Herger, Lewis to Retire

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.