Category Archives: Election Analysis

LA-2’s Saturday Special Election

(LA-2 Candidate Troy Carter’s Closing Ad)

By Jim Ellis

April 26, 2021 — The special election to fill the vacant Louisiana congressional district from which former Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-New Orleans) resigned when he accepted a Biden White House appointment was decided Saturday, with the contest having evolved into a more significant race than originally anticipated.

The one thing we knew coming into the special election was that a Democratic New Orleans state senator would win the race, but the question around which of the two would prevail was one of longer-term national importance. We saw in this race not just a runoff between two Democratic contenders for a Democratic congressional seat, but rather an intensifying battle between the more traditional party base and the hard left movement that has had success in other places.

A victory for the Justice Democrats in the person of state Sen. Karen Carter Peterson (D-New Orleans) will increase the movement’s strength and likely lead to stronger primary challenges against more traditional Democratic incumbents come 2022.

Remember, state Sen. Troy Carter (D-New Orleans) placed first in the March 20 jungle primary with 34 percent of the vote. Sen. Peterson edged Baton Rouge community activist Gary Chambers, Jr. by 22.9 – 21.3 percent, a margin of 1,510 votes of 94,567 votes cast and spread among 15 candidates.

In the LA-2 special election on Saturday, Carter won by a 10-point spread over Peterson, 55-45%.

Peterson ironically qualified for the runoff with a better-than-expected performance in the Baton Rouge section of the district and fell below expectations in her home city of New Orleans. Conversely, Chambers proved weaker in his home of Baton Rouge but stronger in New Orleans.

Chambers’ endorsement of Sen. Peterson marked the beginning of the support we saw moving toward the second-place finisher, but the lack of available polling data – the last poll we’d seen for this race came from Edgewater Research over the March 1-2 period, which gave Sen. Carter a 35-24 percent lead – allowed us to surmise that Saturday’s end result was likely to be close and could have trended in either direction.

Continue reading →

Senate Money

By Jim Ellis

April 23, 2021 — Continuing our analysis of early 2022 campaign cycle fundraising based upon the first quarter 2021 Federal Election Commission disclosure reports, today we look at the key US Senate contests.

Tracking the Senate race dollars is much different than the House because the FEC groups incumbent statewide campaigns by election cycle. Therefore, the receipts column covers the period from when the incumbents last ran through March 31, 2021. This means the senators are reporting dollars raised from Jan. 1, 2017 through the first quarter deadline. For candidates just entering the 2022 campaign — those in the open seats for example — the disclosure period begins Jan. 1, 2021.

Therefore, the receipts category is not as telling for Senate campaign standing as it is for the House campaigns. Thus, the key category to gauge where the Senate candidates stand in relation to the 2022 campaign cycle is their cash-on-hand total.

The chart below focuses on the races thought to be competitive for the 2022 election. As we have seen in modern times, the financial aspect of Senate campaigns is less important than for the House in determining or projecting final outcome because so much is now spent on the statewide races even in the smallest of states.

Typically, Senate nominees from both parties consistently have more than adequate financial resources with which to communicate their messages. Furthermore, the current income/spending figures as they relate to candidate committees don’t account for the large amount of outside independent expenditures that now accompany almost all competitive US Senate campaigns, which certainly can alter final outcome.

In terms of clarification, Sen. Raphael Warnock’s (D-GA) total of $27,517,878 includes the amount raised for his statewide runoff campaign that was decided on Jan. 5, 2021. This explains why his receipts total is so high, and far beyond any other incumbent or candidate listed on the chart.

Continue reading →

House Money

By Jim Ellis

April 22, 2021 — The first quarter Federal Election Commission financial disclosure reports were due from all incumbents and official candidates on April 15, and the statistical staff from the Daily Kos Elections website, as they typically do, tallied and organized all the monetary results.

For the quarter, 493 House incumbents and candidates filed reports. The incumbent category does not include those who have already announced they are not seeking re-election in 2022. As a group, the 493 House political organizations raised an aggregate $138,944,000 for a mean average of $281,915 per individual campaign. Conversely, the median average, defined as a number of which an equal share of entities are above and below, was only $143,000.

This particular median average result tells us that the 1st quarter House political dollar stats are very top heavy, with a total of 23 contenders, all incumbents, raising more than $1 million for the quarter.

The top fundraiser, not unexpectedly, obtaining just under $4 million was House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). The second-place finisher, however, was a surprise. Controversial Republican freshman Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), who was stripped of her committee assignments because of her association with QAnon theory, amassed over $3.22 million, virtually all from small donors. House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) recorded $3.16 million in receipts, just about $400,000 ahead of party leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).

The cash-on-hand numbers were actually quite stunning. The aggregate total for the 493 reporting entities is $442,131,000 for a mean average per campaign unit of $856,259. Again, this is weighted heavily to the top quarter of campaigns, as the median average is only $458,000.

The House member with the most money in his account is California Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) with a whopping $14.4 million cash-on-hand. Raising almost $2 million in the first quarter, Schiff, as chairman of the House Intelligence Committee during the Trump impeachment hearings was able to rake in millions.

He may need to make heavy expenditures in the next election campaign, however. California is likely to lose a seat in reapportionment, and Schiff, whose district sits in the middle of the San Fernando Valley and has the lowest population level of all 53 current Golden State US House districts, is in danger of seeing his seat being the one eliminated.

Continue reading →

Ohio Rep. Stivers to Resign

By Jim Ellis

Ohio Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Columbus)

April 21, 2021 — The growing list of US House vacancies has risen again, but this one came as a surprise. Ohio Rep. Steve Stivers (R-Columbus), who had raised close to $1.4 million in the first quarter of 2021 in testing the waters for a possible US Senate campaign, has decided to leave elective politics altogether.

Effective May 16, Stivers will resign from the 15th District in the Buckeye State’s US House delegation in order to become President/CEO of the Ohio Chamber of Commerce. His about-face from joining the open Senate race leaves former Ohio Republican Party chair Jane Timken and ex-state Treasurer Josh Mandel in the GOP field along with author and venture capitalist J.D. Vance, who appears ready to enter.

Also in the contest are businessmen Mike Gibbons, a 2018 US Senate candidate, and Bernie Moreno. North Ohio state senator and Cleveland Indians baseball club minority owner Matt Dolan is also a possible Republican candidate. Democrats appear to be coalescing around Rep. Tim Ryan (D-Warren/Youngstown), though he has yet to formally announce his Senate campaign.

The Stivers move could open the door for one or more of his congressional colleagues who have been considering the Senate race, namely Reps. Mike Turner (R-Dayton), Bill Johnson (R-Marietta), and David Joyce (R-Russell Township).

The Stivers’ seat will become the fifth vacated House district once he departs in the middle of May and the Louisiana congressional vacancy (LA-2) is filled in a special election this Saturday, April 24. Currently, in addition to Rep. Stivers, seven House members have announced they will not be standing for re-election in 2022, either retiring or seeking a different office.

Once Rep. Stivers officially resigns, Gov. Mike DeWine (R) will schedule a replacement special election for the balance of the term. It is more than likely he will follow the same calendar set for the state’s other congressional vacancy, the 11th District of former representative and now-Housing & Urban Development Secretary Marcia Fudge (D-Cleveland/Akron).

The 11th CD schedule calls for a partisan primary on Aug. 3 with the general election Nov. 2. Ohio election law allows for special elections to be called only in certain months, hence the long cycle for these vacant seats.

The 15th District sits largely in the center of the state and occupies approximately 20 percent of Franklin County, including part of the city of Columbus, and also contains all or portions of 11 other counties. The seat encompasses the rural areas west, southwest, and southeast of the Columbus metro area. It is traditionally Republican, though a version of the seat elected Democrat Mary Jo Kilroy in the 2008 election after eight-term Rep. Deborah Pryce (R) had retired. Kilroy defeated Stivers, then a state senator, in a close 46-45 percent result. He returned for a re-match in 2010 and won a convincing 13-point victory, ousting Kilroy after just her first term in office. Since his first victorious congressional election, Stivers averaged 63.1 percent of the vote over five re-election campaigns.

In presidential elections, the 15th District backed Donald Trump in both of his national elections, 56-42 percent last November, and 55-40 percent against Hillary Clinton in 2016. We can expect a crowded special Republican primary with the eventual nominee beginning the general cycle as the favorite. Democrats can be expected, however, to field a credible nominee and will likely make a concerted effort to win the special election.

Though Ohio is set to lose a congressional district in reapportionment, the 15th, which touches the main growth region of the state, in and around Columbus, will likely remain relatively intact. According to the latest available Census records, the 15th would need to gain less than 10,000 residents, while adjacent Districts 3 (Rep. Joyce Beatty-D) and 12 (Rep. Troy Balderson-R), the only two over-populated CDs in Ohio, must shed people.

The Very Real Challenges Of 10 Reps Who Voted to Impeach Trump

By Jim Ellis

Former President Trump

April 20, 2021 — The 10 House Republicans who voted for ex-President Trump’s second impeachment have drawn national media attention, and the newly disclosed first quarter campaign finance numbers give us a sense of which incumbents have a significant challenge ahead of them while others look ahead to clear sailing.

To refresh memories, the 10 GOP impeachment supporters are: Reps. Jaime Herrera Beutler (R-WA), Liz Cheney (R-WY), Anthony Gonzalez (R-OH), John Katko (R-NY), Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), Peter Meijer (R-MI), Dan Newhouse (R-WA), Tom Rice (R-SC), Fred Upton (R-MI), and David Valadao (R-CA). Of these, all have declared opposition with the exception of Rep. Katko.

Based upon fundraising, which is an excellent indication of a candidate’s early support and whether the contender is making the right moves to position him or herself properly against an incumbent, we see two members, and possibly a third, who appear to have capable opponents.

Ohio’s Max Miller, the former Trump White House aide, is the top fundraiser among the nine challenger contests. He reports more than $500,000 in receipts with just over $438,000 remaining in his campaign account for a battle with two-term incumbent Rep. Gonzalez. For his part, the congressman raised well over $600,000 in the first quarter and his cash-on-hand exceeds $1 million.

The other seemingly significant contender is technology executive and Army veteran Joe Kent who is challenging six-term Washington Rep. Beutler. He raised over $269,000 as compared to the congresswoman’s $744,755. On hand, Kent has almost all his money remaining having spent only about a net $20,000 at this early point in time. Washington has a jungle primary, so the chances of qualifying two Republicans for the general election or Rep. Beutler not advancing are scenarios currently difficult to fathom.

The leading incumbent fundraiser of the group is House Republican Conference chair Cheney, who posted campaign receipts of more than $1.5 million, and holding well over $1.4 million in her campaign account. Combined, her top two Republican opponents raised a total of more than $500,000 and would have over $320,000 cash-on-hand if they would coalesce behind just one candidate. A crowded field, especially in light of her strong 1st quarter fundraising performance, puts Rep. Cheney in a favorable position for renomination even though support to replace her is clearly significant.

The Illinois crowded field against Rep. Kinzinger also plays to his advantage. Of his six announced opponents, only community affairs consultant and previous congressional candidate Cynthia Lauf has attracted more than $150,000. With Rep. Kinzinger holding over $2.5 million in his campaign account and no single strong opponent emerging means the congressman remains in advantageous position for renomination.

The only one of the group who may not benefit from having multiple challengers is South Carolina’s Tom Rice (R-Myrtle Beach). Horry County School Board chairman Ken Richardson appears to be the most formidable of the possible opponents, raising over $154,000 with just under $90,000 remaining in the bank.

Continue reading →

What Rep. Kevin Brady ‘s
Retirement From TX-8 Means

Texas’ 8th Congressional District – more change likely coming …

By Jim Ellis

April 16, 2021 — Veteran Texas Congressman Kevin Brady (R-The Woodlands), who is the Republican’s ranking member of the House Ways & Means Committee, announced Wednesday that his current 13th term will be his last as a member of the House. Brady, first elected in 1996 after serving three terms in the Texas House of Representatives, will retire at the end of the 117th Congress with 26 years of seniority.

Rep. Kevin Brady (R-The Woodlands)

Rep. Brady is now the fifth Republican to announce he won’t seek re-election, but three of those are running for different offices. Rep. Mo Brooks (R-AL) is a declared US Senate candidate; Rep. Jody Hice (R-GA) is running for Georgia Secretary of State; and Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) has announced he plans to challenge Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D) next year. Joining Brady in retiring from Congress is New York Rep. Tom Reed (R-Corning). The 6th District of Texas, due to Rep. Ron Wright’s (R-Arlington) death, is in special election and will likely be filled sometime in late June or early July.

Two Democrats are retiring, another Texan, Rep. Filemon Vela (D-Brownsville) and Arizona’s Ann Kirkpatrick (D-Tucson). Four Democratic seats are currently in special election cycles, however: LA-2 (Rep. Cedric Richmond), NM-1 (Rep. Deb Haaland), OH-11 (Rep. Marcia Fudge), and FL-20 (Rep. Alcee Hastings). The first three Democratic vacancies are due to Biden Administration appointments of the listed members, while Rep. Hastings passed away last week.

Brady first came to office in an unusual manner. After qualifying for the original runoff election from the early March 1996 Texas primary, he defeated his Republican opponent with 53 percent of the vote in the secondary election a month later.

Post nomination, a federal court ruled that several Lone Star State districts were illegal for racial representation reasons and an immediate re-draw was ordered. Though Brady’s 8th District was not one of the seats deemed illegal, re-drawing an adjacent district labeled as such affected his seat. Therefore, he was again forced to run in another primary and runoff election, the latter against the same opponent he defeated earlier in the year. In all, Brady had to run in four elections all in the same year to capture the 8th District for the first time.

Continue reading →

Polling Acceptability Standards Measured Across States

By Jim Ellis

April 15, 2021 — Five key Democratic pollsters recently released a report from a post-election meeting held to determine why their 2020 survey results again so often fell below acceptable accuracy standards.

Go to Democracy Docket to see all results by clicking on image above.

Representatives from the Democratic polling firms of ALG Research, Garin-Hart-Yang Research Group, GBAO Strategies, Global Strategy Group, and the Normington Petts firm met to develop a plan to correct some of their methodological flaws in order to provide more accurate information to their clients and the public in future elections.

Their key conclusion was that, generally, the polling community failed to accurately depict enough conservative/right-of-center vote coming from rural areas. They make the point that in politically changing places like Arizona and Georgia, the aggregate data was quite accurate, but they collectively missed in more rural Republican-leaning states such as Iowa.

While the polling firm reps stressed the point that their collective numbers were strong in the metropolitan areas, there seems to be, however, a further detail left unsaid or possibly unnoticed. That is, the polling community seemed to correctly project the outcomes in states that have one large central metropolitan area that is self-contained within a single media market such as Arizona (Maricopa County), Colorado (Denver Metro), Georgia (Atlanta Metro), and Nevada (Clark County), but not in states with diverse geographical configurations.

While the firms tended to miss by relatively large margins in rural states like Montana, and particularly so in that state’s Senate race, they also seemed to fare poorly in places where the population is more evenly spread and have several metropolitan areas. States in this category include several in the Midwest such as Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin, along with Florida, a major Sun Belt state.

In the latter place, while the polling was relatively accurate from a margin perspective, the aggregate polling community has consistently missed projecting the main Florida statewide winner(s) in every election since 2014. In each case, Democrats were predicted to win with a close margin while in actuality the Republican candidates claimed the election.

The charts below detail the states hosting the most competitive races and present the mean average polling during 2020 campaign’s final week. This average is then compared with the state’s final results. Notice that in places such as Michigan and Pennsylvania, culling the Democratic research firms from both the Republicans and the local pollsters – the latter of which in many places performed better than the national firms, i.e., in Maine, Iowa, and Kansas – drastically changes the average.

The Democratic pollsters’ meeting primarily revolved around presidential polling because of their uniform belief that former President Donald Trump had such a strong effect, both positive and negative, upon the electorate.

The Senate contests, however, contained some of the bigger polling misses. The most egregious is Maine, where the last week polling average showed Sen. Susan Collins (R) trailing by 5.7 percentage points when she would prove victorious with an 8.6% margin. Once more, we see a big miss in a largely rural state.

Continue reading →