Tag Archives: Ohio

Does Boehner’s Ad Reflect Worry in Ohio’s 8th CD?

House Speaker John Boehner is facing three Republican primary opponents in the May 6 election, and he is taking no chances with his campaign. The speaker recently hit the airwaves with a positive television spot, quite a surprising development for a nationally prominent elected official who has hardly faced a serious opponent during his 12 US House re-election campaigns.

But, the ad’s message is even more surprising, and for what it doesn’t say, rather than what it does. Boehner himself doesn’t appear in the commercial, only his voice reciting the required disclaimer along with a still photo at its beginning. Rather, specific people from around his district provide a series of testimonials, making laudatory comments about Boehner  Continue reading >

Filings Close in Several States

Alabama (Primary: June 3; Run-off: July 15)

The most notable point from the Alabama candidate filings is that four of the state’s six House members seeking re-election will be running unopposed this November. Only representatives Martha Roby (R-AL-2) and Mike Rogers (R-AL-3) have Democratic opposition, but both appear headed for little trouble in securing re-election.

Representatives Robert Aderholt (R-AL-4), Mo Brooks (R-AL-5), and Terri Sewell (D-AL-7) all drew primary opponents. Rep. Sewell’s challenger seems to be the strongest intra-party candidate. Former Birmingham city attorney Tamara Harris Johnson filed in the Democratic primary, but the incumbent remains the heavy favorite for renomination. In all three of these cases, once the individuals win their respective party primaries, the political opposition ends.

The governor’s race yielded an interesting political twist. Former Rep. Parker Griffith, who was elected to the 5th District in 2008 as a Democrat but became a Republican  Continue reading >

Early Gaining and Losing

Though reapportionment only happens once every decade anchored to the new census, the gaining or losing of congressional districts for individual states clearly affects delegation politics almost unceasingly.*

The Census Bureau just recently released new population growth figures, based upon July 1, 2013 data, that gives us a very early look into which states may be headed for reapportionment changes in 2020. The projection process occurs throughout the 10-year period and very often the early numbers do not correctly reflect end-of-the-decade trends, so predicting now with any certainty how the population formula will unfold in late 2020 is highly speculative.

That being the case, the new growth numbers suggest that Texas will again gain multiple seats – at this point two – and Colorado, Florida, Montana, North Carolina, and Virginia appear headed for one-seat additions. Offsetting these increases are again New York, Pennsylvania,  Continue reading >

An Electoral College Challenge in California

If a group of California citizens get their way, massive change will envelop the national presidential election process.

Yesterday, this group of individuals launched the “Make Our Vote Count” campaign by filing a Request for Title and Summary with the California attorney general’s office, attempting to begin the process of qualifying a voter initiative that, if adopted, would cause the state’s 55 Electoral College votes to be awarded on a proportional basis. According to the filing language, the new system would distribute electoral votes to the individual presidential candidates consistent with their statewide vote percentage earned, rounded to the nearest whole number.

From time to time, talk arises about states splitting their Electoral College votes, either as a way to gain partisan advantage or simply to make themselves more important in the general election.

Currently, two entities split their votes: Maine and Nebraska. Both do so in the same manner. The candidate who wins the statewide vote receives two electoral votes. One more is awarded for each congressional district carried. Maine has two CD’s;  Continue reading >

Three Key Governor’s Races Narrowing

Now that the 2013 election is complete, the pollsters are back surveying races in states other than New Jersey and Virginia. Today, we cover some interesting numbers being returned in three competitive governors’ races.

Ohio

After seeing strong numbers come from Quinnipiac University in June (June 18-23; 941 registered Ohio voters) for Gov. John Kasich (R), the new Public Policy Polling data brings the race back to earth. Four and one-half months ago, the Q-Poll posted Gov. Kasich to a 47-33 percent lead over Cuyahoga County Executive Ed FitzGerald (D). The latest PPP survey (Nov. 5-6; 595 registered Ohio voters) paints a different picture. According to this poll, Kasich and FitzGerald are tied at 41 percent apiece.

The latter data, which is much closer to normal Ohio voting patterns than the earlier Q-Poll, may suggest the pro-Kasich data is an anomaly or simply that the climate has changed during the lagging interval. Most probably, the time scenario is the more accurate.
 Continue reading >

The Governors’ 2014 Scorecard

The 2014 gubernatorial cycle is shaping up to become one of the most competitive in recent years.

Now that the 2013 governors’ races are in the books, it’s a good time to look at the state chief executives from a national political perspective. At the beginning of the cycle, the Republicans held 30 state houses versus 20 for the Democrats, the best GOP showing in the modern political era. With Terry McAuliffe’s victory in the Virginia open race last week, Democrats have already gained one governor’s post, meaning the updated margin is now 29R-21D.

At this early point in the campaign cycle, it appears that as many as 13 races, nine Republican-held and four Democratic, should be rated as highly competitive. The most vulnerable of all incumbents standing for re-election are governors Rick Scott (R-FL) and Tom Corbett (R-PA), who trail potential Democratic opponents in all surveys. The most vulnerable Democratic seat is the Arkansas open (Gov. Mike Beebe, D, is ineligible to seek a third term), where former GOP Rep. Asa Hutchinson (R-AR-3) consistently polls ahead of ex-Rep. Mike  Continue reading >

Louisiana Data Conflict; Kasich Down in Ohio

Two days ago, a pair of polls were released into the public domain projecting that Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-LA-6) is faring well against Sen. Mary Landrieu (D). Yesterday, Public Policy Polling publicized a counter-study showing the senator to be in much better political shape, thus calling the Republican data into question. Why the stark difference? We’ll explain shortly.

The two Republican polls were conducted by OnMessage for the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) and Harper Polling for a conservative website. The OnMessage data (Aug. 12-15; 800 registered Louisiana voters) gave Sen. Landrieu only a 45-41 percent advantage over Rep. Cassidy. HP (Aug. 14-15; 596 registered Louisiana voters) found even better results for the Baton Rouge congressman, actually placing him ahead of the incumbent on a 47-45 percent count.

The PPP data (Aug. 16-19; 721 registered Louisiana voters) forecasts quite a different take. According to these results, Sen. Landrieu has a comfortable lead over Rep. Cassidy, 50-40 percent, when the two are paired in a hypothetical post-primary December 2014 run-off election.

Seeing Democratic and Republican pollsters surveying the same race at the same time but arriving at drastically different conclusions happened relatively frequently during the last election cycle. Particularly in the presidential campaign, we often saw the Republican data placing GOP nominee Mitt Romney in much better position against President Obama than was actually the case.

The chief reason for the past projection disparity was the turnout screening mechanism used in qualifying those who constituted the various sampling universes, and such is undoubtedly the case with these conflicting Louisiana numbers.

In the presidential year, the Democratic pollsters were much closer to accurately forecasting the participation model in what will prove to be the higher turnout year of 2012. Now heading into the mid-term cycle, where voting participation is always lower than in presidential elections, it may be the GOP numbers that yield the more accurate prediction.

As we know, who turns out always determines an election winner, and no one suggests that election year 2014 will be any exception to that rule. Defining the most  Continue reading >