RightDataUSA

Demographics and Elections Commentary tagged with Democrat

6/6/2024: Incumbent House Democrats: Running Scared or Just Faking Toward the Center? [RightDataUSA]

It's both, but mainly the latter.

A few months ago we published some data pertaining to Party Unity votes in the U.S. House of Representatives for 2023. A "Party Unity" vote is one in which the parties were split, with a majority of Democrats unified in opposition to a majority of similarly determined Republicans.

Nearly all important votes in the House fit that description. Democrats normally march in just about perfect goosestep with the wishes of their party leadership; most (but hardly all) Republicans do the right thing and vote the way we would want them to.

Here is one example among many, a vote from last year. It was on a bill called the "Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act", which would prevent male transvestites from participating in female sports. Every Democrat who voted was against that bill; every Republican who voted was in favor. In 2023, there were 463 Party Unity votes in the House.

The list we published highlighted the representatives who were the most inclined to abandon their party on a Party Unity vote. Not surprisingly, the names were almost entirely those of liberal/moderate Republicans, mostly from the Northeast or California, who helped the Democrats as often as they dared to. Many of these liberals would claim to have practical reasons for running to the left as often as they do, because they represent marginal districts and their re-election chances would be diminished if they appear to be too conservative.



Now we are in an election year, and even though most voters don't have any clue who their representative in Congress is until they see an election ballot -- and they certainly have no idea how that congressman votes -- incumbents are wary of their congressional voting record being used against them in the campaign, and so they often try to "moderate" their record to avoid accusations of extremism.

The vast majority of the time, it is Republicans who must be the most wary and who do the most moderating. The liberal media, and of course Democrat candidates and RINOs who are running to an incumbent's left in a primary, will gladly use whatever ammunition is available against a conservative. It is a rare case that a liberal Democrat -- even in the most marginal of districts -- must concern herself even slightly about charges of being "too liberal".

That is true in nearly all election years. But apparently not 2024.

Our analysis of congressional voting data from Voteview which runs through May 23 shows that numerous Democrats are the ones who are panicking and running hysterically towards the center, while even the squishiest House Republicans suddenly have grown at least a small amount of backbone and are standing united most of the time. This behavior, on both sides, is unprecedented in recent years.

With all of these "moderate" Democrats voting alongside the solid Republican majority so frequently, why isn't more conservative legislation becoming law?

There are at least two reasons. First, these Democrat defections are carefully metered by the party leadership. A certain group of panicky Democrats is permitted to leave the plantation on a particular vote, then a different group is given temporary freedom on a subsequent vote, and so on. No specific bill which is repugnant to liberals has any landslide vote in favor of it. Secondly, even if one does slip past them in the House, the Democrats still have their firewall in the Senate where any conservative bill is D.O.A. Despite only 49 actual Democrats plus two alleged independents, Angus King & Kyrsten Sinema, they effectively have at least 53 fairly solid votes (see below) against any legislation that could be remotely described as conservative.



So these center-fakes are basically a no-risk venture from the perspective of the liberal Democrat House leadership, and there is a significant benefit to playing the voting equivalent of Three-Card Monte: the supposedly endangered House Democrats get vital "moderate cred" for these carefully choreographed votes, which they can use to deflect accusations of ultra-liberalism that may arise on the campaign trail.

No vulnerable Democrat wants to hear her Republican opponent declare "She voted with Hakeem Jeffries 94% of the time!" during a debate or at any other time during a campaign. These tactical departures from lockstep Democrat voting are meant to defuse such allegations and to create the illusion of independence from the unpopular liberal leadership.

In 2024 five Democrats have been voting nearly as much (over 40%) with Republicans on Party Unity votes than they vote with their own party. Another 22 Democrats have been allowed to leave the plantation at least 25% of the time. Twenty-five percent may not sound like a lot, but for Democrats in recent years it is a ton. In 2023 only one Democrat (Jared Golden) rather than 27 reached that threshold of permissible disobedience.

In 2022, the last time these people had to face the voters, Democrats were as united as ever with not even one of them dissenting from party orthodoxy as much as 20% of the time. In 2024, fully 48 Democrats have exceeded that figure so far. The fact that they feel the need to fake to the center so often is an indication that panic is setting in.

The column titled "% GOP" in the table below is the percentage of the time so far in 2024 that the Democrat representative has voted with the Republicans on Party Unity votes. Freshmen are shown in italics; the first re-election bid is normally the toughest.

District% GOPCook PVI
Marie G. PerezWA-348%R+5
Mary PeltolaAK At-Large44%R+8
Henry CuellarTX-2842%D+1
Don DavisNC-141%R+1
Jared GoldenME-240%R+6
Vicente GonzalezTX-3435%D+9
Yadira CaraveoCO-832%even
Angie CraigMN-232%D+1
Josh HarderCA-929%D+5
Jared MoskowitzFL-2329%D+5
Josh GottheimerNJ-528%D+4
Hilary ScholtenMI-328%D+1
Susie LeeNV-328%D+1
Eric SorensenIL-1728%D+2
Steven HorsfordNV-427%D+3
Colin AllredTX-3227%D+14
Greg LandsmanOH-127%D+2
Wiley NickelNC-1327%R+11
Kim SchrierWA-827%D+1
Gabriel VasquezNM-226%D+1
Greg StantonAZ-426%D+2
Marcy KapturOH-926%R+3
Nikki BudzinskiIL-1326%D+3
Chris PappasNH-126%even
Pat RyanNY-1825%D+1
Frank MrvanIN-125%D+3
Chrissy HoulihanPA-625%D+5


Notes:
  • Nickel is not seeking re-election; Allred is running for U.S. Senate and another couple of Democrats who are not listed above (because they crossed party lines in only 24% of their votes) are also not seeking re-election to the House and are instead running for statewide office in either 2024 (Jeff Jackson, NC-14) or 2025 (Abby Spanbarger, VA-7).

  • Peltola and Ryan were both first elected in 2022 and are therefore freshmen, but they initially won special elections and were re-elected once already, in November of 2022.

  • Every one of these Democrats who are running for re-election this year are very well funded; some of them are not particularly endangered at all (Houlihan for sure, probably also Mrvan, Budzinski and some others).

  • Cuellar was first elected in 2004 and was formerly thought of as a conservative Democrat -- which he sort of was, for one term. He has spent most of the past several years as a reliable leftist, but has lurched back toward the center in 2024. Cuellar's ethical/legal troubles may have something to do with him trying to salvage his former reputation as a non-liberal; a corrupt centrist (even a fake centrist) has a better chance in TX-28 than a corrupt liberal would. If Cuellar were a Republican, he'd have been expelled by now.



Photo credit: ABC News

There is no such phenomena in the Senate of Democrats feeling the need to fake to the center. The most (allegedly) endangered Senate Democrats are remaining on the far left, and not even glancing toward the center much less moving in that direction. Their scores on Party Unity votes:




Photo credit: womenzmag.com

On the other hand, the usual Republican suspects -- who are not even up for re-election this year so we're stuck with them -- are still cheerfully voting with the Democrats and against their own party a significant portion of the time:


Even if the Republicans regain numerical control of the Senate as a result of November's elections (they need only a Trump win or one additional victory besides West Virginia in a Senate race), who can possibly believe the GOP will have actual control with traitors like Collins and Murkowski in their ranks? If necessary, one or both of those desiccated crones may bolt the party and claim to be Independent in order to stop Republicans from having even numerical control.

Even the execrable Mitt Romney, who is retiring after 2024 and undoubtedly wishes to end his political career in a blaze of anti-conservative glory, only votes with the Democrats 24% of the time so far this year.

The Democrat analog to Romney is Joe Manchin, who recently announced his departure from the Democrat party to become an independent. Like Romney and fellow "independent" Kyrsten Sinema, Manchin is never going to face the voters of his state again and can therefore follow his conscience from here on out. Be that as it may, Manchin's conscience is still somewhere around 75% liberal, and he still has to answer to the party masters who will not appreciate his defection on any bills which are truly important to them.

The comparison of Manchin to Romney is not completely appropriate though both enjoy the notoriety they sometimes receive for being a thorn in the side of their respective parties. Manchin, unlike Romney, is not a regular visitor to liberal media opinion programs (sometimes disguised as "news") to trash his own party whenever possible. Romney's propaganda value to the left is far greater than his mere voting record in the Senate; Manchin is also a whore for publicity, but his damage to the Democrat party has always been minimal and that's not going to change despite the fact that he has altered his party label for his final few months in office.

Conclusion: Although House Democrats appear to be running scared it's likely just so much political theater. Nearly all of the most vulnerable ones still have sizable money, organizational and of course media advantages over their GOP challengers. On the flip side, the numerous vulnerable Republican House incumbents may be sticking together in terms of votes in Congress, but their chances for re-election will be determined more by money and voter turnout and factors which affect that (such as election "integrity") than those votes in the House. In many instances, that's not a happy prospect.

Tags:

2024 House Scared Democrats? Fakers


3/13/2024: [Ohio] If the presidential slate is set, will Ohio's GOP voters still show up for the U.S. Senate primary? [Ohio Capital Journal]


Photo credit: WCMH-TV

The photo shows the three GOP Senate candidates, Larry, Moe(reno) and Curly, during a recent debate. Leftist Matt Dolan is the stooge who is positioned on the right. Moreno isn't really a stooge of course, but he's certainly surrounded by them here. Speaking of being positioned on the right, the gaslighting article which accompanies that photo was written by an ultra-liberal NPR media twerp and therefore reads like a Dolan campaign commercial.


The past: In 2022 in many important statewide elections, there was nothing to vote for in the Democrat primaries because their nominee had already been anointed. The same is true in 2024. That means Democrat party puppetmasters and Democrat voters are free to spend time and money influencing the outcome of Republican primary elections for their own benefit.

Like Nimrod Haley did during the brief time when she was supposedly a viable presidential candidate, other liberal Republicans like Matt Dolan are desperately seeking Democrat votes in their primary battles against actual Republicans. This is nothing new for Dolan, a left-wing state legislator who ran for the U.S. Senate in 2022 and is running again this year. In 2022 he begged Democrats to vote for him in the GOP primary, because otherwise he stood zero chance against Trump-endorsed J.D. Vance.

That tactic came closer to succeeding than it should have. In polls taken only a few weeks before the 2022 Ohio primary, Dolan was barely cracking double-digits in what was essentially a three-way race with Vance and Josh Mandel. Mandel, the former state Treasurer, had been a milquetoast candidate against Sherrod Brown in 2012 and Brown mopped the floor with him. That happened despite the fact that the Republicans actually competed on nearly equal financial footing with the Democrat, which has become quite an uncommon occurrence in contested states since that time.

With the help of thousands of Democrat voters and the endorsements of other liberal Republicans, Dolan surged in the final voting to over 23%, just a fraction of a percentage point behind Mandel. Vance of course won that primary, but with barely 30% of the overall vote. Vance didn't break the one-third mark even though he had the endorsement of Donald Trump and the endorsement of former primary opponent Bernie Moreno. Moreno had dropped out of the race in February of 2022, heroically sacrificing his campaign in order to avoid a damaging split of the conservative primary vote.



The present: There's another three-way race in Ohio in 2024 for the Republican nomination to the U.S. Senate. Having patiently waited his turn, Moreno is back for another run and has Trump's endorsement. That endorsement was made in December but, oddly, has not resulted in a great leap forward for Moreno in the polls. The next poll after Trump's blessing actually showed Moreno with a smaller lead over liberal Dolan and moderate Ohio Secretary of State Frank LaRose.

Subsequent polls did show a small bump for Bernie, however a poll which came out this morning puts Moreno down by 3 points to the liberal Dolan with many voters still undecided less than one week from election day. That poll also shows incumbent ultra-liberal Democrat Sherrod Brown winning vs. all three GOP candidates though not yet breaking 40% against any of them.

Brown, like all Democrat Senate nominees in competitive states, has an astronomical advantage in campaign cash over his Republican challengers. LaRose in particular has practically nothing to work with compared to his opponents in both parties. As of the end of February, Brown had raised over $33 million with nearly $14 million of it still in the bank. Dolan and Moreno each are somewhere around $2.4 million while LaRose has the piddly total of $591,000 cash-on-hand. That's not enough to compete for a hotly-contested U.S. House race in a single district these days, nevermind trying to run a statewide campaign in Ohio on such a thin shoestring.

Article author Nick Evans, evidently writing on behalf of the Dolan campaign, describes the liberal legislator as "quite conservative". This causes the remainder of the article to be read through tears of laughter by anyone who is actually familiar with Dolan. In an attempt to make Dolan palatable to other supposedly conservative Trump-haters, Evans ludicrously claims that Dolan has worked feverishly to enact the "Trump agenda" in Ohio while at the same time distancing himself from the President as much as possible.

Insofar as a political candidate is known by the company he keeps, Dolan is supported by Rob Portman, the former senator and squish who is still highly regarded in RINO circles; and the highest-ranking squish in the state, wimpy Governor Mike DeWine. LaRose is doing just about as well with high-profile endorsements as he is with campaign fundraising (pretty much none at all of either one). LaRose does have the support of liberal Republican congressman Mike Turner of Dayton.

Moreno not only has Trump in his corner, but also solid conservatives such as Senators Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, Rand Paul, J.D. Vance, Tommy Tuberville, Marsha Blackburn and others with whom Moreno will work as part of the opposition (non-RINO) caucus in the Senate if he is elected. He is also endorsed by bigwigs such as Jim Jordan, Kari Lake, Vivek Ramaswamy, Donald Trump Jr. and (oh well) Newt Gingrich. Like them or not, they are all conservative heavyweights or were in the past (Gingrich).



Insofar as a political candidate is known by what he has actually done legislatively, here is Matt Dolan's record:
  • Pro-abortionist
  • Anti-gun
  • Supported "contact tracing" and dictatorial powers for "health" officials during the plandemic
  • Opposed arming teachers (or any armed security) in dangerous urban schools or ghetto-ized suburban schools
  • Supports the Democrat vote-buying tactic of student loan "forgiveness"
  • Supports "green" energy mandates
  • Favors higher property taxes
  • Favors taxpayer-financed handouts in corrupt ghetto areas under the guise of "neighborhood development"

Yeah Nicky, he's quite the conservative.

There is only one logical conclusion, and it's addressed to only one candidate though it's probably already too late to have a significant effect:

Drop out now, Mr. LaRose, and endorse Bernie Moreno. Don't be the person responsible for giving the puppetmasters, the media, and other Democrats a win-win in November.

Tags:

2024 Senate Ohio Moreno & the Two Stooges Win-win for Democrats


3/4/2024: [New York] NY Dems adopt new redistricting map with no threat of GOP lawsuit, ending 3-year saga [Lohud]


Photo credit: NY "Independent" Redistricting Commission

There's considerable talk about how the Democrats played nice this time by not screwing Republicans as hard as they were expected to (i.e. as hard as possible). Doddering old NYGOP chairman Ed Cox -- yes, THAT Ed Cox, Tricky Dick's son-in-law -- believes that his party was merely bent over to a small degree, therefore he has unilaterally declared that there will be no lawsuits filed against this Democrat gerrymander.

Even though Democrats never had any reason to fear a challenge to their latest attempt to seize control of the U.S. House of Representatives, they wanted to implement a plan which would be described by the always-cooperative media as "modest" yet still be highly effective. This modest Rat plan rigs the election outcomes against the four remaining vulnerable freshmen GOP incumbents in New York as much as necessary, while mostly leaving the other districts alone. Aside from the one formerly represented by George Santos and recently lost in a special election; the Democrats are taking no chances of that district flipping back to Republican control in November.

Here is an article which reveals Democrat gaslighting regarding their New York gerrymander, with a surprisingly fair (by far-left media standards) account of the situation in between all of the usual drivel supplied by the quotes of liberal Democrats:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2024/02/new-york-redistricting-maps-democrats-gerrymandering-house-majority.html

Their punch line is that this gerrymander is plenty good enough for Democrats -- which it is -- and if it had been rejected and replaced by a more aggressive Democrat gerrymander authored by the state legislature, even sleepy Ed Cox would have been inspired to take action. The resulting lawsuit would have possibly required that the current (2022) district lines be used in the meantime, and even worse (for Democrats) the suit may have succeeded and caused a fairer district map to be created. By reaching just enough, but not overreaching here, liberals have greatly increased their chances of House control in 2025 despite their crocodile tears.

The significantly endangered New York freshmen Republicans are Anthony D'Esposito (CD-4), Mike Lawler (CD-17), Marc Molinaro (CD-19) and especially Brandon Williams (CD-22). They were significantly endangered even before having to deal with newly-gerrymandered districts, as we have written several times. Each of these four are cowardly liberal backstabbers -- just ask George Santos -- but at least they're our cowardly liberal backstabbers; they have R's after their names and that's a lot better than having a D there.

Well, it's a little better anyway. Maybe.



As to the argument that squishes like these guys are the best we can do in marginal or left-leaning districts, sometimes it's better to keep your enemies as far away as possible rather than letting them pretend they're "team players". They may be team players, but they aren't necessarily playing for the team whose uniform they are wearing at the moment.

For example: there's a liberal Republican stooge in the House from Pennsylvania by the name of Brian Fitzpatrick. He represents a marginal district in the rapidly-deteriorating suburbs of Philadelphia, and Democrats are so satisfied with this RINO that they don't seriously oppose his re-election bids.

Fitzpatrick's late brother Michael once served in Congress from this same district. Michael was no conservative by any means, but at least he never forgot which party he belonged to. However in 2023 there was exactly one member of the House of Representatives who voted against his own party more often than he voted with his party. That turncoat was Brian Fitzpatrick, who, over 50% of the time, voted exactly the way the Democrats wanted him to vote.

Last week, Brian came in for some flattery from the liberal media when he stated that he and several like-minded traitors in the so-called "bipartisan Problem Solvers Caucus" were preparing some shenanigans to do an end-run around Speaker Mike Johnson unless the reluctant Speaker permits a vote on a bill which would send even more American money to the corrupt Democrat money-laundering regime known as "Ukraine". This must happen, so say the RINO scum, without any linkage to legislation which would address real problems of actual concern to the good people of America -- like the unabated sewage flowing north from Mexico which will adversely affect our economy and the integrity (LOL) of our elections.

If the Democrat coup is successful in November, look for this traitor to collect his 30 pieces of silver and switch over to the new majority party in the House. BTW, the filing deadline in PA has passed and Fitzpatrick has no viable primary challenger (just one woefully underfunded opponent) and the same Democrat loser who ran halfheartedly in 2022 is running again, albeit with more money this time. So "prymarry hiz azz!!!" isn't going to work this time around; it rarely ever works at all.

Speaking of liberal credentials, guess which "Republican" supported President Alzheimer the most in 2022? Actually Fitzpatrick was only second on that list. Number 1 was the late (but not lamented) drooling Trump-hater Adam Kinzinger, who supported the Biden agenda fully 80% of the time with his votes in the House.

Here are the 2023 Party Unity scores for the Dirty Dozen who top the RINO charts:

  1. Brian Fitzpatrick (PA-1): 47%
  2. Lori Chavez-DeRemer (OR-5): 64%
  3. Mike Lawler (NY-17): 65%
  4. Tom Kean, Jr. (NY-7): 67%
  5. Mike Turner (OH-10): 70%
  6. Don Bacon (NE-2): 71%
  7. Anthony D'Esposito (NY-4): 72%
  8. Young Kim (CA-40): 72%
  9. Kevin Kiley (CA-3): 72%
  10. Andrew Garbarino (NY-2): 72%
  11. Marc Molinaro (NY-19): 73%
  12. David Valadao (CA-22): 73%

By way of contrast, Santos, whom many of his GOP colleagues abhorred and voted to expel back in December, voted with his party 92% of the time in 2023. He also voted the conservative position on 91% of key votes according to our calculations, so you can see why RINOs and other liberals wouldn't want him around. We'll post Santos' American Conservative Union score along with the scores of all other Congressmen and Senators if that organzation ever gets around to releasing its 2023 ratings of Congress.

Of the 25 representatives who deviated from their party most often last year, 24 of them were Republicans. This helps explain why even with a (miniscule and getting smaller) numerical majority in the House, Republicans do not truly have "control". The same phenomenon applies in many state legislatures, particularly out West, where the GOP appears to have tremendous numerical advantages. Those tremendous advantages are often caused by Democrats masquerading as Republicans in order to get elected -- and then, to their delight, these Democrats discover that as moderates/liberals they are comfortably in line with the ideological majority in their GOP caucuses.

There was only one House Democrat in 2023, Jared Golden of Maine (72%), who was disunited from the rest of his Democrat comrades at a similar level to those Republicans who are listed above. He represents a Republican-leaning district which voted twice for President Trump but has also voted 3 times for Golden. Between his ability to fool a sufficient number of constituents into thinking that he's a moderate, and having Rigged Choice Voting around to save him when necessary, Golden has managed to be continually re-elected.

Maybe that will change when he faces former NASCAR driver and current freshman Maine legislator Austin Theriault in November. Don't get your hopes up too high though; Golden currently has nearly 5 times the amount of money as his Republican challenger. As anyone who looks at candidate financial reports can easily discern, there's not a House district or Senate seat in the U.S. where Democrats can't outspend Republicans by incredible margins if they want to. We're probably going to see more evidence of that in 2024 than ever before.

Tags:

2024 U.S. House New York Democrat gerrymander Say goodbye to Speaker Johnson


2/8/2024: Final 2023 campaign finance reports -- Democrats way ahead in the key races [RightDataUSA]

[The image is backwards -- the big money is, as always, on the left. The amount on the right is whatever Ronna McRomney at the RNC can spare from her lipstick and botox fund.]

Last week the Federal Election Commission released the 2023 year-end financial data which shows the volume of money raised and spent by each candidate for the U.S. House or Senate. Funds raised which have already been spent are not of particular relevance at this point; instead we focus on the much more important cash-on-hand figures.

Approximately 11 months ago we published a list of 59 congressional incumbents who, based on the nature of their districts and the closeness of their wins in 2022, are obviously the most vulnerable in 2024. On the Democrat side, three of the supposedly Vulnerable 29 have opted not to seek re-election. All of the 30 Republicans who are facing the toughest odds are seeking re-election, except for George Santos (NY-3) who was expelled from Congress last December. Lauren Boebert (CO-3) is running again, but in a different district than the one she currently represents, so those two seats are considered to be open for the moment (NY-3 won't be open after next week).

Let's look at how these incumbents are doing in the money department, and how serious their opposition is likely to be. The vast majority of the nearly 400 other House seats which are up for re-election in November are, as usual, not likely to be competitive. The financial data shown in the following tables is effective as of 12/31/2023. Campaign fundraising and spending will really kick into high gear later this year, but the data even as it stands now illustrates quite nicely how these races are progressing.

Democrat incumbents:

Incumbent District Cash-on-Hand Republican
Cash-on-Hand
Mary PeltolaAK At-Large$1.774 million$382,000
Mike LevinCA-49 $1,242 millionalmost $2 million
Yadira CaraveoCO-8$1.359 million$389,000
Jahana HayesCT-5$1.030 million$372,000
Nikki BudzinskiIL-13$1.399 millionnot seriously trying
Eric SorensenIL-17$1.631 million$218,000
Frank MrvanIN-1$823,000 $192,000
Sharice DavidsKS-3$1.646 million$391,000
Jared GoldenME-2$1.436 million$338,000
Hillary ScholtenMI-3$1.364 million$448,000
Angie CraigMN-2$2.152 million$269,000
Don DavisNC-1$820,000$1.115 million
Chris PappasNH-1$1.255 million$628,000
Gabriel VasquezNM-2$1.247 million$783,000
Susie LeeNV-3$1.585 million$397,000
Steven HorsfordNV-4No report filed but surely over $1 million$483,000
Pat RyanNY-18$2.212 million$198,000
Greg LandsmanOH-1$1.216 millionloose change
Marcy KapturOH-9$1.325 million$665,000
Emilia SykesOH-13$1.113 million$418,000
Andrea SalinasOR-6$1.098 millionnot seriously trying
Susan WildPA-7$1.578 million$343,000
Matt CartwrightPA-8$2.012 million$636,000
Chris DeluzioPA-17$986,000$282,000
Marie Gluesenkamp PerezWA-3$2.181 million$672,000
Kim SchrierWA-8$2.164 millionnot seriously trying


In every single case the Democrats have a large amount of cash on hand; in only 2 districts (CA-49 and NC-1) are the Republican challengers, even if they pooled their money -- coming close. Now let's take a look at some races where those factors do not always hold.

Republican incumbents:

Incumbent District Cash-on-Hand Democrat
Cash-on-Hand
David SchweikertAZ-1$902,000$3.909 million
Juan CiscomaniAZ-6$2.130 million$915,000
John DuarteCA-13$1.417 million$393,000
David ValadaoCA-22$1.442 million$602,000
Mike GarciaCA-27$1.776 million$2.282 million
Young KimCA-40$2.536 million$843,000
Ken CalvertCA-41$2.485 million$2.234 million
Michelle SteelCA-45$3.023 million$502,000
Anna Paulina LunaFL-13$550,000$151,000
Mariannette Miller-MeeksIA-1$1.585 million$1.125 million
Ashley HinsonIA-2$1.441 millionvery little
Zach NunnIA-3$1.595 million$445,000
Andy HarrisMD-1$925,000not seriously trying yet
John JamesMI-10$2.347 million$1.074 million
Brad FinstadMN-1$384,000nothing at all
Ann WagnerMO-2$2.612 millionnothing so far
Ryan ZinkeMT-1$1.892 million$895,000
Don BaconNE-2 $1.548 million$1.113 million
Tom Kean Jr. NJ-7$2.110 million$838,000
Anthony D'EspositoNY-4$1.248 million$647,000
Mike LawlerNY-17$2.500 million$1.580 million
Marc MolinaroNY-19$1.619 million$1.469 million
Brandon WilliamsNY-22$913,000 $497,000
Lori Chavez-DeRemerOR-5$1.608 million$476,000
Scott PerryPA-10$547,000$327,000
Monica de la CruzTX-15n/a but a sizable lead, probablynot much, yet
Tony GonzalesTX-23$1.948 millionnothing, but.... (see note)
Jen KiggansVA-2$1.505 million$94,000


Note: A GOP challenger to Gonzales has $587,000, which is fantastic. Gonzales, who is for all intents and purposes a Democrat (which is why they aren't bothering to oppose his re-election bid), needs to be eliminated in a primary election.

Unlike the Democrats who are facing potentially stiff competition this year, some Republicans in similar circumstances are coming up short. Predictably, the shortfall is hitting conservative incumbents the hardest: Perry, Luna and Schweikert. Luna for the time being is not in any danger but the other two are severely threatened and have a significant probability of losing. The party establishment won't shed a single tear if that happens.

In addition, Democrat challengers as a group are much better-funded than Republican challengers to Democrat incumbents. We noted last March that the list of vulnerable GOP House members was, on average, more endangered than their liberal counterparts. Campaign finance is a major reason why that statement is true.

The next level of competitive House seats are several of the ones which have no incumbent, primarily due to retirements.

Open seats:

District Current Party Democrat
Cash-on-Hand
Republican
Cash-on-Hand
CA-47D$1.9 million$1.7 million
CO-5Rnothing significant to report
MD-6D$1.2 million nobody with even $100,000
MI-7D $1.1 million$649,000
MI-8Dnothing yet$786,000
NC-6Dpuntingover $1 million
NC-13Dabout the same as NC-6
NC-14Dmight forfeit this one too$1.5 million
NJ-3Dnothing to report yet but Republicans obvious underdogs
NY-3R, for a few more daysover $3 million$1.5 million
VA-7D$1.1 million$800,000
VA-10D7 or 8 viable candidates with $$$1 guy with $187,000
WA-6D$550,000nothing


The determination as to which party controls the House after 2024 will be largely -- but not quite entirely -- made in the districts we have highlighted in the 3 tables shown above. First off, black-robed tyrants have already dictated a shift of one seat from Republicans to Democrats in Louisiana, and will likely achieve the same thing in Alabama. Republicans have no chance of holding the Louisiana district and only a small chance of retaining the affected Alabama seat. Similar shenanigans may play out in South Carolina and elsewhere before November.

For example:

New York Democrats, who already had a favorable district map in 2022, are going to gerrymander harder and turn all of those merely "vulnerable" New York GOP-held seats listed above into guaranteed flips. And then try for even more. Same thing in Wisconsin, where Democrats got the map they wanted in 2022 but are going to use their new dictatorial state Supreme Court power to gerrymander the state in their favor to an even greater extent. Specifically in the crosshairs when that happens will be Republicans Derrick Van Orden (WI-3) and Brian Steil (WI-1). Taken all together, these moves will more than offset the undoing of the Democrat gerrymander in North Carolina, where Republicans are set to gain 3 seats -- mainly by simply reclaiming a pair of districts which Democrat judges stole from them in 2020 and continued to hold hostage in 2022.




Here's how things stack up on the Senate side, in any state which could possibly be competitive:

Arizona: ("Independent" incumbent) Kyrsten Sinema (I) $10.596 million, Ruben Gallego (D) $6.542 million, Kari Lake (R) $1.083 million. Neither Sinema as a phony independent nor her equally greasy Democrat colleague are facing any primary opposition and can keep their powder dry until the general election campaign. Lake will face at least one primary opponent, and the Hanoi John McCain wing of the AZGOP will oppose her both in that primary and again in November. Just as they did in 2022.

Florida: (R incumbent) Rick Scott (R) $3.172 million, Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D) $1.544 million. The best the Rats could do in Florida was to exhume some hyphenated one-term fluke ex-Congresswoman who should lose by at least 10 points to Scott. But the race isn't necessarily going to be as easy as the Republicans seem to think, and note the paltry amount Scott currently has to work with -- in a massive state like Florida -- as compared to what some D incumbents in much smaller states like Nevada and Montana have.

Michigan: (D incumbent) Elissa Slotkin (D) $6.021 million, several hopeless Republicans ~$2.5 million combined. Democrats got off to a quick start here with Debbie Stabenow announcing her retirement very early, and they've parlayed that into a huge war chest. Republicans have stumbled out of the gate, with a pair of failed ex-Congressmen (Mike Rogers, Justin Amash) leading the dreary GOP field. Police chief James Craig has apparently thrown his hat into the ring and should gallop past his rivals shortly. Slotkin is hardly a strong candidate but as things stand now there's every chance that she'll have a Senate career as long as Stabenow somehow did despite accomplishing nothing aside from being a reliable ultra-liberal puppet.

Montana: (D incumbent) Jon Tester (D) $11.223 million, Tim Sheehy (R) $1.266 million. Matt Rosendale (R) has $1.672 million in his House campaign account, but it's looking like he's about to defy his party's liberal establishment and jump into the Senate race! Sheehy, as the presumptive Republican candidate up to now, has been facing a barrage of negative ads from the Tester campaign, along with the negative coverage he gets from the media free of charge to the Democrats. Rosendale's going to get that treatment too of course, but he's run statewide campaigns before and should know exactly what he's up against -- and maybe even how to beat it.

Nevada: (D incumbent) Jacky Rosen (D) $10.650 million, Sam Brown $1.729 million. Brown was runner-up in the GOP Senate primary in 2022, to perennial loser Adam Laxalt. If/when Brown racks up another high-profile loss or two (one is probably coming in November) he can join Laxalt and Danny Tarkanian in the NVGOP Hall of Shame. OTOH, polls keep alleging that Trump is beating President Alzheimer in Nevada, and in the event those polls are accurate then there could be a coattail effect. It may be close, but the Republican record in close elections in Nevada isn't anything to brag about.

Ohio: (D incumbent) Sherrod Brown (D) $14.614 million, 3 GOP challengers combined ~$7.63 million. Another one that's going to be close in November. It's going to be close in next month's primary too. Trump's endorsement of Bernie Moreno should propel him to victory but it may be a very fractious win, with the Frank Larose and -- especially -- Matt Dolan camps possibly failing to unite behind Moreno afterwards. Don't be surprised if Dolan, among others in the GOPe, endorses Brown instead of Moreno or simply sits it out through November.

Pennsylvania: (D incumbent) Bob Casey (D) $9.438 million, Dave McCormick (R) $4.179 million. McCormick can't possibly do any worse than Oz in PA, can he? It's about time for someone to give the Casey pup the boot; incredible though it seems, Empty Suit Casey is actually the dumber of the two PA senators.

Texas: (R incumbent) Ted Cruz (R) $6.176 million, Colin Allred (D) $10.106 million. If you look at only the amounts raised and spent so far, you'd conclude that Cruz is cruz-ing to another Senate term. But as we've mentioned previously, whatever Cruz has spent all those millions on isn't helping him much. Now he's behind in cash-on-hand and is likely to stay there; hopefully that won't matter. One recent poll has Cruz back on top by about 10 points, as he should be, as opposed to another recent (outlier?) poll which had him only up by 2. Some are assuming that Allred is going to have to spend a good portion of his current cash in a contentious Democrat primary. That's not very likely to be necessary; the primary ought to be a breeze, even for a dull candidate whose "celebrity" status is all (aside from lots of $$$$) he has going for him.

Wisconsin: (D incumbent) Tammy Baldwin (D) $8.036 million, the GOP has nothing, not even a viable candidate yet. Just because the filing deadline and primary dates are comparatively late in the election season doesn't mean the Republicans should be wasting time -- but they are. The standard-bearer will almost certainly end up being either Sheriff David Clarke or businessman Eric Hovde. The second tier would be ex-LG Rebecca Kleefisch or another businessman, Kevin Nicholson. None of those four are officially in the race yet, and none are exactly heavyweights though any of them would be acceptable. An ultra-liberal like Baldwin, whose only political "qualification" is her sexual deviance (forgive us for that mental image) should not be unbeatable in a marginal state like this. If this were California, sure. But not Wisconsin.

West Virginia (D incumbent) Alex Mooney (R) $1.766 million (!), Jim Justice (RINO) $1.230 million. The conservative "kid" is out-raising the doddering old moderate who is backed by all of the liberal movers & shakers in the GOP leadership? How is this possible? There's no point in even mentioning Democrat chances here, because they haven't got any. If Mooney wins the primary, no amount of GOPe backstabbing is going to stop him from being elected in November -- which is why they'll spare no expense to stop Mooney in the primary. WV's mega-squish Senator, Shelley Moore Capito, will take the lead on that project. Solidly Republican West Virginia already has one RINO senator; it doesn't need two.



We'll update these races and any other competitive ones as the year goes along. The next batch of FEC reports are due at the end of the first quarter, and of course there will also be non-financial factors which steer the probable outcome in one direction or the other.

Money alone does not determine the outcome of an election. If it did, no Republican would ever win a Senate election except in states where Democrats don't bother trying. Nor would they win anything other than the very safest House districts. But in marginal districts or states, when one candidate (the Democrat) has a sizable financial advantage -- close to 3:1 or greater -- it is rare for the underdog (the Republican) to come out on top. We'll see over the next few months whether these sizable deficits Republicans are facing grow or shrink.

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10/28/2023: Masks Off: Alarming New Gallup Poll Blows Growing Democrat Schism Over the Israel Issue Wide Open [Redstate]


Photo credit: AP Photo/Evan Vucci

Fifteen Democrats went on record as failing to support Israel after the Hamas attacks, when asked to vote on a resolution comdemning those attacks. The 9 who voted against the resolution are:

Rep. Jamaal "Fire Chief" Bowman of New York
Rep. Cori Bush of Missouri
Rep. Andre Carson of Indiana
Rep. Al Green of Texas
Rep. Summer Lee of Pennsylvania
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York
Rep. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota
Rep. Delia Ramirez of Illinois
Rep. Rashida Tlaib of Michigan

These 6 voted "present", thinking they could escape scrutiny:

Rep. Greg Casar of Texas
Rep. Joaquin Castro of Texas
Rep. Chuy Garcia of Illinois
Rep. Pramila Jayapal of Washington
Rep. Ayanna Pressley of Massachusetts
Rep. Nydia Velazquez of New York

All but one of these racists represent heavily-Democrat ghetto or barrio districts, and their chances for re-election are not endangered (perhaps they are even enhanced) by this vote.

The exception: freshman Hamas supporter Summer Lee in Pennsylvania's 12th congressional district. While that district does include the city of Pittsburgh and a few of its more reprehensible suburbs such as Duquesne, Homestead and Braddock, it also includes quite a bit of good suburban areas, particularly those in the western portion of Westmoreland County, where Trump won by nearly 30 points in 2020. The district is rated as D+8 because the bad areas outvote the respectable ones.

The district contains a significant number of Jews, in the Squirrel Hill section of Pittsburgh and elsewhere. When Lee comes up for re-election in 2024, it will be interesting to see if the Jews in CD-12 side with Israel or whether they are the secular, atheistic, ultra-liberal types who couldn't care less about their ancestral homeland and care only about voting straight-ticket Democrat as usual.

Ms. Lee won the Democrat primary in 2022 only by a very small margin over an ultra-liberal (but not completely psychotic, like herself) Jewish candidate; she may not be so lucky in 2024 but whoever wins that primary will very likely win the general election too.

A year from now this might all be old news, but for now it's quite current and a good "proxy" for her chances in 2024 is coming up in a few days: the 2023 Allegheny County district attorney election, in which long-term Democrat Steven Zappala was defeated in the Rat primary by a mega-woke nutjob. Zappala is now on the ballot as a Republican because the GOP naturally didn't bother to run anyone in such a normally lost-cause as this one (Zappala won via write-in votes).

If Zappala can somehow pull off a miracle win in a hardcore Democrat bastion like Allegheny County with all he'd have to overcome (Democrat fraud too, if it's close enough to warrant that), it would be a serious wake-up call to radical, racist Democrats like Lee. If Zappala gets the vast majority of Republican votes, splits the "independents" and takes a percentage of the Democrat vote anywhere close to what he received in the primary (that's going to be the toughest part) this election may be much closer than expected.

Tags:

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7/18/2023: [Montana] Meet the Republicans trying to beat Tester, Manchin, and other vulnerable Senate Democrats [Washington Examiner]


Photo credit: Bloomberg Government

The first paragraph of the article, mainly telling us what we already knew:

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) and Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT), chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, have been working for months to recruit the most electable candidates in must-win swing states to retake the majority next year.

"Electable" of course means "someone who is a moderate/liberal toady for Mitch McConnell, like Steve Daines is". The liberal Republican establishment is sticking to the lie that the only reason why the GOP isn't in control of the Senate today is because of all the supposedly flawed candidates who lost in states like Arizona, Georgia, New Hampshire and Pennsylvania during the failed "red wave" of 2022. Add in other states such as Nevada which were ripe for a pickup and a couple more ridiculous pipe dreams (Colorado, Washington) and some lunatics seriously expected a GOP majority of something like 10 seats right now, 55-45 or so.

The party seeks to make sure that only approved Mitch Bitches get on the ticket for 2024, and no more "flawed" conservatives. When that strategy fails next November, the GOPe excuse will be that conservative voters didn't do their job and let the party down.

Here's a howler from the article, regarding Montana:

The establishment has "coalesced around former Navy SEAL Tim Sheehy's candidacy while privately dissuading Rep. Matt Rosendale from throwing his hat in the ring. Sheehy has the backing of Daines and Gov. Greg Gianforte (R-MT), while Rosendale has the backing of the well-funded Club for Growth despite not being in the race yet. Party establishment has said that Rosendale's 2018 loss to Tester proves he cannot win statewide."

Then the party establishment consists of idiots, liars, or both. You see, Rosendale, who is a far more conservative option than Squish Sheehy, in fact DID WIN STATEWIDE in Montana in 2020, by nearly 14 points against a very well-funded liberal Democrat to boot.

The article goes on to note that the GOPe is "staying out" of the primary in Ohio -- because they can easily see that the right-ish primary vote will be split between Secretary of State Frank LaRose and MAGA conservative Bernie Moreno, allowing liberal state Senator Matt Dolan to prevail by getting the primary votes of many Democrat infiltrators who will never vote for him in the general. Why should the GOPe interfere when things are going so well for them? You should already be well aware of the liberal machinations in West Virginia, with the GOP backstabbing conservative Rep. Alex Mooney in favor of doddering moderate Governor Jim Justice.

Now back to the "bad candidate" lie of 2022. True that the quality of some of the GOP candidates was less than great (Oz leaps to mind), but it's also been true for a long time that the GOPe will ensure that candidates it doesn't approve of (conservatives) will not succeed in general elections, and the best way to do that is to fail to support those candidates with $$$$ and thereby concede massive financial advantages to the Democrats.

Check this out from the key swing state Senate races in 2022:

Arizona: D spending, $192 million; R spending, $15 million

Georgia: D: $326 million; R: $69 million

Nevada: D: $64 million; R: $18 million

New Hampshire: D: $42 million; R: $4 million

Pennsylvania: D: $76 million; R: $49 million

Even in states the GOP won (barely) in 2022, Democrats still had massive spending margins over their Republican opponents; the Rats made sure that their ultra-liberal Senate candidates in Wisconsin and North Carolina didn't have to rely solely on their melanin advantages, and therefore they also had far more resources to work with than Ron Johnson or Ted Budd. In Ohio, J.D. Vance was outspent by close to 300% (!), but then Ohio isn't supposed to be a swing state so the Democrats theoretically needed to pump in tremendous cash just to have a fighting chance. Ohio will obviously be a lot tighter in 2024 than it was in 2022, and this time all that Democrat cash will be critical.

Looking at the financial picture as it is developing for the 2024 Senate races, in every state where the GOP can even dream of making a pickup -- including West Virginia -- the incumbent Democrat is starting out far ahead in the money race. Even where there isn't a Democrat incumbent who is running again (Michigan) the liberals are still miles ahead in geld. With it still being so early in the campaign season, perhaps that's not the most meaningful way to evaluate electoral chances because incumbents always start out far ahead.

Oh yeah?

The loony left has at most only two semi-realistic possibilities of taking a Senate seat from the Republicans in 2024 and in one of those -- Texas -- GOP incumbent Ted Cruz is already trailing his dumb-as-dirt opponent in fundraising, and that trend is likely to continue through 2024. The Democrats are laser-beam focused on taking Texas because once it finally flips from true blue to commie pinko red, any Republican has a 0.0% chance of ever winning another presidential election. Since the Rats can't make their presidential candidate (presumably Biden, for now) attractive to Texans, they are sinking tons of cash into the Senate race in the hopes that the coattail effect will work up the ticket as well as down.

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Senate 2024 Montana Ohio West Virginia Democrat mega-$$$$ advantage


4/28/2023: Massive Supreme Court Rulings in North Carolina May Have Just Saved Republicans in 2024 [Redstate]


Photo credit: AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana

The article states, quite accurately, that a "prior left-wing court invented out of whole cloth a constitutional provision that forced the legislature to create so-called fair districts."

Last November the voters in North Carolina delivered a 5-2 Republican majority to the state Supreme Court, and today that court came through by not merely overturning the illegal judicial interference with last year's redistricting, but also restoring a voter ID law which was duly passed by the voters in 2018 before being thrown out by partisan Democrat judges.

This is all great news, although the hyperventilating in the article about the GOP picking up 4 House seats in the Tarheel State in 2024 after the maps are redrawn is not terribly realistic, however a gain of 2 or even 3 might be. On the flip side of the coin, Democrats in New York are suing because they were not allowed to implement the most ridiculously partisan gerrymander (with all due respect to Illinois) in the entire nation. The lawsuit seeks to restore that gerrymander or something very close -- if not worse.

Many of the series of fluke U.S. House victories the GOP attained in New York in 2022 -- CD-3 (Santos), CD-4 (D'Esposito), CD-17 (Lawler), CD-19 (Molinaro) and CD-22 (Williams) -- were likely to be undone in 2024 even without a new gerrymander, plus CD-1 (LaLota) and CD-11 (Malliotakis) aren't exactly 100% safe either; Malliotakis may appear safe due to the margin she received in 2022, but that's only because the Democrats ran a complete stooge against her and they will not make that mistake again.

If the Democrats prevail in New York court, it will offset the presumed North Carolina gains, and more.

Adverse changes will also be coming to the district map in Ohio and possibly other states, with South Carolina as another example. If those changes in Ohio are not implemented for the 2024 election then they definitely will be by 2026. Republicans expected to pick up 2 House seats in 2022 in Ohio while maybe sacrificing one seat (that sacrifice was pretty much mandated by liberal court order when the court rejected the Republicans' original Ohio map); what actually happened was that the Republicans picked up nothing while losing one seat, as the much ballyhooed (and mis-named) "red wave" became not even a trickle, though at least they held the U.S. Senate seat with J.D. Vance.

Because the expected gains never materialized, even a less favorable district map might do little or no damage to the composition of the Ohio congressional delegation, in which the Republicans currently hold a 10-5 edge.

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North Carolina Redistricting Democrat gerrymander overturned New York Democrat gerrymander restored


12/9/2022: [Arizona] U.S. Senator Sinema leaves Democratic Party, registers as independent [Reuters]

She'll still caucus with the Democrats, the Democrats control which committees she gets to be on.... this changes nothing except that we now have three liberal stooges in the Senate (Sinema, King, Sanders) who are all really Democrats yet call themselves "independent".

In reality, they are all as dependent on Democrats as they ever were, and in Sinema's case this is simply a calculated move (with full Democrat support) to increase her chances of re-election and nothing more than that.

Only the GOP's abysmal performance in the Senate races in 2022 allows this political transvestite to follow her "conscience" and pretend to leave the Democrat party. If Sinema was the deciding vote as to which party controls the Senate, this little charade would never have occurred.

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Senate Arizona Kyrsten Sinema Still really a Democrat


7/27/2022: Democrats Favored to Win Senate for First Time as Polling Improves: 538 [Newsweek (LOL)]


Photo credit: Getty Images

The leftists at 538 are only just now realizing that Democrats are favored to keep the Senate? Oz is toast in PA and always was, so that's minus-1 for the GOP and the loss is not likely to be offset with a Walker victory in Georgia which was supposed to be (and may still be) the most likely Republican pickup. But "most likely" still doesn't mean "likely" whatsoever. Assuming all other incumbents win too and open seats are held, that means a 51-49 Senate with the GOP on the short end.

If any other seats flip, the reality is that it's much more likely to be R to D than D to R. Wisconsin, North Carolina and maybe even Ohio are not slam dunk retentions for Republicans. Things are not 100% safe even in Utah (!) or Missouri depending on who wins that state's primary next week, however sanity is still favored though not guaranteed to prevail in both of those states in the end.

Aside from Georgia, Senate seats in Arizona and Nevada are the only plausible flips in the good direction; anyone thinking of adding New Hampshire, Colorado, etc. to the list can dream on. But don't forget Alaska, where Tshibaka (R) beating Murkowski (RINO) -- if that actually happens -- should count as a Republican pickup even though it technically isn't.

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