Rep. John Barrow (D) has run several tough races in many different east Georgia locations, yet he always seems to find a way to prevail. But, will this year be different?
Barrow’s trick for attaining political success is to champion several conservative issues, while simultaneously increasing the substantial African-American vote that resides in his 12th District. The turnout patterns from his Augusta-anchored constituency suggests that the midterm cycle is when he is most vulnerable, so Barrow is again hitting on all cylinders for this election.
Originally a local elected commissioner in Clarke County (Athens), the current congressman successfully unseated one-term Rep. Max Burns (R) in a close race Continue reading >
Earlier in the week we reported that Harper Polling surveyed the Wyoming Republican electorate and found newly announced challenger Liz Cheney to be badly trailing incumbent Sen. Mike Enzi (21-55 percent) in the Republican primary. Now, Public Policy Polling (July 19-21; 780 Republican Wyoming primary voters) confirms Cheney’s difficulty factory in denying Enzi renomination, brandishing a similar 26-54 percent spread.
PPP asked pointed questions about whether or not the state GOP electorate even considers Cheney a Wyomingite. According to their question, 36 percent of the Republican respondents do consider the former vice president and Wyoming congressman’s daughter a fellow Equality State resident, while almost half, 44 percent, do not.
Asked further whether they think it more appropriate for Cheney to run for the Senate from Virginia rather than Wyoming, by a margin of 45-33 percent, the individuals comprising this survey sample stated that she should run in the Old Dominion.
Approval ratings were also tested. Sen. Enzi scores a 66:24 percent job approval rating from his Republican base. Cheney earns a 40:34 percent favorable to unfavorable ratio. In comparison, Rep. Cynthia Lummis’ (R-WY-AL) job approval ratio is 55:25 percent. As a follow-up, should Enzi, for some unforeseen reason, decide not to make the race next year and the candidates become Cheney and Rep. Lummis, the congresswoman would have only a slight advantage. According to the PPP data, Lummis would lead Cheney 41-34 percent.
So far, the results of the two earliest polls rate Cheney as a long shot, at best, to upset Sen. Enzi. Based upon data we are seeing elsewhere and sizing up the 2016 presidential field, there is an argument to be made that the former vice president’s daughter might actually have a better shot at capturing the Republican presidential nomination than she would in winning this Wyoming Senate race against Enzi. Secondly, based upon her first ballot test opposite only Rep. Lummis, her chances appear much brighter in running against the congresswoman than they do against the state’s senior senator. Continue reading >
According to well-placed Georgia political sources, Michelle Nunn, the daughter of former Sen. Sam Nunn (D) and the individual viewed as the presumed Democratic nominee for retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss’ (R) open Senate seat, will officially announce her candidacy later today.
When Rep. John Barrow (D-GA-12) decided to seek re-election instead of entering the Senate fray, the nomination became Nunn’s for the taking.
Republicans are fielding five candidates, all of whom have a victory scenario. The Georgia Senate race promises to be both interesting and competitive.
The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) just launched a new early attack campaign against several presumed Democratic targets, but their message delivery medium is rather unique. The Committee is testing a theme that we will hear often, but their first communication foray is not via television or radio as we’ve become accustomed.
Against four incumbent Democratic House Members — representatives John Barrow (D-GA-12), Ann Kirkpatrick (D-AZ-1), Ron Barber (D-AZ-2), and Collin Peterson (D-MN-7) — the NRCC is beginning the process of relating the IRS scandal to the members’ vote for Obamacare.
The message moves throughout the assigned district attached to a vehicle or series of vehicles as a billboard-style advertisement. It simply identifies the member with picture and calls attention to their vote for Obamacare by highlighting their support in giving the Internal Revenue Service control over healthcare. As we know, the IRS is currently embroiled in an investigation over their practice of targeting conservative groups.
Since the investigation is likely to go on for some time, we can expect to hear much about the IRS’ major role in administering the Obamacare law throughout the election cycle. Since IRS officials have already admitted that the government enforcement agency unfairly targets conservatives, the NRCC is quickly beginning to test the message. If it resonates, and early indications seem to suggest that people are troubled by the agency’s actions, this issue is likely to become a major focal point all the way through the 2014 elections.
The four selected members are an interesting group. Rep. Barrow, fresh from his announcement that he won’t run for the open Georgia Senate seat, is an obvious choice because he represents a strong Republican seat (Obama ’12: 43.6 percent) and the mid-term turnout model is more likely to cut against a Democratic incumbent. Continue reading >
On the heels of representatives John Barrow (D-GA-12) and Tom Price (D-GA-6) both making public their decisions not to run, it appears that a set open-seat field of Georgia Senate race contenders is in place, some 14 months before the 2014 primary election.
Former Secretary of State Karen Handel, who was expected to run for the Senate once Price made clear that he will stay in the House, and businessman David Perdue now join representatives Jack Kingston (R-GA-1), Paul Broun (R-GA-10), and Phil Gingrey (R-GA-11) in vying for the Republican senatorial nomination and the right to succeed retiring Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R).
Handel and Perdue entering the race greatly changes the campaign. Now with five strong candidates, the Georgia Republican senatorial primary will likely be the most interesting nomination battle in the entire country.
Handel began her career in the private sector before landing a position on Marilyn Quayle’s staff when Dan Quayle, was vice president. Handel later became deputy chief of staff to Gov. Sonny Perdue (R-GA). Her first elected position was as Fulton County commission chair. From that office, she launched a successful bid for secretary of state in 2006.
Four years later, Handel joined a similarly crowded field in the open governor’s race. She placed first in the primary, capturing 34.1 percent of the vote, topping her six opponents. Former Rep. Nathan Deal (R-GA-9) slipped into the second run-off position, gliding past insurance commissioner John Oxendine, who had been the early front-runner. But things did not go as well for her in the August run-off. She and Deal basically fought to a draw, but the former congressman (Deal had resigned his House seat prior to the primary election) nipped her at the end and claimed a 50.2-49.8 percent win, a margin of just 2,519 votes of just under 580,000 cast.
David Perdue is the former Chief Executive Officer of both the Dollar General and Continue reading >
Within the last week, no fewer than four major potential senatorial candidates have decided not to run. Three sitting members of the House, representatives John Barrow (D-GA-12), Steve King (R-IA-4), and Tom Price (R-GA-6), and one former congresswoman, Stephanie Herseth Sandlin from South Dakota, each announced that they will be doing something other than running for the United States Senate in 2014. With so many potential candidates content to allow their current opportunity to evaporate, what now is the status of the various Senate races?
Both the Republicans and Democrats have, so far, experienced recruitment failures. Democrats see two seats that they currently hold, Jay Rockefeller’s post in West Virginia and Tim Johnson’s position in South Dakota, going by the wayside. Currently, they have no candidate willing to challenge GOP Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV-2) in the Mountaineer State, and their two strongest South Dakota potential contenders have taken a pass. While they do have a former aide to Sen. Tom Daschle (Rick Weiland) now in the race, it is apparent that he is no match for Republican former Gov. Mike Rounds.
Republicans have yet to field a candidate in Iowa where Sen. Tom Harkin (D) is retiring. Continue reading >
On the heels of representatives John Barrow (D-GA-12), Steve King (R-IA-4), and Tom Price (R-GA-6) all declining to run for the US Senate just within the last week, former South Dakota representative Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-SD-AL) followed the trend yesterday by announcing that she, too, will remain on the political sidelines next year.
Though the Democrats are in an underdog position in trying to save retiring Sen. Tim Johnson’s (D) Senate seat, survey research and local political activists and analysts alike projected the former congresswoman to be the party’s strongest open seat candidate.
But the person viewed as the Democrats’ second-best contender, US Attorney Brendan Johnson, the retiring senator’s son, may also decline to run. More information is forthcoming that suggests Johnson, in fact, will not enter the race. Should such conjecture prove true, the Democrats will be without a top-tier candidate to protect a seat they currently possess.
The party’s one announced candidate, Rick Weiland, a former staffer for Sen. Tom Daschle (D), gave further indication that Brendan Johnson will not make the race. Telling reporters that he would not be running if he believed Johnson would become a candidate, Weiland faces a major challenge just to be considered viable.
On the Republican side, former two-term governor Mike Rounds has been running since the 2012 election ended. Rounds quickly made his intention clear, and declared for the seat months before Sen. Johnson made his decision to retire. Now that the senator is out of the race, and Herseth Sandlin and Brendan Johnson are declining to run, Rounds is in an even stronger position.
Clearly the South Dakota seat is one of two Democratic states that the Republicans, in the early going, are becoming prohibitive favorites to convert. The other is the open West Virginia, where Rep. Shelley Moore Continue reading >
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released the first of their “Frontline” incumbents, those that will get the most attention from the party as they build for re-election. All are either freshmen from competitive districts, won a tough open seat, or defeated a Republican incumbent in 2012.
Rep. Ron Barber (AZ-02) – Barber, who won a special election to replace resigned Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D), had a closer than expected general election against former Air Force pilot Martha McSally (R) winning just 50.4 to 49.6 percent. McSally is likely to return in 2014, and with a more favorable turnout model could conceivably score an upset. The fact that Mitt Romney won the seat 50-48 percent bodes well for the challenger, but it didn’t pull her through last November.
Rep. John Barrow (GA-12) – Rep. Barrow drew a second-tier opponent in what should have been a first-tier GOP conversion opportunity. With a projected lower African-American turnout for 2014, Continue reading >
Two different pollsters tested the Georgia electorate about their new open Senate race (Sen. Saxby Chambliss retiring) and came away finding that one party’s strongest candidate is someone who shows no interest in running.
Both Harper Polling (Feb. 11-12; 939 registered Georgia voters; 375 Republican primary voters; 338 Democratic primary voters) and Public Policy Polling (Feb. 15-18; 602 registered Georgia voters; 366 Republican primary voters) found that Democratic former Sen. Max Cleland, who served one term from 1997 to 2003 (he lost his 2002 re-election to Sen. Chambliss 46-53 percent), would defeat all potential Republican nominees if he were to run in 2014. The former senator, now 70 years old, has given no indication that he is contemplating a political comeback, however.
Tested against the four Republican US representatives who have either entered the race or are considering such, Harper projects that Cleland would place ahead of Continue reading >
Jim Ellis Insights 