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Cook upgrades two dozen races

by: Carnacki

Thu Jul 03, 2008 at 5:01 PM EDT


In 2006, ineffective Bush Republican Rep. Shelley Moore Capito won re-election with 57 percent of the vote in a year that saw Democrats take over the House nationally.  
Carnacki :: Cook upgrades two dozen races
George Bush won in a landslide in the district. You'd think there couldn't be a more "Solid Republican" seat.

Today Cook Political Report (subscription required) has upgraded the race in Barth's direction once again. As I've understood it, the Cook Political Report only moves a race up one notch at a time. WV-02 has gone from "Solid Republican" to "Likely Republican" to "Lean Republican."

That doesn't mean Barth doesn't have a lot of ground to make up and a lot of work to do. With her Big Oil fat cats, coal barons, Wall Street, mortgage lenders and banks helping to keep her in office as a reliable rubberstamp for their interests, Capito has three times the money in the bank.

But it's no wonder Republicans are having to spend money from [a fund to assist challengers to help try to save Capito.

Barth is taking Capito to the mats and Capito's spokesman already is crying about it.

The more people learn of Capito's record and not the faux moderate image the media has let her create, the less they like her. By contrast, the more people who meet Barth, the more they like her.

Capito can't. Anne can. It's that simple.

Here's the 27 races upgraded in our direction

AL-03    Mike Rogers    Solid Republican to Likely Republican
CA-46    Dana Rohrabacher    Solid Republican to Likely Republican
FL-08    Ric Keller    Likely Republican to Lean Republican
FL-09    Gus Bilirakis    Solid Republican to Likely Republican
FL-18    Ileana Ros-Lehtinen    Solid Republican to Likely Republican
FL-21    Lincoln Diaz-Balart    Likely Republican to Lean Republican
ID-01    Bill Sali    Solid Republican to Likely Republican
IN-03    Mark Souder    Solid Republican to Likely Republican
IA-04    Tom Latham    Solid Republican to Likely Republican
KY-02    OPEN (Lewis)    Solid Republican to Likely Republican
MN-02    John Kline    Solid Republican to Likely Republican
NE-02    Lee Terry    Solid Republican to Likely Republican
NV-02    Dean Heller    Solid Republican to Likely Republican
NJ-05    Scott Garrett    Solid Republican to Likely Republican
NY-13    OPEN (Fossella)    Toss Up to Lean Democratic
NY-25    OPEN (Walsh)    Toss Up to Lean Democratic
NC-10    Patrick McHenry    Solid Republican to Likely Republican
OH-07    OPEN (Hobson)    Solid Republican to Likely Republican
PA-03    Phil English    Likely Republican to Lean Republican
PA-05    OPEN (Peterson)    Solid Republican to Likely Republican
PA-11    Paul Kanjorksi    Likely Democratic to Lean Democratic
PA-15    Charlie Dent    Solid Republican to Likely Republican
TX-07    John Culberson    Solid Republican to Likely Republican
TX-10    Michael McCaul    Solid Republican to Likely Republican
VA-05    Virgil Goode    Solid Republican to Likely Republican
VA-10    Frank Wolf    Solid Republican to Likely Republican
WV-02    Shelley Moore Capito    Likely Republican to Lean Republican
WY-AL    OPEN (Cubin)    Solid Republican to Likely Republican
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Cook upgrades two dozen races | 36 comments
I'm glad to see that Cook is taking a look at PA-05. We invite YOU to do the same!
Mark B. McCracken is a candidate with real-world experience working for the citizens of PA's 5th CD.

I invite you to take a look at the campaign website at http://www.mccrackenforcongres... and to read his blog 'PA's Blue Fifth'.

---------------------------------------------------------
Turn PA-05 BLUE!

Website:McCracken for Congress

Blog:PA's Blue Fifth

The next fundraising reports will be telling.
I think the big opening here, is that Republicans picked their least funded candidate with their primary.  
[ Parent ]
suck great news!
It is wonderful to see CA-46 getting some recognition. Rohrabacher is a terrible Republican and it is time for him to be replaced.
Of course...
SSP has had this race in the Likely R column since March. :)
[ Parent ]
well
That's why I read SSP like 8 times a day, and the others a couple times a week.  
[ Parent ]
You are a wise man, my friend. (n/t)

[ Parent ]
In most cases Cook is slow to make changes
But a few of the races he moved to likely rep such as AL-03, FL-09 and IA-04 I had still considered safe rep.
Slow and conservative...
Don't expect many incumbents to move to worse than toss-up, no matter what writing's on the wall.
[ Parent ]
No incumbents worse than tossups
Considering Cook still had IN-08 (Hostettler) at tossup by election day 2006 it is obvious he'll never move any repub incumbents to lean dem.  Everyone know Hostettler wasn't just going to lose, but lose by double-digits in 2006.  Though his 22 point landslide defeat did even take me by surprise.
[ Parent ]
That was a silly call
However... I seem to recall him moving Curt Weldon (PA-07) to Lean Dem a week or two before election day.
[ Parent ]
True but
That's because his daughter's house was raided by the FBI in part due to corruption on her father's part. That kind of behavior doesn't fly in Alaska, and certainly doesn't fly in a district that voted for Kerry who barely even know who the heck their Congressman was.
[ Parent ]
No it wasn't
I still have a printed copy of Cook's final election day ratings.  He had no republic incumbents at Lean Dem.  And he had only four republican seat open races (NY-24,CO-07,IA-01,OH-18) at Lean Dem.

Overall his final ratings were good though for 2006.
Dems 4 of 4 republican seats rated Lean Dem
Dems 21 of 38 republican seats rated Tossup
Dems won 2 of 12 republican seats rated Lean Rep (Those being NY-19,TX-23)  
Dems won 2 of 13 republican seats rated Likely Rep (Those being our biggest upsets NH-01 and IA-02)

And of course Dems held all seats that he rated as at risk in 2006 which included 1 Tossup (GA-12), 6 Lean Dem and 13 Likely Dem.  

[ Parent ]
Hm, my mistake...
Maybe it was CQ. I wish Cook kept his 2006 ratings available in archive form. The were available until relatively recently, I believe.
[ Parent ]
Before Cook changed his website
And took down his 2006 and prior race charts, I noticed that he has many more republican seats on his chart right now than he did at this time in 2006.  Though naturally there are quite a few more Dem seats on the chart this year than 2006 due to all of our freshmen in marginal districts.
[ Parent ]
Cook totals
I jotted down Cook's totals for each of the 30 ratings periods starting on March 17,2006 and going through November 6,2006.  It was amazing, but there were less than a handful of times that Cook did not show Republicans dropping.  

For a comparison, Cook's ratings of June 29,2006 were:

Likely D  10 D/0 R
Lean D    11 D/0 R
Tossup     0 D/14 R
Lean R     0 D/21 R
Likely R   0 D/18 R

By July 12 that had inched to:

Likely D   10 D/0 R
Lean D     10 D/0 R
Tossup      0 D/14 R
Lean R      0 D/21 R
Likely R    0 D/18 R

That small change showing lesser D vulnerability was all the novement Cook was showing at the time and there were a lot of D seats he showed as vulnerable early that were clearly safe but had Republican PVIs (North and South Dakota at large come glaringly to mind).

Cook's final numbers were less Republican than Rothenbergs. Larry Sabato had fewer seat in play but more tossups (especially Republican seats).  Cook eventually got pretty close but it took him a long tine to inch in at his glacial pace.  All of them showed at least 162 Safe Republican seats.  That number is clearly shrinking for this election.  Of course, there are fewer Republican seats but the field is also shifting our way.

This is quite a change for Cook.

[ Parent ]
Kanjorski's a downgrade, not an upgrade
minor point. He's a Dem incumbent, and they moved him from likely Dem to lean Dem.

Delaware Liberal - biggest and best blog in Delaware.
X Stryker
Doh! Someone pointed that out at DKos and I forgot to change it when I crossposted. Let's face, my focus is pretty much on one race.

[ Parent ]
Am I the only one not buying PA-11 as being at any real risk?
Kanjorski's district is pretty heavily democratic at D+5 and he's never been re-elected with less than 58% of the vote, that being in 2002 against the same candidate he faces this year, Barletta.  I just cannot see a nutter like Barletta winning, or even coming closer than 10 points in such a democratic district in a pro-Dem year.
[ Parent ]
DC insiders seem to think that Kanjorski is scared
Because he's spending early on campaign ads and refusing to comment on Barletta's poll. Who knows.

He SHOULDN'T be vulnerable, but he's clearly rusty and not used to a spirited campaign. If the Repukes can capitalize on anti-incumbent sentiment, this could be a fluke race for them. I kinda doubt it, but we'll see.

[ Parent ]
Could be a good thing
Incumbants need a little scare now and again, or they get lazy. Like Rohrabacher. DONATE! haha
[ Parent ]
PA-11, NV-03
The two downgrades for Democrats were PA-11 and NV-03.

In PA-11, this could be a case where the immigration issue helps Barletta this time around.  It's still a potent issue--remember that Utah primary.

In NV-03, what's up with Dina Titus?  Is she raising enough money.  Wasn't Ron Porter vulnerable?  

Anyway, I'm not as bullish on big gains for Democrats, as some others are.

[ Parent ]
Look at the previous rankings table...
I thought I saw PA-11 and NV-03 were unchanged from the previous table, regardless of what the top-line summary said.
[ Parent ]
here's the direct link
http://www.cookpolitical.com/r...
(link taken from The Albany Project)

That seems to say that it's PA-10, i.e. Carney's chances, that Cook is downrating.  Not Kanjorski.

More worrying to me is that he's downrated NV-3 from Toss Up to Leans Republican.  Has Dina Titus done something politically bad recently that I haven't heard about?

[ Parent ]
That is wrong
Cook is been poor in his update accuracy lately.  PA-10 was moved to Tossup over a month ago, not today.
[ Parent ]
Also, NV-03
NV-03 was never rated a tossup this cycle.  It's been Lean Rep for sometime now.  That's another error on his front page.
[ Parent ]
I think that's a mistake
With Cook changing that many races, I think NV-03 was an accidental error. There's really nothing that Titus did wrong to merit a downgrade. Perhaps it was Lean R all along.
[ Parent ]
Yes.
PA-10 was already a toss up.  FL-09 was already Likely Republican.  Cook is changing stuff to what they already are.  Kind of odd.  
[ Parent ]
FL 9
FL 9th was Safe R on June 19th, according to the chart. Maybe you're looking at Fl 8th (now leans R)

16, Male, MI-01
[ Parent ]
Whatever. I had it listed, pretty sure I didn't change it at all this time around.

[ Parent ]
Cook didn't move Kanjorski, but Rothenberg did
Stuart Rothenberg published a minor update to his House ratings dated 7/4, Kanjorski moves from Likely to Lean Dem there.

Other changes:
OH-18 : Likely Dem to Safe Dem
OR-05 : Tilt Dem to Lean Dem
NY-13 : Tossup to Tilt Dem
PA-18 : Likely Rep to Safe Rep

What do y'all think of his ratings?  I think he's more conservative in his rankings on both sides; only 23 D and 41 R seats are ranked other than Safe by Rothenberg, as opposed to 33 D and 68 R ranked other than Safe by Cook.

[ Parent ]
Rothenberg is my least favorite
of the big three (CQ, Cook), his ratings are very conservative, he doesnt rate any incumbents but young No Clear Favorite, when there are many who should be rated tossup.  Cooks ratings are more accurate, with 19 R seats tossup and 7 D tossups.  Stu only has 8R, 6D.

16, Male, MI-01
[ Parent ]
I'll agree with that
It's not just Rothenberg's ratings that are bad, his columns are really bad too.  He's always struck me as the most pro-republican of the "independent election analysts."
[ Parent ]
Bout time they got WY-AL and NY-13 and FL-18 and FL-21
Though...IN-03?  I guess that must mean that race really is quite promising!

party: Democratic, ideology: moderate, district: CT-01
Well... IN-03 was close in 2006
I think we only lost something like 54-46 there in 2006.  And we have a candidate raising a lot of money this year.  I'd say Likely Rep is fair.

I agree with the Florida moves as well, aside from FL-09.  I'd still put FL-09 as safe Rep.  It was an open seat in 2006, we had a decent candidate who raised a lot of money and we still got crushed.

Florida 8th is absolutely our best pickup opportunity in FL, with FL-24 (my district) a close second.  FL-08 is trending Dem very fast and Keller isn't well liked.

[ Parent ]
Yeah
No one really knows who Keller is and I suspect it's because he's done nothing in Congress except break his promise of term limits, which basically won him the Republican nomination, and put up cheeseburger legislation. There have been so many Puerto Rican immigrants moving into that district. If we just get them out to vote, we should win that seat. The problem could be money with the late primary, depending on who wins, but it's good to see Keller will have to spend something too.

FL-24 is still looking very good. Kosmas has run a good campaign and she's just helped by the fact that Feeney is so extreme. I even think this could be a better pickup opportunity than FL-08 just because of that and Kosmas actually has held elected office before.

FL-09 will be tougher than it was in 2006 and we had unfortunate recruitment failure in FL-15, but anything can happen. It will be interesting to see financial reports for those seats.

[ Parent ]
NC-10
Well now, glad to see that one.  I guess Cook has been reading SSP again...
Cook upgrades two dozen races | 36 comments

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