Free Republic

Call this good news/bad news for Barney Frank in his fight to hold onto his job in Massachusetts’ 4th CD. The Boston Globe reports that Frank has a 13-point lead — but only gets 46% of the vote in a two-way race, 46-33. With a week to go before voting, Frank’s inability to get a majority may reveal a serious problem, and the Globe notes that enthusiasm may be that problem (via Jim Geraghty): US Representative Barney Frank, Democrat of Newton, leads his Republican challenger, Sean Bielat, by 13 percentage points among likely voters in the Fourth Congressional District. In...

A new Boston Globe poll puts Barney Frank ahead of his GOP challenger, Sean Bielat, by a 46 to 33 percent margin. That may sound like good news for the incumbent, until you consider that Frank, who was first elected in 1980, has never won a general election by fewer than 20 points -- and that he's notched at least 64 percent of the vote in every race since 1990. It's not hard to see what's going on here. As I wrote back in January, when Scott Brown knocked off Martha Coakley, Massachusetts is a perfect example of how the...

December 3, 2008 Charlie Brown concedes to McClintock Ex-Sen. Tom McClintock had already declared victory as northern California's newest congressman, but Democratic opponent Charlie Brown made it official today with a phone call to the Thousand Oaks Republican. Brown shared the news in an e-mail to supporters. "So a short time ago, I called Senator Tom McClintock to congratulate him on a hard fought victory, and to wish him well in Congress," he wrote. To his supporters, Brown said, "I can only offer my deepest gratitude -- for your generosity of time and resources, and your unwavering energy and encouragement....

Butte County took a little longer to come in than we had expected, but it was worth the wait. The count is now complete with the possible exception of a handful of votes in El Dorado County and the election result stands at: McClintock 185,615 and Brown at 183,840. The lead of 1,775 votes is a margin of victory that puts us well outside the possibility of a recount changing the outcome. To put it in perspective, it is more than twice the margin by which I lost the race for State Controller in 2002. The numbers came in a...

Less than 600 votes separated Republican Tom McClintock and Democrat Charlie Brown in the ongoing provisional and vote-by-mail ballot count in the 4th Congressional District. McClintock led with 168,947 votes as of 4:22 p.m. Friday, to 168,378 for Brown. That gave McClintock a percentage of 50.1 percent to 49.9 percent for Brown. Thousands of ballots remained to be counted, though it was unclear which parts of the district they would come from.

McClintock lead up to about 640 in CD-04 By Ben van der Meer, PolitickerCA.com Senior Reporter As provisional and vote-by-mail ballots are counted, state Sen. Tom McClintock's (R-Thousand Oaks) lead in the 4th Congressional District widened slightly Thursday morning, up to about 640 votes ahead of Democrat Charlie Brown. Still unclear was how many ballots remain to be counted; Brown said in a statement Wednesday that he believed as many at 40,000 ballots were still to be processed. Neither campaign has formally conceded or claimed victory as of yet. An official in the California Secretary of State's communications office said...

LOS ANGELES (AP) _ It could be days or weeks before a winner is declared in the 4th Congressional District, a longtime conservative stronghold in Northern California where fewer than 500 votes separated the candidates Wednesday. Elsewhere, the Obama wave that swept California failed to flip any GOP-held congressional seats into Democratic hands on Election Day. Republican incumbents held on, though some with narrower margins than usual. So Democrats' desire to grow their 34-19 majority in California's House delegation — and pile onto their expanded majorities in Washington — hung on the outcome in the 4th district. Democrat Charlie Brown,...

No House seats changed party hands in California on Election Day, with the state's hottest contest finishing the night stuck in a dead heat. It could be days before voters in the conservative 4th Congressional District find out who will represent them in Washington. With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Republican Tom McClintock had 50.07 percent of the vote and Democrat Charlie Brown had 49.93 percent. Thousands of provisional ballots and absentee ballots delivered to the polls remained uncounted. The upset Brown aimed for was still in reach, but McClintock told supporters he was optimistic. "We have seen a tsunami...

Without a doubt, the Republican primary for California's Fourth Congressional District was the highest profile legislative race taking place in yesterday's statewide elections in California. Whether you look at how the race shaped up locally, or how it was covered Inside The Beltway, the battle between conservative State Senator Tom McClintock and moderate former U.S. Representative Doug Ose was truly looked to as an election-day indicator of where the heart and soul of the GOP was, and whether Republicans want to see change in direction that their party has taken in the United States Capitol. Despite the massive financial advantage...

Former Gov. Pete Wilson has lashed out at GOP state Sen. Tom McClintock, saying McClintock couldn't be counted on in the Legislature and should not go to Congress. Wilson, a fellow Republican, made the remarks during a campaign event for the 4th Congressional District GOP primary organized by McClintock rival Doug Ose. The two are battling to replace incumbent GOP Rep. John Doolittle, who is retiring. McClintock was in the state Assembly while Wilson was governor. Wilson said McClintock was the first to criticize but the last to help his own team. McClintock's campaign did not immediately respond to a...