Tag Archives: President Obama

Biden’s Achilles Heel

By Jim Ellis

President Joe Biden

Jan. 21, 2022 — The International online survey research firm YouGov just released a major US national poll for CBS News reporting upon their respondents’ attitudes and views about President Joe Biden and his administration’s effectiveness, and the segmented data revealed a surprising information point.

In fact, the analysis pinpointed what appears to be a severe area of weakness for the president’s Democratic Party in relation to the midterm elections.

The exhaustive survey, conducted online of 2,094 American adults during the Jan. 12-14 period, focused on the issue areas (in alphabetical order) of Afghanistan, the coronavirus, crime, the economy, inflation, immigration, police and policing, and race relations. In all areas but coronavirus, where the president scored a 52:48 percent favorable rating, his approval score was underwater.

His worst showing came in his handling of inflation. On this issue, the respondent sample expressed unfavorable views about the administration’s performance in a whopping 30:70 percent positive to negative ratio.

While there has been quite a bit of post-2020 election coverage about the Republicans’ improved performance among Hispanics in particular, one group with whom Democrats have gained substantially during the past few elections is among college-educated voters. The Republicans’ diminished vote within this sector is likely a bigger area of concern for party leaders and strategists than how the GOP candidates are performing with minority voters.

Since the Obama presidential election of 2012, the Republican share among college-educated voters has dropped significantly. In fact, it is within this segment where Joe Biden outperformed Hillary Clinton with his greatest increase level. In 2012, President Obama captured 46 percent of the college-educated vote. Four years later, Clinton increased the percentage to 50, and in 2020, Biden’s share rose to 54 percent, or a full eight points better than Obama’s in an eight-year period.

These figures come from the Catalist data trust firm, an entity that bills itself as the “longest running such company in progressive politics,” as reported in a post-election analysis article on the Vox information news site.

The YouGov/CBS poll segmentation categorizes white 4-year college educated voters. Except for the coronavirus and crime issues, this highly educated sector appears to be turning on President Biden. In fact, their negative views on the economy, and particularly inflation, closely mirror the aggregate response, a sampling universe that contains overwhelmingly negative responses from self-identified conservatives.

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Rep. Bobby Rush to Retire

US Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Chicago)

By Jim Ellis

Jan. 6, 2022 — From Illinois Black Panther Party co-founder to 30-year member of Congress, US Rep. Bobby Rush (D-Chicago) after the first of the year announced that he will not seek a 16th term next year. Rush becomes the 24th Democrat to leave the House either for retirement or seeking another elective office. A 25th Democratic seat, that of the late Rep. Alcee Hastings (D-FL), will be filled next week (Jan. 11) in a special election.

Bobby Rush co-founded the Illinois chapter of the Black Panther Party in 1968, but left for the Democratic Party in 1974. He was elected to the Chicago City Council in 1983, and then to the US House in the 1992 election. In addition to his civil rights activism and background, his claim to national fame was defeating then-state Sen. Barack Obama in the Democratic congressional primary of 2000.

Obama, of course, would go onto win the US Senate election in 2004, and the presidency in 2008. Interestingly, former President Obama is not the only recent president who lost a race for the House of Representatives. Bill Clinton and George W. Bush also failed to win a district contest.

Illinois’ 1st District is heavily Democratic, even in its new form that meanders farther away from its south Chicago population anchor. The new 1st stretches all the way to the city of Wilmington, some 60 miles from the traditional heart of IL-1.

Likely anticipating that Rush would retire, seven Democrats had previously announced their 2022 candidacies, but none are elected officials. With the incumbent retirement now official, we can expect a number of Chicago Democratic politicians to enter the open race. As many as 11 sitting state and local officials are being mentioned as possible candidates in addition to Lt. Gov. Julianna Stratton.

Regardless of who files before the March 14 candidate declaration deadline, the June 28 Democratic primary winner will easily claim the seat in November. While the new 1st is a bit more Republican than Rep. Rush’s current CD, the new district is still overwhelmingly Democratic and majority minority under the Democratic legislature’s gerrymandered map. According to the FiveThirtyEight statistical site, the new 1st is a D+41, down from the current 1st District rating of D+47.

Of the 24 Democratic incumbents not seeking re-election, 17 are retiring and seven are seeking another office, from US Senate and governor to state attorney general and big city mayor.

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Rep. John Yarmuth to Retire

By Jim Ellis

Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Louisville)

Oct. 14, 2021 — In a video to his supporters and beginning with the phrase “it’s been an incredible journey since my first campaign in 2006 until now …” Kentucky US Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Louisville), the chairman of the House Budget Committee, announced Tuesday that he will not seek a 9th term in Congress next year.

Yarmuth indicated that he never intended to spend 16 years in Washington, figuring he would retire after five terms, but at the age of 75, with his birthday just before the next election, the veteran congressman indicated it is time to return to Louisville and begin enjoying retirement. He committed to vigorously serving the remainder of the current term.

Kentucky’s 3rd Congressional District is fully contained within Jefferson County and hosts the state’s largest city of Louisville. Under the 2020 census numbers, the 3rd only needs to shed 5,879 residents, suggesting that the district will remain largely intact after redistricting. The Kentucky legislature is again expected to draw a 5R-1D congressional map designed to hold for the ensuing decade.

The 3rd is Kentucky’s lone Democratic congressional seat, and returned a 60-38 percent margin for President Biden last November. Hillary Clinton recorded a 55-40 percent spread against then-candidate Donald Trump in 2016, and President Obama posted a 56-43 percent mark against Mitt Romney back in 2012, the first election under the current district lines.

Yarmuth came to the House in 2006, scoring an upset win over then-Rep. Anne Northup (R) in a much different and more competitive 3rd District. He unseated her with a close 51-48 percent margin in what proved to be a strong Democratic election year. Northup returned for a re-match in 2008, but Yarmuth easily won that contest with a 59-41 percent victory margin in the first Obama election year.

In the course of his seven re-election campaigns, Rep. Yarmuth averaged 61.4 percent of the vote and was never a targeted Democratic incumbent. He assumed the chairmanship of the Budget Committee in 2019.

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Rep. Ron Kind to Retire

Wisconsin Rep. Ron Kind (D-La Crosse)

By Jim Ellis

Aug. 12, 2021 — Veteran Wisconsin Congressman Ron Kind (D-La Crosse) said Tuesday that 26 years in the House of Representatives will be enough. He told the covering reporters that he is “out of gas,” and will not seek re-election in 2022. Kind was first elected to his southwestern Badger State congressional district in 1996.

In his remarks, the congressman said he is ” . . . part of a dying breed in public service today in Washington and certainly in Madison — someone who tried to be reasonable, pragmatic, thoughtful, worked hard to try to find common ground with my colleagues, work in a bipartisan way to find bipartisan solutions for the challenges that we face.”

Wisconsin’s 3rd District is one of seven seats in the country that voted for ex-President Trump in both 2020 and 2016 (Trump ’20: 51-47 percent; Trump ’16: 49-45 percent) and elects a Democrat to the House. Kind’s 2020 election percentage margin, 51-49, was the closest of his long career. Over his 11 re-election campaigns not including 2020, the long-time incumbent averaged 64.8 percent of the general election vote.

Rep. Kind’s 2020 November opponent, retired Navy SEAL Derrick Van Orden (R), had already announced his return for a re-match and had raised just over $750,000 since the beginning of this year, holding more than $600,000 in his campaign account according to the June 30 financial disclosure report. Despite his retirement announcement, Kind had been active in raising money, bringing in over $630,000 since the beginning of the year and was in strong financial shape with just under $1.4 million in the bank at the June 30 reporting deadline.

Therefore, and considering his active work in the district this year, the retirement announcement comes as a surprise. Examining the district’s recent changing voting history, since the electorate posted 55 percent for President Obama in 2012 to Rep. Kind having a close re-election eight years later, WI-3 likely becomes the Republicans’ top national conversion target, at least for the short term.

The 3rd District sits in the far western corner of the state, beginning at the southwestern tip of the Wisconsin southern border, just across the Mississippi River from Dubuque, Iowa. It then travels northward up the Iowa and Minnesota borders to encompass its two population anchor cities of La Crosse and Eau Claire, that house just over 52,000 and 67,000 individuals, respectively. The district then moves east to capture some of the central Wisconsin rural areas.

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Tennessee Rep. Phil Roe to Retire

By Jim Ellis

Tennessee Rep. Phil Roe (R-Johnson City/Kingsport)

Jan. 7, 2020 — The House open seat total reached 40 over the weekend as veteran Tennessee Rep. Phil Roe (R-Johnson City/Kingsport) announced that he will not seek a seventh term later this year. Rep. Roe is the former mayor of Johnson City, Tenn., and ostensibly entered federal office when he defeated first-term Congressman David Davis in the 2008 Republican primary.

Roe initially pledged to serve only five terms. He changed his mind and successfully sought re-election in 2018 saying that he had unfinished business as chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee. As we know, the Democrats would go onto win the majority that year, thus relegating Roe to the committee’s ranking minority member position. Losing the chairmanship virtually eliminated the foremost reason for him remaining in Congress.

The 1st District is one of the safest Republican seats in the country. The last time a Democrat was elected to the House from easternmost Tennessee dates all the way back to 1878. The longest-serving representative from the region is former Rep. Jamie Quillen (R) who held the seat for 34 years after his original election in 1962.

The 1st District occupies the eastern tail of the Volunteer State. It contains 11 counties and part of Jefferson, a domain it shares with the 2nd District that is anchored in Knoxville. The largest 1st District population centers surround the cities of Johnson City and Kingsport. Sevier County, with a population figure of just under 90,000, is the third largest segment. It contains the cities of Sevierville and the tourist centers of Gatlinburg and Pigeon Forge in the district’s southern sector.

The TN-1 electorate votes heavily Republican. President Trump carried the seat 77-20 percent in 2016. Mitt Romney defeated President Obama here, 73-26 percent, and John McCain recorded a 70-29 percent victory margin in 2008. In his six victorious congressional elections, Rep. Roe averaged 77.8 percent of the vote in what were always lightly contested general election campaigns.

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Deadlines Ahead in Ohio,
North Carolina 2020 Campaigns

By Jim Ellis

Dec. 17, 2019 — Interesting decisions await as candidate filing deadlines are approaching this week in Ohio (Dec. 18) and North Carolina (Dec. 20) for their respective March 17 and March 3 primaries.

The Ohio political situation, originally thought to be relatively mundane without a Senate campaign and little competition within the congressional delegation, may be changing.

In the 1st District, veteran Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Cincinnati), who lost this district in 2008 after first going to Congress in 1995 and then re-claiming the seat in 2010, again faces what will likely be a competitive re-election battle. In 2018, Chabot defeated Hamilton County Clerk of Courts Aftab Pureval by a 51-47 percent count, despite the Democratic nominee spending over $4 million for his campaign. Expected to file for the Democrats this year are healthcare executive Kate Schroder and US Air Force Reserve officer Nikki Foster.

The new potential contest coming onto the political scene emanates from the Youngstown area as Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Warren), who was an early presidential candidate but failed to generate any major attention, appears to be attracting strong opposition for the first time since he won his original congressional election in 2002.

Now reportedly moving toward challenging Rep. Ryan are former Lt. Gov. Mary Taylor, who fared poorly in the 2018 Republican gubernatorial primary, and ex-state Rep. Christina Hagan who scored over 40 percent of the vote against freshman Rep. Anthony Gonzalez (R-Rocky River/Medina) in the last nomination campaign from the neighboring 16th District.

Though both women have the ability to attract people and resources to their political efforts, the 13th CD is reliably Democratic and Congressman Ryan would be tough to dislodge. President Trump fared better than most Republicans here in 2016, but still lost 44-51 percent. President Obama, in both 2008 and 2012, topped 62 percent and Rep. Ryan has averaged 67.8 percent of the vote over his nine-term congressional career.

Still, House members who run for president often have a difficult time in their next re-election effort, so it remains to be seen if a credible challenge against the veteran congressman could develop legs.

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Rep. Yoho to Retire; Texas Filings

By Jim Ellis

Dec. 12, 2019 — Keeping his pledge to serve only four terms in the House, Florida Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Gainesville) announced in a local radio interview earlier this week that he will not seek re-election next year. Also, the 2020 Texas candidate filing deadline came on Monday, and lists of the qualifying candidates are now becoming public.

REP. YOHO, FL-3

Florida Rep. Ted Yoho (R-Gainesville)

There had been some speculation brewing as to Yoho’s plans for 2020 with some suggesting he might eschew his original pledge. Making this now the 37th open House seat and second in Florida, potential candidates will have until May 1 to file for the Aug. 25 primary.

The eventual Republican nominee will clearly have the inside track to hold this seat for the GOP. Florida’s 3rd District is strongly, and consistently, Republican. President Trump scored 56.2 percent of the vote in 2016. This number is almost identical to the 56.6 percent that Mitt Romney posted against President Obama in 2012, and John McCain’s 54.6 percent that he garnered in the 2008 presidential election.

Rep. Yoho has averaged 61.0 percent of the vote here over four elections, but the district was significantly changed in the 2015 mid-decade court-ordered redistricting plan. In the current configuration, Yoho averaged almost exactly what the Republican presidential candidates scored: 57.2 percent in his two elections since the boundary alteration.

The 3rd District occupies five whole counties and parts of a sixth. The major population center is the city of Gainesville in Alachua County. The remaining portion of the CD is nestled squarely in the north/central section of the Florida peninsula.

Three Republicans had already announced their candidacies, but none seems particularly viable. The contender raising the most money through the Sept. 30 financial disclosure period is businesswoman Amy Pope Wells, but her receipts showed just under $40,000 raised for the campaign with a cash-on-hand figure of just under $8,500.

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