Category Archives: House

Special Elections Mounting — House

By Jim Ellis

Dec. 15, 2016 — Just as the 2016 election cycle ended with the Louisiana run-off elections last Saturday, a new round of voting is about to begin.

President-Elect Donald Trump’s selection of Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT-AL) as Interior Secretary adds yet another future special election to the growing number of House and Senate odd-numbered year electoral contests.

In addition to Zinke, President-Elect Trump has selected House colleagues Tom Price (R-GA-6; Health and Human Services) and Mike Pompeo (R-KS-4; CIA Director) for Administration appointments. In California, Gov. Jerry Brown (D) has appointed Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-CA-34) to replace Sen.-Elect Kamala Harris (D-CA) as the state’s Attorney General. All of these members will be resigning their current seats immediately before taking their new offices.

Here’s how things are beginning to formulate in the House (we looked at the Senate yesterday):

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A Bayou Sweep

By Jim Ellis

Dec. 12, 2016 — Republicans completed the 2016 election cycle with a sweep of Saturday’s Louisiana run-off races. In the US Senate race, state Treasurer John Kennedy (R) easily defeated Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell (D), 61-39 percent, as expected.

State Rep. Mike Johnson (R-Bossier City) will replace outgoing Rep. John Fleming (R-Minden/Shreveport). He defeated Democratic attorney Marshall Jones, 65-35 percent, in a race that also contained little in the way of suspense.

Finally, in the double Republican 3rd CD, Lafayette retired police captain Clay Higgins out-polled Public Service Commissioner and former gubernatorial candidate Scott Angelle, 56-44 percent. Higgins will replace Rep. Charles Boustany (R-Lafayette) in the new Congress. Both Fleming and Boustany ran unsuccessfully for US Senate.

In the Senate race, Kennedy captured 55 of the state’s 64 parishes. The result here was never in doubt. Kennedy placed first in the Nov. 8 jungle primary, 25-17 percent over Campbell among 24 candidates. The qualifying Democratic candidate, who has run and lost before in statewide and congressional races, could never attract outside funding support, even from the national Democratic Party apparatus.

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CA-34: The Battle Begins; Iowa Governor

By Jim Ellis

Dec. 9, 2016 — Rep. Xavier Becerra (D-Los Angeles) has yet to resign his seat after Gov. Jerry Brown (D) officially appointed him to replace Senator-Elect Kamala Harris (D) as California’s Attorney General, but already a crowded field to replace him is forming.

The 34th is a heavily Democratic district that features a 64.1 percent Hispanic population, and will almost assuredly evolve into a run-off between two Democrats.

Immediately upon Rep. Becerra being tabbed as the appointment, former state Assembly Speaker John Perez (D) declared his congressional candidacy. His action has hardly scared anyone away, however. State Assemblyman Jimmy Gomez (D) then announced his candidacy, as did labor union activist Wendy Carillo (D). Also in the running is former Los Angeles City Council aide Sarah Hernandez (D), who claims she has put together more than $100,000 for a congressional run.

Hernandez’s former boss is LA City Councilman Jose Huizar (D). Already a poll has been fielded testing potential special election candidates. Public Policy Polling surveyed just after the Becerra appointment announcement (Dec. 1-2; 369 CA-34 registered voters), and found Huizar leading the pack of purported candidates with 22 percent of the vote. Huizar, however, says he will not become a congressional candidate.

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The Last Campaigns

By Jim Ellis

Dec. 6, 2016 — The marathon 2016 election cycle will come to a close on Saturday with the Louisiana run-off elections. The US Senate race and two congressional elections were forced to secondary contests, and Republicans appear poised to sweep the trio.

New Senate polling data again shows Republican state Treasurer John Kennedy holding a commanding lead with majority support. According to the new Southern Media & Opinion Research poll (Nov. 28-30; 500 likely Louisiana run-off voters) Kennedy leads his run-off opponent, Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell (D), 52-38 percent.

Kennedy has a favorability rating of 57:35 percent positive to negative versus Campbell’s 46:44 percent. Kennedy runs strong in the five Republican congressional districts, losing only in the New Orleans-anchored 2nd CD. He posts best in the 1st (Slidell, Metairie, St. Bernard, Jefferson Parishes), 4th (Shreveport, Bossier City, Minden, Nachitoches), and 5th CD (Monroe, Alexandria, Bogalusa), recording around a 30-point spread in each. Campbell has a 40-point margin in the 2nd District (New Orleans, Baton Rouge, Plaquemine).

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Picking Democratic Senators;
Rep. Becerra Tapped for A.G.

By Jim Ellis

Dec. 5, 2016 — Donald Trump may be looking to find cabinet members who bring him immediate tangible policy and political benefits. A new prospective appointee, if chosen, would even increase the president-elect’s strength in the United States Senate.

North Dakota Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D) made her way to New York yesterday to speak with Trump. If the president-elect tabbed her for an administration position, it would allow him to reach out to Democrats while simultaneously paving the way for incoming Gov. Doug Burgum (R) to appoint a Republican to replace her. Assuming John Kennedy (R) wins the Louisiana Senate run-off on Dec. 10, as expected, replacing Heitkamp would boost the Senate Republican Conference to 53 members.

The senator won a close upset victory in 2012, defeating one-term at-large Rep. Rick Berg (R) by a one-point margin. She is now preparing for what is likely to be a highly competitive 2018 re-election bid, but accepting a position in the Trump Administration would obviously require her to resign the Senate seat. With North Dakota voting patterns now going solidly Republican – Trump received 63 percent in the Nov. 8 election compared to 58 percent for Mitt Romney in 2012, and John McCain’s 53 percent eight years ago – Republican conversion prospects in a post-appointment election would be bright should Heitkamp depart.

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Elections & Aftermath

By Jim Ellis

Dec. 1, 2016 — Yesterday, House Democrats caucused and chose their leadership team for the 115th Congress. The major contested battle featured a race for Minority Leader, the first time that Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA-12) had been seriously challenged since she won the Democrats’ top intra-party position in the post-2002 election period.

Rep. Tim Ryan (D-OH-13) had been running hard for the internal post, but appeared to be making little headway. Of the 92 Democratic members who had announced their support for a Minority Leader candidate, only 12 had voiced support for Ryan. The other 80 were for incumbent Pelosi, meaning she would need only 20 more to secure the victory…assuming all of the announced hold true to their public position in a secret ballot contest.

With 63 women in the Democratic Conference, counting the Delegates from America’s territories who can vote in such elections, Pelosi has a strong base from which she began to develop her 100-vote support group. Of her 80 announced supporters, 25 are female.

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Political Overtime – Part II

By Jim Ellis

Nov. 30, 2016 — Aside from the two Louisiana run-off elections on Saturday, all of the US House campaigns have now been projected. As expected, Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA-49) was confirmed as the winner of his re-election campaign, the last remaining undecided contest. Statistically, not enough votes remain to overturn the congressman’s 2,348 district-wide vote margin. Rep. Issa defeats retired Marine Corps Colonel Doug Applegate (D) with at least 50.4 percent of the vote, even though he scored only 47 percent in the anchor county of San Diego.

More information is forthcoming about the presidential election re-count requests for Michigan, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin, which are attracting more than their share of national attention. Green Party nominee Jill Stein, now joined by the Hillary Clinton Campaign, initiated the move to re-verify the electoral counts but the effort is already running into trouble.

Because there is no evidence of computer hacking or voting machine doctoring, as Stein portends, the Wisconsin Elections Commission rejected her request for a hand re-count, so now the minor candidate is suing to overturn that ruling. The mechanical re-count will move forward, however, if Stein pays $3.5 million to finance the process today.

In Pennsylvania, local election authorities say there will be no re-count because Stein missed the filing deadline.

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