Tomorrow is not shaping up to be a great day for Democrats:
Virginia. Republicans will handily win the Governor's race after two terms of Democratic control. My final average on the campaign shows Republican McDonnell ahead 54.5%--40.8%, virtually identical to Pollster.com's 54.7%--41.0%
New York City. Michael Bloomberg will handily win a third term as mayor. The polls there show Bloomberg ahead by even more than McConnell, as he leads Mike Thompson. 52.2% to 37.8% (that is my average of the last five).
NY-23. No matter the endorsement that Democrat Bill Owens received from former Republican candidate Dede Scozzafava, it is likely that Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman will prevail. Of the last six polls to be released, Hoffman leads in four, and only trails by 1% in the other two. Further, Hoffman's voters are more locked-in, according to the cross-tabs of the Siena poll. Really, Hoffman has been surging for some time now, and I would be stunned if he did not win by at least 5% tomorrow.
Now, Democrats and progressives do still have decent chances in both New Jersey and Maine. As Adam and I discussed this morning, those two campaigns are almost pure toss-ups, with the odds perhaps slightly in our favor in Maine and slightly against us in New Jersey. Still, even if we win in both states, it will be more akin to holding a firewall to prevent a disaster then it will to the significant electoral gains Democrats made from 2005-2008.
On Wednesday, Democrats will be tempted to brush off these results as lacking in national meaning. There are undoubtedly local factors at play in all of these elections, and candidate / campaign quality always makes a real difference in the outcome of any election. However, as a group we should not delude ourselves. Compared to one year ago, Republicans have made measurable gains.
Across the board, Republicans have made a net improvement of about 2-3% in their national position from one year ago. Further, on top of this net Republican gain, Democrats are not as enthusiastic and well-organized as they were last year. The final Survey USA poll from Virginia shows McCain winning the likely voter pool 52%-43%, even though he lost the state 53%-46% one year ago. The final PPP poll (PDF) is less extreme, but also shows McCain voters outnumbering Obama voters in the electorate, 48%-47%.
So, Democrats are facing a twin problem of a national Republican gain of 2-3%, combined with lower enthusiasm among their own base. While it is not yet a recipe for Republicans to regain control of Congress, it is certainly a recipe for Republicans to make real gains in the 2010 elections. As a party, Democrats should address these problems rather than pretending they don't exist.
Update: Some people have asked about the special election to replace Ellen Tauscher in CA-10. The district is D+11, and the only poll shows the Democrat up by 10%. That 10% margin is a pretty good over / under to measure any national implications.
On Friday morning, my polling forecast showed incumbent Democratic Governor Jon Corzine with a 60% chance to win re-election. Since that time, nine new polls have been released, five of which show Republican Chris Christie with a narrow advantage.
Collectively, those polls have tipped the polling forecast ever so slightly in Christie's favor. He now leads the (nearly) final polling average by 0.09%. Further, going back to 2004, my research shows that the Democratic nominee in statewide campaigns gained 0.10% or more from the final poll margin to the final vote margin in only 55 of 130, or 42.3%, of the statewide elections I have examined. So, the odds are now in (barely) Christie's favor.
Then again, looking at only the 30 elections in that range with 10 or more polls, Democrats made up that much ground in 16 cases, or 53%. I am sticking with the 42% as the headline, given the smaller number of cases, with so many polls, but perhaps this is a true coin flip. Here are the numbers:
As I also wrote in Friday's forecast, there is little evidence to support the theory that Democrats in New Jersey do much better in the final vote margin than in the final poll margin. Further, even if such a trend had appeared in the numbers, the number of supporting data points would be very small. Going all the way back to 1996, and not counting this year, there have been only twelve Presidential, Senatorial, and Gubernatorial elections in the Garden state combined. That simply is not enough data from which any reliable conclusions can be drawn.
The bright side, I suppose, is that Corzine actually still has a 42.3% chance to win. As recently as September 21st, Corzine was still trailing by 6.50%, which would have given him only a 1.5% chance to win. That is a lot worse than 42.3%, and a reason to be optimistic tomorrow.
Update: New Rasmussen and Zogby (live interview, not Internet) polls added, and slight earlier mistakes corrected. Corzine's chance of victory drops to 54%.
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The New Jersey Governor's race is not quite a coin flip, but it is pretty close. As of Friday afternoon, I give incumbent Democratic Governor Jon Corzine a 60% 54% to win.
First, here is the complete list of polls that will be included in the final polling average:
The methodology used to produce this table can be found here. Because the election is so close, I have only included polls that will appear in the final polling average, even if the majority of their interviews were conducted within the last 15 days.
Second, of the 87 statewide campaigns I have looked at from 2005-2008, there were 35 40 cases where the Republican gained more than 0.55% 0.31% from the final polling margin to the final vote margin. So, right now, rounding to the nearest percentage point, I project that Jon Corzine has a 60% 54% chance to retain the Governorship in New Jersey.
Also, there is a 5% chance that the campaign will be decided by less than one-tenth of one-percent, which would result in a long recount.
Given the fairly widespread perception that New Jersey Democrats perform better from the final polls to the final vote, in the extended entry, I consider the possibility that there is a hidden Democrat vote.
This being an odd numbered year, Open Left has done relatively little election blogging. However, on Tuesday there are a handful of major elections. Now that I am close to finishing up a new election forecasting methodology, it seems appropriate to try my hand at providing a horserace outlook on those five elections. All projections as of today, October 29th:
Maine, Repeal Marriage Equality? No: 49.7%
Yes: 45.7%
Three close elections and two blowouts. Also, who says we have a two-party system in this country? Only the Virginia Governor's race features a traditional Republican vs. Democrat two-way campaign.
The big news in the race is that Gov. Corzinehas taken a one-point lead over Chris Christie. If you don't count the Republican poll taken by the guy who polled for Christie's primary opponent, this is Corzine's first lead of the campaign since January, and first lead since Christie became the nominee. It's still a small lead, and could be an outlier considering the most recent numbers (graph below and Pollster.com's breakout numbers here), but it is good news, and I'm told Monmouth is a trusted and accurate source.
On the break-outs, Corzine is up to 77% among Democrats (from 74% in the Q-poll I wrote about here). The number of independents who are undecided is up 5 points, who could be trending towards Corzine, but that's also within the margin of error. He still has a long way to go (losing 38-42% among labor voters, getting hammered 43-24% on property taxes and losing on many of the rest of the issues voters name as most important), but this is a positive sign, and should help beat back a push for crap like this.
I have a good friend in southern California who is gay, helps out with some local causes, but not a politico activist by any stretch. He e-mailed me recently because he has some extra money to spend this fall, and needed some advice on whether he should go to Maine to help defend the recently-passed marriage equality legislation, or fly to DC to participate in the National Equality March, an LGBT rights march on The Mall this fall. On the one hand, he is still upset over Prop 8 and said he wanted to make sure the same result doesn't go down in Maine. On the other, he heard the March was extremely poorly organized (it is) and needed all the help they could get, and there were concerns about turnout given that it's being organized in five months' time and a glaring lack of national media coverage around it.
His question brought up a point I want to make about a problem I have noticed among progressive leaders.
There are other multiple fronts opening on LGBT rights this fall. As I wrote last night, Referendum 71 is now going to be on the ballot in less than two months' time in Washington State, stripping LGBT couples of pending rights regarding sick leave to care for a partner, adoption rights, and more. In New Jersey, Gov. Corzine is one of a few gubernatorial candidates I can remember who talks on the stump about marriage equality and his pledge to sign a bill, which finally has enough support in both houses of the legislature to pass. He talks about it even when he was down by double digits earlier this year. He is down 10 points in the Quinnipiac poll this morning. That is a major fight.
Here in DC, a local homophobe major domo is filing this morning to collect signatures to put a ban on marriage equality on the DC ballot for next year. On top of that, despite 12/13 of the DC Council members supporting marriage equality, along with Mayor Fenty, we still face a fight to make sure Congress doesn't overturn the law we pass. In California, activists may go back to the ballot in 2010 on marriage. For these two fights, we have to start pumping resources in now.
I keep being told that there are enough resources for both. I participate in weekly calls on Maine online strategy, and one participant in the call starting discussing plans for a significant event to help raise money online, and possibly doing offline events, too. I expressed concerns that trying to make an online-only event into house parties and other offline events would conflict with health care rallies between now and Labor Day, and that among probably 80% of my straight allies, their attention was so focused on health care. It would be hard to raise serious money without their commitment, and their time is limited. The participant proceeded to lecture me that there are enough resources for both, and people "should be" paying equal attention to both health care and marriage equality in Maine.
A few weeks ago, Robert Reich called for a march on health care on September 13 (a date he got by glancing briefly at his calendar) before being told it was absurd to think it would be successful in just a few weeks' time. But not before he was deluged with supportive e-mails, someone set up a website, a Facebook group, and a member of Congress announced support for it.
When the National Equality March was announced for October 11th, nearly every single LGBT organizational leader, activist and commentator I knew- national, state, or otherwise- said it would divert resources from serious battles coming up this fall. We were told that our movement can walk and chew gum at the same time. Well, as my colleague Steven Goldstein, who runs NJ's Garden State Equality, likes to say, "Well, you have to have money to buy enough gum for every state where there's a current or imminent battle, and our movement does not - and it forces you to make choices."
I encountered this on a real basis. I was forced to leave early from a health care messaging discussion last Wednesday night to make the Maine call. My friend only has money for a roundtrip flight to Maine and rental car or a flight to DC and hotel room. We are being spread thin, which is the right's strategy, and not every state is getting the resources it needs.
I am not saying this to reiterate how bad an idea I think the National Equality March is (a whole separate topic). I am saying this because progressive activists- straight or LGBT- have to stop and think before opening their mouth and assuming that in a recession, when people are losing their jobs, progressive foundations are closing or cutting their grants, non-profits are suffering, and people generally have less money and time to give, that there is some bottomless pool of resources. There isn't. We are being stretched intentionally, and face across-the-board losses because of it.
At Netroots Nation last week, I saw a lot of friends of mine from various progressive circles, and one conversation-starter many of them ask me was "what's going on for you besides health care?" To which I talk about The Progressive Revolution (I manage the press, website and book tour) some other work I'm doing at Progressive Strategies, my boyfriend, etc. Lots of my friends ask what I think about Creigh Deeds' race, to which I kind of give them a funny stare. I think they're wondering because here in DC, I'm 10 minutes from Virginia. But in terms of a major race that I actually care about, it's not VA-Gov, where a conservative Democrat is running. It's NJ-Gov.
So I tell them that I'm concerned about Corzine, that he's way down in the polls, and why I think it's important to re-elect the only other major gubernatorial candidate I can think of in recent years- aside from Eliot Spitzer, my home-state governor, and Deval Patrick- who speaks on the stump about the importance of marriage equality and pledging to sign a bill. Oh, and Spitzer was doing it while he was on his way to winning with 69% of the vote, and Patrick on his way to an easy victory as well.
1) "Ehh, he'll be fine, Democrats always close late in New Jersey. Look at Menendez vs. Kean Jr. in 2006. New Jersey folks flirt with Republicans but always come back to the Democrat."
2) "Ehh, he'll be fine, he'll just dump another $60 million into the race and swamp Christie on TV."
More on why those two assumptions are wrong- and an announcement- in the extended entry.
Amid all the health care reform goings-on in the last few weeks, it has been fun to take a break from that and watch the walls (hopefully) closing in on Karl Rove. Today it's reported in all the major outlets that he was much more deeply involved in the U.S. Attorneys' firings than he said he was, and even Harriet Miers is pointing fingers at him. Whether or not this means Fitzmas or something close to it again, I am unsure, but he may finally be getting what's coming to him, even if it takes many more months.
The more immediate impact is on the NJ-Gov race, where progressive governor Jon Corzine has been trailing Chris Christie recently. There hasn't been much discussion at OpenLeft about the race, but Chris Christie is this supposedly apolitical U.S. Attorney who engineered prosecutions and convictions of many high-profile NJ politicians, Dems and Republicans alike. Well, as Sam Stein reports today, he wasn't really all that apolitical. Rove has been advising Christie on making connections to start his run at the governor's mansion.
In an on-the-record interview with the House Judiciary Committee on July 7, 2009, the former Bush strategist acknowledged that he had held several conversations with current GOP candidate Chris Christie over the course of several years regarding the possibility of running for the governor's chair.
Christie, Rove said, was interested in mounting a bid and "asked me questions about who -- who were good people that knew about running for governor that he could talk to."
This damning news sure as hell raises a lot of Nixonian questions about Christie (per the Corzine camp's ad), including how his gubernatorial strategy was linked to who he decided to prosecute. If even Harriet Miers says Rove called New Mexico Attorney David Iglesias a "serious problem" and that he wanted "something done" about it, what direction did Rove give Christie on who should have been prosecuted in NJ?
Here is what is happening on the campaign trail today:
Virginia Governor--Deeds surges into the lead: There has been some rapid poll movement in the Virginia Democratic gubernatorial primary. The last four non-campaign-funded polls, all conducted entirely within the last week, show Creigh Deeds moving into a slight lead.
The four-poll average is currently Deeds 28.8%, Mcauliffe 27.8%, and Moran 24.5%. With such rapid movement and so many undecideds, it would appear that any of the three can win. However, the trend from Pollster.com shows that Deeds is surging:
Deeds would have to be considered the new favorite, given that trend. The primary is on Tuesday, June 9th.
New York Senate--potential Gillibrand challengers continue to decline: Representative Carolyn McCarthy will not challenge Senator Kirsten Gillibrand in the Democratic primary:
Rep. Carolyn McCarthy will not challenge Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand in a Democratic primary. McCarthy, a thorn in Gillibrand's side of late, had said she would take on the newly appointed senator in 2010 if no one else did.
But McCarthy has reversed course, citing personal issues.
Representative Carolyn Maloney is the one remaining potential candidaate who could mount a credible primary challenge to Gillibrand. Earlier this week, Maloney received a phone all from Vice-President Joe Biden, presumably encouraging her not to challenge Gillibrand. Clearly, pressure to not challenge Gillibrand is coming from the very top.
Pennsylvania Senate--Arlen Specter begs health care industry for donations: Arlen Specter made an unusually public call for donations while speaking at a conference for the American Association of Homecare today:
In an unusual move, Specter pleaded with a roomful of conference attendees Wednesday: Please write me a check. Members of Congress give talks at industry meetings all the time but they rarely - if ever - straight up ask for dough in public, especially when reporters are lurking about.
Specter was finishing up brief speech about healthcare reform to an audience of medical equipment suppliers when he closed his remarks with a fundraising pitch.
"My last [campaign] cost $23 mil. So I'd like you to consider giving me a hand with it. Campaign contributions are limited in the federal system so I have to get 50,000 contributors and the people in your industry have a reason to know my work and analysis of the situation. If you can see your way to help out, I'd be very much appreciative," Specter said.
The American Association for Homecare is a pretty run of the mill industry group, employing a few lobbyists and making a wide variety of campaign donations to members of Congress from all over the partisan and ideological spectrum. While one might think it was unseemly to ask members of a business organization for donations in public, remember this is the same Arlen Specter who said he switched parties because his chances of winning the Republican primary were "bleak." Clearly, Specter is willing to do whatever it takes to stay in office, expect maybe hide the fact that he will do whatever it takes to stay in office.
New Jersey Governor--Corzine starts out behind: Democratic incumbent Governor Jon Corzine trails newly minted Republican nominee Chris Christie by 8.6% according to Pollster.com:
The really bad news is that Corzine has been under 40% for 13 consecutive polls, dating back to mid-January. Corzine does not have the benefit of being able to wait until 2010 for the economy to recover, but he did just announce a deal to avert any government worker layoffs.
(This could help tip one of the biggest off-year elections next November. Don't believe me? Read it and see for yourself. - promoted by Paul Rosenberg)
If you don't know, there are 2 high profile races in November. The NJ-Governor is one of them, and Jon Corzine is behind in the polls by close to 10 points to Chris Christie. Christie is a Bushie fundraising ethically challenged former US Attorney in NJ, and a story is starting to bubble up now about something that could sink his candidacy. This is also over at Blue Jersey, where there is a whole lot more about Christie's background and cracks in his "ethical armor".
Thanks in advance for reading, and however you can help spread the word, it would be much appreciated. Please help this go viral. Not only will a Corzine victory deal a crushing blow to republicans in the Northeast, but a Christie win will be something that every single republican will point to as "evidence of a republican resurgence"
