Vulnerable House Democrats - A Master List

Interceptpoint | 28 March 2009 | Interceptpoint

[InterceptPoint]

I have been thinking for some time that we need a really good list of the House Democrats that we hope to unseat in the 2010 election. Freeper randita has compiled a very nice list that is continuously being updated and I have used that as my primary source. The idea is to get Freeper recommendations on who we should be supporting in primaries and, after the primaries, who we really think can and should win. Given those inputs I will update the chart as necessary.

I've expanded the basic "who's running" to include the kind of data that Larry Sabato uses to evaluate the races. Based on a randita recommendation, I will also add in the Primary dates. I have also recorded the YES or NO vote by the House on the final Obamacare vote. Look for errors and report them if you see them.

Also, to keep the size of the chart down to a reasonable size I have limited the number of Challengers listed to 3. The # column shows how many that are actually showing on randit's list. And I may not have the best ones listed so we need Freeper comments on who the really serious candidates are. And for sure we need to know who the RINOs are.

So I'm soliciting inputs to add to the chart, to correct errors, to identify the best candidates etc. Don't be shy. Let us know what you think.

And lastly, the chart is currently just a .png to solicit help. I will work on filling in the blanks and at some point issue a real table version with live links to the candidates websites which are in fact already entered in the Excel file.

[Impy]

Why is Putnam’s (R) seat up there? It’s GOP now and it’s gonna stay that way.

And Debbie Wasserman Schultz, I hope she’s vulnerable but probably not. Pretty rat seat.

Florida 19 is worth a mention since they have a special election coming up. It’s a rat seat also but if you’re gonna list the 20th this should be there too. Needs immediate attention.

http://www.electlynch.com/

InterceptPoint you’re gonna need a bigger table.

We have dozens of top tier targets and many more second tier races that could end up GOP. The rats have a serious chance at only 3 GOP seats.

I list a few (or 30) races not on your chart. Some are second tier. Some are gimmies.

Alabama 2 (Bobby “not so” Bright) http://www.martharoby.com/

Arkansas 3 (open)

CA 27 (Lorretta Sanchez) http://www.joinvantran.com/

Colorado 7 (Perlmutter)

CT-2 (Courtney)

CT-4 (Himes)

CT-5 (Murphy)

Georgia 8 (Marshall) (paging Mac Collins)

Florida 22 (Klein) http://allenwestforcongress.com/

Florida 24 (Kosmas)

Hawaii 1 (Open) Special election coming up. Rat vote is split. Huge Obama district but 48% Bush in 2004, big for the GOP Governor too. http://www.djou.com/

Illinois 8 (Bean) http://walshforcongress.com/

Illinois 11 (Halvorsen) http://www.electadam.com/

Illinois 17 (Hare) http://www.bobby2010.com/

Iowa 3 (Boswell)

Kansas 3 (open)

Mass 6 (Tierney) http://www.billhudakforcongress.com/

Mass. 10 (open)

Michigan 7 (Schauer) http://www.walbergforcongress.com/Home.aspx

Michigan 9 (Peters)

Minnesota 1 (Walz)

Louisiana 3 (Open) (gimme)

Mississippi 1 (Childers) http://www.nunneleeforcongress.com/

Missouri 4th (Skelton)

Nevada 2 (Titus)

New Hampshire 1 (Shea-Porter) http://www.teamguinta.com/

New Hampshire 2 http://jenniferhorn.org/

New Jersey 3 (Adler) http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=176699354878

New Mexico 1 (Heinrich) http://www.jonbarela.com/

New Mexico 2 (Teague) http://www.peopleforpearce.com/

New York 1 (Bishop) http://randyaltschuler.com/

New York 20 (Murphy)

New York 23 (Owens) http://www.doughoffmanforcongress.com/temp/index.html

New York 24 (Arcuri) http://www.richardhannaforcongress.com/

New York 29 (open) Special election coming up http://www.tomreedforcongress.com/splash

North Carolina 8 (Kissell)

North Carolina 11 (Shuler)

North Dakota AL (Pomeroy) Rick Berg (no site up at present)

Ohio 13 (Sutton) http://www.tomganley.com/

Oregon 5 (Schrader)

Penn 4 (Altmire) http://www.marybethbuchanan.org/

Penn 8 (Murphy) http://www.fitzpatrickforcongress.com/

Rhode Island 1 (open) http://www.johnloughlin.org/

South Dakota AL (Herseth)

Texas 17 (Edwards)

Texas 23 (Rodriguez)

Utah 2 (Matheson)

VA 2 (Nye)

VA 9 (Boucher) http://www.delegatemorgangriffith.com/

VA 11 (Connolly) http://keithfimian.com/

Washington 3 (Open)

Is that 3 rats named Murphy? Too many. Lets beat them all.

IL 12 (Costello) is a big longshot but being in my state I’ll post our candidate’s website.

http://www.voteforteri2010.com/

IL 9 is an even longer shot more like no shot but....

http://www.pollakforcongress.com/

[InterceptPoint]

InterceptPoint you’re gonna need a bigger table.

No kidding. This is a big bite for me and I'm sure it is as well for randita, who is doing all the research.

Many of the problems you mention are being fixed. I will issue an update later today or early tomorrow morning at the latest. We are adding to the list and taking some of the Safe-Dem races off the list. There are a few exceptions to the Safe-Dem rule, at least temporarily, where we have had a strong recommendation from a Freeper who has some polling data as a basis. It is a given that this list will evolve over time and will be in a bit of a flux for quite awhile. But I'm in the game for keeps. This is an important election and we have to win it big.

[InterceptPoint]

Should we take your links to be the equivalent of recommendations?

This is a serious issue for us since we have most of the Republican primaries simply flooded with candidates. As a result, picking the good and capable candidates from the not-really-serious-contenders is a not going to be easy. And I believe that it is important that we do what we can to influence the Republican primaries by supporting good conservatives who can win in November.

And Freeper recommendations go to the head of the list on our chart which really can't show all the candidates without getting unwieldy. So we are obviously counting on Freepers helping us weed out the non-competitive candidates.

The last thing we need is for the Tea Party vote to split opening the way for a herd of RINOs to walk off with this election. We can't let that happen.

[campaignPete R-CT]

northern Maine and NY-19 Hall

[randita]

Do you have challengers for IL 10 (Kirk)? If not, I can look them up.

You have your hands full at this time. From now on, if you need something researched, let me know.

Other than that, I will shoot you updates, not the entire list. What I will be on the lookout for are: FReeper recommendations or recommendations from other websites (Tea Party, etc.), additions, changes or deletions on the challenger lists, and moves from CQ, Election Proj. or other websites analyzing the races indicating a change in status from their projections as of today. I’m a pretty faithful daily or twice daily FR visitor, if only to quickly scan headlines, so if I find a thread of interest on this topic, I ping you. If there’s anything else you would like me to look for, let me know.

Thanks again for taking on this task. I think it will be invaluable, once complete. I know I will shoot it to my local Tea Party org for distribution and maybe others involved with Tea Parties can do likewise.

[randita]

Who do you like for NY 19? We need to pare down this huge list of challengers.

NY 19-John Hall’s challengers:
Neil DiCarol, http://www.neildicarlo.com/
Thomas DeChiaro
Bill DeProspo
Christopher Gibson
Nan Hayworth, http://www.nanhayworth.com/
Vincent Leibell
John McEnroe, http://www.rustinmarketing.com/macsite/Index.html
David McFadden

[campaignPete R-CT]

Thomas DeChiaro is the obvious choice.

of course, if I make a mistake, I can change my mind. Prominent people don’t have that luxury.

[mad_as_he$$]

Sweet - thanks!

[InterceptPoint]

Do you have challengers for IL 10 (Kirk)? If not, I can look them up.

All I have is what you have passed to me so I would appreciate getting that input. It is an important seat.

You are right about having my hands full. But I knew that going in. It is coming along. I'm going to work tonight to put in most but not all of your additions. I'm holding back on a few that are showing SAFE-DEM but if we have some good polls that show we're getting close then we can add them in later. This applies mostly to the TX inputs but there were a couple of others.

My current plan is to finish up tonight with the updates. There will be a few holes but it should reflect your inputs pretty well.

The big problem I see is still the separation of the wheat from the chaff in the Primaries. I really hope we can pull that one off. It would be a huge help to the Tea Party folk if they had something in the way guidance in advance of the primaries. So anything you can do to help in that area would be very beneficial.

[Impy]

Mike Michaud. I remember something about that race. The rats pouring money in or something.

[Impy]

“Should we take your links to be the equivalent of recommendations?”

Yes. Some have already been nominated (Illinois had it’s primary). Others are the only candidates running. Some are the most prominent running. I expect them all be to nominated.

Except Jennifer Horn in New Hampshire faces a stiff primary with moderate RINO Charlie Bass. She needs our help for the primary.

[AuH2ORepublican]

“Mike Michaud. I remember something about that race. The rats pouring money in or something.”

---

Yes, there was a pro-labor group or something running ads last fall to prop up Democrats in vulnerable districts, and amond the recipients was Michael Michaud, which was a bit surprising. Earlier this month, Michaud was one of the last Democrats to announce his support for the Senate Obamacare bill, and apparently his disagreement was not over abortion (Michaud claims, or at least claimed, to be pro-life, but was not one of the Stupak Dozen). Put the two together, and it seems to me that Michaud and his labor allies know that he’s in real trouble this November. The ME-02 gave President Bush around 46% in 2004 but appeared to be trending RAT; maybe it’s moving back in our direction in a fierce way.

[MitchellC]

We also have a serious shot at NC 2 (Etheridge). Some of the major NCGOP people are working with Renee Ellmers. http://reneeforcongress.com/

I think in a 1994-like year with a very good candidate, we'd have a good shot at NC 13 (Miller), but right now I'm disappointed in the field we have there.

In NC 8 (Kissell) it's starting to look like long-time Charlotte sportscaster Harold Johnson (http://voteharoldjohnson.com/) has the best shot. NRCC Young Gun, Col. Lou Huddleston (http://www.votehuddleston.com/) is just putting along, raising very little money, though I'm hearing rumors that he's a RINO anyway. Tim D'Annunzio (http://www.timvote.com/) has thrown around his personal fortune but he's a complete lunatic - he walked out of a debate a few weeks ago after the moderator wouldn't let him break the rules, then a week later got into a physical altercation with a state Rep. I like Hal Jordan (http://www.haljordanforcongress.com/). I think he'd be the most conservative of the sane candidates, but he's kind of lost in the crowd and I'm not sure he's a good fit for this district.

In NC 11 (Shuler), the only candidate with any shot is Jeff Miller (http://jeffmiller2010.com/), founder of the Honor Air program. Hendersonville mayor Greg Newman is too much of a RINO (and he looks, sounds and acts just like the mayor from the Simpsons), while the other candidates don't seem to have a clue.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

I think Va5 is vunlerable too, Perriello. He has problems down here. I assume your estimates are conservative?

[campaignPete R-CT]

i spent a lot of time up there in the 80’s doing politics, northern Maine. plenty of Bible Belt Dems. Similar to northern W.VA. .... trending against Obama since the beginning ... sure they went heavy for Hillary in caucus.

combine that with the French Catholic folks ... and it could be a trainwreck for DEMS. Maybe the French have a high awareness of ObamaCare because of their relatives across the border.

[AuH2ORepublican]

Good point re: French-Canadians “Downeast” and Obamacare.

I’ve always found it curious that the blue-collar Democrats in ME-02 sent a socially liberal Republican like Olympia Snowe (who isn’t even Catholic!) to Congress, and then replaced her in 1994 with liberal Democrat John Baldacci. That has led some Repblican party leaders (in both Maine and DC) to believe erronously that it takes a socially liberal Republican to win, and all of those well funded liberals have fallen well short.

It’s high time we run a conservative.

[InterceptPoint]

Jon Runyan for Congress

Are you sure this guy has a chance. No real campaign website. Is he really the best choice? Can he win. Will he win?

[Impy]

Perriello was already on the list. He’s the most vulnerable rat in the state.

I wasn’t trying to be complete with my list. I’m sure I missed some good targets. I forgot Wisconsin for example.

It’s an inexact science at this early stage.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

God bless you, Impy. You’re a good man. Sorry if I sounded nitpicky. It’s just living in Perriello’s district and losing Goode — grrrrrr!