Taking into account some suggestions and comments, I made some changes to my previous attempt at redistricting California. I conceded an additional 2 seats to the GOP, which concomitantly makes a number of other seats more strongly Democratic. The additional 2 safe GOP seats are CA-4 and CA-48. Here's what version 2 looks like, overall:
I decided to try my hand at redistricting California's Congressional districts for 2010-2012, using Dave's Redistricting App. After playing around with it a bit, here's what the map I came up with looks like overall:
Here's the 2008 Obama/McCain vote in California, on the precinct level:
We're setting a course for the center of the sun in the state budget process right now, but today is also the last day of the second quarter, an important day for Congressional candidates, who must file fundraising reports based on close of business today. So this is as good a time as any to take a look at the Congressional races and where we stand at this point. I have not yet done similar roundups for 2010 statewide offices or legislative races, but plan to do so in the near future. If you find any of these challenges attractive, I urge you to pass a few bucks along to the candidate of your choice. This quarter will help or hurt the candidacies in terms of their perception of viability.
A word on the notations. PVI refers to the Cook Political Report's Partisan Voting Index. I've also included the Presidential performance from last year and the particular Congressional performance, where applicable. That information is available for the whole nation at this link. Open Congress also has a good Wiki on all the seats involved.
I've been saving the changes in registration differences in the competitive districts that I track in my regular registration number updates. Here I will show the changes in registration going from the last numbers before the 2008 election to the latest numbers released a few days ago. Here they are in tabulated form. And for the congressional districts, in addition to the 8 Obama-Republican districts, I tossed in CA-04, because the House race there was very close in spite of the considerable Republican advantage in registration and the presidential race, and CA-46, the district of McCain's closest win of the 11 McCain districts and the only one that he won with less than 50%.
In 2007-08, I wrote a monthly series of House race roundups here in California, taking a look at the races with the highest potential to change members of Congress. This cycle, there are promises from the national Democrats that they will pay attention to a number of seats in California held by Republicans, and with the statewide races at the top of the ticket looking favorable for Democrats, and Republican registration collapsing throughout the state, in theory we should see some more movement. But many of these elements were true the past two cycles, amounting to little. Because it's a statewide officer election year, I will also do a statewide races roundup at a later time. But for now, let's take a look at the seats most likely to flip in 2010, starting with seats currently held by Democrats, few of which are in play. In addition to those "threatened" by Republicans, I'm including two seats where I've heard rumblings about primary challenges to incumbents.
A word on the notations. PVI refers to the Cook Political Report's Partisan Voting Index. I've also included the Presidential performance from last year and the particular Congressional performance, where applicable. That information is available for the whole nation at this link.
This is at one of Debbie Cook's offices in Orange County:
You can help. There are still close to four hours until the polls close. I hear turnout is up in LA County and down a touch in Orange County. We can beat Dana Rohrabacher.
Make my election prediction come out right! This is from Debbie Cook's campaign, via email:
We have volunteers monitoring precincts across the district, and the results look encouraging. Our voters are showing up and Republicans are just not very excited by Rohrabacher.
We need you to help phone from home now, and until the polls close at 8:00.
We need to personally call every Democrat in the district before 7:30 and get them out to vote.
Can you help?
If you can, please email debbiecookforcongress-at-gmail-dot-com and we'll send you the simple instructions to call from home.
Joe Shaw
Communications Director
Debbie Cook for Congress
A Cook victory would be the biggest ideological shift in the entire House of Representatives. She is a Better Democrat who needs your help. Stay for Change and give Debbie Cook a hand. She will make you proud in Washington.
The past few days have seen another spate of "OMG, Republican incumbents are in trouble!" stories in the traditional media. Aside from them not understanding and internalizing the theory of coattails, this problem is particularly acute among the California media, where gerrymandering is just supposed to lock up Congressional and legislative seats airtight, except when, you know, it doesn't. Peculiar to this rendering of the world is the idea that nobody ever moves, dies, or reaches the age of 18 in any particular district, and thus voter registration statistics are completely static. But of course this is not true, and once the Democratic Party started putting resources into registering new and lapsed voters, why look what happened:
One of the major reasons for these competitive contests has been the narrowing gap in registered voters between the parties. While Republicans still enjoy a substantial advantage over Democrats in all three districts, their leads have shrunk significantly.
Four years ago, Republicans led Democrats among registered voters by margins of 17 percent in the Orange County-based 46th, 15 percent in the San Diego-area 50th and 11 percent in the Riverside County-based 45th. By this year's registration deadline of Oct. 20, those leads had shrunk by 6 percent in the 50th, 5 percent in the 46th and 6 percent in the 45th.
There are still the conventional wisdom-besotted punditocracy that simply can't conceive of these major shifts in the electorate (it's not like anything has happened the past eight years that would lead people to desert the Republican Party in droves, right?), who believe that incumbents just win and that's the end of it. But just ask one of those incumbents what he fears on Tuesday:
HUNTINGTON BEACH - Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, R-Huntington Beach/Long Beach said Friday he's concerned that Republicans will be discouraged by a possible Democratic landslide at the polls, affecting his re-election bid.
"If (Republican nominee John) McCain does not do well, and Republicans stay home, my lead could evaporate," the nine-term incumbent of the 46th Congressional District said.
Huntington Beach Mayor Debbie Cook, the Democratic challenger, said the race is a "statistical dead heat," and agreed that a solid turnout for change - from the economic problems facing the country - could be the difference in Tuesday's hotly contested race.
"All the uncertainty that's going on now is helping," she said, adding that incumbents who have been "part of the system for the past 20 years" could be vulnerable.
This is all the more reason why Democrats and progressives need to remember Jim Corman and get as many voters to the polls as possible. And Don't Stop At The Top, of course.
And if the scenario is bright in the Congressional races, the Assembly looks even brighter. Why, even Dan Walters has figured this one out.
Voters may not realize that they could dramatically alter that balance, but interest groups that are pouring millions of dollars into legislative and ballot measure campaigns certainly get it.
Democrats could pick up one seat in the Senate and are so certain of gaining three to five seats in the Assembly that they've diverted resources into several marginal districts, taking advantage of Obamania-inspired voter registration gains, to shoot for the six added seats that would give them a two-thirds majority. That margin is required for the budget and tax increases and could happen as the Capitol wrestles with a rapidly deteriorating economy and a fast-growing budget deficit.
We know about those top-line seats: AD-80, AD-78, AD-15, AD-10, AD-26. But it's Linda Jones' race in AD-36 that has captured my attention. She represents the ultimate swing vote as the potential 54th Democrat in the State Assembly, the vote that would give us a 2/3 majority, which in California is a governing majority. And Linda Jones happens to be really great, campaiging on a message of green jobs in the waning days of the race.
As part of her campaign to create a stronger economy for the region, Democratic Assembly Candidate Linda Jones (36th District) today announced her "High Desert Region Green Jobs Initiative" - using 'green jobs' to increase opportunities for unemployed and underemployed adults in the High Desert communities. Lt. Governor John Garamendi, a longtime advocate for environmental protection and renewable energy, offered his full support of the plan, calling it a "giant leap forward" for the region's economy.
"Investing in the 'green economy' is a win-win because it will create jobs and increase our clean energy efficiency," said Linda Jones. "The High Desert Region Green Jobs Initiative will create outreach, educational, and training programs to recruit, develop, and sustain a green industry that will create jobs, increase our clean energy efficiency, and grow our economy for the region."
There's a website, High Desert Green Jobs, that details the initiative. It's fantastic that someone in a swing district trying to become the first Democratic member of the Assembly from this region in 34 years is offering such a bold agenda.
This district had an eight-point GOP lean just two years ago. Now the registration gap is GONE. 400 votes separate Democrats and Republicans. Don't give me that redistricting stuff, nothing's stopping this progressive wave. I'm excited for Linda Jones and so is her community.
There's just one day to go. You need to Stay for Change because you can have a major impact right here in California. I'm going to give predictions on everything in the morning. But right now, I'm psyched.
(Rohrabacher is openly talking about losing in a Democratic landslide. Go Debbie Cook! - promoted by David Dayen)
If the name Pete McCloskey sounds familiar, you may remember him as a 7-term Republican congressman from California. Paul Norton "Pete" McCloskey, Jr. comes from a long line of Republicans, going back to the 1850s. He served in the Navy, the Marine Corps, and the Marine Corps Reserves, and served our country in Korea.
So why's a former Republican congressman at a rally today endorsing Democrat Debbie Cook for Congress? Because he, like millions of Americans, knows that the Republican party has lost its way. Unlike today's breed, McCloskey has stood up for ethics and our country's future. He protected our environment by co-authoring the 1973 Endangered Species Act. He ran for President on an anti-Vietnam war platform. And he was the first representative to call for the impeachment of Nixon after Watergate. He truly put Country before party.
Gary DeLong represents the 3rd District of the Long Beach City Council, and he holds a monthly meeting - at taxpayer expense - with constituents. This month he abruptly decided to invite Dana Rohrabacher - his preferred candidate for Congress - to the meeting.
Walking a legal, ethical and political tightrope just before Election Day, Long Beach City Councilmember Gary DeLong has suddenly invited the candidate he supports for congress-conservative incumbent Republican Dana Rohrabacher-to speak Thursday at DeLong's monthly lunchtime meeting with his Third District constituents.
Debbie Cook, the Huntington Beach mayor who is presenting Rohrabacher with his strongest challenge in his 20 years in the House of Representatives, had not heard about the event when contacted by The District Weekly late Monday night. "I was not invited," she said.
Long Beach Police Chief Anthony Batts had been scheduled for more than a month to address the Third District Neighborhoods meeting, but DeLong abruptly disinvited Batts so that Rohrabacher could appear.
DeLong has made three financial contributions to Rohrabacher's re-election campaign in the last 16 months. He donated $200 on June 27, $250 on Feb. 14 and $200 on June 16, 2007. Additionally, DeLong wrote a $1,000 check to the National Republican Congressional Committee on October 1.
But juggling the guest list at the Third District Neighborhoods meeting may constitute DeLong's most-valuable gift to Rohrabacher, providing the congressman with a late-in-the-campaign appearance before some of Long Beach's most-affluent and influential residents.
Hilariously, A DeLong spinner explains that the city staffers for the event are going on their lunch hour and the invites weren't sent on city time, so everything's above board. Oh, and where's it being held?
THE LONG BEACH YACHT CLUB. Perfect setting for a Yacht Party get-together.
What's most notable about this is that Rohrabacher is showing up in Long Beach at all. I'd be surprised if he knows where it is. Rohrabacher usually runs up the score in the Orange County strongholds. This year, he has to search for votes everywhere.
...oh yeah, if you want more of an incentive, Dana strongly supports Prop. 8. He says that we do not need to change the definition of marriage in order to "make a small number of people comfortable with themselves".
• CA-04: Tom McClintock is bringing out the big guns to help his cash-strapped campaign - Ron Paul is all in!
Paul, the libertarian-Republican congressman from Texas who raised more than $34 million for his presidential race, sent out an e-mail last week urging his massive donor base to contribute to McClintock.
"Tom McClintock is one of the most promising warriors in the fight against big government we have seen in a long time, and the special interests and big bankers know it. ... You have stood with me as....
...I campaigned for the Presidency to return our federal government to its proper role. Will you help me bring a reliable ally to Congress?"
This brings up some interesting questions. Does Tom McClintock think we should withdraw from Iraq and dozens of other military bases around the world? Does he believe in abolishing the Federal Reserve? The coinage of free silver?
• CA-45: New voter registration statistics have not been released by the Secretary of State's office, but I think they will show good news for Democrats across the state. One statistic that is measurable is the early voting number, and in CA-45, it's good news for Julie Bornstein.
Democrats have significantly narrowed the early voting gap in the 45th Congressional District, an encouraging sign for challenger Julie Bornstein in her battle to unseat Congresswoman Mary Bono Mack (R-Palm Springs), according to Bornstein campaign manager Walter Ludwig.
In both 2004 and 2006, registered Republicans accounted for about 54 percent of early voters, compared with just 34 percent for Democrats. Mack, now a four-term incumbent, cruised to re-election both years by more than 20 points.
This year, early voting is much more evenly split. The latest numbers from the Riverside County Registrar of Voters show that registered Republicans outnumber Democrats by just five percent among early voters.
It's like the entire Republican machine all collapsed at once. They used to be MASTERS at getting absentee votes out. This year, there's either no such effort, or it's being matched by Democrats. CA-45 is under the radar, but these numbers suggest that it shouldn't be.
• CA-46: At the Great Orange Satan, Devilstower has a great piece that could start a new meme about Debbie Cook - the anti-Palin.
Suppose there was a candidate who was as bright and as capable as Sarah Palin is confused and incompetent.
Someone who had a record of working with environmental groups, and who had a real understanding of the threat posed by our dependence on fossil fuels. Someone with a degree in earth science and the long experience to make the claim of being a genuine energy expert.
Someone who not only knew science, but also had a law degree, and was a graduate of the leadership program at the Kennedy School of Government. Someone who has held positions of honor in state and national commissions. Someone who was well respected for both her intellect and her passion.
Suppose there was a candidate who had been mayor of, not a tiny town, but a medium-sized city. And suppose she took that position as a Democrat in the midst of a heavily Republican district.
Suppose there was someone who was everything that Sarah Palin is not.
• AD-78: Bill Cavala, who worked the last close race in this district, took a peek at some new registration numbers which show a real advantage for Marty Block:
This year the new registration 'close' figures show the Democrats with 101, 131 registrants, an increase of about 4100 from the last Presidential year. DTS registrations are 49,855, an increase of about 5800 from 2004. Most remarkably, however, Republican registration has fallen by almost 8000 - from 82,615 four years ago to 74,700 today.
This means the net change is Dems up 4100 and Reps down 8000 or 12,100 in favor of the Democrat over 2004.
Forget the increase in DTS registrations - which vote more Democratic than Republican in San Diego. Starting out down 12,000 in a seat where they won by 2000 with an incumbent - it's open this year - puts the Republican candidate squarely behind the 8 ball.
Just one of the many Assembly races where this is so.
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.
Do you live in a safe Democratic Congressional district? If so, please join me and "Adopt-A-Candidate" for the final two week stretch of campaign season.
How do you "adopt-a-candidate"? It's easy.
* Find a worthy Democratic congressional candidate in your state, or in a region you care about, who has potential to beat their opponent.
* Contribute to the candidate's campaign, as though they were representing you.
* Promote your adopted candidate to anyone you know in that district, and write diaries and posts about them on blogs encouraging others to contribute to the candidate too.
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.
There was a lot of excitement in the IAM (Int'l Assoc. of Machinists) union hall this morning in Huntington Beach, where DFA's Jim Dean and a host of local officials testified to the worthiness and strength of Debbie Cook, the Democratic candidate in CA-46, seeking to retire certified nutjob Dana Rohrabacher in Congress. But the best reaction was for the candidate herself, who gave a straight-shooting, no B.S. speech that made clear the stakes in this election.
"Do-Nothing Dana has been in Congress for 20 years and hasn't done a thing," Cook, the mayor of Huntington Beach, said to a pancake breakfast of around 120 volunteers who were ready to precinct walk for her. Referring to a claim from the campaign's latest ad, that Rohrabacher has sponsored a bill to protect the country from an asteroid, she said, "he needs to worry less about asteroids and more about planet Earth."
Cook has really matured as a speaker. She is great on her core issues - energy, the environment, and health care reform - but she's also endorsed the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, and really foregrounds smart growth and development issues. State and local governments are so stressed by this financial crisis that it's incumbent upon us to send lawmakers to Washington who understand local concerns. I've heard again and again from local lawmakers in that district - and again today from Katrina Foley, running for re-election to City Council in Costa Mesa - that Rohrabacher is openly dismissive of any federal help for local governments, and refuses to work with his counterparts. At this point that's downright dangerous, creating choke points that will gut basic services and the smart policies we need - in mass transit, for example - to weather this economic downturn and create a 21st-century infrastructure.
You'll notice that Foley, the Costa Mesa city councilwoman, is a Democrat. Gus Ayer, the mayor of Fountain Valley, a Democrat. Debbie Cook, the mayor of Huntington Beach, Democrat. Orange County is changing, and those who ignore this reality and rest on their laurels, like Dana Rohrabacher, will live to regret it. "This is the first time he's had to get off his lazy a$% and campaign," she said. And he was slow to do it. He only spent $38,000 in the third quarter, but once internal Republican polls have shown the race to be a dead heat, he has swamped the district with money. He's got 4 positive ads on the air and a bunch of negative mailers attacking Debbie as an "extreme liberal" on various issues. If it's liberal to advocate for quality and affordable health care for all, as she has done in earning the endorsement of the California Nurses Association, because to ignore the crisis welcomes a "fiscal nightmare" that risks blowing a hole in the federal budget for good, so be it. If it's liberal to recognize that our current carbon-based economy is unsustainable, and that we must encourage policies and practices that move us off fossil fuels, there you are. If it's liberal to understand that smart density with mass transit can improve quality of life, the environment and the economy, well OK then.
The best part of the speech was when Cook talked about all the support she was getting throughout the district, and she mentioned that some people gave her their economic stimulus checks from the government. "To stimulate what? Buying more crap from China?" While a new stimulus is needed, rather than handing out money as a band-aid we need to direct that spending into something useful, something that will create jobs and get the economy moving again. We need to make things again in America.
After the speeches, the volunteers were sent out to walk precincts. CA-46 is a very long and narrow district that hugs the coast from Long Beach and the Palos Verdes Peninsula in L.A. County down to Costa Mesa in Orange County. Putting those blue areas up north into the district to neutralize their power is a big mistake in this wave election. As the Cook campaign finds new voters everywhere, turning out folks in Long Beach is part of the strategy. So I walked part of a precinct in Long Beach and got a very good response. Rohrabacher simply does not have a good reputation among anyone but the wingnuts, and his record on Social Security (pro-privatization), the military (voted against improving veteran's health care) and the environment (he's a global warming denier) is quite extreme. (There's also the dressing up in drag to solve the RFK murder and about a thousand other lunatic stories) I talked to people today who said "We're Republicans, but we don't like Dana." Very few people turned me away.
Cook's volunteer base is the edge in this election. But she also needs some financial help. The campaign estimates that they need $75,000 to meet their budget and get the last few targeted mailers into the field. Debbie is a Blue America candidate and a Better Democrat. You can donate to her on ActBlue. Please do - we have a real chance here. I'm hoping to get Debbie on Calitics Radio next week.
And if you're in the district, consider volunteering by visiting their website.
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.
(Updated with new information at the bottom... - promoted by David Dayen)
The FEC reports are starting to come in for our candidates. I'll update them here, but the preliminary numbers are very strong.
• CA-50: Wow. Nick Leibham raised $413,000 in the third quarter, his best quarter of the cycle by a factor of four. With $334,000 cash on hand, he's going to be able to get his message out in the final weeks. As much as anything, this is why Leibham is Red To Blue. No word on Brian Bilbray's take yet. Leibham's latest ad uses a local war hero to hammer Bilbray for his vote against the new GI Bill, and it's very powerful, a great improvement over the attention-getting stunts from earlier in the year. I'm starting to feel good about this race.
• CA-45: Julie Bornstein raised around $102,000 in Q3, while Mary Bono Mack raised $245,000. The cash on hand situation shows Bono Mack with $462,548 in the bank compared to Bornstein's $179,308. That's not terrible, especially if the DCCC steps in with some outside help - they just added Bornstein to their emerging races list (along with Bill Durston in CA-03). Her latest ad, showing Bono Mack as a rubber-stamping bobblehead, is spot-on ("Do you think George Bush is right 92% of the time?")
• CA-52: In our toughest winnable race, Mike Lumpkin raised $107,000 and has $125,000 CoH, and Duncan D. Hunter raised $290,000 with $321,000 CoH. It'll take a monumental effort to win this one, but I don't consider it impossible. Lumpkin just got put on the D-Trip's Races To Watch page, along with Russ Warner (CA-26).
• CA-46: A nice writeup about canvassing for Debbie Cook from friend of the blog Andrew Davey (atdleft).
more money updates when they roll in...
UPDATE: Debbie Cook raised $114,000 and has $181,000 in the bank. Nothing yet from Dana Rohrabacher. Will she outraise him three quarters in a row?
UPDATE: More numbers:
CA-04: Charlie Brown: raised $539K, $456K cash on hand. GREAT numbers.
Tom McClintock: raised $978K, but spent a ton, and has only $94,000 left, with $110,000 in debts. He is BROKE. Brown has an infinite lead in CoH.
CA-03: Bill Durston: raised $149K, $145K CoH.
Dan Lungren: raised $173K (wow, Durston almost outraised him), $680K CoH. Dr. Bill is going to need some help.
CA-26: Russ Warner: raised $289K, which is great, but he's spent a lot early. He has $119K CoH.
David Dreier: raised $255K. Wow, Warner outraised Dreier. He still has $1.7 million in the bank, and he doesn't seem to be using the money. He only spent $345K in Q3. I don't know if it's for leadership purposes or what, but he has a hell of a war chest that he's not using.
CA-11: Jerry McNerney: raised $601K, $1.02 million CoH.
Dean Andal: raised $345K, with $850K CoH. Some prize recruit.
CA-50: Brian Bilbray: This was the number I was waiting for. He raised $262K and has $382K CoH. OK, Nick Leibham didn't just beat Bilbray in Q2, he destroyed him. And the cash on hand is virtually even. Wow.
CA-46: Dana Rohrabacher: Drum roll... raised $148K. OK, he beat Debbie Cook for once. The CoH is $497K, but much like Dreier, he's spent next to nothing. $35K in the quarter.
Overall, these are good numbers. Lots of our candidates have the resources they need. Keep up the pressure.
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.
