JLT's House Predictin' Thread 2010

[Southern Senator North Carolina Yankee]

Personally I see CO-3 flipping before CO-7, as the former still has strong Republican areas, while CO-7 has trended to the left significantly since its creation. However, both have popular incumbents who really fit their districts, so either way it would take a lot to flip either.

Frazier has raised more money and seems like a better candidate all-around. Other than that I don't see much difference.

Remember that Salazar voted for healthcare, despite being a blue doge, and that McCain was able to squeak out a victory there.  That's basically why I view it as more competitive, but of course, I'm not looking in-depth at the candidates and their fundraising and such.

Going by Green Papers (I think it is total raised so far)
Tipton has about $250,000 Salazar has about $980,000
Gardner has about $850,000 Markey has about $1.6 Million
Frazier has about $650,000 Perlmutter has about $1.2 Million

Yeah, that's the total raised. Cash on hand is a little different. Salazar has $1.1m, Tipton has $191k. Markey has $1.25m, Gardner $540k. And Perlmutter also has $1.25m, while Frazier has $379k.

Are there any websites that have COH info easily available?

[Bo]

Johnny, if you had to decide right now, would you guess that Nye and Perriello will be reelected or not?

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Personally I see CO-3 flipping before CO-7, as the former still has strong Republican areas, while CO-7 has trended to the left significantly since its creation. However, both have popular incumbents who really fit their districts, so either way it would take a lot to flip either.

Frazier has raised more money and seems like a better candidate all-around. Other than that I don't see much difference.

Remember that Salazar voted for healthcare, despite being a blue doge, and that McCain was able to squeak out a victory there.  That's basically why I view it as more competitive, but of course, I'm not looking in-depth at the candidates and their fundraising and such.

Going by Green Papers (I think it is total raised so far)
Tipton has about $250,000 Salazar has about $980,000
Gardner has about $850,000 Markey has about $1.6 Million
Frazier has about $650,000 Perlmutter has about $1.2 Million

Yeah, that's the total raised. Cash on hand is a little different. Salazar has $1.1m, Tipton has $191k. Markey has $1.25m, Gardner $540k. And Perlmutter also has $1.25m, while Frazier has $379k.

Are there any websites that have COH info easily available?

http://fec.gov/finance/disclosure/srssea.shtml

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Johnny, if you had to decide right now, would you guess that Nye and Perriello will be reelected or not?

I couldn't possibly guess at this point.

[Mr.Phips]

Personally I see CO-3 flipping before CO-7, as the former still has strong Republican areas, while CO-7 has trended to the left significantly since its creation. However, both have popular incumbents who really fit their districts, so either way it would take a lot to flip either.

Frazier has raised more money and seems like a better candidate all-around. Other than that I don't see much difference.

Dont know why people are now suddenly saying NJ-12 will be competitive.  The one county(Hunterdon) that gave Republicans a base in the district was removed in redistricting.  

I'm not trying to go all Mr. Moderate and say "OMGZ CHRISTIE = REPUBLICANS WIN NEW JERSEY!!!", but they have raised a bumper crop of rich people to run in Democratic districts this year (against Holt, Pallone, and Rothman). Holt has the least money of the three, and stranger things have happened, especially since there's no statewide race to drive turnout.

Being rich is usually not enough to overcome a district that leans very heavily to the other party.  Look at Democrats in 2008 like Jim Harlan and Linda Ketner.  Ketner was able to make it close by spending millions of dollars, but still couldnt overcome the overall tilt of the district.  

Christie won NJ-12 by 50%-43% and owed his margin of victory here to the fact that Corzine did far worse than any Democrat has a right to do in Monmouth county  Democrats typically lose that county by around 10 points, but Corzine lost it by 30. 

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Primary season has pushed me to move a bunch of races.

Democratic seats:

FL-02 (Allen Boyd) - moved to Lean Democratic from Democratic Watch List - Crappy internal poll.
GA-08 (Jim Marshall) - moved to Lean Democratic from Democratic Watch List - Pretty decent recruit for the Republicans, and this is not the district for a Democrat to be in this year.
GA-12 (John Barrow) - dropped from the list - No serious Republican running.
HI-01* (Neil Abercrombie) - moved to Lean Republican Takeover from Pure Tossup - Dems giving up.
KY-06 (Ben Chandler) - moved to Likely Democratic from Democratic Watch List - Another Appalachian seat at risk.
MD-01 (Frank Kratovil) - moved to Lean Republican Takeover from Pure Tossup - Harris is doing better moneywise than in 2008, which was about the only advantage Kratovil had.
NH-02* (Paul Hodes) - moved to Lean Republican Takeover from Pure Tossup - Bad PPP poll.
NY-13 (Michael McMahon) - moved to Likely Democratic from Democratic Watch List - Republicans are showing some life here.
OH-06 (Charlie Wilson) - added to Likely Democratic - Seems like the region is hating on the Dems.
OH-13 (Betty Sutton) - moved to Likely Democratic from Democratic Watch List - She'd better get her butt in gear.
OH-15 (Mary Jo Kilroy) - moved to Lean Republican Takeover from Pure Tossup - Kilroy is incredibly weak, Stivers is a strong opponent, I doubt she survives.
OH-18 (Zack Space) - moved to Likely Democratic from Democratic Watch List - More for the regional stuff than his opponent.
TX-17 (Chet Edwards) - moved to Pure Tossup from Lean Democratic - Bad internal poll from the Flores camp.
VA-09 (Rick Boucher) - moved to Lean Democratic from Likely Democratic - Appalachia etc.
WV-01* (Alan Mollohan) - moved to Pure Tossup from Lean Democratic - Open seat now.
WV-03 (Nick Rahall) - added to Democratic Watch List - Joke opponents, but Appalachia is not looking good for any Democrat right now.
WI-07* (Dave Obey) - moved to Pure Tossup from Democratic Watch List - Obey retiring.

Republican seats:

OH-02 (Jean Schmidt) - dropped from the list - I think Schmidt's chronic underperformance has come to an end.
NE-02 (Lee Terry) - moved to Lean Republican from Likely Republican - Poor primary performance.

[Filuwaúrdjan]

KY-6 is not Appalachian.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Is "hates black people" a more accurate description?

[Filuwaúrdjan]

Is "hates black people" a more accurate description?

'White Southern' will do.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

A few small changes:

Democratic seats:

HI-01 (Charles Djou) - moved from Lean Republican Takeover to Pure Tossup (on the Republican-held seat list) - Djou wins special election.
ID-01 (Walt Minnick) - moved to Pure Tossup from Lean Republican Takeover - Being the token teabagger-supported Democrat will probably help Minnick. Plus his opponent has no money.
NJ-03 (John Adler) - moved to Likely Democratic from Lean Democratic - Jon Runyon is, not surprisingly, turning out to be a bit of a flop.
NC-11 (Heath Shuler) - added to Democratic Watch List - Another Appalachian district to watch.
OH-16 (John Boccieri) - moved to Lean Democratic from Likely Democratic - Bad Republican poll.
PA-12 (Mark Critz) - moved to Lean Democratic from Pure Tossup - Critz won convincingly.

Republican seats:

VA-01 (Rob Wittman) - dropped from the list - Doesn't look like anything will happen here.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Once the second-quarter fundraising reports come out, I plan on doing some reorganizing of my list (not that anyone cares). Until then, here's a few changes:

Changes since last time:

Democratic seats:

AR-01* (Marion Berry) - moved to Pure Tossup from Lean Democratic - Despite the crappy Republican candidate, I'm not feeling at all confident in the Dems' ability to hold this seat.
AR-02* (Vic Snyder) - moved to Likely Republican Takeover from Lean Republican Takeover - Dems chose a bad candidate.
MA-10* (Bill Delahunt) - moved to Pure Tossup from Lean Democratic - Democrats running as independents? This can't end well.
NC-02 (Bob Etheridge) - added to list at Likely Democratic - Congratulations on making yourself a target.

[Sam Spade]

I agree with your changes. (two of them were as I saw anyways.  )

The one thing I would say is that every competitive Arizona Dem seat needs to be bumped up a notch.  What Obama is doing is simply going to be a disaster for them, I suspect.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Crapload of post-2Q fundraising changes:

Democratic seats:

AZ-01 (Ann Kirkpatrick) - moved to Likely Democratic from Democratic Watch List - Obama administration fighting the Arizona immigration bill is probably not good news for Arizona Dems.
AZ-05 (Harry Mitchell) - moved to Lean Democratic from Likely Democratic - See above.
AZ-08 (Gabrielle Giffords) - moved to Lean Democratic from Likely Democratic - See above.
ID-01 (Walt Minnick) - moved to Lean Democratic from Pure Tossup - Can't believe I'm doing this, but the Republican effort here has been a big batch of fail.
IL-14 (Bill Foster) - moved to Lean Democratic from Likely Democratic - Illinois is not going to be a great state for coattails.
CT-04 (Jim Himes) - moved to Likely Democratic from Democratic Watch List - Republican challengers with some serious cash.
CT-05 (Chris Murphy) - moved to Likely Democratic from Democratic Watch List - See above.
IL-17 (Phil Hare) - added to Democratic Watch List - Challenger with decent money.
IN-02 (Joe Donnelly) - moved to Likely Democratic from Democratic Watch List - Challenger has been raising decent money.
IN-09 (Baron Hill) - moved to Lean Democratic from Pure Tossup - Hill's opponent has much less cash, plus he released a poll showing Hill in the lead.
KY-03 (John Yarmuth) - added to Democratic Watch List - Challenger had a good fundraising quarter.
MN-01 (Tim Walz) - added to Democratic Watch List - Challenger with decent money.
NY-20 (Scott Murphy) - moved to Likely Democratic from Democratic Watch List - Murphy's challenger raised a bunch of money.
NY-24 (Mike Arcuri) - moved to Lean Republican Takeover from Pure Tossup - The hapless Arcuri seems doomed, given his all-over-the-place voting record and a rematch with the guy he barely beat in 2008.
NY-29* (Eric Massa) - moved to Likely Republican Takeover from Lean Republican Takeover - Zeller really has no shot at winning this thing. Tom Reed is a crappy fundraiser and still managed to outraise him.
NC-02 (Bob Etheridge) - dropped from the list - Way to not take advantage of a gaffe caught on tape, Renee Ellmers.
NC-11 (Heath Shuler) - dropped from the list - Looks like Miller isn't going to make much of a dent.
ND-AL (Earl Pomeroy) - moved to Lean Republican Takeover from Pure Tossup - Pomeroy is doing badly in the Rasmussen polls, plus his opponent is raising buckets of cash, plus Hoeven will be winning atop the ticket with 70+% of the vote.
OR-01 (David Wu) - added to Democratic Watch List - I'm skeptical that Wu is in serious trouble, but his opponent has raised a fair bit of money, and Kitzhaber isn't doing that great at the top of the ticket.
PA-03 (Kathy Dahlkemper) - moved to Likely Democratic from Lean Democratic - 10-1 cash advantage. Ouch.
PA-10 (Chris Carney) - dropped from the list - Marino has been a spectacular failure of a candidate so far, I don't see him turning things around in the last three months.
PA-11 (Paul Kanjorski) - moved to Lean Republican Takeover from Pure Tossup - I don't put too much stock in internal polls, but after Kanjo's pathetic performance in 2008, I see no reason not to believe he isn't going down this year.
PA-17 (Tim Holden) - dropped from the list - Another candidate that's turned out to be a big flop, it doesn't look like Argall will do much in his challenge to Holden.
SD-AL (Stephanie Herseth Sandlin) - moved to Pure Tossup from Lean Democratic - SHS isn't doing so well in those Rasmussen polls, plus she's been lucky the last two cycles.
TN-08* (John Tanner) - moved to Pure Tossup from Lean Republican Takeover - The Republican primary is getting messy, and Herron seems to be a pretty strong candidate.
TX-23 (Ciro Rodriguez) - moved to Likely Democratic from Democratic Watch List - Big fundraising quarter for Canseco (thanks to self-funding), not so much for Rodriguez.

Republican seats:

NE-02 (Lee Terry) - moved to Likely Republican from Lean Republican - Lame fundraising quarter for Tom White.

[Dan the Roman]

As someone who promoted the race in the past, and thinks that some Republican representation would improve the delegation, I can't believe I am doing this, but under no circumstances should MA-10 be a pure toss-up. The seats dynamics leave it as probably one of the GOP's best chances in year for a congressional seat in the state, but the problem lies in the fact that both William Keating and Rob O'Leary are significantly stronger candidates than either Jeff Perry or Joe Malone. Keating is a former State Senator of one of the more Republican districts in the state, while Rob O'Leary represents the Perry's base area in the Cape. The Democrats both have COH advantages, with Keating having a nearly 3-1 lead over Perry, and 7-1 over Malone.

As for the Republicans, Malone is well, Malone with all the baggage that entails and looks likely to lose the primary in any case. Perry is pretty Conservative for a D+5 district even with all things being equal, but they are not. For the last few months he has been dogged in the media by a story that he looked on while a teenage girl was inappropriately strip searched by an officer under his command. It is unclear if the story has merit, but its dominating about half of the results on a Google news search and has reached politico.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&client=firefox-a&rls=org.mozilla%3Aen-US%3Aofficial&tbs=nws%3A1&q=jeff+perry+cape&aq=f&aqi=&aql=&oq=&gs_rfai=

http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0610/39251.html

A Republican here needs to run a perfect campaign and face a flawed opponent. Neither of those seems likely at present. This is not to say that Perry can not win, but this seat probably will require a significant national and local wave at his back to do so.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

My problem with the seat is there are two Dems running as Independents. That can't be helpful. Of course, until there's polling on most of these races, most of this is pretty much guesswork.

[I spent the winter writing songs about getting better]

I think it's worth noting that MA-10 is still a D+5 seat. The only Republican held seats with a higher Dem PVI are DE-AL, IL-10, HI-01 and LA-02. Which could all easily fall this year to boot. Now it ending up the seat with the highest Dem PVI held by a Republican certainly is possible, but it is a good example of why it's not quite a gimme.

[Dan the Roman]

The other thing to remember is that while on paper it is always the friendliest seat to national and statewide Republicans, its always been fools goal for the GOP at the congressional level, and over the last four decades they have probably gone after it more than any other seat in the state. They could never take down Studds after all his issues, and the 1996 open race was a 13 point route while Weld was winning the seat for senate. And the area has been a disaster area for the GOP in the legislature, as they have lost seat after seat that they have held since the Civil War in the last few years.

On paper given the national results this should be a close race. Given what the Cape GOP has been capable on the ground, it would be frankly surprising if either of their candidates managed to break 43%, much less win. The inverse might be MA-05 or even 06 where the local GOP is in a lot better shape.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

I certainly don't think it's an easy win for the Republicans; of all the tossup open seats on my list, I'd rank it as the least likely to flip. However, it is an open seat, and those tend to be a lot more volatile than seats held by incumbents.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

Another bunch of changes.

Changes since last time:

Democratic seats:

Finally took the plunge and split up the tossups into R-leaning/pure/D-leaning.

CT-05 (Chris Murphy) - moved to Democratic Watch List from Likely Democratic - Caligiuri won the nomination and is broke.
ID-01 (Walt Minnick) - moved to Democratic-Leaning Tossup from Lean Democratic - Labrador is a clown, but even a clown is guaranteed 45% of the vote in this district (as long as he's a Republican).
IN-09 (Baron Hill) - moved to Democratic-Leaning Tossup from Lean Democratic - Seems appropriate.
IA-03 (Leonard Boswell) - moved to Lean Democratic from Likely Democratic - Boswell's biggest threat in this election isn't his opponent, but rather, straight-ticket voting. Branstad/Grassley will likely dominate this district.
KS-03* (Dennis Moore) - moved to Likely Republican Takeover from Lean Republican Takeover - Yoder doesn't look like he will have much trouble winning here.
MI-09 (Gary Peters) - moved to Likely Democratic from Democratic Watch List - Freshman, Michigan is swinging back to the right, and Raczkowski has shown lately that he can raise some money.
MO-04 (Ike Skelton) - moved to Lean Democratic from Likely Democratic - Mostly due to the district's lean.
NJ-03 (John Adler) - moved to Lean Democratic from Likely Democratic - Stupid stunt with the teabagger may have helped had they not bungled it.
NM-01 (Martin Heinrich) - moved to Lean Democratic from Likely Democratic - Bad SUSA poll.
NM-02 (Harry Teague) - moved to Lean Republican Takeover from Pure Tossup - Given how things are going for the Dems in NM, I don't imagine Teague will be able to survive.
NC-07 (Mike McIntyre) - added to Democratic Watch List - Challenger with decent fundraising.
NC-08 (Larry Kissell) - moved to Democratic-Leaning Tossup from Pure Tossup - Poor fundraising from Kissell.
NC-11 (Heath Shuler) - re-added to Democratic Watch List - OMGWTFSUSA. Probably an outlier, but I'll put it back on just in case.
ND-AL (Earl Pomeroy) - moved to Republican-Leaning Tossup from Lean Republican Takeover - Tightens up right after I moved it, so back it goes.
OH-13 (Betty Sutton) - moved to Lean Democratic from Likely Democratic - Dem seat, but she's way outmatched in fundraising.
OR-05 (Kurt Schrader) - moved to Likely Democratic from Democratic Watch List - The DCCC dropping some dough in OR-05 makes me wonder about this one.
PA-03 (Kathy Dahlkemper) - moved to Lean Democratic from Likely Democratic - Bad internal poll, so back it goes.
PA-12 (Mark Critz) - moved to Likely Democratic from Lean Democratic - I hadn't noticed that Burns had only raised $10k since the special election. Giving up?
VA-05 (Tom Perriello) - moved to Lean Republican Takeover from Pure Tossup - The SUSA poll is probably overstating things by quite a bit, but I have no trouble believing Perriello is in trouble.
WI-03 (Ron Kind) - moved to Likely Democratic from Democratic Watch List - Kapanke's been doing pretty decently on the money front.

[Sam Spade]

CT-05 (Chris Murphy) - moved to Democratic Watch List from Likely Democratic - Caligiuri won the nomination and is broke.

I can see that.

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In agreement, especially as now the national Republicans are at least acknowledging his existence.

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Mirrors my last change, so yep.

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What matters just as much is that Boswell has always been a weak incumbent and when weak incumbents get into bad national situations....  Of course, I've had Boswell at Lean D for months. 

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Don't know whether I agree.  Yoder is definitely favored (Lean R), but I don't see Likely R, yet at least.

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Raczkowski has raised some money (Peters has a ton), but you have to admit the birther stuff don't look too good.  Given D+2 (even in Michigan, where 2008 was likely a tad off), I'm not there yet.

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I've been there for a while too... 

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When MAS117 is involved in a political stunt....

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Albuquerque is a very strange area.  Anything can and will always happen there, regardless of what national numbers say "should happen".  I put it in Lean D the moment Barela raised a few centavos for this reason.

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Yep.  Still don't understand what he was doing voting for cap-n-trade in this CD.

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Yep.  Plus McIntrye doesn't have much cash on hand himself.

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If Kissell can't raise money, this should definitely be in pure tossup, imo, at least.

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Should never have been taken off - these are the types of CDs that can mysteriously disappear if a wave comes about, for no reason at all.

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Pomeroy is another classic weak incumbent.  But I see no evidence this is anything but tossup right now.  Maybe Republican-leaning, sure.

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Yep.

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Actually, it makes me wonder whether I should have it in Lean D.  Same with TX-23, btw.

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My gut tells me that Dahlkemper is in trouble.  My gut has been wrong before, of course.

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I noticed it! 

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Interestingly, SUSA poll mirrors turnout from both polls in 2006, with both 2008 polls showing a completely different turnout altogether.  Just something to keep in mind.

It should be in Lean R anyway because GOP has united behind Hurt.

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Not there yet.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

My problem with NC-11 (like PA-10, which I also dropped a while back) is that it's competitive on paper but the Republican nominee has raised very little money. I've looked back at the last couple cycles and found that with very few exceptions, you have to raise at least $1 million to win a seat from the other party. And the ones where the challenger didn't raise that much money were flukes (Shea-Porter, Loebsack, Boyda, and Cao). I guess Miller can be a fluke, but the odds aren't in his favor.

[Torie]

What changes if you assume team GOP gets a ton of money in the next two months, as the sharks smell chum in the water? At the moment, independent expenditures can be unlimited per the SCOTUS decision.

[JohnnyLongtorso]

I have no idea.

[Torie]

Fair enough.

I have this gut feeling now that we have reached an inflection point, and there is maybe now a 60% chance that there will be a wave, and the GOP will take back the House, and then some. The economic news is just terrible, the Dems are demoralized, with the Left mad at Obama, Obama has really mishandled the immigration issue (this business of not wanting to make the border more secure in order to have leverage to legalize millions of folks, cannot possible sit well with a majority of the voters), and the Dems borrowing another 26  billion to keep public employees employed (ya they say it is paid for, but they ain't cutting food stamps, so that will go by the wayside, just like the slash in doctor reimbursements), insurance premiums are ratcheting up, and emergency rooms are more clogged than ever, since so many docs will not take medicaid patients anymore, because they lose money on them. Can the news get any more terrible?

It looks to me like we may well be heading into a perfect storm, and the boat is not going to make it back to port.

[Dan the Roman]

What changes if you assume team GOP gets a ton of money in the next two months, as the sharks smell chum in the water? At the moment, independent expenditures can be unlimited per the SCOTUS decision.

The question to ask is whether outside of the Coal industry, is there a real desire to see the Republicans, or more specifically the current Republicans back in office. A lot of companies that normally lean GOP, say Wal-Mart for instance, benefited from the stimulus even if the economy of the whole did not, and we are past the point, illustrated by Stockman's NYT piece two weeks ago, where any corporate leaders think GOP economic plan, which seems to be to repeat Obama's stimulus feat, only with tax cuts targeted uselessly instead of spending.

I think Corporate America is probably unhappy with the Democrats, but its worth asking yourself how much they would be happy with the GOP in an ideological and inflexible mood. There is a general rule with companies. With exception of say Oil and mining, the larger they get, the more left-leaning they tend to be. Do you really think Micorsoft or Apple likes the Tea Party, or want what would be termed "Conservatives" in fly-over country? Rick Snyder and to a lesser extent Whitman, and Baker in MA would benefit from corporate money, but they are in state races. Do you really expect them to back Angle though? Given the change in the balance of power in the economy over the last two decades, I would not expect a general backing of the GOP at least this year.

Its always worth questioning whether large business interests have the interests of the business community as a whole. They clearly hate the new banking regulations, but again the stimulus was quite popular with many of them for the wrong reasons, and government subsidies for health-care are actually good for them as it saves them money. Its the ordinary tax payers who have to pick it up.