Last year all five Iowa incumbents in the House of Representatives were re-elected by double-digit margins. The main challengers failed to win even 40 percent of the vote against Democrats Bruce Braley (IA-01) and Dave Loebsack (IA-02), as well as Republicans Tom Latham (IA-04) and Steve King (IA-05).
• KY-Sen: Here's a surprise; Mitch McConnell says he still won't endorse in the GOP Senate primary, despite the presence of only one establishment candidate anymore (SoS Trey Grayson). Is he worried about drawing the wrath of the nationwide army of malfunctioning Paulbots? Anyway, even though he won't endorse, he and 22 other GOP Senators are still planning to host a $500/person fundraiser in DC for Grayson in September.
• LA-Sen: David Vitter dodged rumored challenges from Suzanne Terrell, Tony Perkins, and John Cooksey, but his luck may yet run out. Retired Lt. General Russel Honore, who has a high profile from his role in leading forces tasked with rescuing Katrina victims, says he's leaning toward running in the GOP primary. Honore, a Creole African-American who lives near Baton Rouge, says he's been a Republican since the Reagan era. A tough primary might be just what we need to soften up Vitter before loosing Charlie Melancon on him.
• MA-Sen: The Massachusetts Secretary of State says that Gov. Deval Patrick has two choices as to the timing of the special election to fill Ted Kennedy's seat: A Dec. 8 primary and a Jan. 19 general, or a Dec. 15 primary and a Jan. 26 general. (D)
• NV-Sen: If this is meaningful, and not just cloud talk -- that Harry Reid is going on record as saying health care reform must contain a public option, which moves us that much closer since (as best as I can tell) he's the person with primary responsibility for how to merge the (good) HELP and (probably crappy) Finance Committee bills into one -- we may have Danny Tarkanian and Susan Lowden to thank for passage of a public option. Facing suddenly perilous re-election prospects in the polls, Reid may be realizing that he's going to need strong on-the-ground union support to stay in office in 2010, and that he's not getting anything but tepid support from them without a decent reform package.
• AR-Gov: There was a second phase to PPP's Arkansas poll that showed Blanche Lincoln looking weak for re-election, with some details about the 2010 gubernatorial race. If there's one governor in the country who doesn't have much to worry about it, it's Democrat Mike Beebe, who has 63/17 approvals and beats prospective GOP challenger state Rep. Allen Kerr 55-24.
• AZ-Gov: Arizona's Republican Gov. Jan Brewer, still getting her feet wet in the gube office, says that she's "leaning toward" running for a full term in 2010. Despite having a rough time with the state legislator with her proposed tax increases, Brewer says that she "loves being governor, and I love campaigning". (J)
• GA-Gov: Rep. Nathan Deal doesn't seem to be getting much traction in the Georgia Governor's race, but now there are some nasty allegations out that may further dim whatever luster he once had. Apparently he intervened with Georgia state officials, lobbying them to preserve an obscure state program on inspection of rebuilt salvaged vehicles. Deal owns co-owns a salvage company that provides the location for these inspections, a company from which he personally earns up to $150,000 a year. Deal personally lobbied the state Revenue Commissioner against opening the program up to competitors instead of preserving his monopoly.
• SC-Gov: State lawmakers are apparently getting ready to hold a special session of the legislature to impeach and remove Gov. Mark Sanford. Meanwhile, an Insider Advantage poll says 50% of South Carolinians think Sanford should resign. (D)
• IA-05, IA-Gov: Rep. Steve King has ruled out a run for Governor and will run for re-election to the House again. While having been mentioned as a possible candidate earlier in the year, shortly after gay marriage was legalized in Iowa, he hadn't shown much interest lately. Looks like it's Terry Branstad (who's still making up his mind) or bust for the Iowa GOP.
• IL-14: Rotta the Huttlet Ethan Hastert won't have the GOP primary to himself in his attempt to revenge the Hutt Hastert family name. Mark Vargas, a former Dept. of Defense official in Iraq, former Kane County Young Republicans chair, and briefly, an aide in the elder Hastert's district office, said he'll run too.
• MT-AL: Best wishes for a speedy recovery for Rep. Denny Rehberg, who is listed in stable condition after being injured in a boating accident on Flathead Lake at some point between 10 pm and midnight last night.
• NC-08: Republicans finally have a candidate to challenge freshman Democrat Larry Kissell this year, but it's not anyone with a track record of electoral success. Retired Army Col. Lou Huddleston, who won 38% of the vote in an unsuccessful state House campaign last year, announced yesterday that he'll seek the GOP nomination to challenge Kissell just a week after ex-Rep. Robin Hayes and former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory passed on the race. Republicans seem to hope that Huddleston, who is African-American, will chip some support away from Kissell in the district's sizable black community. Good luck with that. (J)
• ND-AL: A Republican has stepped forward to take on entrenched Blue Dog Earl Pomeroy in North Dakota. Paul Schaffner currently is an insurance salesperson and has no electoral experience, but may have some residual name rec from his stints as football player at NDSU and assistant coach at local Jamestown College and Univ. of Mary.
• NYC-Mayor: SurveyUSA has a new poll of the Democratic primaries in New York City, which closely match the Quinnipiac findings earlier this week. For the Dem nod in the mayoral race, Comptroller William Thompson leads city councilor Tony Avella, 48-13. Ex-Public Advocate and former mayoral candidate Mark Green has a big lead at 38% in the Public Advocate primary. City councilor Melinda Katz leads the Comptroller field at 27%.
• IL-05: Congratulations to our newest House member, Mike Quigley. The Cook County Commissioner won the special election in this safe Dem seat last night, defeating GOPer Rosanna Pulido 70-24 (with the balance going to Green Party candidate Matt Reichel). (There were only about 34,000 votes cast in this election, compared with about 58,000 in the primary, since that's where all the action was.)
• AK-Sen: Gov. Sarah Palin will not be challenging Sen. Lisa Murkowski in the 2010 senate primary; in fact, she'll be assisting Murkowski with raising money (despite simmering tensions between the two factions). It remains to be seen whether she'll be running for re-election as governor in 2010, or bailing out after one term to focus on the 2012 presidential race (which, geographically speaking, is hard to do from Alaska).
• VA-Gov: If there's one thing Terry McAuliffe is good at, it's raising money. He raked in $4.2 million in the first quarter for his gubernatorial campaign. He started April with $2.5 million CoH as the race heads toward the June 9 primary.
• IA-Gov: With Iowa's Supreme Court having effectively made same-sex marriages legal, the 2010 governor's race could turn into a proxy referendum on the issue (with Gov. Chet Culver unwilling to amend the state constitution to block the courts). And this may draw a higher-profile challenger to the race: nutty GOP Rep. Steve King, whose name has been occasionally associated with this race, says the sudden rise of this issue makes him "more likely" to enter the race.
• GA-Gov: As noted by fitchfan28 in diaries, state House minority leader Dubose Porter has thrown his hat into the ring for the Democratic nomination for Georgia governor. He joins AG Thurbert Baker and former SoS David Poythress as announced candidates, with former governor Roy Barnes scoping out the race as well.
• NJ-12: Rush Holt may receive a credible challenge in 2010, from Fair Haven mayor Mike Halfacre, who just filed exploratory paperwork. Fair Haven is in Republican-leaning Monmouth County; the district as a whole, though, is blue, if not overwhelming so (Obama won 58-41).
• EFCA: In the wake of yesterday's announcement that Blanche Lincoln would oppose EFCA's current form, two more moderate Dem wafflers got off the fence in favor of EFCA (or, more technically, in favor of cloture): Mark Udall and Mark Warner. Campaign Diaries has a very handy head count, indicating that possible passage is still very close, and an unpacked version of the bill (for instance, containing the binding arbitration portion, leaving 'card check' for another year) may still be passed.
• CfG: With Pat Toomey about to leave the helm of the Club for Growth to pursue his senate bid against Arlen Specter, they need someone new to wave the sword for the circular firing squad. Looks like the job may fall to yet another ex-Rep who brought the crazy to a swing district, Chris Chocola. (Chocola got bounced from IN-02 in 2006 by Joe Donnelly.)
• Omaha-Mayor: In last night's Omaha mayoral all-party primary election, former GOP Rep. Hal Daub (himself a former Omaha mayor) squeaked into first place with 35.6% of the vote to Democratic concilman Jim Suttle's 34.3%. Republican Councilman Jim Vokal came in third, picking up 28.2% of the vote. New Nebraska Network's Kyle Michaelis argues that despite the Republican candidates picking up more votes overall, Daub's weak finish is not a good sign for his chances in the general election. (J)
There's nothing opponents of marriage equality can do to stop gay and lesbian couples from getting married in Iowa starting on April 24, but the political battle over marriage equality will go on for a long time after wedding bells start ringing.
After the jump I will bring you up to date on the political reaction to last Friday's Iowa Supreme Court ruling, prospects for amending Iowa's constitution and the latest statewide opinion poll on same-sex marriage.
I do most of my writing at the Iowa progressive community blog Bleeding Heartland.
Last year at this time I was scrambling to make as many phone calls and knock on as many doors as I could before the Iowa caucuses on January 3.
This week I had a little more time to reflect on the year that just ended.
After the jump I've linked to Bleeding Heartland highlights in 2008. Most of the links relate to Iowa politics, but some also covered issues or strategy of national importance.
I only linked to a few posts about the presidential race. I'll do a review of Bleeding Heartland's 2008 presidential election coverage later this month.
During the past eight years, Iowa has gained as many people - about 76,000 - as states like South Carolina and Virginia gained between 2007 and 2008 alone.
To retain the congressional seat, the state would have to gain nearly twice that number by 2010, according to projections by Election Data Services, a Washington, D.C.-based consulting firm that analyzes the impact of demographics on politics.
So, Iowa will be left with four Congressional districts. No one knows what the new map will look like, but it's likely that the 2012 race in the new third district will determine whether Iowa Democrats (who now hold a 3-2 edge in U.S. House seats) gain a 3-1 advantage or have to settle for a 2-2 split.
Last weekend my fellow Iowa blogger 2laneIA published a comprehensive diary on Congressman Steve King's "greatest hits." Click the link to read about King's suggestion that we electrify the border fence with Mexico like we do "with livestock," his prediction that terrorists will be "dancing in the streets" if Obama becomes president, and his pride in working to scale back funding for the State Children's Health Insurance Program (which he calls Socialist Clinton-style Hillarycare for Illegals and their Parents). I mentioned a few more low points for King in this post.
Americans appear ready to sweep a lot of Democrats into office on November 4. Not only does Barack Obama maintain a solid lead in the popular vote and electoral vote estimates, several Senate races that appeared safe Republican holds a few months ago are now considered tossups.
Polling is harder to come by in House races, but here too there is scattered evidence of a coming Democratic tsunami. Having already lost three special Congressional elections in red districts this year, House Republicans are now scrambling to defend many entrenched incumbents.
In this diary, I hope to convince you of three things:
1. Some Republicans who never saw it coming are going to be out of a job in two weeks.
On a related note,
2. Even the smartest experts cannot always predict which seats offer the best pickup opportunities.
For that reason,
3. Activists should put resources behind many under-funded challengers now, instead of going all in for a handful of Democratic candidates.
Currently Democrats seem poised to pick up 12 to 18 seats in the House and five to six Senate seats. If we are on the verge of a wave, Democrats could win more than that, including a few districts where the Republican incumbent never saw it coming.
