Greetings and welcome to the latest installment of the California House races roundup. We're just around 100 days to go until the election, and things are starting to take focus. There are about a half-dozen seats where Democratic challengers have an outside shot at dumping the incumbent, and another six on the watch list in case something spectacular occurs. One thing to note is that the Cook numbers are tied to the 2004 election, and given the demographic changes and cratering of the Republican brand I think they mean significantly less now - it'll be interesting to see how all these districts change in November.
We have plenty of new information to judge these races, including 2nd quarter fundraising reports, national ratings from Charlie Cook and Swing State Project, additional DCCC targets, and the appearance of many challengers at Netroots Nation. So this list is really about who I think has the best chance to retain or take over a seat, not necessarily who should (though that may come through in the writing). Here are some helpful bits of information that I used to help judge.
The following California Democrats caved on retroactive immunity and disregarded their oath to, "support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign or domestic":
Joe Baca, Howard Berman, Dennis Cardoza, Jim Costa, Jane Harman, Jerry McNerney, Nancy Pelosi, Brad Sherman, Adam Schiff, Ellen Tauscher
Pete Stark did not vote. This is the list of those who are potential targets of the Blue America PAC vs Retroactive Immunity which as of now has raised $310,673 to, "fund accountability for congressmembers supporting retroactive immunity and warrantless wiretaps." This money isn't going to send thank you cards to the members who did defend the constitution, this is primary money and cold cash to dump Steny Hoyer from leadership (Rahm Emanuel also capitulated).
As the battle moves to the Senate, all eyes are on Barack Obama nationally and Dianne Feinstein locally [(202) 224-3841].
As for 2010 primaries, it will be interesting to see what comes out of this. Carole Migden's 3rd place finish showed that entrenched politics matters less in a modern media environment. Ellen Tauscher is again practically begging to be primaried and in that district she's walking on thin ice. Joe Baca deserves particular scorn as the only Californian to sign the Blue Dog letter to Pelosi pushing capitulation (and a primary of Baca could probably receive significant institutional support from former members of the Hispanic Caucus). McNerney has outdone himself in contracting a full-blown case of Potomic Fever during his first term, every time he makes a move I think about asking for a refund. And Harman and Berman voting to cover-up warrantless wiretapping isn't going to do much to quell the rumors that they are pushing this because they are worried about their own culpability on the issue.
If you live in one of this districts, please call your member and ask them why. Comments and diaries with responses are highly encouraged.
The activities of Dean Andal, the Republican nominee running against Jerry McNerney for Congress in CA-11, have come up in a grand jury investigation.
This week, the San Joaquin County Civil Grand Jury released its report investigating misconduct by the San Joaquin Delta College Board of Trustees. It found that the Board had "squandered millions of dollars in taxpayer money and breached open government laws by sharing closed-session information to developers outside regular meetings." Tracy Press The confidential information apparently disclosed illegally was given to Andal and his associate, big Republican contributor and Sacramento developer Gerry Kamilos.
It's hard to overstate how pathetic national Republicans have been so far this cycle. Some of their top challengers can't get on the ballot, and the leader of their campaign efforts in the Senate said recently that keeping the Democrats to a gain of eight seats would be a moral victory.
Now there's news about Dean Andal, one of the few challengers Republicans are counting on nationwide, the guy who's supposedly working hard to take down Rep. Jerry McNerney. Only he raised a paltry $11,000 in the pre-primary filing period, and now Congressional Republicans are worried that their golden boy is made of iron pyrite.
Dean Andal, recruited by the GOP with great fanfare to challenge freshman Rep. Jerry McNerney (D) in California's 11th district, is now coming under attack from Republicans in Washington, D.C., for running what they contend is a flawed campaign.
Andal, a former state Assemblyman, is facing increasing criticism for his fundraising and general campaign strategy, with the grumbling emanating from Republicans in the consulting and lobbying communities. Privately, Republicans on Capitol Hill are also expressing concern.
The handful of sources interviewed for this story on Tuesday declined to discuss their concerns on the record. But all are Washington, D.C.-based Republican strategists who had until recently been singing Andal's praises and are intimately familiar with the GOP-leaning 11th district.
"I think the fundamentals are there to pull this off," said one GOP operative. "But Andal still has to run a fundamentally sound race. He hasn't done that so far."
At least he's making all the right hires. Andal's top campaign strategist is Richard Temple. He was last seen as the top strategist to Doug "I Don't Know How To Use A Ballot" Ose, who got smoked in the 4th District primary by Tom McClintock after spending millions of his own personal fortune. Andal won't even have that kind of scratch to work with when he gets pounded in the fall.
This is my favorite quote:
Andal's critics insist that he is not doing enough to win, particularly in the current political environment.
"He's dialing it in," said a native Californian and Republican operative who is now based in D.C. "He's got the attitude of a Member of Congress. He doesn't have the attitude of a challenger fighting to get elected in his district."
Well, the votes are in, the matchups are set, and so I thought it was time for a baseline roundup of where I think the California House races stand as of now. The main pieces of information that are causing me to reset my expectations are the primary results, the April 1-May 15 fundraising numbers and the new registration numbers from the Secretary of State's office. You can track all three yourself:
This afternoon, Chris Bowers has an excellent piece: Once In A Generation Is Now. It argues that this election is the opportunity to go all in and make dramatic changes throughout this country. This is our chance to change the tone of discourse. This is our chance to break the GOP machine. And most importantly, this is our chance to get a strong progressive majority to DC that can pass legislation that's been waiting for 30 or more years. Now.
So I can't help but look around California for signs that all the chips are being pushed to the center. Dave noted earlier that there could, on the outer edge, as many as nine California seats in play this year, and certainly recent Democratic successes in Illinois, Louisiana and Mississippi suggest that the ability to win anywhere is now a reality.
While every district is unique, projections are rough at best, and anything can happen between now and November, the odds are slim of there being a better time to go for broke in the forseeable future. So I look around California and I see that between the 34 Democratic incumbents in California's congressional delegation, there's more than $14.6 million cash on hand. Out of those 34, only one (Jerry McNerney) is facing a serious challenge, freeing up a great deal of time and money to invest in races around the state.
I and others in the blogosphere (including Calitics) have given Jerry McNerney (CA-11) plenty of well deserved flack for his past statements and votes on the Iraq War.
Last week, he voted to deny $163 Billion for the purpose of continuing the war. I was glad to see McNerney squarely on the correct side of this vote.
However, I just received a call from Andy Stone, Communications Director for Jerry McNerney, who says:
The intent is to check in with both campaigns and not to endorse anyone. Jerry McNerney was walking to a meeting a meeting and was pulled aside by Senator Clinton for a conversation lasting only a couple of minutes.
Getting this one in under the wire. On the last day of April, with just over a month to go until the June primaries, and six months to go until Election Day, there's a lot going on all over the state in the Congressional races. Of the 19 seats in California currently held by Republicans, 17 will be contested in the fall, and some strongly so. And we now have a full 34 Democrats with the election of Jackie Speier early in the month, and only one of them is a serious challenge. We also have the first quarter of 2008 fundraising numbers, which will raise some eyebrows. You can track these races yourself with the 2008 Race Tracker wiki.
A note: I'm mainly getting my numbers on cash-on-hand competitiveness from the Swing State Project. Fundraising information comes from the FEC.
Art Torres attempted to kick off the afternoon general session. Unfortunately the first speaker, Jerry McNerney was nowhere to be found. Torres actually said "paging Jerry McNerney. If you can hear me come up to the front of the room." Congressman McNerney must have been out earshot because he never made it up to the podium.
Art spoke for a bit and then introduced Gavin Newsom. Mayor Newsom at his impromptu meet the bloggers session told us that he had only been given 8 minutes to speak. He may have some leeway now that McNerney is a no-show.
Newsom is focusing most of his remarks on his health care proposal and global warming/green standards. The general theme is that "they say it can't be done, but we are proving it can be done." He has now switched to education, stating it is not good enough just to stave off the cuts, but that we need to increase funding. Newsom closed by talking about poverty and in particular public housing.
Overall it was a well received speech and most of the audience was standing and clapping as he concluded.
Cong. McNerney seems to have found his way to the stage. Torres is introducing him at the moment.
McNerney is speaking without a teleprompter and is now focusing on the need to elect more Democrats to office. He is using his race as example of inspiration to Democrats across the country. It was a very short speech. Art Torres seemed to call him Jerry Mac-a-Nerney as he left the stage. He then gave a shout-out to Charlie Brown.
Welcome back to the California House races roundup for March. The races are coming into focus, with new challengers entering the fray before the March 7 deadline, and some actual campaigning between candidates (shocking!). And with the DCCC looking at four races in the state, California will certainly be a battleground in Congress in November.
We also know with a fair degree of certainty that Jackie Speier will be the next Representative in CA-12, after Lawrence Lessig declined to run. The initial primary is April 8 and Speier is heavily favored.
So that leaves just one Democratic seat in any degree of question, and I've decided to expand to write about 13 Republican-held seats that have varying degrees of challenges. Overall, Democrats are running in 18 of the 19 seats currently held by Republicans, and 52 of 53 seats overall. Only Kevin McCarthy in CA-22 (Bakersfield) is uncontested AFAIK. You can track these races yourself with the 2008 Race Tracker wiki.
A couple notes: I've changed the percentage of Democratic turnout in the February 5 primary statistics to reflect the final numbers from the Secretary of State's office. As you'll see, six of the thirteen Republican-held seats mentioned had majority Democratic turnout. Very encouraging. Also, I've noted where applicable which challengers have endorsed the Responsible Plan to End The War In Iraq. My hope is that eventually every candidate will do so; it will absolutely help them in their campaigns to show some leadership and offer a comprehensive strategy to end the war and change our conversation around national security.
Perhaps to nobody's surprise, right wing attack ads are up, running and dishonest in CA-11 against Rep. Jerry McNerney. I'm certainly not going to embed it, but you can head here if you want to check it out. Basically, it accuses House Democrats of enabling terrorists because they stood up to President Bush on FISA.
Our new boogeyman is a newly-formed PAC called Defense of Democracies. The ad is running all over the country, in both generic and targeted form. Who exactly is Defense of Democracies you ask?
Defense of Democracies is a spinoff of a bipartisan anti-terrorist foundation of the same name that had included Democrats until the ads began running. Former member Donna Brazile, who worked for former President Clinton, said in a statement that the organization "has morphed into a radical right-wing organization that is doing the dirty work for the Bush administration and congressional Republicans."
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Republican presidential candidate Gary Bauer and former GOP vice presidential candidate Jack Kemp are among the members of the organization's board of directors.
The group running the ads is led by a former spokesman for the Republican National Committee.
Factcheck.org got to refute everything that's wrong with the ad which is...well...actually everything in the ad. Starts off by saying FISA expired. Not true. Says the House refused to vote. Except it voted and passed FISA in November. Says the government's ability to fight terrorism has been crippled. Except the current law runs through August, so nothing's changed.
But reality isn't the sort of thing that Republicans are likely to let get in the way of trying to scare the crap out of people. At the very least, it's good to know that, if the right-wingers are leading off with this, it probably means they don't have a single credible issue to run on. Good luck with that one Dean Andal.
Welcome back to the long-awaited California House races roundup! These things take up an inordinate amount of time, but I've finally found some, and I'm ready to go with this roundup. There's a lot of additional information, including Q4 2007 fundraising numbers, the turnout in the February primary offering a decent snapshot of Democratic chances in a particular district, and quite a few new candidates to speak about. I'm going to rank the top ten challenges to Republican-held seats across the state, as well as take a look at the two intriguing races held by Democrats. But first, it should be mentioned that the deadline for applying to run for a Congressional seat is fast approaching (March 7, I believe), and 4 of the 19 Republican-held seats in the state still have no challenger: CA-02 (Herger), CA-19 (Radanovich), CA-22 (McCarthy), and CA-25 (McKeon). This is especially distressing in CA-19 and CA-25, where turnout in the Feb. 5 primary was either even or favored Democrats. So anyone in these 4 districts: run for Congress! It's a résumé builder!
(By the way, you can follow all of the candidates in all these races at the 2008 Race Tracker.
(bump cause I like congressional and numbers - promoted by Lucas O'Connor)
Turnout from Tuesday's primary by party. Every district with a Republican leaning PVI plus Barbara Lee just for fun and comparison's sake. Of the Republican leaning districts, Dem turnout was higher in 8 and close in several others. Might be an interesting November. Just sayin.
Numbers on the flip.
Update: I should have mentioned in the first place, there are still no Democratic candidates in CA-02, CA-19, CA-22, or CA-25. Turnout was dead even in the 19th and higher for Dems in the 25th, just for starters.
I've been a really, really bad blogger and have stopped my Congressional House Roundup. So here's a mini-one. I've dug up the totals for 2007 fundraising in the top races in the state, and they're a little interesting. Here are the numbers from the key races.
CA-11:
Jerry McNerney raised $1.065 million in 2007, has $760,000 cash on hand
Dean Andal raised $535,000, has $471,000 CoH
CA-04:
Charlie Brown raised $506,000, has $383,000 CoH I was looking at Q3 numbers. Brown has raised $692,000, and has $483,000 CoH. Big numbers for a non-incumbent.
Eric Egland raised $141,000, has $79,000 CoH
There are no fundraising numbers yet for the new challengers who have entered the race on the Republican side, including former State Sen. Rico Oller and former US Rep. Doug Ose. By the way, Ose has donated to Doolittle's legal defense fund, along with Minority Leader John Boehner. Reformers, all of them!
CA-26:
David Dreier raised $599,000, has $1.96 million CoH
Russ Warner raised $380,000, has $240,000 CoH
Hoyt Hilsman raised $114,000, has $10,550 CoH
Obviously, Dreier is sitting on a goldmine.
CA-50:
Brian Bilbray raised $419,000, has $262,000 CoH
Nick Leibham raised $211,000, has $188,000 CoH
Very encouraging.
Others to note:
Mary Bono (CA-45) only has a paltry $219,000 CoH. Her potential opponents Julie Bornstein, David Hunsicker and Paul Clay got in too late to register any money in this quarter (sometimes the FEC shows residual candidates who have run in previous years, so I'm not certain they're running.)
Mike Lumpkin, the Democrat in CA-52 trying to take Duncan Hunter's open seat, raised $78,000 in 2007 and has $43,000 CoH.
Today is November 12, one day after the real Veterans' Day and the day of observation for government workers. So, today, how about we all find a veteran and thank them if you didn't do so yesterday. Sure, you could choose the easy route, by thanking your family. I'll be sure to send mad props to my father, a Vietnam vet, who rarely reads this blog (but if you happen to today, Dad, Thanks!). But, consider this:
The National Alliance to End Homelessness reported Thursday that, although one in 10 Americans is a veteran, they account for 25 percent of the homeless population. Already veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan have been found living on the streets. (Home News Tribune 11.12.07)
Homelessness and poverty are alone enough reason for us to reach out to those on the streets. But it is even more tragic to see veterans bearing the brunt of homelessness. Often they are victims of mental illness, and we have no capability to treat them. Thank the glorious Ronald Reagan for that. So, next time you hear some politician spouting off about how they "support the troops", ask them if they support the homeless veterans as well.
Find a California Dept. of Veterans Affairs Veterans Day event here (pdf). And, if you're interested Jerry McNerney is attending an event in Stockton to honor veterans.
