Tag: dccc

Democratic Death Panel Watch, 10/07/2010.

Via Hotline, here are the latest races where the DCCC has begun the euthanasia process:

  • AZ-08.  The incumbent is Gabrielle Giffords, facing Jesse Kelly.  The DCCC has cut one week’s worth of ad buys, claiming that Giffords doesn’t need its help.  Cook rates this race as Leans Democratic; polling is very sparse, but shows a tie.
  • CO-04.  The incumbent is Betsy Markey (yes, the one who has her supporters babbling about internment camps): her opponent is Cory Gardner.  They’ve cut back her outside ads, probably because she can’t get any traction (and has supporters babbling about internment camps).  Cook rates this race as Toss-Up: the most recent polling shows Gardner ahead.
  • FL-24.  The incumbent is Suzanne Kosmas; her opponent is Sandy Adams.  Like Markey, her outside ads have been cut.  The DCCC is claiming to be planning to still match the NRCC’s buys there. Cook rates this race as Toss-Up: there is no recent polling, but RCP lists the seat as Leans GOP.
  • KS-03.  Open seat.  Democratic candidate Stephene Moore, facing Republican candidate Kevin Yoder.  The DCCC has canceled one week’s worth of ad buys. Cook rates this race as Leans Republican: there is no recent polling, but RCP lists the seat as Leans GOP.
  • NM-02.  The incumbent is Harry Teague; his opponent is Steve Pearce.  Here the DCCC is moving its ad buys down a week in either an attempt to firewall, or as a preliminary to canceling them altogether. Cook rates this race as Toss-Up: the most recent polling has Pearce ahead.

There’s also LA-02, but that might legitimately be the DCCC thinking that they don’t need to worry about that race. The article also mentions IN-08 and TX-17, but that were covered a couple of days ago. Continue reading Democratic Death Panel Watch, 10/07/2010.

Democratic Death Panel Watch, 10/05/2010.

Via Jim Geraghty, reports are in that the following three districts have been abandoned by the DCCC.  Well, technically, all that’s happening is one week’s worth of ad purchases have been canceled by the DCCC.  Then again, there’s only four weeks left – and it’s not like any of them are considered safe retentions at this point:

  • IN-08.  Open seat: the old incumbent is Brad Ellsworth, who decided not to run again in favor of losing a Senate race to Dan Coats. The Democratic challenger to Larry Bucshon is pretty much irrelevant at this point; Cook rates this seat as Likely Republican.
  • IN-09.  The incumbent is Baron Hill (best known for this); his opponent is Todd Young.  Cook rates this one as Toss-Up.
  • TX-17.  The incumbent is Chet Edwards; his opponent is Bill Flores.  Cook rates this one as Toss-Up.

It should be emphasized that Chet Edwards has been in Congress for twenty years; he survived the Texas Redistricting Massacre of 2003 and has been holding on ever since; he’s on the Budget and Appropriations committees.  Baron Hill was in Congress from 1998 to 2004, got beat in 2004, then came back in 2006.  These are not political neophytes, nor are they unskilled (Hill is conceited and arrogant, but not unskilled).  Their seats should not be hard to defend.

Which makes you wonder which seats are in even worse shape.

Moe Lane (crosspost)

Democratic Death Panel Watch: Baron Hill, IN-09.

The DCCC is cutting Hill loose; while it’s being – nervously – categorized as being merely an internal dispute, the practical end result is that the section of the DCCC that can do unlimited funding (independent expenditures) has canceled critical ad time while the section of the DCCC that cannot (coordinated) will be offering, at best, a token 87K. Hill, of course, is the super-genius who did this last year:

Continue reading Democratic Death Panel Watch: Baron Hill, IN-09.

The DCCC’s Super-Genius November Strategy.

In the process of trying to convince people that Tom Perriello might possibly have a chance at keeping his seat in Virginia’s Fifth District (given Perriello’s bad habit of voting as directed by his party’s liberal leadership) against Robert Hurt, the Washington Post tried to trot out this particular line of nonse… ah, conventional wisdom:

Though polls suggest that Republicans are by far the more energized party this year, the Democrats argue that — unlike the last time they lost the House, in 1994 — they aren’t being caught off-guard.

Not off-guard?  Let’s take a look at the chart below. Continue reading The DCCC’s Super-Genius November Strategy.

#rsrh Correction to this NYT story.

Gist of said story: the Democrats have announced 20 more races where they’re scared enough of the results to lock in more advertising money in them ahead of time; add that to the 40 or so that they’ve already started panicking over and that comes to about 49 million overall pre-spent.  In other words, they’ve managed to cover almost 2/3rds of the races that they should be worried about!  Continue reading #rsrh Correction to this NYT story.

#rsrh *Only* 430 of 435?

Tsk, tsk, tsk.

Republicans have found candidates to run in 430 of 435 districts this fall, a total that tops the party’s previous high of 427, which was set in 1996.

[snip]

In 2006, there were 422 Democrats on the ballot compared with 388 Republicans. Last cycle, House Democrats put up 420 candidates to Republicans’ 392.

Oh, I guess we’re just going to have to forgive the NRCC this one time, though. Continue reading #rsrh *Only* 430 of 435?

DCCC retreating on November results.

Again.

It’s not quite counting coup on my part – I had suggested that by about June the DCCC would be bragging about how they’ll keep us from getting enough votes for veto overrides – but I am pleased to see that the slow march by the Democrats towards objective reality is continuing.

Slowly.  Slowly is good.

…the last thing Dems need is a group of major donors convinced that another check will just be throwing good money after bad.

But the goal posts keep moving. At other times over the last 2 years, Dems have said their goal was to limit losses to fewer than 10 seats. Dems later said they would gladly take a 15-seat hit, assuming the environment might worsen further. By Feb., Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), who leads the DCCC’s incumbent retention program, said they party would lose fewer than 25 seats.

[snip]

On Tuesday, DNC chair Tim Kaine acknowledged the possibility of losing the House. But, he said, that’s not anything new, citing an average loss of 28 seats in midterm elections for an incumbent party — though he hinted that party losses might be much greater.

Continue reading DCCC retreating on November results.

Red to… well, Blue to Red, and maybe one of them will flip back.

Not a catchy title, I know.

There’s a good deal of laughing going around about the DCCC’s latest quote-unquote ‘Red to Blue’ announcement, mostly because it’s fairly clear that they’re kind of doing it wrong.  Generally speaking, it’s not really considered newsworthy that you’ve managed to find a candidate for a seat that you’re already holding, but the current officeholder is abandoning like a scared little puppy; and yet the DCCC has seven of their eleven new ‘challengers’ doing precisely that.  The list is below:

Race Notes
AR-01 Open (D)
AR-02 Open (D)
IN-08 Open (D)
MI-01 Open (D)
WA-03 Open (D)
WV-01 Open (D)
WI-07 Open (D)
HI-01 Tossup R
MN-06 Likely R
PA-06 Likely R
MO-08 Safe R

Continue reading Red to… well, Blue to Red, and maybe one of them will flip back.

DCCC cuts and runs from HI-01.

DOOM.

Guess they decided to stop throwing money away, more’s the pity.

The DCCC is pulling out of the race to replace ex-Rep. Neil Abercrombie (D-HI), effectively ceding the heavily Dem seat to the GOP as intra-party feuding splits the vote.

“The DCCC will not be investing additional resources in the HI-01 (Abercrombie-open) special election. Local Democrats were unable to work out their differences,” DCCC communications director Jennifer Crider said in an emailed statement. “The DCCC will save the resources we would have invested in the Hawaii special election this month for the general election in November.”

But they swear that they’ll be back for the general election!  – Assuming, of course, that Hawaii Democrats stop with this silly notion that they know better than Washington does about who would be a suitable candidate for HI-01.

Moe Lane

PS: Charles Djou for Congress.  After all, we want to keep this seat past November.

Crossposted to RedState.