Posts Tagged ‘pennsylvania’

Pennsylvania Voters Oppose Partisan Effort to Change Electoral Vote

Posted on: September 29th, 2011 by Kyle. | No Comments

Republican politicians in Pennsylvania have floated around the idea of changing state election law to give their party’s nominee an advantage in next year’s election. The Democratic-leaning state has not supported a Republican for president since George Bush’s father in 1988 against Michael Dukakis. Barack Obama easily defeated John McCain here in 2008 by a margin of over ten percentage points – slightly more than 600,000 votes.

So how do Republicans in the state plan on undermining President Obama in his bid for re-election?

The answer is actually pretty simple. They don’t have to raise millions of dollars, run TV ads or even get volunteers to canvass for votes. All they have to do is change a mundane election law within the state to move from a “winner-take-all” system, where the winner of the statewide race gets all Electoral Votes, to a system that is based on Congressional districts. In this system there would literally be 18 different elections for president taking place within Pennsylvania.

Let me explain. Each ten years the Census is held as required by the Constitution. Along with the Census comes Congressional redistricting where each state legislature is tasked with redrawing lines to make sure that each Congressional district has the same number of people. Since people move in and out of states, as well as around within the same state, this is a necessary reflection of the flow of people.

However, redistricting is often a partisan process. If a single party controls a state House, Senate and governor’s mansion, as the Republicans do in Pennsylvania currently, they can engineer a map that conforms to their political wishes. Essentially they are expected to produce a map where a state that voted 55% for Barack Obama in 2008 will only elect 6 Democrats to Congress next year and 12 Republicans. If Obama only carries those Democratic districts and not any Republican districts, he could win the statewide popular vote in Pennsylvania but decisively lose their Electoral Votes.

A new poll done by the independent Quinnipiac University finds that 52% of Pennsylvania voters oppose the effort to change the law to only 40% that support it. It’s no surprise that 57% of voters say that the changes being proposed are only being done to help the Republican presidential candidate. Among the all-important independent voters in the state, support for keeping winner-takes-all stands at 53%. Even Republican voters are hesitant to support these partisan efforts. 44% of Republicans say leave it alone, while 48% want the law to be changed.

“Pennsylvania voters say stick to the winner-take-all formula used in most states: Whoever gets the most popular votes, wins all of the state’s Electoral College votes,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute. “Overall, most Pennsylvanians think the proposal is being presented to give partisan advantage to Republicans. By large margins, Democrats and independent voters are not buying that ‘will of the voters’ argument.”

Of course because these same lawmakers get to draw up their own maps for state House and Senate districts, not just Congressional maps, what voters think might not matter all that much. The voters don’t get to decide their politicians, the politicians get to decide their voters.

How did our projections hold up?

Posted on: November 3rd, 2010 by Kyle. | No Comments

Looking back at last night’s election results and comparing them to the projections that were made on this site, we had a perfect score. The races that we had rated as “Toss-ups” split 4-2 for the Republicans, but all of the “Leans Democrat” seats stayed in Democratic hands (the only caveat is that Washington state still has votes yet to be counted). Let’s take a look at the projections from October 27:

The “Toss-up” states that I had listed were Alaska, Colorado, Illinois, Nevada, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin. States that “Lean Democrat” included California, Washington and West Virginia. Now let’s look at the actual results on Election Day:

The individual results for the “Toss-up” states looked like this, organized by how close the final result was:

Colorado

Michael Bennet (D) – 47.7%
Ken Buck (R) – 46.8%

Pennsylvania

Pat Toomey (R) – 51%
Joe Sestak (D) – 49%

Illinois

Mark Kirk (R) – 48.3%
Alexi Giannoulias (D) – 46.2%

Wisconsin

Ron Johnson (R) – 51.9%
Russ Feingold (D) – 47.1%

Nevada

Harry Reid (D) – 50.2%
Sharron Angle (R) – 44.6%

Alaska

Lisa Murkowski (Write-in) – 41%
Joe Miller (R) – 34.2%

Analysis:

We can look at these results and conclude a few things. First, the conventional wisdom that Harry Reid was dead in Nevada was wrong. Not only did he win, he got over 50 percent of the vote. In Pennsylvania, many pundits had assumed that Pat Toomey was well ahead of Joe Sestak. The final results showed a tight 2 point race. Wisconsin, which some people criticized me for listing as a “Toss-up”, turned out to be closer than both Nevada and West Virginia. Lastly, incumbent Senator Lisa Murkowski went against the odds to win a write-in vote over the Republican nominee, Joe Miller, who defeated her in the primary just a couple months ago. In each of the “Toss-up” calls that were made, the final results were anywhere between 0.9 – 6.8%. None of the races that were listed as either “Leans Democrat” or “Leans Republican” switched parties.

Election Projection 2010: Northeast Senate Seats

Posted on: October 20th, 2010 by Kyle. | No Comments

We’re now just two weeks away from the midterm elections. Today, we’re going to have a look at the Northeast:

Connecticut
Incumbent: Chris Dodd (D) – Retiring
Challenger(s): Linda McMahon (R), Richard Blumenthal (D)
Prediction: Leans Democrat

Linda McMahon joins several other wealthy Republican businesswomen that have run for office this year (California’s Meg Whitman and Carly Fiorina are the other two). Each of them appears likely to lose in Democratically-inclined states. McMahon made her wealth as an executive for WWE (yes, that McMahon). Blumenthal has made a point that the company’s health record is not all that great. In fact, it’s quite poor. Several wrestlers died either while McMahon was the leader of the WWE or shortly after leaving the company. Blumenthal has problems of his own, taking credit for serving in Vietnam, when in fact, he was only in the military at the time, but not stationed in Vietnam. Still, even though both candidates have character flaws, Connecticut is a Democratic state and will likely elect Blumenthal. Polls show him leading anywhere from five points to double digits.

Delaware
Incumbent: Ted Kaufman (D) – Retiring
Challenger(s): Christine O’Donnell (R), Chris Coons (D)
Prediction: Likely Democrat

Perhaps no Senate race has garnered more media coverage than Delaware. In a normal year, it wouldn’t get any attention at all. That was until political neophyte and Tea Party darling Christine O’Donnell knocked off Congressman and former governor Mike Castle, a moderate, to win the Republican Party’s primary. Castle was an overwhelming favorite to win the general election and give the Republicans a pick-up. Now the odds have flipped. Democrats are overwhelmingly favored to hold on to the former seat of Vice President Joe Biden. If Republicans manage to win 9 Senate seats this year, O’Donnell and the Tea Party will be vilified for handing the Senate to the Democrats.

Maryland
Incumbent: Barbara Mikulski (D)
Challenger(s): Eric Wargotz (R)
Prediction: Likely Democrat

Not a whole lot to say about Maryland’s Senate race. Incumbent Democrat Barbara Mikulski will easily get re-elected over Republican challenger Eric Wargotz. The only question is by how much. The real race to watch in Maryland is for governor, where incumbent Democrat Martin O’Malley finds himself in a rematch with the man whom he defeated in 2006, former governor Bob Ehrlich.

New Hampshire
Incumbent: Judd Gregg (R) – Retiring
Challenger(s): Kelly Ayotte (R), Paul Hodes (D)
Prediction: Leans Republican

New Hampshire was a state that was trending towards the Democrats. While George W. Bush won the state in 2000, John Kerry picked it up in 2004, and Barack Obama improved upon that in 2008. Democrats won both House seats and the governor’s mansion in 2006 and a Senate seat in 2008, yet polling shows that Republicans are likely to pick up at least one (possibly both) of the state’s House seats and hold on to their remaining Senate seat. Paul Hodes, the Democratic Congressman running for the Senate, is trailing New Hampshire Attorney General Kelly Ayotte by anywhere from 5 to 15 points. Hodes saw a mini-surge in his standing when former Alaska governor Sarah Palin endorsed Ayotte, but it does not appear to have helped him enough.

New York (A)
Incumbent: Chuck Schumer (D)
Challenger(s): Jay Townsend (R)
Prediction: Likely Democrat

New York is having two Senate races this year: one is the seat held by Chuck Schumer and the other is the former seat of Hillary Clinton, now held by Kirsten Gillibrand. Both Democrats are expected to win quite easily. Schumer has over $24 million in the bank and his Republican opponent has not even raised $100,000. If Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid goes down in November, Schumer has shown interest for his job and would likely face off against Illinois Senator Dick Durbin.

New York (B)
Incumbent: Kirsten Gillibrand (D)
Challenger(s): Joseph DioGuardi (R)
Prediction: Likely Democrat

Kirsten Gillibrand is an upstate New York politician and the incumbent Senator of her seat. She was appointed by Governor David Paterson to fill Hillary Clinton’s seat after she resigned to become Secretary of State. Gillibrand is conservative by New York standards, but has moved to the left since joining the Upper Chamber. As a former member of the House, she road the Democratic wave of 2006 to victory. While Gillibrand is the favorite over former Congressman Joseph DioGuardi, this will be a closer race than Schumer’s. Nonetheless, national Republicans are not putting any money into the race.

Pennsylvania
Incumbent: Arlen Specter (D) – Retiring
Challenger(s): Pat Toomey (R), Joe Sestak (D)
Prediction: Toss-up

There have been many odd races across the country so far this year. Pennsylvania was one of the first. Senator Arlen Specter, at the time a Republican, switched parties after he learned that he would face a challenge from far-right conservative Pat Toomey, a former congressman that challenged Specter in 2004. Toomey lost that race, but not by much, and was favored to beat Specter the second time. Specter switched parties and ran as a Democrat, hoping that no one would notice his voting record. While Specter voted reliably with the Democrats following his switch, Democratic voters had a choice of electing a real Democrat when Joe Sestak jumped into the race. Sestak had run in 2006 and won a Philadelphia area district. He was the underdog throughout most of the race, but brilliantly used ads showing Specter talking about he switched parties to be re-elected. Now Sestak finds himself in the underdog position yet again. However, polls have shown a tightening of the race with a couple even showing Sestak in the lead. Sestak also has a money advantage over Toomey in these final weeks.

Adjustments

Since our last update we have seen several changes in the Senate outlook, each of them at the expense of Democrats. Some states, such as Wisconsin, have moved from Leans Democrat to Toss-up. West Virginia, which was rated as Likely Democrat, is now Leans Democrat. Nevada is moving from Leans Democrat to Toss-Up; Florida Toss-Up to Leans Republican; North Carolina from Toss-Up to Leans Republican; Ohio from Toss-Up to Likely Republican; Arizona from Leans Republican to Likely Republican; Colorado from Leans Democrat to Toss-Up; and Missouri from Toss-Up to Leans Republican. We’ll detail a few of these changes below:

Colorado – Appointed Senator Michael Bennet has struggled to fend off a challenge from Tea Party candidate Ken Buck. The outspoken Buck has said that he opposes abortion in all cases, including rape and incest. He has also said that being gay is a choice, not something that you are born with. Candidates like this would not normally win in a state like Colorado, but with a bad economy, voters are desperate.

Florida – Democrat Kendrick Meek and Governor Charlie Crist, a former Republican turned independent, have been nuking each other over the airwaves. Republican Tea Party favorite Marco Rubio has benefitted from this sniping and will probably squeak by with less than 50 percent of the vote. It isn’t possible for a divided left to win in a swing state like Florida. All Rubio needs to do is carry the Republican vote heavily and he wins.

Ohio – Ohio is a state that has simply gone out of reach for Democrats. Lt. Governor Lee Fisher is the Democratic candidate and Rob Portman the Republican, a former Congressman and Budget Director in the Bush administration. Fisher is a poor campaigner and fundraiser, while Portman has benefitted from the Bush donor list. National Democrats have pulled the plug on their financial support of Fisher, putting it in states where they think they can win (like Colorado and nearby Pennsylvania). On the other hand, Democratic hopes have improved in Ohio’s gubernatorial race. Incumbent governor Ted Strickland has at least a 50/50 chance of winning re-election over Republican John Kasich.

Below is a map of the Senate races that we have covered so far:

Map

Moderates Not Welcome in Republican Party

Posted on: March 10th, 2010 by Kyle. | No Comments

The sign on the door of the GOP is simple: “Moderates Need Not Apply”. The latest moderate GOP politician, if you can call him that, is Delaware’s lone Congressman Mike Castle. He is running for the Senate seat formerly held by Joe Biden before he became Vice President. Biden’s son Beau decided against running for his father’s former seat, leaving Castle as the favorite.

The Tea Partiers won’t have any of that, though. They strive for ideological purity over pragmatic political choices. You would think that they would have learned from last fall’s New York 23rd District that running teabaggers is not a way to win elections in swing districts. Democrat Bill Owens won that race, despite the fact that it had been Republican since the Civil War.

Instead, a right-wing challenger is exactly what Mike Castle is going to get. As reported by the Wilmington News Journal, Christine O’Donnell will challenge Rep. Mike Castle (R) in Delaware’s GOP Senate primary. She is a political commentator and a former (unsuccessful) two time candidate for Senate in 2006 and 2008. I can guarantee that O’Donnell will give Castle a run for his money if she fully embraces the Tea Party movement.

You may recall Congressman Castle from a town hall meeting last summer where a member of the audience brought in her birth certificate and demanded to know “why are you people ignoring his birth certificate?” Of course, she is referring to President Obama. The crowd burst into applause. “He is NOT an American citizen. He is a citizen of Kenya.” When Congressman Castle corrected her, the crowd booed him.

These people are the base of the Republican Party today. Moderates like Mike Castle, who will at least publicly say that the President is a U.S. citizen, are not popular with the Tea Party crowd. It’s odd how you are now a moderate if you can recognize facts from lunatic fringe conspiracy theories, but that’s the reality that we are living in.

Castle is not the only Republican facing a serious challenge from conservative challengers. Senator Arlen Specter was challenged from the right in Pennsylvania and left the Republican Party last year because polling showed that he would lose to conservative Pat Toomey. He was just the first casualty of this war against moderates. Governor Charlie Crist of Florida, once the favorite to win the Republican nomination for Senate in Florida, is now trailing conservative challenger Marco Rubio by nearly 20 percent. Not even the nominee of the Republican Party in 2008 is immune to these primary challenges. John McCain is facing off against former Congressman J.D. Hayworth.

For Democrats, the self-implosion of the Republican Party from right-wing extremists is a welcome development going into the 2010 elections. Democrats can position their candidates against the same tired conservative politicians that ran the country into the ground under George W. Bush. Unfortunately, it also means that there will be even fewer potential allies for President Obama and Congressional Democrats to turn to in order to pass legislation.

Toomey Talks Specter on Hannity

Posted on: April 29th, 2009 by Kyle. | No Comments

Earlier today Senator Arlen Specter of Pennsylvania switched parties from Republican to Democrat. The right wing loon machine is in full swing spinning his departure as long overdue. Nevermind the fact that Republicans now only have 40 members with zero chance of actually winning the Pennsylvania seat back. The person who inspired Specter’s defection, former Representative Pat Toomey, spoke with Sean Hannity tonight:

Specter Not Running as a Democrat, Losing as a Republican

Posted on: March 25th, 2009 by Kyle. | No Comments

Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter all but confirmed yesterday that he was not running as a Democrat in next year’s election when he announced that he would oppose the Employee Free Choice Act (EFCA). The EFCA would essentially make it easier for employees of companies to form and join unions. Specter, a moderate Republican, is facing a stiff primary challenge from the conservative Pat Toomey who lost to Specter in 2004 by just 2 percent.

Under current law an employee requests blank cards (“card check”) from an existing union and requests the signature of his fellow employees. When 30% of employees sign the cards, the company could then request a secret ballot election. The Employee Free Choice Act would guarantee the formation of a union if a majority of employees sign the cards and would not require an election. The law does stipulate that if 30 percent of employees petition for an election then one is held. But if a majority sign the cards then a majority will likely support unionization in an election.

“The problems of a recession make this a particularly bad time to enact Employee’s choice legislation,” Specter said. “Employers understandably complain that adding a burden would result in further job losses. If efforts are unsuccessful to give labor sufficient bargaining power through amendments to the [National Labor Relations Act] then I would be willing to reconsider Employees choice legislation when the economy returns to normalcy. I am announcing my decision now because I have consulted with a very large number of interested parties on both sides and I have made up my mind.”

Specter’s problem is twofold: he will now undoubtedly face a strong challenge from the Democratic Party, as well as the primary challenge that he is likely to lose. According to the latest poll from the Keystone State, Specter would win only 27 percent of the vote in a Republican primary. Toomey has the support of 41 percent of Republicans. Compare that to his 45 – 31 percent favorable among all voters and you can see why running as a Democrat would have made sense. Within his own party, he gets a 47 – 29 percent unfavorable rating, a pitiful showing for an incumbent senator.

The Real News in Pennsylvania: The Republican Primary

Posted on: April 24th, 2008 by Kyle. | No Comments

With all of the talk of the “tide turning”, as Hillary Clinton puts it, the media lost focus on a huge story in Pennsylvania’s primary yesterday. No, it was not Clinton’s 9 point win where she only managed to reduce her 160+ delegate deficit by roughly 12. Not only was Hillary expected to win, she led by as much as 30% just a few months ago. Her “win” was not significant enough to turn any tide or dismount the all-but-certain nominee, Barack Obama.

It was in the Republican primary where real news was made. For all of the talk of division in the Democratic Party, despite record turnout and hundreds of thousands of new voters, very few Republicans turned out to vote yesterday in Pennsylvania. Those that did didn’t seem to care much for John McCain. The Republican nominee, who no longer is being challenged, got less than 75% of the vote in the Pennsylvania primary. While the media questions if Hillary supporters will back Obama in the fall, maybe they should be asking if the nearly 30% of Republicans who voted against John McCain will vote for him in the fall?

John McCain – 576,088 72.7%
Ron Paul – 125,810 15.9%
Mike Huckabee – 90,002 11.4%

Now consider this: Ron Paul has hinted that he may run as an independent in the fall. If he does that, a full 16% of the Republican Party could presumably defect. On top of the 10-15 percent that Obama will win, McCain would be looking at losing 25-30% of the Republican base. I’m all for Ron Paul running as a third party. He’s a good man with a few ideas that I agree with. His position on the war is far more in line with the Democrats than it is with John McCain (who epitomizes the pro-war point of view).

Edit: I might add that if it weren’t for Hillary and her stubborn supporters who fail to comprehend basic math, Democrats could more easily exploit McCain’s weaknesses among Republicans. Instead, they appear to be more interested in an intra-party civil war.

Hillary Fails to Close Delegate/Popular Vote Gap; Too Close to Call

Posted on: April 22nd, 2008 by Kyle. | No Comments

It’s now past 8 p.m. on the East coast and in the state of Pennsylvania. Polls have closed in the state and none of the media has called the race for Senator Clinton. As I have noted on this site for many weeks, Hillary needed a 20%+ win in order to make a legitimate claim on the nomination. It appears that, at best, she may only win by less than 5% in a state where just two months ago she was favored by the 20% that she needs to win by. It looks like Obama is well positioned to end this race in two weeks by winning Indiana (which I would now say favors him) and North Carolina. More updates to come…

8:51 p.m. – NBC calls PA for Hillary. This was not unexpected. Right now the numbers are 55-45% with Philadelphia yet to report. Obama could conceivably hold her to a few points. The fact remains that her lead won’t nearly be enough to mean a thing.

9:03 p.m. - The latest numbes are 52-48. It’s clear there won’t be the blowout that Hillary needed. If you are a Hillary supporter, you should realize that your candidate is not going to be the nominee. Stop the bleeding. Unite or die. That’s what the Democratic Party faces in the next two weeks when Indiana and North Carolina votes. Bring it on, Hillary. Indiana is Obama country.

CNN.com Misleads its Readers (Again)

Posted on: April 13th, 2008 by Kyle. | No Comments

Barack Obama faced yet another day of attacks from his opponents (Hillary and McCain), while the media pounced as well, with CNN mischaracterizing what he said:

MUNCIE, Indiana (CNN) — Sen. Barack Obama on Saturday tried to clarify what he meant when he said some small-town Pennsylvanians are “bitter” people who “cling to guns and religion.”

Talk about hacking a quote and misconstruing it to create a fake controversy for headlines. What Obama actually said was:

Here’s how it is: in a lot of these communities in big industrial states like Ohio and Pennsylvania, people have been beaten down so long, and they feel so betrayed by government, and when they hear a pitch that is premised on not being cynical about government, then a part of them just doesn’t buy it. And when it’s delivered by — it’s true that when it’s delivered by a 46-year-old black man named Barack Obama (laugher), then that adds another layer of skepticism (laughter). [...]

But the truth is, is that, our challenge is to get people persuaded that we can make progress when there’s not evidence of that in their daily lives. You go into some of these small towns in Pennsylvania, and like a lot of small towns in the Midwest, the jobs have been gone now for 25 years and nothing’s replaced them. And they fell through the Clinton administration, and the Bush administration, and each successive administration has said that somehow these communities are gonna regenerate and they have not. So it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

Instead of being responsible journalists, CNN’s writers devoted an entire six words out of two paragraphs that he spoke. If you are going to write an article on a speech, at least give a decent portion and some context. You don’t take a word like “bitter”, attribute it to “small-town Pennsylvanians” and say they cling to guns. What he said was that many small towns are economically depressed. The jobs have gone overseas (or to Mexico), they haven’t come back despite promises from the Clintons and Bush’s. Many Americans ARE bitter about the disparity between rich and poor in this country. To say otherwise, like Hillary and McCain are, is to be an elitist. By the way, for Hillary to call Obama an elitist when she just released tax returns showing that she earned $110 million over six years… talk about irony.

Obama to Open South Bend Office

Posted on: March 24th, 2008 by Kyle. | No Comments

Indiana is proving to be a pivotal state in the race for president. While Senator Obama is largely expected to win North Carolina and Hillary is expected to win Pennsylvania, Indiana is seen as a battleground. As a result, Hillary and Bill Clinton have been touring the state for the past couple weeks. Hillary was in Southern Indiana Thursday and Bill was in South Bend for two events on Dyngus Day, the Monday after Easter Polish holiday celebrating the end of Lent. Not to be outdone in the state, Obama has visited Indianapolis and is promising to vigorously campaign throughout Indiana before the May 6 primary. To prove his devotion to winning the state, Obama is opening an office in South Bend, according to the South Bend Tribune.

SOUTH BEND — The campaign of presidential candidate Barack Obama will open an office in South Bend, and Obama will campaign “in every corner” of Indiana, according to information released today by the Obama campaign.

David Plouffe, Obama’s campaign director, said in a conference call today that a schedule of campaign stops is yet to be worked out, but that the Obama campaign will seek to establish a “heavy presence” in the state before its May 6 primary.

“It’s going to be a very important primary,” Plouffe said.

Former U.S. Rep. Tim Roemer, who is campaigning for Obama in Indiana, spoke at the conference call on the issues that matter to Hoosiers. He highlighted economic issues and national security.