House diary: Recruitment woes as filing deadlines approach

The GOP's recruitment trouble is continuing in the House, this time affecting two crucial seats that the NRCC needs to keep competitive. First comes NY-26, a seat the party currently holds (by none other than Reynolds). I reported last week that the GOP's top two choices (state Senator Maziarz and Assemblyman Jim Hayes) had declined to run for this clearly red leaning district. Today, it is the turn of Republican Nick Sinatra, a 28 year old aide of the Bush White House, to turn down the NRCC's pleas. Sinatra explained he wanted to pursue a master's degree. When a congressional committee is being turned by people who still want to go back to studying, you know things are not going well.

Meanwhile, the Alabama filing deadline is approaching (it's tomorrow) and Republicans could be on the verge of giving up on a golden opportunity: AL-05, the seat of Democratic Representative Bud Cramer who announced earlier in March that he will not run for re-election. This is only the second Democratic-held open seat that Republicans have any hope of contesting, and it is a district that clearly leans Republican: Bush got 60% here in 2004.

Republicans did their best to recruit state Senator Tom Buter, a Democrat. Even Governor Barbour contacted Buter urging him to switch parties and run against a candidate Democrats are highly touting, state Senator Griffith. But Buter announced this week that he will not run -- and that he will not switch parties either. Republicans will thus probably pin their hopes on businessman Wayne Parker, who unsuccessfully ran for the seat in 1994 and in 1996. The reason this is a particularly important district for the GOP is that the party feels the seat should belong to them but conquering it might get very difficult if Democrats manage to somehow hold on to it, just as they never managed to dethrone Bud Cramer. Consider that AL-05 has never elected a Republican representative... the Southern realignment has for now stopped in this district.

Democrats are having their own recruitment failures. In New Jersey, they have a few more days to find a challenger against Rep. LaBiondo in NJ-02 now that their top hope, state Senator Jeff van Drew, has announced that he will stay out of this year's race. van Drew unseated a Republican incumbent just a year ago and felt that it was too early for him to move on.
“I will run for Congress one day but this is not the right time to announce," the Democrat said. This is a relief for Republicans who were worried about having to defend a third New Jersey seat (check the house rankings to get details on the two others). Democrats are still hoping to get someone in who could keep hte race competitive, but the filing deadline is on Monday.

The recruitement troubles of New York Republicans

It is still to early to know whether Eliot Spitzer's scandal and resignation can offer any boost to New York's dying Republican Party. On the verge of losing the state Senate and relinquishing control of the entirety of the state government since the 1930s, the state GOP collapse has major consequences at the federal level, since only 6 of the state's 29 representatives are now Republicans.

After picking up 3 seats in 2006 (NY-19, NY-20 and NY-24), Democrats are now looking to win in the three districts that they barely lost last time (between 2% to 4%): NY-25, NY-26 and NY-29. It is no coincidence that the incumbents from the first two districts have retired: Their situation looked difficult and they did not trust that the NRCC would do that much to help them. But with their departure, Democrats are in an even more favorable situation to pick up their seats.

To make matters worse, Republicans have some major recruitment trouble in those 2 districts. In NY-25, Peter Cappuccilli Jr., the only Republican to have stepped forward, dropped out on Tuesday, citing health reasons. This leaves the GOP with no candidate in the district, though they still have time to convince someone to jump in. Things are shaping up very well for Democrat Dan Maffei, and NY-25 will be one of the first districts the NRCC will give up in the fall when it will have to choose where to spend its meager resources. And that fact alone is surely enough to dissuade the strongest Republican candidates from jumping in.

In NY-26, the story is similar: a few days after the Republicans' top choice (state Senator Maziarz) announced he would not run, the GOPer most mentioned to take the nod, Assemblyman Jim Hayes, has declared he will stay out of the race. This is an open seat in a district that Bush carried comfortably in 2004, and instead of battling each other to become the nominee, the district's top Republicans are staying out. It says a lot about the pessimism of New York Republicans.

There is a Republican who has jumped in the NY-26 race, however: Iraq war veteran David Bellavia. The likely Democratic nominee right now is fellow Iraq war veteran Jonathan Powers, which would mean that the race finds itself disputed mainly on the war issue, not necessarily the best strategy for Republicans in upstate New York. It is also less likely that the NRCC abandons NY-26 than NY-25. The fundamentals of this district are more favorable to Republicans than those in NY-25, and it would really take a GOP plunge or major money woes for the House GOP to give up on a district that voted Bush with 55%.

And this is not the end of the House troubles of the state party: Their recruitment failures are as dramatic in some of the seats Democrats picked up in 2006. NY-19 is perhaps the most revealing example in the entire country, as Republicans had recruited one of their top and most highly touted recruits before he abruptly dropped out in late November. The GOP has since given up on contesting this race seriously, despite the fact that Rep. Hall was considered one of the weakest Democratic freshmen. In NY-24, one of the hotly contested open seat races of 2006 (you might remember the infamously absurd ad run against Democrat Arcuri), Republicans have only gotten businessman Richard Hanna to start exploring the race, and while Hanna could self-fund he will not be considered top-tier even if he does jump in.

One last recruitment note which has nothing to do with New York: The New Hampshire Republican Party is finding itself without a gubernatorial candidate after Manchester Mayor Guinta unexpectedly announced he would not take on Governor Lynch (who is up for reelection every two years). Republicans have other Republicans considering the race, but Lynch is a very popular governor who will have little trouble winning re-election, which leaves the GOP in a bind. From the Union Leader: "Influential state Republicans, surprised by Guinta's unexpected decision, are now searching for a candidate who can perhaps come within 10 or 12 percentage points of Lynch to bolster the ticket and, theoretically at least, prevent a 2006-style blowout."

House diary: GOP finds candidate for Weller's seat, not Reynolds's

The dominant story of this year's House races has been the GOP's open seat headaches. Not only are Republicans facing a massive exodus of their caucus, with many of the departing members leaving behind very vulnerable districts, but they have had trouble recruiting in many crucial districts.

No race exemplifies these problem better than IL-11, left open by Rep. Weller. It was clear from the beginning that this would be prime pick-up territory, but GOP problems were conpounded by the uneven recruitment of the two parties: Democrats got state Senate President Debbie Halvorson while the GOP's top choice (Christine Radogno) refused to get in. New Lenox Mayor Tim Balderman became the Republican nominee after the February 5th primary, but abruptly decided to withdraw two weeks later. That left the GOP without a candidate, but with party leaders having the right to select the nominee themselves.

Republicans were hoping to attract a few state Senators who had initially refused to run, perhaps attracting them with the fact that they would not have to run for a primary. But they apparently got rebuked one more time because Chicago Businessman Martin Ozinga is now emerging as the choice of party operatives after he declared himself recently. The final decision will not be made until April 30th, but Republicans can at least be relieved that they got a candidate in the race to allow them to play defense and test the district's readiness to become blue.

Meanwhile, in NY-26, Republicans start off slightly favored to keep the seat of former NRCC chairman Reynolds, who announced his retirement last week. The district leans Republican, but with upstate New York trending increasingly Democratic in recent cycles it will not be an easy hold for Republicans. And the GOP just got its first major recuirtement failure in this district, with state Senator George Maziarz announcing he will not run for Reynolds's seat, despite being considered by many as the front-runner for the Republican nod. The Niagara County Republican Chairman also said he would not be running.

The fact that politicians like Maziarz (or Christine Radogno in IL-11) who were basically promised the Republican nod in GOP-held districts are refusing to jump in the race confirms how grim many Republicans thinks their party's chances are in the fall, at least in congressional races. In essence, some of these refusals come down to a belief that it would be harder to win this year in an open seat than in the next few cycles against an incumbent.

• Internal Polls: NY-25 and OH-02
  

We also got two internal polls released by two campaigns of opposing parties yesterday, and like most leaked internals they paint very favorable pictures for those who commissioned them:

• In OH-02, Republican incumbent Jean Schmidt leads challenger Vic Wulsin 51% to 33%. This is a rematch of the 2006 race which Schmitt barely won.

• In NY-25, a GOP-held open seat, Democrat Dan Maffei (who came very close to beating the incumbent in 2006) leads two Republican candidates by double-digits, 41% to 29% against Peter Cappuccilli and 41% to 25% against Randy Wolken.

Take those numbers with many grains of salt, since they are internal polls, but neither survey has particularly surprising results. OH-02 is a very Republican district, and, despite the fact that Schmidt had two extremely close calls in a special election in 2005 and in the 2006 general election, it's also expected that she manages to entrench herself over time. NY-25, meanwhile, is a district that Kerry carried in 2004 and in a state in which Republicans are not going well. It's thus expected that the Democratic nominee (who already ran in 2006, so has a better base) starts off favored in what is essentially a generic ballot test.

Congressional diary: One more difficult GOP open-seat

The House GOP will have to defend one more difficult open-seat next November, as Rep. Tom Reynolds will soon announce his retirement. Reynolds was the chairman of the NRCC in the last cycle, and for a few weeks at the beginning of October 2006 he seemed headed for a sure loss after news broke that he was involved in the scandal surrounding Mark Foley's flirtations with teenage pages. But Reynolds recovered in time to eek out a win with 52% of the vote.

NY-26 is a Republican-leaning district: Bush won 52% to 45% in 2000 and 55% to 43% in 2004. But considering the recent difficulties of New York Republicans -- symbolized by how close they are to losing the state Senate after Democrats picked-up a special election seat that had been in GOP hands as long as anyone could remember -- Democrats have to feel very good about their chances here, particularly in a presidential year. There already was a candidate in the race, Iraq War Veteran Jon Powers.

On the other hand, it remains to be seen whether the Spitzer scandal changes the dynamics of New York politics enough to prevent Democrats from completing their take-over of state politics. They easily won the open seat NY-24 in 2006, and also narrowly defeated incumbents in NY-19 and NY-20. They are hoping to take out some of the few remaining Republican seats in 2008, starting with the open seat of NY-25. If the state's GOP can find some winning formula again after the downfall of Spitzer, it will be in a place like NY-26 that it would be most useful.

Meanwhile, in Colorado, Rasmussen released a new general election poll that shows the race as tight as ever -- though this is the first Rasmussen survey in which Mark Udall leads:

• He is up 46% to 43% against Republican Bob Schaffer, following a February and December poll in which Schaffer was up 1%. All these margins are naturally within the margin of error.

At the end of the summer, Colorado appeared to be clearly leaning Democratic -- and was rated as such in my Senate Rankings. Democrats believed that Mark Udall was such a strong candidate that any Republican would have difficulty beating him, let alone Bob Schaffer. But Republicans are kept the seat more than competitive and all polls taken show a tight race with no favorite -- which led me to downgrade the race to a "toss-up" in my last Senate rankings.

Republicans quit congressional races, bringing mixed news for the GOP

Strange day of news in congressional races today, as it was marked by report after report that Republicans were not running for seats or were ending their campaigns. In two cases (NE-Sen, CA-04, though the latter is only a rumor), the news is good for Republicans; and in two (NJ-07 and NY-19) it is good for Democrats.

• Bruning exits the stage in Nebraska

Democrats thought they would have a great shot at the Nebraska Senate race when Hagel announced he would not run for re-election, and I ranked the seat 4th most vulnerable in the October Senate rankings. But everything has gone wrong for Democrats since then (the race was downgraded to 13th by November), and here is one more thing you can add to that list. Nebraska's Attorney General Jon Bruning was running in the GOP primary against former Governor Mike Johanns, and a bloody primary on the Republican side had become one of the last (faint) Democratic hopes of pulling an upset here.

But today, Bruning announced he was retiring from the race. Only 39, Bruning has plenty of time before him to upgrade (though there probably won't be an open Senate or governor's seat for a little while) and he was attracting ill-will of the party by making life difficult for the candidate the party wants to coronate. Johanns is now the certain Republican nominee, and can prepare for the general election... He will face only token opposition there, except if Democrats manage to convince their third choice, Steve Kleeb to run. And even then they face very low odds.

• Doolittle on his way out?

This is the one item on this list that is only a rumor as of yet, but one that is becoming persistent. A California blog is reporting that Doolittle might finally have decided to retire. CA-04 has become one of the GOP's worst nightmares. It is a very Republican seat that the party would have little problem holding as an open seat but Doolittle is so ethically challenged that he has practically no chance of winning a re-election race if he persists in running. The GOP wants to believe he will retire, but Doolittle has been very firm in saying he is going nowhere -- which has made CA-04 one of the only "Lean Takeover" seats in my House rankings. But if this rumor is confirmed the GOP would breath a huge sigh of relief.

• No more candidate in NY-19

Republicans had made freshman Rep. John Hall one of their top targets and considered candidate Andrew Saul one of its top recruitment coups next year. Saul was one of the challengers who had raised the most money as of the end of September, and his presumed strength had led many to classify Hall as very endangered in this Republican-leaning district.

But Saul was reported today to have dropped out of the race, leaving the GOP without a challenger in what they consider a top priority! Saul did not give a specific reason but to cite "personal reasons." This is obviously a huge blow to Republicans, who must now hurry to find a top-tier challenger to keep this competitive. And even if they do, they have lost the half-million Saul had already raised and will start off as a significant disadvantage. Hall just got a lot more safer tonight.

• No one wants to run in NJ-07

The seat Ferguson retired from yesterday is turning out to be yet another recruitment nightmare for Republicans. The two candidates I mentioned yesterday announced they were not running within 24 hours. First, Tom Kean, who many considered the strongest possible candidate (I had already reported this yesterday).

Today, former Rep. Tom Franks says he will not run for the seat. He was quickly followed by a third Republican I did not mention myself but who was on everyone's list, state Assembly Minority Whip Jon Bramnick. Bramnick also declined to run, saying there was more a Republican can do in Trenton than in Washington right now.

This is the same scneario that played out in OH-15 and in IL-11, where Republicans just were not going any top-tier candidates in open seats they had to defend. They managed to find someone in OH-15, but not really in IL-11. NJ-07 is a very competitive district under normal circumstances, so the GOP has to do some great recruitment effort in the next few days or weeks to salvage the situation.

• At least one Republican says he is staying!

Rumors had been circulating that Rep. Tom Reynolds (from NY) might be retiring next year, which would create yet another headache for the GOP. Though his seat is not the tightest of districts, Republicans are already dealing with enough problems as it is. But Reynolds's camp said today that he has no intention to retire and he will run next year.