% or 0.2% off. There were a few instances where it was off.

In the 2008 8th district primary Democrats beat Republicans 49.0%-48.5%, but the Republican got 52.8%-47.2% in the general. It was reversed two years later. In 2010 Republicans beat Democrats in the primary 58%-40%, but only squeaked by in the general election 52%-48%. There's only been one election where the party winning the general didn't win the primary.

Conclusions:
1. The primary election totals are a strong indicator of what the general election will look like.
2. Incumbents have nothing to worry about. All except one finished first and that one still beat the third place finisher by 36 points.
3. Voters will vote for the incumbent even if there's no chance he or she won't finish top two.
4. Since the voting percentages were similar in both the primary and general election. voters don't cross over to pick the incumbent's opponent.

California: Open Seats

2011-08-05T13:17:00.000-07:00

As a result of the new maps there appear to be 7 open California seats. In the last six November elections (2000, 2002, 2004, 2006, 2008, 2010) there have been 9 open seats. Of those, only 2, (CA-20 in 2004 and CA-4 in 2008) were competitive. That's going to change. When looking at the open seats, you might see a theme.

CA-2: San Rafael/Eureka
Status: Safe Democratic
Why is it vacant: Lynn Woolsey is retiring
Who's running: Four Democrats (Susan Adams, Jared Huffman, Tiffany Renee, Norman Solomon) have announced bids

CA-29: San Fernando/Van Nuys
Status: Safe Democratic
Why is it vacant: District too Hispanic for incumbent Brad Sherman
Who's running: Hispanic Democrat Tony Cardenas has announced a bid.

CA-32: El Monte/West Covina
Status: Safe Democratic
Why is it vacant: District is too Democratic and too Hispanic for incumbent David Dreier
Who's running: Roger Hernandez, a Hispanic Democrat, has announced a bid.

CA-35: Ontario/Fontana
Status: Safe Democratic
Why is it vacant: District is too Democratic for incumbent Gary Miller
Who's running: Gloria Negrete McLeod, a Hispanic Democrat has announced a bid, but I think Joe Baca will run here, making CA-31 and open seat

CA-41: Riverside/Moreno Valley
Status: Competitive
Why is it vacant: District moved to the east away from incumbent Linda Sanchez
Who's running: This is a Hispanic majority district. Republican John Tavaglione and Democrat Mark Takano are running. Neither is Hispanic, so expect at least one Hispanic candidate.

CA-47: Long Beach/Garden Grove
Status: Competitive
Why is it vacant: District is probably going to be competitive, so incumbent Laura Richardson is running in the safer CA-44.
Who's running: Alan Lowenthal, a Democrat, has announced a bid. Republicans will look for strong challenger. It's possible Democrat Linda Sanchez will move here and run.

CA-51: Chula Vista/El Centro
Status: Safe Democratic
Why is it vacant: District is too Hispanic for incumbent Bob Filner. So he's running for San Diego mayor.
Who's running: Hispanic Democrat Juan Vargas has announced a bid.

There may be other open districts, as all the incumbents haven't announced their intentions. Only two of these districts have the potential of being competitive, although both will favor Democrats. Did you notice a common theme? There likely will be five new Hispanic congressmen, bringing the total in the delegation to 13.

It's pretty clear who won the redistricting battle.

The Democrats' Difficult Path to 218

2011-08-03T16:22:00.000-07:00

Redistricting triumphs seem to be few and far between for Democrats. It's looking increasingly more difficult for the Democrats to get to 218. Right now they have 194.

Special elections - Let's assume Democrats retain NY-9, OR-1, and pick up NV-2. Each of those are possible and it's likely Democrats will retain all of them if they win these elections.
Democrats: 195

Eliminated Seats: Democrats will have seats eliminated in Michigan, Pennsylvania, Missouri, Massachusetts, New York, and Ohio. So that's five more seats to win.
Democrats: 189

California: I think there are too many Democratic seats vulnerable for them not to lose any seats, but let's assume they don't and win every vulnerable Republican seat in CA-7, 26, 27, and 41.
Democrats: 193

Illinois: Again I think people are way too optimistic about Democratic chances here. They'll win seats, but everything will have to go their way to win 4. Still, I'll give them all 4.
Democrats: 197

North Carolina: Republicans have gerrymandered the state such that Democrats might lose 4 seats, but let's again assume Democrats will do better and keep it at 2.
Democrats: 195

Republican leaning open seats: AR-4, IN-2, and OK-2 were seats Democrats where Democrats were at risk before retirements. Now they're all but gone.
Democrats: 192

Arizona, Nevada, Washington - There'll be new seats in each of these states. They haven't been redistricted yet and I don't expect any of them to be safe. But let's assume Democrats win all 3 of them and take 2 vulnerable Republicans.
Democrats: 197

Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan - We've already counted the Democrats losing a seat in each due to Republican controlled redistricting. Even after that, however, Republicans will control plenty of toss-up seats that Democrats could grab. Let's say they'll lose one in each.
Democrats: 200

Wisconsin, Minnesota - The Republicans hold marginal seats here too, so let's give Democrats one in each.
Democrats: 202

New York, New Jersey, Iowa - These states are all losing a seat. The Democrats will be in positive territory if Republicans lose 3 seats in them and they only lose 1. Democrats have so many seats in New York, it's hard to see them picking up much here and they could easily lose seats there. Let's give them one.
Democrats: 203

Maryland - Democrats should pick up a seat here.
Democrats: 204

Utah - Seats in this state are always on questionable footing, but let's assume Democrats retain theirs.
Democrats: 204

New Hampshire - A toss-up state with two toss-up districts. The odds are against Democrats winning both in a non-wave year, but let's give them both.
Democrats: 206

Georgia - Democrats seem almost certain to lose a seat due to Republican redistricting, but I'll give them retention of both threatened seats.
Democrats: 206

Florida - Republicans control redistricting here, but Fair Districts limits them. Still, the GOP has a bloated delegation and they're adding two seats. So let's give them four pick-ups
Democrats: 210

Texas - Republicans have gerrymandered the state so that the GOP will pick up 3 seats to 1 for Democrats, but maybe the Democrats will get lucky with the courts and instead pick up 3 seats.
Democrats: 213

There aren't a lot more opportunities out there. After having so much go right above, Democrats would have to pick up a seat in Indiana and four more in Minnesota, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Ohio, New York, New Jersey, and Michigan. Considering they control redistricting or share it in these states, I have a tough time seeing them picking up more seats after giving them several above.

We need to assume nothing will go wrong with open seats in New Mexico and Connecticut or districts in Kentucky, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Minnesota the Republican Presidential nominee will win.

Right now I see Democrats picking up 3 seats and can't see a way they'd actually pick up 24 without a big wave. Which won't happen.

Upon Further Review

2011-08-02T20:43:00.000-07:00

There's been a deluge of people predicting Republicans would lose 3 seats! 4 seats! In my last post I predicted they'd break even. After reading what other people have said, I'm going to adjust my prediction to 35D-18R, a Democratic net gain of 1 seat.

One of the flaws that a lot of people put in their predictions is that they lump together seats that lean, are likely, and safe as going to that party. The Washington Post has Republicans gaining 3 seats in North Carolina but losing 4 in Illinois. CBS News reports the possibility of Republicans losing 6 seats in Illinois. Obviously The Huffington Post agrees.

In California the LA Times predicted 3-5 Republican losses. Just because one party appears to have an edge in a district doesn't mean they'll win it. When a district leans to one party I give that party a 60% chance to win the district. If there are 5 lean districts, they'll win 3 and the other party will win 2. In 2010 there were a lot more districts predicted as leaning, but even then Republicans didn't win all the districts that were predicted as leaning Republican.

So here's my second look:
Democratic Seats - Carly Fiorina won 21 of the new congressional districts and missed winning two others by a hair. Fiorina did okay, but she certainly wasn't exceptional. Here are the four Democratic districts she won and the two she almost did.

CD-21: Fiorina got 56% in this district and that's formidable any way you slice it. Jim Costa might run here, and that'd give the Democrats an advantage, but he may go to CA-16.

CD-16: Fiorina got 51% here and Whitman did 2 points worse than she did in CA-21. Dennis Cordoza is the assumed candidate but he may retire. If he does, Costa would likely run here, as his home is in the district.

I have to like any map where Republicans could sweep the Central Valley.

CD-3: This was a shocker. No one expected the commission to put so much Republican territory that Wally Herger didn't need into this district. Fiorina won here too and incumbent Democrat John Garamendi has yet to impress.

CD-24: Not only did Fiorina win this district but Whitman lost by a hair. Abel Maldonado may be unpopular with some Republicans but the former mayor of SLO still retains his popularity here. Lois Capps is in for a fight.

CD-31: No one thought that Republicans would have a shot in a San Bernardino district, but the commission put more Democrats into CA-35 than was expected. Lee Baca is the incumbent here, but he indicated earlier he'd run in the safer seat. So he may run in CA-35 and leave this open.

CD-9: Jerry McNerney might have lost if the election was top 2 in 2010. The American Independent candidate siphoned off enough votes from the Republican to save McNerney. Ricky Gill is fundraising a load of money and will mount a challenge.

If you took who was favored you'd put these districts as 6-0 Democrats. I put them as 3.6D-2.4R. There are two other districts, CD-46 and 47, which may be competitive.

If we look at just who is favored, Republicans would lose CD-27 and CD-41, two districts that nominally belong to David Dreier and Gary Miller now. People are also chalking CA-26 into the Democratic wins, but Fiorina won this district and incumbent Elton Gallegly has no Democratic opponent yet.

After that I only see one district that's a decent bet for Democrats and that would be CA-7. Dan Lungren, however, held off two Democratic waves in 2006 and 2008 in a district Barack Obama won. The district figures to be about 2 points more Democratic but Lungren won by 5.5 points in the 2008 Democratic onslaught. In a far less Democratic year, he should be favored to handle this district.

There are three other districts, CD-10, 36, and 52, which Meg Whitman won with a few points to spare. All three have Republican incumbents, two of whom have been seriously challenged in the past, while the third, Jeff Denham, is a fundraising powerhouse. I see these 7 going 3.7R-3.3D in 2012. That'd give the Democrats one additional seat. Well, actually 0.9, but I'll generously round up.

California Congressional Map Analysis

2011-07-28T16:50:00.000-07:00

Contrary to chicken little fears, these maps, with a couple of exceptions, are very good for Republicans. I put it at 34D-19R. Sound familiar?

1: Whitman 59%; Fiorina 65%; Safe R
Wally Herger was going to get a safe district, but this is one he won't be challenged.

2. Whitman 32%; Fiorina 32%; Safe D
Woolsey retires. Strangely, Whitman and Fiorina were fairly even in strong Democratic districts, but Fiorina beat Whitman by 5 or 6 points in more competitive districts.

3. Whitman 46%; Fiorina 51%; Lean D
This is a bit of a surprise. I didn't expect them to put so much rural territory with Sacramento's western suburbs. Fiorina won here, so it's worth a shot.

4 Whitman 60% Fiorina 65%; Safe R
Tom McClintock has nothing to worry about

5 Whitman 33% Fiorina 33%; Safe D
6 Whitman 30% Fiorina 35%; Safe D
11 Whitman 36% Fiorina 36%; Safe D
12 Whitman 18% Fiorina 16%; Safe D
13 Whitman 12% Fiorina 12%; Safe D
14 Whitman 30% Fiorina 29%; Safe D
15 Whitman 37% Fiorina 37%; Safe D
17 Whitman 36% Fiorina 32%; Safe D
18 Whitman 37% Fiorina 35%; Safe D
19 Whitman 36% Fiorina 33%; Safe D
20 Whitman 33% Fiorina 33%; Safe D
Let Kos analyze these districts and add 11 to the Democratic total.

7 Whitman 47% Fiorina 53%; Lean R
This is about the mid-point of what Dan Lungren could've expected. It's no Republican gerrymander but he should win.

8 Whitman 59% Fiorina 63%; Safe R
Jerry Lewis lives outside the district but he'll likely run here.

9 Whitman 45% Fiorina 49%; Lean D
McNerney announced he'd run here, but this is no slam dunk. I assume Ricky Gill will challenge him.

10 Whitman 53% Fiorina 57%; Likely R
Good district for Jeff Denham.

16 Whitman 46% Fiorina 51%; Toss-up
Does Dennis Cordoza run here? GOP challenger?

21 Whitman 48% Fiorina 56%; Toss-up
Which are the better numbers? Whitman or Fiorina? David Valadao will challenge him.

22 Whitman 64% Fiorina 68%; Safe R
Devin Nunes gets more Republicans than he needs.

23 Whitman 64% Fiorina 71%; Safe R
Democrats haven't put anyone up against McCarthy since 2006. I doubt this district is high on the to do list.

24 Whitman 50% Fiorina 51%; Toss-up
Grudge match! I think this'll be Abel Maldonado vs. Lois Capps. It may be lean Democratic because Capps is an incumbent, but Maldonado is high profile.

25 Whitman 57% Fiorina 59%; Safe R
Buck McKeon cruises to victory.

26 Whitman 48% Fiorina 51%; Toss-up
Even though they've removed Simi Valley, for reasons I don't understand, I assume this is where Gallegly runs. If not, Tony Strickland might have a go at it.

27 Whitman 41% Fiorina 42%
28 Whitman 33% Fiorina 33%
29 Whitman 27% Fiorina 27%
30 Whitman 39% Fiorina 39%
32 Whitman 38% Fiorina 38%
33 Whitman 43% Fiorina 42%
34 Whitman 18% Fiorina 18%
35 Whitman 36% Fiorina 38%
37 Whitman 16% Fiorina 16%
38 Whitman 38% Fiorina 40%
40 Whitman 21% Fiorina 21%
43 Whitman 26% Fiorina 26%
44 Whitman 17% Fiorina 17%
Put 13 more in the D column. The most interesting district here is the 33rd. With the addition of so many Democrats north of the airport and dropping Torrance Craig Huey should look elsewhere. I think Henry Waxman runs here, but he's a weird fit for the South Bay.

31 Whitman 46% Fiorina 49%; Lean D
Joe Baca dismissed running in what's now CD#35 when the county party pushed for it, saying he thought this district would be easier. Not any more. They put in too many Republicans, including Lewis' home in Redlands. I imagine Hispanics groups will go nuts over this district, since it's not Hispanic majority. Worth watching.

36 Whitman 53% Fiorina 55%; Likely R
As good as Mary Bono Mack could expect. I think she'll do fine in this district.

39 Whitman 59% Fiorina 60%; Safe R
Gary Miller get your thank you notes out! In the first draft Diamond Bar was in the Asian district, but here he gets some great parts of Riverside and Orange County. Ed Royce might pass on this district, leaving Shawn Nelson as the toughest Republican challenger.

41 Whitman 44% Fiorina 46%; Lean D
Jeff Miller and John Tavaglione have announced runs, but no Democrat has yet. This is a Hispanic majority seat but I'm not willing to put it in the D column yet.

42 Whitman 62% Fiorina 65%; Safe R
Ken Calvert breathes a sigh of relief. This district is almost entirely new to him, but it's more Republican.

45 Whitman 64% Fiorina 65%; Safe R
This is a natural for John Campbell, although Ed Royce has expressed an interest in running here.

46 Whitman 45% Fiorina 45%; Likely D
They could've drawn up a safe Democratic district for Loretta Sanchez, but this is close enough. She'll be tough to beat.

47 Whitman 46% Fiorina 46%; Lean D
This is a gift to the Republican Party, that makes up for the rotten South Bay district. They've put Long Beach in with enough OC Republicans to make this district competitive. Laura Richardson has indicated she's unlikely to run here, so Alan Lowenthal might be the leading candidate. Craig Huey could run here and it could be competitive.

48 Whitman 63% Fiorina 63%; Safe R
Dana Rohrabacher might retire. If so, John Campbell could run here.

49 Whitman 59% Fiorina 60%; Safe R
Darrell Issa has nothing to worry about.

50 Whitman 66% Fiorina 69%; Safe R
Neither does Duncan Hunter.

51 Whitman 35% Fiorina 36%; Safe D
Open for a Hispanic candidate.

52 Whitman 54% Fiorina 54%; Likely R
I think this is likely to keep Brian Bilbray in congress.

53 Whitman 44% Fiorina 44%; Safe D
Susan Davis is too tough to challenge.

California Redistricting Maps Out

2011-07-28T11:04:00.000-07:00

We've had the inevitable complaining from NARAL and the NAACP. We've had shouts of bias from the Republicans and Democrats counting their new seats before the ink is dry on the maps. I'm going to reserve judgement until I see all the data, but there isn't a lot that's egregious here. Simi Valley should be in Ventura, while Torrance should be in the coast. Outside of that, this looks non-partisan to me. I don't think the congressional maps will end up costing Republicans more than 1 seat.

I haven't analyzed the senate or assembly. I'd told the senate is problematic. I don't see what a referendum will do though. Who are they looking to draw the maps? The Democratic controlled legislature?

The Redistricting Conundrum

2011-07-23T11:15:00.000-07:00

The conventional wisdom in New York will redistrict so that one Republican seat upstate and one Democrat downstate loses their seats. I suppose this is the conventional wisdom because each losing one seems "fair."

Republicans hold 7 seats to the Democrats' 22 seats. So each losing one wouldn't be proportional at all. It'd be asking the poor party to pay the same amount as the rich one and we know Democrats don't like the idea of the poor giving up as much as the rich.

What we do know is that both parties have to approve redistricting and if they don't agree it'll go to a court. Court drawn maps are unpredictable, but most draw the maps to make sense geographically without gerrymandering for party vote. So the base line for each party should be what they know they're guaranteed if a court does it. I drew two maps using DRA and came up with the following:

When I brought this up in a discussion board, some people were of the opinion that they'd rather have the higher guarantee with a lower ceiling. If you're a pessimist and imagine the worst I guess that makes sense.

To me this is a no brainer. If all I'll get is 6 with a shot at 2 more, I'll take the 4 with a shot at 8 more. I should end up even or ahead in all but the worst years. I'll risk 2 for a shot at 4 more.

I noticed a similar scenario in Nevada. People were saying that the new maps would have two safe Democratic districts and two lean/likely Republican districts. A court will decide it now. When I mapped it out to comply with the VRA and not worry about partisanship I ended up with 1 safe Democratic, 1 lean/likely Republican, and 2 toss-up districts.

Again, I'll take my chances on that map.

Senate Coat Tails

2011-07-21T16:49:00.000-07:00

Barack Obama is widely seen as having had coat tails in 2008. There's evidence for this, as his party had their highest House of Representatives voting percentage since 1982. There are 435 House elections every two years and the House is easy to compare. The senate is more difficult to determine since there are only 33-34 up every two years and the states and senators differ every two years. With the Democrats picking up 8 senate seats, including seats in Alaska and Virginia, he's widely seen as having an impact.

In the House, the President doesn't have the same impact in re-election, as most of the time his party gets a lower percentage of the vote and doesn't make a big impact on the seat totals. What about the Senate? I compared 2000 to 2004 for three categories of senators, Republican incumbents, Republican challengers, and open seats.

Not surprisingly Republican incumbents beat Bush each year. On average Republican incumbents beat Bush in their states by 7.5% each time. There was no impact. It's possible that the President has no real impact on incumbents and they are more the driving force in their races.

The results were similar with Republican challengers, running way behind George W. Bush.

Republicans challenging for open seats did about the same as Bush did in 2000 if you average them. When you look closer the Nebraska disappointment was balanced by better performances in Nevada, New Jersey, and New York.

The results weren't nearly as good in 2004, as they ran behind Bush in most races. Republicans were still able to pick up several seats, so Bush may have had some impact dragging candidates past the line.

California Redistricting Update

2011-07-13T15:55:00.000-07:00

Everybody has an opinion on the Citizens Redistricting Commission maps and most of them are angry. Minority groups, e.g. MALDEF, all claim the commission isn't giving them enough districts. Each city has an idea which other cities they should be with and where the boundaries should lie.

So it's no surprise the commission decided against putting out map second drafts. Instead, they're going to debate and put out "visualizations." These are pretty much ideas that haven't been voted on. This way they can get public input without getting lambasted. The visualizations might not even be an indication of the way the district is moving. So it's tough to get excited and there is no reason to be disappointed with anything you see. That said, the visualizations have shown changes. Here are the significant ones:

SGVBD goes from 44% Whitman to 60%
IMSAN goes from 34% Whitman to 48%.
MTCAP goes from 53% Whitman to 59%.
YUBA goes from 41% Whitman to 46%.
PVEBC goes from 42% Whitman to 46%.
WESTG goes from 50% Whitman to 43%.
AVSCV goes from 66% Whitman to 57%

There are 7 safe R districts that haven't been visualized, but I don't think they're in danger.

This visualization of the 36th district makes sense and is also a strong Republican map. As I mentioned this morning, it moves from a Likely Democratic district to a Lean Democratic.

This is the district Gary Miller hoped for. By taking Diamond Bar and combining it with Chino, Chino Hills, and North Orange County is a safe Republican district.

By adding some Republican areas to this district it goes from safe Democratic to toss-up. This district may impact Duncan Hunter's current district, but the previous draft was the most Republican district in the state. So it can handle shedding Republicans.

Of course the next visualizations might go the other way.

CA-36 Special Post-Mortum

2011-07-13T12:23:00.000-07:00

We didn't win. Of course I'm surprised and disappointed. I'm well aware that Democrats had a big registration advantage in the district, but I wouldn't work so hard as a volunteer if I didn't expect to win. If I expected to lose I would've found something else to do with my time. I'd guess most people on the campaign are surprised and all are disappointed.

We managed to get 37% more votes than all the Republicans did in the primary, while Hahn only got 17% more. I had a hand in the 37% additional votes, but couldn't impact Hahn's total. In the end the district was too difficult.

The current district went Obama 64%-34%. The current visualization was won by Obama 51%-44%. Using Cook PVI that'd mean it'd go from D+11 to even. It's over. We lost. But we're not done.

CA-36: Morning of the Election

2011-07-12T09:44:00.000-07:00

I found updated absentee numbers. Looks close, doesn't it? It might be closer. AI is the California version of the Constitution Party, a group who thinks Republicans are too liberal. They vote Republican, as do Libertarians. Green and Peace and Family vote Democratic.

I'm going to make two assumptions based on a Democratic poll for Dailykos/SEIU.

1. Huey will get 9% of the Democratic vote to Hahn's 6% of the Republican vote.
2. Huey will beat Hahn by 10 points, 55%-45%, with independents.

Since this poll is likely skewed Democratic those are reasonable assumptions. After doing that Huey actually had a lead of approximately 21,485 to 21,042. It may be dead even going into today.

I've heard a lot of confidence from Democrats, "we'll win anyway," and the media assumes she will too.

Maybe they're right, but I can guarantee you this campaign will working for every vote until the polls close at 8 PM tonight.

California-36 Special Election

2011-07-11T09:07:00.000-07:00

I've been volunteering for Craig Huey in his battle with Janice Hahn in the CA-36 special election. One of the first misconceptions is that Hahn will win because of a heavy Democratic registration advantage. Just like in NY-26 this'll be a low turn-out election. Smaller electorates are all about GOTV campaigns to get high interest voters. Republicans can turn out the voters. Fein got 66.706 voters in 2010 and there were less total votes in the primary than that.

I see Huey yard signs everywhere and it wasn't until yesterday that I saw a Hahn yard sign. All a yard sign tells you is that the candidate has a vote or two, but they may be indicative of other voters. Huey has bussed in people from all over California to walk precincts and did more than 125 over the weekend. Hahn's weekend goal was only 30 and they hadn't walked that many by Sunday at noon.

People see knowledgable and enthusiastic about the election. Early predictions were that there'd only be 41,000 votes in the election, but there were already 25,858 absentee votes by June 27. In the 2010 election 48% of the ballots were returned by mail. This number is often lower in Los Angeles County. So the total should be at least as high as the primary. Republicans are more likely to mail in ballots than Democrats, so the closeness of the mail-ins may not be indicative of the final vote.

30%

2011-06-30T12:26:00.000-07:00

After considering the effects of Prop. 14 I realize it's not as simple as I first thought. Jerry Brown won the district 55%-38%. That should indicate it's Democratic enough to be safe, but not Democratic enough to ensure two Democrats are in the top two and go to the November election against each other. In the primary, the two Democrats would split the 55% of the vote, with the loser getting no more than 27%. Republicans would get 38% of the vote. The Democrats would need more than one Republican in the race splitting the vote, because if one Republican gets 28% of that 38%, it'll be only one Democrat in the November election. The Democrats would need the Republicans to have two or more viable candidates for the top vote getter to get less than that.

No matter how many candidates there are in a primary, 30% should be enough to get a candidate to November. In the primary for the CA-36 special election 8 candidates split 95% of the vote. With 3 Democrats and 5 Republicans in the contest, it only took 21.1% of the vote to make it to the general election.

So the June primary is likely to be very important to Brad Sherman and Howard Berman. The loser will likely finish third.