Talk Elections

Time for another of these things.

Who's running:

Democrats - former Giffords district director Ron Barber.
Republicans - State Sen. Ronald Antenori, '10 nominee Jesse Kelly, Air Force vet Martha McSally, businessman Dave Sitton.
Green - community activist Charles Manolakis.

Filing deadline is 2/27.

R+1.

Congrats, krazen! I'm so excited for you!

Definitely not a good time for anyone to claim victory here, since Giffords just resigned last week and we currently have no polling data, yet.

I wonder whether this election will be simply be on candidates and parties like most other special elections, or will Giffords' circumstances give a boost to the Democrat (even if only slight) above what it would be on paper.

State Rep. Matt Heinz is running for the dem. nomination. He's gay and is only 34. It would be great to have him representing AZ-8 :)

http://atr.rollcall.com/arizona-first-democrat-jumps-into-race-to-replace-giffords/

Hey AZ-08, stop hogging all the openly gay congressmen.

Oh, that's true. The GOP congressman who decided to retire and supported Giffords in 2006 was gay!

Giffords' district director Ron Barber has entered the race as a caretaker candidate for the remainder of the term, causing Matt Heinz to drop out (but he's still running in the new AZ-02). That's kind of confusing.

Maybe he wants Giffords' endorsement in General. But it would be better to have a leg on seniority.

Four candidates have filed so far; Monday is the filing deadline. (http://azstarnet.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/elections/file-petitions-for-southern-az-s-special-election/article_702e3d70-5f5d-11e1-bffe-001871e3ce6c.html) Kelly might not make it onto the ballot, he didn't put in much more than the minimum number of signatures required.

Two more candidates filed by the deadline, Republican Martha McSally and Green Charles Manolakis.

Ron Barber has raised over half a million dollars. (http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/house-races/220099-former-giffords-aide-tops-500000-for-special-election-)

Here's the fundraising roundup, courtesy DKE:


Ron Barber (D): $549K raised, $85K spent, $464K cash-on-hand
Dave Sitton (R): $261K raised, $128K spent, $132K cash-on-hand
Jesse Kelly (R): $210K raised, $180K spent, $49K cash-on-hand
Martha McSally (R): $133K raised, $89K spent, $44K cash-on-hand


Antenori, for whatever reason, hasn't filed a report.

Surely the sympathy vote will help the Democrats here.

I believe he wound up running in another district. Redisctricting, or something to that tune.

Turns out Antenori only raised $37k.

Primary is today.

This ought to be interesting.

Hoping McSally pulls it off.

Alas, I assume that Kelly has it in lockdown for the Pubs.  I think the odds are about 3-2 that the Dems will hold the seat. Even if Kelly won the special, he might have trouble holding the seat in November since it will be a couple of points more Dem, thanks to the "independent" commission drawing a Dem gerrymander.

Anyone have results?

http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/AZ/37929/78545/en/summary.html

Here is some data to frame the issue:

First, in the last general election (2010), the Democrat received 49% of the vote, the Republican 47% and the Libertarian 4%.

Second, this year there is a Green party candidate, but no Libertarian candidate.

Third, the gap between Republican and Democrat party voter registration is greater than in 2010.

Registration      2010       2012        Change

D                   140,114    133,751     -  6,363
L                       2,843        2,646      -    200
R                   159,045    159,200           155
G                         859            793     -       66
O                  124,649     128,269        3,620
T                   427,818     424,718      - 3.100

Also, Jesse Kelly is a nut who'd need a quite weak opponent to stand a chance here absent wave conditions.

Giffords endorsed Barber some time ago.

PPP says:

Well damn.

No one can accuse PPP of not putting their reputation on the line, at least. Curious how the election results map to their prediction. 

This is what I would expect from a Demcoratic hack firm ;)

If they say "Dem hold", it could point to a 53-44 PPP result.

National Journal profile.

http://hotlineoncall.nationaljournal.com/archives/2012/06/previewing-the-105.php

PPP says Barber winning by double-digits.

Numbers out in the next hour.

Q1 The candidates in the special election for Congress are Democrat Ron Barber, Republican Jesse Kelly, and Green Party candidate Charlie Manolakis. If the election was today, who would you vote for?

Ron Barber ..................................................... 53%
Jesse Kelly...................................................... 41%
Charlie Manolakis ........................................... 4%

...

Q3 Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Ron Barber?

Favorable........................................................ 54%
Unfavorable .................................................... 38%

Q4 Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Jesse Kelly?

Favorable........................................................ 37%
Unfavorable .................................................... 59%

Q5 Do you approve or disapprove of President Barack Obama’s job performance?

Approve .......................................................... 44%
Disapprove...................................................... 50%

Q9 Do you have a favorable or unfavorable opinion of Gabrielle Giffords?

Favorable........................................................ 67%
Unfavorable .................................................... 24%

Q10 Who did you vote for President in 2008?

John McCain................................................... 44%
Barack Obama................................................ 50%

Q13 If you are a Democrat, press 1. If a Republican, press 2. If you are an independent or identify with another party, press 3.

Democrat ........................................................ 42%
Republican...................................................... 36%
Independent/Other.......................................... 22%

http://www.publicpolicypolling.com/pdf/2011/PPP_Release_AZ_611.pdf

Well, let them think that I guess.

Meh, why did they include that 3rd-party candidate again ... :(

We all know that he ends up with only 0.5% or 1% ...

So, here's my prediction:

54% Barber
45% Kelly
  1% Manolakis

The Pubs keep running social conservatives of mediocre talent in a CD that needs someone considerably more supple.  Kelly's 59% disapproval tells the tale, even if the poll has too many Dems in it. I am surprised by the margin though. I had this CD tilt Dem for the special, and lean Dem for the General. I guess Kelly is even more of a beta than I thought. It looks like it needs to be moved to likely Dem for both elections - maybe safe for the General.

Kelly got 49% in this district just 2 years ago, and more importantly, in this election more Republicans have voted than Democrats. I believe 5% more last time I checked.

Kelly got 49% in the worst Dem year since 1894, when Democrats stayed home in droves and pretty much every Republican turned out. 

Unfortunately that line is far less true than the left claims it is.


As of last Wednesday, the GOP returned more ballots in Pima County than the Democrats 52/48 in the 2 party vote. That leaves out Cochise County which has many more Republicans.

http://explorernews.com/news/article_6abef810-af3b-11e1-883b-0019bb2963f4.html

Registration in the new AZ-02 is only 34.7 R, 34.2 D, 31.1 I.  (http://azredistricting.org/Maps/Final-Maps/Congressional/Reports/Final%20Congressional%20Districts%20-%20Compactness%20and%20Competitiveness%20Data%20Table.pdf) The new district, of course (your favorite phrase), is very similar to the old one.

The new district is 3 points more Dem actually. AZ has a quite skillful Dem gerrymander.

You mean the worst Dem year since 1946 (or 2004 in Arizona).

Yes. But in terms of the constituent turnover, the new 2nd keeps about 90% of the old 8th.

Your point is very peculiar. Why are you talking about voter registration in the new district, when we already know the actual voter distribution (R+4) in at least most of the actual district?

Like old times.


Of course, they tried to CYA much later with this junk poll.

Republicans turned in more ballots, but you can't assume that all of them voted for Kelly, there are moderate Republicans in the district who can crossover.

PPP got CA-36 and OR-1 right, despite the same old complaining that the polls were too biased. No reason to think this one isn't right. Kelly's approvals are horrible, no one wins with those sort of numbers. It's over.

I like your style

With the sympathy vote and the fact that Kelly's a bit of an ass, it's hard to see the Dems not winning this race.

Way to change the subject by digging up old posts. I don't claim to be right about everything every single time. Anyway, this is not about NV-2, it's about AZ-8. PPP nailed the margins almost exactly for CA-36 and OR-1, both which were touted to be much closer than they turned out to be. There is too much accuracy to keep complaining the PPP is wrong all the time.

I would also add NY-26.

GOP turnout in Pima County has surged. Of course Kelly doesn't actually need to win Pima County this time.

http://www.maranaweeklynews.com/v2_news_articles.php?heading=0&page=72&story_id=3410

Democratic 66,947 ballots mailed 47,065 ballots verified 70 percent

Republican 72,745 ballots mailed 50,980 ballots verified 70 percent

Those would be concerning numbers if the poll didn't show Barber doing much better amongst Republicans than Kelly is doing amongst Democrats. Also if the poll didn't show Barber crushing amongst Independents. But it does show all that, so...

Rooting for Baber. Kelly is disgusting candidate. Hope to see his political "career" finished.

Likewise.

In terms of favorability, Jesse Kelly (37/59) is in a league with Joe Miller (36/59) and Christine O'Donnell (29/50).

You know all this complaining about this district takes away attention from the real gerrymandering that went on in the Phoenix area. I know the commission didn't follow your plan to crack Tucson liberals, and thus you are pissed, but the real shenanigans went on in Phoenix in the 9th district and also with the 1st distict, with Sedona somehow ending up in it in the final cut. Tucson is a fast growing area with a substantial Democrat voting population. Why should it have a Republican leaning district instead of the swing district that it is currently? And why should it have Cochise when more than a district can fit into Pima County?

Anyways, this election will be a test for PPP. I think they have oversampled Democrats for this poll. Obama won by 6 in this sample when in reality he lost the district. I think the Democrat still wins but only by 5 or 6.

This was posted on Facebook; I think its nice:

()

That's cute..

Polls have been closed for 40 minutes and no votes are in yet, what is this.

Polls don't close until the next hour, in less than 20 minutes.

Oh, stupid Arizona not observing daylight savings.

35 minutes in and still no results. AZ reported pretty quickly during the February primary IIRC, so what's up?

where the Blazes are those guy reporting the votes

Pima County announced they're not posting anything until 8:20 PM at the earliest.

Explanation:

http://www.maranaweeklynews.com/v2_news_articles.php?heading=0&page=72&story_id=3416

Apparently they'll only start reporting in 20-25 minutes or so. No idea why.

Arizona is awful. It's been more than an hour!

DKE says Barber is running 6 points ahead of Obama with the results that have trickled in so far.

Will there be a link for the live results?

http://www.pima.gov/elections/results1.htm

According to the AZ SoS (http://results.enr.clarityelections.com/AZ/37946/85746/en/summary.html) Barber is up 53-44 with 37/352 precincts in.

Not very far off from PPP; lets see if it holds...

So far, Barber is performing 7% better than Obama.

From DKE:

The counties are playing out as follows (Barber's vote share relative to Obama's):
Cochise: Barber +7.5
Pima: Barber +7.4
Pinal: Barber +4.5
Santa Cruz: Barber +6.3

Looks like an easy D win.

LOL krazen

from Politioco
AZ 8: 10.5% in
Barber- 53.1
Kelly- 44.4

Looks like PPP wasn't so wrong after all.

52.79 to 44.41 with 22% in at AZ SoS.

Kelly is getting 51% in Cochise; he got 55% there in 2010.

Its a smaller county, but with all the votes in Kelly is getting 41% in Santa Cruz, down from 45% in 2010.

We're up to 31% reporting and Barber is still up 52.3-44.9.

Half in and Barber's ticking up back to 52.5.

All that matters is November, though congrats to Democrats on winning a competitive special election.

Not to be a sore winner (the circumstances here can only be described as unique), the only chance Kelly had of winning in November, when the district gets more Democratic and more Obama voters come out of the woodwork, would have been as an incumbent.

They predicted 53-41-4, a 12 point margin. Barber's now winning by about 8 points. This is comparable to their performance in WI, I think.

Half of the vote is in and what's out is all in Pima, where Barber's a couple points stronger. I'd compass 53-44 or 54-44.

That poll included 3% undecideds, they probably broke toward Kelly toward some degree. All in all, it was an accurate poll.

Another vote dump. With 66% Barber is holding steady at 53-45.

1 reason why PPP had it a 12-point lead and now it's 8 points:

According to the internals of the poll, that Green guy gained more votes from Republicans than from Democrats. How likely is that ?

Assuming that this was unlikely and the Green guy - as usual with most 3rd party candidates - got overpolled by 2, the other 2% in reality went to Kelly and Kelly also picked up 2% from the undecideds.

Another vote dump and we're at 52-45. Huh. This was a little unexpected with just Pima left.

Good analysis, Tender.

Yes, PPP did skew a bit to the left all things considered, but it could hardly be considered a junk poll.

Politico has called the Az 8 race for Ron Barber

52-45, seems to be final. Undecideds broke for Kelly for some strange reason and the Green overpolled.

Lovely.

Good! Hope Kelly's "political career" is over - he is a nut, pure and simple. In fact, if i would be a Republican - i would think about McSally, not Kelly - she is much better candidate

Expected, but still satisfying.

Only if you apply the standard 5 point adjustment.

It's very amusing to see the canyon size window spinning from the lefties here! Heck, We Ask America was closer with Walker +12.

Apparently WAA put out an 'accurate poll'. How funny!

LoL. We Ask America is a better poster than PPP. OK.

Not if you like liberal biased pollsters, no.

I imagine the Democrats only won because of ACORN anyway, right Krazen? So PPP was likely off by much more than the "official" results suggest.

No, they won because their candidate was more appealing to the voting public. Blaming ACORN or citizens united or a boogeyman rarely detracts from such facts.

Hey krazen!! We missed you here last night!

Ya know what krazen, you can attack PPP all you want, but you have to at least give it some credit because it was the only public pollster with the guts to go into the field there. At the very minimum, it showed that the race was Lean/Likely Barber.

No pollster can exactly nail down margins, especially when there are undecideds in the poll and a margin of error. At this point, it's just nitpicking to claim PPP was wrong.

PPP actually showed Suzanne Bonamici up 52-41 in OR-1 before the election, she ending up winning 54-40, which was a case of PPP slightly overstating a Republican. It's polling, it doesn't always nail down margins exactly. Anyway, Kelly still lost, so it's all a moot point.

Yes, of course, its very brave of them to do so. It's certainly easier for accurate pollsters to poll less than more.

Of course, as a result of Amendment 1, Walker, and Kelly, PPP has now made Nate Silver's House Effect list.

http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/06/13/statistical-noise-in-election-polls/?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

And yet when WAA did exactly the same thing as PPP just did (Walker +12), it was a little more than nitpicking.

It's very funny how you spinsters dance.

Releasing an outlier poll (+12 when everyone else was around +3-6) for a well-polled statewide race is entirely different from being the only friggin' outlet to release a poll for a congressional race.

Everyone? Actually nobody except 1 was below +5. Guess who that 1 was?



WeAskAmerica   6/3 - 6/3   1570 LV   54   42   Walker +12
PPP (D)   6/2 - 6/3   1226 LV   50   47   Walker +3
Marquette University   5/23 - 5/26   600 LV   52   45   Walker +7
WeAskAmerica   5/23 - 5/23   1409 LV   54   42   Walker +12
WPR/St. Norbert   5/17 - 5/22   406 LV   50   45   Walker +5
Daily Kos/PPP (D)   5/11 - 5/13   LV   50   45   Walker +5
WeAskAmerica   5/13 - 5/13   1219 LV   52   43   Walker +9
Marquette University   5/9 - 5/12   600 LV   50   44   Walker +6
Rasmussen Reports   5/9 - 5/9   500 LV   50   45   Walker +5

for the second time in one week, PPP overestimates D by 4-5... And when you look at their Obama-Romney polls (national or state), you see the same problem: too many democrats in their polls.

To prove my point, I have deleted WAA polls from this list. Last time I checked, +12 is further away from the consensus spread than +3. Keep trying!!

How much did PPP overstate Barber's margin?

+5. Its estimation of Barber's vote share was +1, Kelly's was -4, and the Green's was +2.

Certain people in this thread need to take a statistics class.

All of them.

Barber was sworn in today. (https://twitter.com/jamiedupree/status/215140751032582144)