(Another great report on these numbers. Thanks! - promoted by Brian Leubitz)
With the release of the new registration numbers, I now have updates for the open and/or competitive State Senate and State Assembly districts. The Secretary of State's website has the presidential results by district, so I am including the presidential results in each districts.
I am also tacking on the eight districts that are our top targets in 2010: CA-03, CA-24, CA-25, CA-26, CA-44, CA-45, CA-48, and CA-50.
Since it referenced me, let me start by shouting out to fellow Calitician Lucas O'Connor, writing on the front page of MyDD:
Since approximately the morning after election day in November, Dave Dayen has been writing over at Calitics about the dramatic Congressional pick-up opportunities in California that were missed in the Obama wave. Specifically, Obama carried 42 of California's 53 districts (I won't even begin right now to get into the state leg breakdown which is also a debacle), including eight districts held by Republicans in Congress. Well all of a sudden this week, the whole world is waking up to the Dayen gospel.
Not only is the current statewide Republican registration of 31% a historic low, but for the first time there is not a single congressional, state senate or assembly district that has a majority Republican registration.
Apparently Bob Mulholland sent out a press release waking up to these facts last week. Now, I'm not going to hate on Mulholland for finally getting with the program. But let's make ourselves clear - this was true in 2006 and 2008 as well, and yet the state party failed to capitalize, by their own admission. So it's going to take more than one press release to show a commitment. Republicans have obviously become repellent to the broad majority of Californians, and they're too busy trying to recall each other to notice. It's upsetting that we haven't used this unpopularity in the past two election cycles, and I hope that the CDP can catch up with the curve.
They can start with effective recruitment. John Garamendi, who spoke to Greg Lucas as if he's still a gubernatorial candidate but who by all accounts will be running for Congress, ought to be pushed to run in the 3rd District, where he is the largest landowner and where there is currently no viable candidate to beat Dan Lungren in a district that is trending Democratic, instead of the 10th, where there are multiple viable candidates. Recruitment is an often-unremarked-upon but crucial element to winning elections.
Speaking of which...
• CA-04: This CapAlert piece certainly makes it sound like Charlie Brown might challenge Tom McClintock once again.
At the Jefferson-Jackson dinner at the Blue Goose Fruit Shed in Loomis, Brown and his wife, Jan, were honored as photographs flashed of Brown and supporters during four years of campaigning. The production was accompanied by songs from Bruce Springsteen's "No Surrender" to Neil Young's "Long May You Run."
And then Brown stirred huge cheers when he hinted he might have the stamina for one more try for Congress in 2010.
"We'll see what happens over the next few months - and whether you'll have the opportunity to get into any pictures again," Brown said.
In an interview, Brown said he is still mulling his prospects. He said he expects to decide by this fall.
We're big fans of Charlie here at Calitics, and should he run again we'll stand with him. McClintock would have the power of incumbency and a red-leaning district but the rumblings I'm hearing out of there signal that residents and local pols aren't all that enthused by the new Congressman's performance.
• CA-32: The LA Times weighs in with an overview of the 32nd race to replace Labor Secretary Hilda Solis set for May 19. They list Judy Chu and Gil Cedillo as the front-runners (though Emanuel Pleitez is profiled) and suggest that the race is a harbinger of the changing, minority-majority face of Southern California politics. They also mention the Betty Tom Chu controversy, as well as some allegations on the Cedillo side.
Judy Chu supporters suspect that Republican Betty Tom Chu, a Monterey Park councilwoman and a political opponent of Judy Chu, entered the race to confuse voters and harm the chances of her distant relative by marriage. Tom Chu said last week she did not have time to discuss her candidacy, but earlier told the San Gabriel Valley Tribune that she is running because she could not support any of the other candidates and wanted to offer voters an alternative.
Apparently motivated by concerns that the large number of Latino candidates in the race would split the vote in that group and give Judy Chu the edge, there also were signs of jockeying.
Democratic candidate Francisco Alonso, a former mayor of Monterey Park, and a campaign official for Democratic actor/filmmaker Stefan "Contreras" Lysenko each said Cedillo called them shortly before filing closed and urged them to drop out. A Cedillo spokesman said the state senator was merely inviting the others to "work together" with him and did not intend to discourage them from running.
Over the weekend, Cedillo won the endorsement of the LA County Young Democrats, while Chu garnered the endorsement of the state Democratic Party.
Two of the eight "Obama Republicans," that is, members of the GOP delegation in the House whose districts went for Barack Obama in November, are in the news of late, and I think we can draw some conclusions about their behavior.
First of all, Dan Lungren held a "town hall meeting" in his district last week. I put "town hall meeting" in quotes because unlike actual town hall meetings, attendees weren't allowed to ask questions:
After a brief introduction by Elk Grove Mayor Patrick Hume, Lungren made it clear that the format of this 'townhall' meeting would not include direct questioning from the audience. Rather constituents were to fill out a questionnaire and submit for indirect questioning by Hume.
Lungren's reasoning was that he had received several constituent complaints that other district meetings were "so rambunctious" that they were afraid to come. To make the meeting open, Lungren said questions would be answered only by those filling out the questionnaires.
During the course of the meeting there were 15 questionnaires read covering a variety of topics, none of them pointed or very relative, in our opinion, to the staggering recession we find ourselves in. Lungren talked about his favorite topics of immigration, deficit spending and judiciary matters.
Hume, who had a table full of submitted questionnaires in front of him, never seemed to ask the questions as written. Hume was either being overly polite, or didn't want to incur the wrath of a congressman [...]
"If this is a townhall meeting, we should be allowed to be allowed to make comments," said Elk Grove resident Mike Monasky. Immediately Monasky was loudly told by city charter commission member Christopher Orrock to be quiet.
Now there's someone who doesn't want to be held accountable by his constituents. That makes the Bush "town hall meetings" look like free-for-alls.
Then there's Buck McKeon. His home in Santa Clarita was burglarized. We're sorry for him and his wife. But we did not expect McKeon to push a political angle.
A thief, who has since been arrested, broke into the McKeons' home on the morning of March 4 and stole jewelry from the master bedroom, said Bob Haueter, McKeon's 2010 campaign manager. The rest of the home was not disturbed, he said [...]
The burglary was mentioned in a McKeon fundraising letter, dated March 25, that discussed McKeon's opposition to the Employee Free-Choice Act - a bill that would make it easier for workers to unionize. The legislation is backed by President Barack Obama, whose political roots are in Chicago.
The letter says the labor legislation is "right out of Stalin's playbook" and part of the president's "socialist agenda." A note at the bottom of the letter, written by Patricia McKeon, read:
"As if things couldn't get any worse, our home was just broken into while we were in D.C. Some observant neighbors were able to identify the thieves and get the license plate number of the car they used.
"You won't believe this; the car is registered to a person in Chicago! Just know this, no matter what happens to us, Buck and I won't back down."
Are you kidding me? Apparently we're to believe that President Obama has a cadre of thieves he's dispatching across the country to Republican homes. While I admit that would be a simply ingenious strategy (note to Patricia McKeon: I'm joking), I simply don't think he's concerning himself with an underworld network.
Can we conclude that these two are maybe just a little bit scared, as they see their stranglehold on their districts slipping away?
(Sorry, guys, I wrote this one, as well as any "Open Thread" comment. I forget to log out sometimes...
- promoted by David Dayen)
State Democrats are buzzing about this weekend's Carla Marinucci article entitled "California Dems target 8 GOP districts", which claims that Republican voter registration is dropping fast, providing a major opportunity to pick up Congressional seats in 2010.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has targeted 35 districts across the country represented by Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives - including eight in California - that were won by Barack Obama in the 2008 presidential election, said Jennifer Crider, the committee spokeswoman.
The Democrats plan increased appeals to voters in those areas and will make aggressive efforts to recruit Democratic candidates to run against the Republican incumbents, she said [...]
The vulnerable California districts with Republican representatives that were won by Obama are those of Reps. Dan Lungren of Gold River (Sacramento County), Mary Bono-Mack of Palm Springs, David Dreier of San Dimas (Los Angeles County), Elton Gallegly of Thousand Oaks (Ventura County), Brian Bilbray of Solana Beach (San Diego County), John Campbell of Newport Beach (Orange County), Ken Calvert of Riverside and Howard "Buck" McKeon of Santa Clarita (Los Angeles County), the committee says.
It would be nice if I thought any of this would work. First of all, the registration changes didn't just spring up in December 2008. These trends have been occurring for some time, and were all present during the last election. Despite this, we had a candidate in CA-25 (McKeon) who spent less than $10,000 or her entire campaign. The candidate in CA-24 (Gallegly) won her primary because of her ballot designation and without spending any significant money. (By the way, CA-25 is now the seat held by the GOP with the closest registration gap between Republicans and Democrats in the whole state. Did you know that?) In the races where we managed to compete, our candidates significantly underperformed the top of the ticket, and in most cases underperformed Barbara Boxer's performance in 2004, when a less dominant John Kerry was at the top of the ticket.
I don't think there are that many other people who have followed California congressional races closer than I have, and I have to say that we simply suck at elections in these kinds of races out here in California. The state party is dysfunctional at best and downright criminal at worst. Put it this way: we had the same chance to win all these seats in 2008. Nate Silver, making a separate point, provides a list of the 30 districts where Obama won between 50 and 52 percent of the vote. As you'll see, we did extremely well in those seats, except for in California.
Barack Obama won 51 percent of the vote in NY-20 on November 4th. How did congressional candidates perform in other districts where he received between, say, 50 and 52 percent of the vote? Again, we see essentially an even split; Republicans won 16 of 30 such districts and Democrats won 14:
Won by Republicans (16): CA-24, CA-25, CA-26, CA-44, CA-45, CA-50, FL-10, FL-18, MI-4, MN-3, NE-2, NJ-7, NY-23, VA-4, WI-1, WI-6
Won by Democrats (14): FL-22, KS-3, MI-1, MI-7, MN-1, NC-2, NJ-3, NY-1, NY-19, NY-20*, NY-24, TX-23, VA-2, WA-3
Winning percentage in these seats in states other than CA: 58.3%
Winning percentage in CA: 0.0%
By the way, the other two districts not mentioned above that are now being "targeted"? CA-03 (Lungren) was 49-49 Obama, and CA-48 (Campbell) was also 49-49 Obama. Heck, even CA-46 was only 50-48 McCain. Obama got 46% in CA-19 (Radanovich), where there was no Democratic candidate, and 47% in CA-40 (Royce).
Some would argue that, properly resourced, these seats would suddenly become very winnable. I give you CA-50, where Nick Leibham consistently beat Brian Bilbray in fundraising and maxed out at the 45% ceiling on Democrats in that district.
CA-44 is somewhat winnable because Bill Hedrick came close in '08 and is running again. We lost our best candidate in CA-03, Bill Durston, and everywhere else, I'm just extremely dubious, because the state party has systematically psyched itself out of winning these seats (thanks to the Faustian bargain of incumbency-protected gerrymandering designed by... imminent state party chair John Burton), and the commitment at the national level has been known to wane. We've left dozens of winnable elections on the table the past two cycles, dramatically underperforming the nation. A little DCCC money won't change that.
It was 1974 when Jerry Brown ran for governor as a dashing 36-year-old reformer, the embodiment of change in Watergate's aftermath.
"I was the new spirit," Brown recalled. "That was my slogan."
No one would mistake Brown for a new spirit today. At 70, he occupies a prime spot among the elders of California politics. His career has spanned four decades, with three failed tries for the White House along his way up, down and back up the elective ranks.
Now, after two years as state attorney general, this Democrat who first ran for office in the era of Janis Joplin and the Beatles is remaking himself yet again. This time, Brown's quest is to recapture the job he won 35 years ago: governor of California.
California doesn't have a good history of Democratic candidates for Governor not named Brown over the last 50 years, so that alone is something. Brown has a lot to recommend him for the job and almost as much to reject him. He would be solid on the environment, energy and infrastructure but an absolute mess on prison policy. Right now, the field includes Gavin Newsom and John Garamendi, with several other possibles. If there's a movement candidate on the horizon, I don't see him or her.
The second development is that the DCCC, the campaign arm for Democrats in the House, has launched radio ads in 28 districts nationwide attacking House Republicans for their obstruction on the stimulus package.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), chaired by Congressman Chris Van Hollen, today announced the DCCC is launching a Putting Families First ad and grassroots campaign in 28 targeted Republican districts. The ads focus on the Republicans out of step priorities by putting bank bail outs and building schools in Iraq before the needs of the Americans in the struggling economy. The Putting Families First ads begin airing on Tuesday morning during drive time and will run for a week.
In addition to the strategic radio ads in 28 Republican districts, the DCCC will also begin a grassroots initiative which includes targeted e-mails to 3 million voters and nearly 100,000 person-to-person telephone calls.
This is pretty early to be making such a move. And what's very notable is the districts in California the D-Trip is hitting.
Representative Dan Lungren (CA-03)
Representative Elton Gallegy (CA-24)
Representative Ken Calvert* (CA-44)
Representative Brian Bilbray (CA-50)
CA-03 is an obvious choice, as it's the most ripe district in the state for a turnover, and Bill Durston has already announced for a third run after his good showing in 2008. It's good to see CA-44 get some action; Bill Hedrick came the second-closest in the state to defeating a Republican, and he's running again. (The asterisk on that race means that they are actually using two separate ads in his district, one on children's heath care and one on the bank bailout, so they're actually targeting Calvert more than the others.) CA-50 is a perennial tease, with the Democrat never besting 46% against Brian Bilbray, but it's just close enough to target.
The inclusion of CA-24 is interesting. We basically had no candidate there this time, as Marta Jorgensen spent pocket change to go against Elton Gallegly. She still managed 42% of the vote, showing that the floor for Democrats is fairly substantial. Gallegly has threatened retirement in the past and this is probably just pressure to get him to leave Congress. Perhaps the D-Trip knows of a good candidate waiting in the wings.
No CA-26, CA-46 or CA-04 on this list, probably because Debbie Cook, Russ Warner and Charlie Brown have made no indication that they're running again.
House Republicans apparently think that losing 50 seats over two cycles is change they can believe in, as they signed up John Boehner as Minority Leader for two more years, resisting a challenge from Dan Lungren.
While Randy Bayne considers this a bright spot for Bill Durston and his effort to beat Lungren in 2010, I have the opposite view. Being Minority Leader would have put a major target on Lungren's back. Now he can slink back into quiet anonymity and not raise the ire of his constituency, which is rapidly growing more Democratic.
On another note, how can House Republicans possibly think that Boehner has done a good job these last two years to warrant a return engagement? Fortunately, that's their problem.
...in other news about local Congresscritters, Barbara Lee is now the chair of the Congressional Black Caucus, and Lynn Woolsey has retained her co-chair of the Progressive Caucus in the House, along with Arizona's Raul Grijalva.
The rumors are true. Dan Lungren is going to mount a leadership challenge to John Boehner, with a vote expected this week.
Brilliant. It's fitting that the Republicans could pick as a leader a guy who couldn't get 50% in his own district. Bill Durston, already slated to run in 2010, could become a very important figure for the next two years.
Why Didn’t the Democratic Party Support an Outstanding Progressive Candidate?
Dr. Bill Durston, an outstanding progressive Democratic candidate for House of Representatives in California’s 3rd Congressional District, ran a close race against the Republican incumbent, Dan Lungren, in the 2008 general election, losing by a margin of 44% to 49%, with third party candidates accounting for the remaining 6%. The 3rd CD includes portions of Sacramento and Solano counties, and all of Alpine, Amador, and Calaveras counties. Despite his impeccable progressive credentials, a poll showing that he was in a statistical dead heat with Lungren, and a well-organized grass roots campaign, Dr. Durston received little support from the State Democratic Party and no support whatsoever from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC).
Dr. Durston has announced that he will run again in 2010. The purpose of this communication is to help ensure that Dr. Durston will get the support he needs and deserves to be victorious in 2010, and that progressive message he represents will be heard by not only the voters, but also by the state and national Democratic party leaders.
California Rep. Dan Lungren is considering a challenge to House Minority Leader John Boehner for his leadership position.
Several House conservatives have courted Lungren in the past two days, seeking change in leadership after demoralizing losses in Tuesday's election and two years of tussling with Boehner over earmarks, spending and most recently the $700 billion financial rescue package.
I know that Republicans are deeply in denial and all, but Dan Lungren? He didn't break 50% in his Congressional election on Tuesday, winning by only 13,700 votes, and if anything, the district is trending away from him. The registration advantage is a thin 2.2%, and after two years of more organizing that's likely to be even. And Bill Durston is going to run for a third time in 2010.
Republicans in Democratic-trending districts often win by making few waves in Washington and running away from party ID. There is absolutely no chance that a House Minority Leader could do that. He'd be well-known to the district and the nation. Whether successful or not, every Democrat and Democratic-leaning independent would know where Dan Lungren stands on the issues. There wouldn't be any low-information voters left. And national groups would be encouraged to knock off the Republican leader in the House. Remember that Durston got pretty much no meaningful help from any progressive organization in 2008 and still managed a close 5-point loss, improving his position by 13 points from one election to the next.
Please, oh please, Republican caucus, do this. Let's see Dan Lungren have two years in the spotlight before we knock him out.
As we chew our nails waiting for the Brown - McClintock results and vacilate wildly between reflecting on how we lost on Prop. 8 and simply feeling the pain of that loss, some good news came out of CA-03.
While Dan Lungren beat Bill Durston, silver lining in that defeat abounds. For starters, Durston made serious inroads since the previous match-up. The final tally will likely end up 49-44, a relatively small margin - especially compared to two years ago, when Durston ran as a virtual unknown. He ended up only pulling down 37 percent of the vote in 2006, meaning that in two short years Durston went from a 22-point margin to a 5-point margin. Makes you feel a little cocky about 2010, huh?
Speaking of 2010, Durston just announced he will run again in two years, setting up what should be a tight race that we will have a real chance of taking. In fact, our chances may be much greater: progressives won't have the Obama campaign taking up all their time and money; if we're lucky, Brown will be comfortably defending his seat against a weaker candidate, needing less resources; and as readers of this site know, Lungren can be counted on to pull at least a few idiotmoves in the next two years.
As our president-elect said on election night, the fight has just begun. Let's get ready for 2010, folks.
There's so much going on in this bounty of close races, it's hard to follow it all as just lil' ol' me and without a full-time staff. But clearly, California is terribly broken because there are no competitive seats and so we must change the redistricting process and re-gerrymander competitiveness into them. Right? On the flip, I offer an update on every seat that's even reasonably close. I'll get to the Assembly and Senate races later today or tomorrow.
CA-11, CA-04, CA-03, CA-46, CA-50 and much more on the flip! Including the infamous "phone sex robocall"... no, I'm not kidding.
Here's some tidbits from the campaign trail with 12 days out:
• CA-03: Bill Durston and Dan Lungren debated last night, and it was a predictable affair, says Randy Bayne:
Nothing new, no fireworks, no knockout punch, no excitement of any kind was reported by either MyMotherLode.com or the Stockton Record. Just what we already know - Durston wants us out of Iraq, doesn't like No Child Left Behind, and thinks the bailout is the wrong solution. Lungren supports the occupation, favors No Child Left Behind, and voted for the bailout.
If you're looking for change from eight years of down the toilet policy, and you don't want to continue flushing our future down the crapper - vote for Bill Durston.
If the registration stats cited by anecdotal reports are at all accurate, we're going to be very close to registration parity in this seat by Election Day. Lungren may be acting positive in public, but inside the campaign they must be terrified. They probably didn't expect Durston to run a credible campaign.
"Lincoln asked, 'If you call a tail a leg, how many legs has a dog? The answer is four. Calling a tail a leg doesn't make it one,'" McClintock said in a statement. "And calling a homosexual partnership a marriage doesn't make it one."
I'm pretty sure that means nothing at all, but California's Alan Keyes has had to distance himself from the comment. Meanwhile his much bigger problem is lacking the funds to run a proper campaign. He's now taken to relying on cheap robocalls, and Charlie Brown has immediately called on him to stop. Dirty trick robocalls that appeared to be coming from the Brown campaign were a major factor in John Doolittle's narrow re-election in 2006.
• CA-46: I didn't get a chance to post Debbie Cook's amazing closing statement at Tuesday's debate. Here it is.
The OC Register has a story on this race today. These "Challenger hopes to upset incumbent" stories have a familiar feel to them - the pose of surprise that the race is competitive, the quote from the shallow CW fountain like Allen Hoffenblum explaining why the incumbent is probably still safe, and the overall sense of shock, which would be natural if you weren't paying attention for the last 18 months, like, um, us.
• Assembly & Senate: Art Torres and Ron Nehring had a debate yesterday, and I think Torres needed to be prepped a little better. He claimed that Democrats could grab a 2/3 majority in the legislature but then couldn't come up with a simple list of what seats are in play. He should be reading more Calitics. Nehring replied with a lot of bunk and a little truth.
None of that adds up to 54 and 27, of course, and Nehring said Torres' boast "just doesn't pencil out."
He noted that Democratic efforts to oust Sen. Jeff Denham via recall failed miserably this year and the party ended up with no opponent to challenge Sen. Abel Maldonado in Santa Maria, a district believed to be winnable by a Democrat.
On the Assembly side, Nehring said, Republicans "have a great shot at holding on to" the 15th and "have a number of strategic advantages in the 78th (because) the Democrats have nominated the most liberal candidate (Marty Block) they possibly could."
In the 80th, the Democratic candidate (Manuel Perez) "is getting hammered on ... social issues which are important to many people in the Latino community," Nehring said.
"I don't know how can you be serious about trying to have a two-thirds vote in the Legislature," Nehring told Torres, "when you blow so many of these opportunities."
I'll go bottom to top on this. Manuel Perez is going to CRUSH Gary Jeandron, and if anyone's being hammered, it's the Republicans. The IE money is pretty one-sided in the state. Between that and the registration gains, it'll take more than just spin to dig your party out of its self-created hole, Mr. Nehring.
However, on one point I will agree with you. The Denham recall and Maldonado disaster have indeed stopped the potential forward momentum in the Senate. Of course, Torres couldn't say the plain truth - that Don Perata is among the worst leaders in recent Democratic Party history, and has completely set back the state in major ways by his blunders. He is an embarrassment.
* Dan Lungren really, really doesn't like when you film him talking his BS. Bill Durston is sending somebody to film his events, and Lungren thinks that is very unfair. How is he supposed to spew his right-wingnuttery if it is going to be available on the web? Poor Dan.
* Shorter Dan Walters: Woe is we. In all seriousness, the loss of reporters covering politics is having a disastrous effect on California. Unfortunately, this isn't going to get better for a while as the business plan for most media outlets is still struggling to catch up to the TwitterAge.
* The Yosemite glacier and the Sierra snowpack are simply melting away. The consequences for our water supply (65% of it in California comes from here) are catastrophic.
* Home sales in Southern California spiked in September. I think it's a lot of bargain hunting and people buying up foreclosed properties for cheap (50% of the homes sold had been foreclosed).
* Prop 10: Anthony Rubenstein, the campaign manager for yes on Prop 87, the Oil Extraction Fee, goes after T. Boone and his scam, Prop 10. With almost every editorial board and environmental group opposing Prop 10, it faces an uphill climb. It's a bad scheme to flood money into T. Boone's new cash cow, natural gas, and it should be cast upon the garbage heap of ideas.
* John Myers of KQED has made his weekly podcast available. It's worth a listen, after you've listened to the Calitics Show, of course.
* Speaking of the Calitics Show, this week we have an interview of San Francisco DA, and California Obama co-chair, Kamala Harris with a few bloggers from the DNC. We'll kick that out sometime at the end of this week. Full details forthcoming soon.
Neither campaign would release its polling numbers, but both acknowledged that the affluent, heavily Republican coastal district that has primed Rohrabacher for victories in excess of 20 points in every election for the last decade will not be quite as friendly to the GOP candidate this year.
General frustration with the Bush administration, which has overseen the rapid deterioration of the American economy, is one of the biggest factors in heralding the turnaround for Democrats, according to UCI political science professor Carole Uhlaner.
"Given the combination of a strong, well-known current official with good funding and the change in the national tide there's a chance that Rohrabacher could lose," Uhlaner said.
And our pal Todd Beeton of MyDD writes up the great event for Debbie I attended yesterday. But the pivotal moment of the campaign might be tomorrow at 11:15am. Dana Rohrabacher and Debbie Cook will debate for the only time in the campaign. We all know that when Crazy Dana opens his mouth, bad things happen for him. We've seen on a national level what can happen to candidates with loose lips and an extremist ideology - ask Michelle Bachmann. So we'll be monitoring the debate tomorrow.
• CA-03: For some reason, Bill Durston is taking very seriously the Sacramento Bee's endorsement of Dan Lungren. Through his outreach to supporters, the letters to the editor in the wake of the endorsement were entirely on Durston's side. I don't think these newspaper endorsements mean much, but it is something incumbents can use in their advertising, so it does have an impact. And frequently these local editorial boards are pushing a conservative agenda that is resistant to change.
Speaking of debates, Lungren and Durston also have one tomorrow. So there should be a lot of post-debate highlights to discuss.
• CA-04: I tend to think that this story, flagged by Dante over the weekend, is just devastating for Tom McClintock, so I'm going to post it again.
Tom McClintock, a conservative Republican in a Democratic-dominated state Legislature, is the only state lawmaker to fail to shepherd a single piece of legislation into law in the last two years.
Not that he seems to mind [...]
"I came to the conclusion a long time ago that minority legislators have a choice," said McClintock, who has served for 22 years in Sacramento. "One is to tinker at the margins and win very minor victories on unimportant matters and the other is to try to drive the public policy debate on major issues, sacrificing legislative victories for broader policy victories."
I think America has had just about enough of obstructionist ideologues with no interest in governing. If the Brown campaign plays this right, McClintock is toast. This invalidates his entire candidacy. It doesn't surprise me that wingnuts are trying to wrap social issues around Brown's neck to try and distract from this. But at a fundamental level, Tom McClintock is telling the voters of CA-04 that he won't lift a finger in Congress for them. Since the Democrats will retain the majority, McClintock as a Congressman would be a press release machine without even trying to pass legislation. It's not his job, he thinks.
That is a death rattle for McClintock.
• AD-15: If Dianne Feinstein is popular anywhere, it's out in districts in the Central Valley like AD-15, and so her endorsement of Joan Buchanan is notable, also because she's a habitually lazy campaigner and doesn't do much for Democratic candidates historically. She's also endorsed Fran Florez in AD-30 and John Eisenhut in AD-26. This is the region where her endorsement can have the most effect.
• AD-36: Here's a good piece from Dick Price about Linda Jones, the longshot candidate out in this district in the Antelope Valley. She is a special ed. teacher in Palmdale and a board of Trustees member, looking to become the first Democrat to represent this area since 1974. She sounds good to me:
Indeed, after putting up token opposition in recent races and losing by landslide margins, Democrats have finally leveled the playing field, narrowing the difference between Republican and Democratic registration to just 1.6%, according to the Jones campaign. Earlier this year, the Antelope Valley Press reported that 74% of new voters were registering as Democrats, compared to just 4% as Republicans, with the remaining registering as "decline to states."
The region's dramatic growth has not come without costs.
"Jobs here are either in aerospace or retail, so often people have to go into Los Angeles for work," Jones says. "A third of the people are commuting downtown-that's hard on people, their families, their marriages, their pocketbooks, their health."
In Sacramento, Jones would work for a "Green Jobs" initiative, diversifying the Antelope Valley workforce, for example, by fostering much-needed solar and wind power industries that would create good-paying local jobs so fewer people would have to undertake the brutal commute downtown.
It would be incredible to win this seat.
• AD-10: The Sac Bee thinks that the race between Alyson Huber and Jack Sieglock will come down to turnout:
The game-changer for Alyson Huber or Jack Sieglock could be voter turnout to cast presidential ballots, said Allan Hoffenblum, publisher of California Target Book, which handicaps legislative races.
"How they vote for Obama probably will be the most important factor," Hoffenblum said of 10th District residents, who tend to lean to the right - but by a dwindling margin.
The GOP's edge in registered voters has fallen the past four years from 6 percentage points to just 2, giving Democrats an outside chance of an Assembly upset if Obama's draw is decisively higher than McCain's, Hoffenblum said.
Well that's just devastating to Sieglock, because the excitement gap is much higher for Obama. Then again, he won't be doing a lot of GOTV in California, so Huber's going to need to run a strong operation of her own. The two candidates are even in fundraising, but Huber is getting major IE help.
• SD-19: The money is pouring into this race, as it's the only one contested on the Senate side. Tony Strickland has outraised Hannah-Beth Jackson by about $3 million to $2 million, but 53% of Strickland's take is from business PACs. Meanwhile, Strickland dropped an illegal mailer:
Tony Strickland has reached a new low in his dishonest campaign against Hannah-Beth Jackson. Yesterday, voters in the 19th District received a mailing from Strickland's campaign titled "Hannah-Beth Jackson's Economic Plan." Inside, the mailing contained Strickland's predictable false charges about Hannah-Beth Jackson and taxes.
The mailing was clearly designed to look like it was coming from Hannah-Beth Jackson's campaign.
The Capitol Weekly reports, in an article about dimming GOP prospects, that Dana Rohrabacher is in a world of trouble.
The third contest is in the 46th Congressional District in Orange County, where incumbent Republican Dana Rohrabacher faces Huntington Beach Mayor Debbie Cook.
According to GOP sources, internal polling shows the difference between Rohrabacher and Cook, the mayor of Huntington Beach, to be within the margin of error, although Rohrabacher has heavily outspent Cook. Hoffenblum believes Rohrabacher faces "possibly the strongest Democrat to run against him since the current district lines were drawn in 2001."
I don't think it's accurate to say that Rohrabacher has heavily outspent Cook. He only spent a paltry $38,000 in the third quarter, though that may be ramping up now. I don't think the NRCC is going to have a lot of money to help him either, though they're making noises about it.
The strapped National Republican Congressional Committee, which at the end of August had $14 million in the bank, compared with $54 million for the Democrats, last week took out an $8 million loan to fund races in the final days of the campaigns. With scant resources, the fight for dollars is intense.
GOP insiders believe some funds may flow to Rohrabacher in the 46th C.D., but that money for any of the others is problematic. Democrats declined to say whether Cook would get last-minute cash from national Democrats.
Calitics Match candidate Debbie Cook is a better Democrat. She supports the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, quality health care for every American, and a post-carbon economy with green energy pushing out the dirty fuels of the past. She would be an amazing legislator. This can be done. She needs your support. Donate here. I will be down in the district over the weekend to get a report.
Here's yet more evidence that the Dems are poised for huge gains in Congress: The Cook Report has released a new set of updated rankings on 25 House races -- and all 25 are shifts in the Dems' direction.
CA-03 Dan Lungren (R) - Solid Republican to Likely Republican
CA-04 OPEN, Doolittle (R) - Likely Republican to Lean Republican
CA-46 Dana Rohrabacher (R) - Solid Republican to Likely Republican
CA-50 Brian Bilbray (R) - Solid Republican to Lean Republican
That's right, Charlie Brown, Nick Leibham and Bill Durston are looking very impressive. And Charlie Cook is being very conservative with these picks. We have the momentum, now we have to go out there and pull it off.
Republican campaigns all over are starting to tank as Election Day approaches. California, long considered the land of "safe seats" because of the 2000 redistricting plan that basically secured the status quo for both parties, is no exception. The news is not good for incumbent Republicans.
Just days after a poll by respected polling firm Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, and Associates showed Democratic challenger Bill Durston in a virtual tie with Congressman Dan Lungren for the 3rd Congressional District seat, Lungren's campaign has released the results of two polls of their own. Unsurprisingly, both polls show Lungen with a sizable lead.
I have been watching the race in CA-03 for well over a year now. I've told my contacts in DC about Bill Durston and tried to get local progressives interested. The math was undeniable - if there was any seat primed to break through, it was this one. The demographic shifts mirrored CA-11, and Dan Lungren was arguably a less powerful incumbent than Richard Pombo, with less resources to draw from. Durston's first race against Lungren, in 2006, yielded the exact same result as McNerney's effort in 2004 (around 60-40), and since then the registration gap has tightened significantly (it's under 3 points and by election day it'll be closer to even).
After a long year of banging this drum, finally, Bill Durston is earning some respect. Today he appears on the DCCC's Red To Blue Emerging Races page. This isn't quite enough to put Durston over the top, but it is a recognition that the seat is competitive.
You ought to support Dr. Durston at the Emerging Races page or the Calitics ActBlue page. He's a better Democrat who will fight to responsibly end the occupation of Iraq and provide quality affordable health care for all. He has a great team of grassroots supporters up there and I hope this makes them realize that their efforts are being recognized and rewarded.
...this comes at a time when the Lungren campaign is actually touting polls with small sample sizes showing the incumbent under 50%. This one is going to be close if Durston can get his message out in the final three weeks.
General: I suspended the monthly ratings because it was ridiculously time-consuming and better to get the information out more timely, but in case you're wondering, here is my impression of the top targets in California for the Congressional races as we stand with 22 days out. My considered opinion is that no incumbent Democrat is in trouble, including Jerry McNerney. As for the Republican-held seats:
1) CA-04: Lean Dem. Charlie Brown has been ahead in multiple polls and actually has a ground game, unlike Tom McClintock.
2) CA-03: Tilt Repub. Bill Durston's poll showing the race as a dead heat raised a lot of eyebrows. Unfortunately people discovered this race too late, but by Election Day I'll bet that the registration numbers are virtually tied and there will not be an immediate call. The smart money for progressives wanting to impact a race should go to Dr. Durston against Dan Lungren.
3) CA-46: Tilt Repub. Debbie Cook is replicating the Loretta Sanchez strategy of ground mobilization that she used to defeat B-1 Bob Dornan. We'll see if she can pull it off against Crazy Dana Rohrabacher.
4) CA-26: Tilt Repub. Russ Warner has been doing a decent enough job and there's a bit of outside support, but David Dreier has a wall of money.
5) CA-45: Lean Repub. This race has also been under the radar, but the district is either #1 or #2 in the COUNTRY for foreclosures, and affordable housing expert Julie Bornstein can stand to benefit from movement toward Democratic solutions on the economy in her race against Mary Bono Mack.
6) CA-50: Lean Repub. This is the permanent tease district in California, and despite Nick Leibham's efforts to shake up the race, I'm not seeing Brian Bilbray taken down right now, especially because he's likely to whip up populist support in his base with his vote against the bailout.
7) CA-52: Likely Repub. It was always going to be an uphill battle for Mike Lumpkin in his race against Duncan Hunter's son running for Duncan Hunter's old seat. I'd like to see better signs here, but I'm coming up empty.
I rate everything else as Safe Republican at the moment. I'll do a legislative targeting in the next campaign update. Now, to the news (on the flip):
Just days after a poll by respected polling firm Fairbank, Maslin, Maullin, and Associates showed Democratic challenger Bill Durston in a 
