MN-03: Ramstead Retiring

[MarkWarner08]

Jim Ramstead in MN-03 is retiring. This is a swing district trending Dem that Bush won by about 1.5%.

OH-15:  99% Democratic pickup. Why the nea total certitude? For now, the GOP has NO candidate! All of the top state leg people have said no, Petro said no, that football guy said no, and there are no wealthy self-funders on the horizon.  This race is over before it started.  Pretty sad for the GOP, especially since Pryce would likely have won again.

AZ-01: A close swing district that now an open seat like CO-07, AZ-08, and IA-01 were in '06. We all remember how those races turned out -- double digit Democratic wins.

VA-11: Trending D and the strongest GOP candidate is now running for the Senate. As long as Dems don't nominate Leslie Bryne, the GOP will lose this seat.

IL-14: 50/50 chance Dems win
IL-18 5% chance Dems win
CA-52: 0%
MS-03: 0%

MN-03 is the kind of suburban/exurban open House district that the GOP lost in 2006. The NRCC's only hope here is that the Republicans nominate someone of the stature and fundraising ability of a Peter Roskam and the Democrats have an internecine battle. In short,  depending on DCCC recruiting, this is probably another Democratic pickup.

[MarkWarner08]

Oh, good

I hope he feels bad for denying me for the House Page Program, because he's had to send me a few "congratulations on your academic achievement" letters recently   Well, he seems to sign all the letters personally, at least, and he is pretty moderate.  I hope the Dems nominate someone I can campaign for.

I'm sorry to hear that he rejected you from the Page program.  Nice to see that your realize the best revenge is living well.

Part of my job as a congressional intern was to sign the congressman's signature on letters. The one time the congressman showed up to the office, he bragged about his franking privileges. Overall, I enjoyed writing letters to constituents and fielding calls from people worried about blackhawk helicopters and the formation of the North American Union.

[MarkWarner08]

Part of my job as a congressional intern was to sign the congressman's signature on letters.

You can forge a Congressman's signature? Nice.

If you work for a Congressman, yes. It's common practice in Congressional offices.

[MarkWarner08]

MN-03 is the kind of suburban/exurban open House district that the GOP lost in 2006.

Not so. The Republicans, generally, didn't do so badly in districts like this one in 2006 (which is why I'm sceptical of a Democrat gain). Though maybe voting patterns in 2008 will be different.

Not so. 16 of the 31 Democratic House pickups were in suburban districts. In fact, the Democrats carried the suburban House vote by a margin of 50-48 in 2006.

Here are some examples of suburban/exurban districts the Democratic won in 2006: Arizona's 5th; California's 11th; Colorado's 7th; Florida's 22nd; New York's 19th; Pennsylvania's 4th, 7th and 8th; and Texas's 22nd.  Only two of those seats (CA-11 and TX-22) were scandal pick ups.

[MarkWarner08]

Not so. 16 of the 31 Democratic House pickups were in suburban districts. In fact, the Democrats carried the suburban House vote by a margin of 50-48 in 2006.

Note that I didn't mention anything about suburban/exurban or anyothersortofurban. I wrote "this sort of district"; affluent, white collar, well-educated, owner-occupied, and mostly made up of older (by American standards...) middle suburbs.

Demographically, MN-3 is very like IL-6, though a bit more bourgeois*.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

Most, but not all, of those districts are very different to this one.

*No, I'm not a Marxist, but people would get the wrong end of the stick if I used the term "middle class"; which o/c means something completely different in the States than it does over here.

The Democrats won 49% of the vote in IL-06 despite running a political neophyte who didn't even live in the district. That was also after a nasty primary and residual bad blood between the two losing primary candidates and the eventual victor. MN-03 is more like PA-06 and WA-08, two rich districts that have eluded the Democrats in recent years. One major difference: MN-03 will be open in a Democratic friendly year, WA-08 was open in a neutral year and PA-06 was open in election year after 9/11.

Considering the closeness of the contests in those two other districts, I expect the political atmospherics, barring the possibility the Dems nominate a candidate who makes a catastrophic Patricia Madrid style gaffe, to push the Democratic nominee to victory.

[MarkWarner08]

The Democrats won 49% of the vote in IL-06 despite running a political neophyte who didn't even live in the district. That was also after a nasty primary and residual bad blood between the two losing primary candidates and the eventual victor.

That's one way of looking at it. Another is to say that the swing in IL-6 was -4.48; very low for an open seat in an election like 2006.

You must be logged in to read this quote.

There are certain similarities to WA-8 (though there are also some significant differences) though not really to PA-6 (beyond some very basic stuff). Neither seem to be as like it as IL-6 though.

Good point on IL-06, but another way to look at it is that Hyde's weak performance in 2004 was a product of a districtwide yearning for change. Thus, the swing was lower than it otherwise would've have been.

[MarkWarner08]

MN-03 is more Democratic than IL-06.  Clinton carried MN-03 twice and Dukakis came close to carrying it in 1988, while Clinton and Dukakis lost IL-06 handily. 

Good point.

[MarkWarner08]

MN-03 is the kind of suburban/exurban open House district that the GOP lost in 2006.

Not so. The Republicans, generally, didn't do so badly in districts like this one in 2006 (which is why I'm sceptical of a Democrat gain). Though maybe voting patterns in 2008 will be different.

Not so. 16 of the 31 Democratic House pickups were in suburban districts. In fact, the Democrats carried the suburban House vote by a margin of 50-48 in 2006.

Here are some examples of suburban/exurban districts the Democratic won in 2006: Arizona's 5th; California's 11th; Colorado's 7th; Florida's 22nd; New York's 19th; Pennsylvania's 4th, 7th and 8th; and Texas's 22nd.  Only two of those seats (CA-11 and TX-22) were scandal pick ups.

I think I've gone over this before, but NY-19 was a scandal pick up—Sue Kelly had ties to the page program, and was specifically attacked over supposedly "looking the other way."

Well, pretty much every House race featured candidates using faux scandals as tactics. Just look at the supposed pay-to-play scandal involving Ron Klein that Clay Shaw's people cooked up. If you watched any of Heather Wilson's ads, you'd assume Patricia Madrid was the most corrupt AG in New Mexico's history.

I'd argue that Hall won because a gay millionaire from NYC spent 500k on attack ads that smeared Rep. Kelly in the last week of the campaign.

[MarkWarner08]

Better chance at MN-03 than IL-14, that's for sure.

Oh, Lord yes.  MN-03 could be argued as a 50/50.  No way IL-14 can be.

MN-03 right now is contingent on candidate recruitment.  If the Democrats nominate someone too close to the middle, they'll lose support to an Indy candidate. At the same time, they must be wary of nominating a big government liberal who could alienate rich suburbanites.

To the glib folks on this forum who dismiss Democratic chances in this district -- look at the political environment, the candidates in this race, and recent open seat history. I'll refrain from  once again pointing out the similarities between this seat and WI-08, a race most people here thought would stay Republican in 2006, and I'll instead juxatopose this race to the 2006 NV-02 contest. Bush won that seat with 57% in 2004, yet the GOP candidate barely managed 50% of the vote. The difference between this two races is candidate selection. The GOP doesn't have a telegenic moderate like Dean Heller who is willing to run in IL-14. The Democrats do have a strong candidate, one who has pledged to spend $2.5 million of his own money, funds that the  stretched-thin NRCC will not be able to match.

Even a strong self-funding Democrat can not win a district like this in a political vaccum, but, forutantely for the Democrats, 2008 is likely to be dominated by issues like the war in Iraq, health care, restoring competent governance, and reining in the GOP's policies of fiscal irresponsibility.  If the Democrats don't nominate a controversial candidate that motivates the GOP base (She's the only candidate in the race who was born in Illinois), voters will choose between the party running on a generic platform of change (a good position to be in when 70% of the nation is in the wrong track crowd) and the party that must defend  the unpopular establishment, such a choice doesn't energize many conservatives to pound the pavement for the GOP candidates.

Mitt Romney's mormon faith will likely be handicap in a morally grounded district like this, Giuliani's New York liberalism --just wait for some fringe Christian Right leader to yell, "Giuliani'll take your guns and force your wife to have an abortion" -- McCain's ties the unpopular war in Iraq, and Thompson's cluesness on major issues will not motivate the GOP base like Reagan once did. Some conservatives might prefer a Democratic presidency (it sure would help talk radio) as way for them to once again coalesce their movement around founding principles like small government and strong defense.

Finally, this district's growing blue tinge, the national factors, the absence of  an incumbent, and the possibility of a depressed GOP base  could create a perfect storm for a Democrat like Bill Foster, who would follow the path of scientists turned politicians like Vern Ehlers and Jerry McNerney. This district is not yet in the toss-up candidate, it's way too early to that, but it's also much to early to blithely dismiss the Democrats chances of picking up this seat.

[MarkWarner08]

MN-03 right now is contingent on candidate recruitment.  If the Democrats nominate someone too close to the middle, they'll lose support to an Indy candidate.

No, like I said, that shouldn't be a problem, Ralph Nader forever doomed that.

I wish you were right. But just last year, we narrowly lost two State Senate seats, which would've given Democrats a majority in the MI State Senate, because the Green Party siphoned off too many votes from the left (and, possibly, the disgruntled middle).