Tag Archives: NM-2

Categorizing the Open Seats

By Jim Ellis

Sept. 22, 2017 — Seeing three Republican House members last week announce they won’t be running for re-election next year – Reps. Charlie Dent (R-PA; retiring), Tom Marino (R-PA; appointed Director of the Office of Drug Control Policy), and David Trott (R-MI; retiring) – obviously increases the number of House open seats, thus becoming a good time to analyze the early political trends for this important political category.

For Democrats to have a legitimate chance of actually winning the net 24 seats they must convert to dethrone the House Republican majority, the number of GOP competitive opens must climb. While the three aforementioned seats were just added to the now growing open seat category, one could still arguably point to only one open Republican seat (FL-27; Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen) residing in the toss-up category at this early campaign stage.

Currently, and not counting the UT-3 special election that will be decided on Nov. 7 (Republican Mayor John Curtis vs. Democratic physician Kathryn Allen), the election cycle is yielding 26 open seats – 18 Republican-held as compared to just eight for the Democrats.

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A Not So Open Seat

By Jim Ellis

Aug. 22, 2017 — Currently, we see a low number of open US House seats during this 2018 election cycle, and the number is about to get even smaller. Colorado Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Golden) is expected to announce that he has changed political course once again and now will seek re-election.

In April, the six-term congressman announced his candidacy for governor, only to withdraw two months later. At the time when ending his statewide bid, Perlmutter confirmed that he would not be seeking re-election to a seventh term in the House. Believing the 7th District, a likely Democratic seat, would be open in 2018, three state legislators and a former US Ambassador jumped into the party primary.

At the very least, each of the three legislators has previously indicated that they would end their congressional campaigns and defer to the returning incumbent should he decide to return. Therefore, it is likely Perlmutter’s re-entry into the congressional race will not spur a competitive primary campaign.

Assuming this predicted new course of action proves true, the number of open regular cycle House seats will temporarily drop to 20. At this point in time, the total open seat universe is half of what it was in the last two election cycles, and less than one-third the high water number of 64 we saw in 2012.

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Big Governor News

By Jim Ellis

July 12, 2017 — A major announcement was made in a western state governor’s race Monday, with an additional one from an adjacent domain coming later today. Both affect corresponding US House seats.

New Mexico Governor; NM-2

Rep. Steve Pearce (R-Hobbs) announced that he will enter the open New Mexico governor’s race next year, saying to the Albuquerque Journal that he’s “concerned about an exodus of young people leaving New Mexico,” going to other places for a more favorable job market. Pearce said his campaign will emphasize improving education, spurring economic growth, and reducing crime and poverty.

This will be the second time Pearce has left his House seat to pursue a statewide contest. In 2008, when serving his third term in Congress, he decided to challenge then-Rep. Heather Wilson (R-Albuquerque) for the US Senate nomination, and successfully upset her in the Republican primary. He would then go onto lose the general election to then-Rep. Tom Udall (D-Santa Fe), 61-39 percent, in the Obama landslide year.

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