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Notes on state of pol

Sabato's Crystal Ball

Notes on the State of Politics: May 26, 2021

Dear Readers: This is the latest edition of the Crystal Ball’s “Notes on the State of Politics,” which features short updates on elections and politics. — The Editors The House: A silver lining for Democrats Last week’s Crystal Ball, which featured hypothetical ratings of the House that did not take looming redistricting into account, painted a relatively bleak picture for Democrats. We rated 19 Democratic seats as Toss-ups if no district lines changed, and just two Republican ones. Republicans need to net just five additional seats to win the House next year. However, there is at least one reason to think Democrats could be able to limit their losses next year or even hold on to the majority: The Democrats are not that overextended into hostile, Republican territory. Despite not holding the majority, Republicans hold more seats in districts that Joe Biden won, nine, than Democrats hold in districts Donald Trump won, seven. And three of the seven Trump-district Democrats — Reps. Cindy Axne (D, IA-3), Elissa Slotkin (D, MI-8), and Andy Kim (D, NJ-3) — hold seats that Trump won by less than a point apiece. The most Republican-leaning seat based on the 2020 presidential results won by any

Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman

Notes on the State of Politics: May 11, 2021

Dear Readers: This is the latest edition of the Crystal Ball’s “Notes on the State of Politics,” which features short updates on elections and politics. — The Editors VA-GOV: Youngkin wins GOP nomination, race Leans Democratic for the fall Glenn Youngkin, former co-chief executive of the Carlyle Group, won the Republican nomination for the open Virginia governorship last night. He bested second-place finisher Pete Snyder, another businessman, as well as state Sen. Amanda Chase, state Del. Kirk Cox, and others. Youngkin’s victory was not a shock, at least to us — we noted in the Crystal Ball a couple of weeks ago that some of our Republican sources believed Youngkin was the favorite — but this was also an unusual contest with unusual rules. The Republican Party of Virginia opted to nominate its statewide candidates through an “unassembled convention.” Participants registered as delegates and cast ranked-choice votes at about 40 voting sites across the commonwealth. While roughly 53,000 registered to be delegates, just over 30,000 raw votes were cast. That’s close to four times the number of participants in the most recent Virginia gubernatorial convention (2013), but less than a tenth of the turnout in the most recent Republican gubernatorial

Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman

Notes on the State of Politics: May 3, 2021

Dear Readers: This is the latest edition of the Crystal Ball’s “Notes on the State of Politics,” which features short updates on elections and politics. — The Editors TX-6: Democrats locked out of runoff In the Dallas area this weekend, a somewhat unexpected — but not entirely surprising — result will induce a Crystal Ball ratings change. On Saturday, Texans in the state’s 6th District went to the polls to decide who should replace the late Rep. Ron Wright (R, TX-6). Sadly, Wright died of COVID-19 in February. On paper, TX-6 had potential to be a competitive district — Trump carried it 51%-48% last year, which was considerably closer than his 12-point margin there in 2016. About 70% of the district’s votes typically come from a blue-trending portion of Fort Worth’s Tarrant County, while the rest is from two much redder counties to the south. In Texas, though, special elections are held under Louisiana-style jungle primary rules: all candidates, regardless of party, appear on the same ballot and a runoff is triggered if no one clears 50% — this turned out to be key. In a field that featured nearly two-dozen contenders, Democrats didn’t consolidate behind a single candidate, while Susan

Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman

Notes on the State of Politics: April 28, 2021

Dear Readers: At 3:30 p.m. eastern today, University of Virginia Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato will interview USA Today Washington Bureau Chief Susan Page about her new book, Madam Speaker: Nancy Pelosi and the Lessons of Power. To tune in, click here. If you can’t watch live, we’ll be posting their conversation to our YouTube channel, UVACFP. This is the latest edition of the Crystal Ball’s “Note on the State of Politics,” which features short updates on elections and politics. Earlier this week, we published a special Crystal Ball issue on the new U.S. House reapportionment numbers, so we won’t publish again until next week. — The Editors Virginia Governor: McAuliffe remains ahead in Democratic race as Republicans brace for unpredictable convention The challengers to former Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-VA) in the Old Dominion’s June 8 Democratic gubernatorial primary are running out of lifelines. McAuliffe already holds a sizable lead in polls: both the Democratic firm Public Policy Polling and the nonpartisan Wason Center at Christopher Newport University have found his support over 40%, with none of his four opponents cracking double digits. With no runoff, McAuliffe benefits not only from his name ID and money advantages, but

Kyle Kondik and J. Miles Coleman

Notes on the State of Politics

Governors: The Last Frontier’s three-cornered fight favors the Republicans On Tuesday, an important deadline came and went in Alaska’s gubernatorial race: the final day that a candidate could officially withdraw and not appear on the November ballot. Since former Sen. Mark Begich (D-AK) entered the race on June 1, the final day to file as a candidate, Democrats have worried that he and Gov. Bill Walker (I-AK) might draw from some of the same base of support in the general election, easing the GOP’s path to victory. Walker, a former Republican, ran as an independent with a Democrat as his lieutenant governor nominee in 2014 (Byron Mallott, who is on the same ticket with Walker again), and was something of a de facto Democratic candidate four years ago (there was no Democrat on the ballot). Given the Democrats’ concern about fragmenting the vote, the Sept. 4 deadline to withdraw loomed large, especially as behind-the-scenes dealmakers tried to push Begich or Walker to get out. Begich announced on Tuesday that he would hold an afternoon press conference, leading to speculation that he planned to exit the race, thus preventing a likely split of the left and center in a right-leaning state.

Geoffrey Skelley and Kyle Kondik

Notes on the State of Politics

KEY POINTS FROM THIS ARTICLE — The partisan structure of the races for governorships and Senate seats are now exact mirror opposites. — Sen. Angus King (I-ME) and Gov. Tom Wolf (D-PA) get ratings upgrades. — Rep. Elizabeth Esty’s (D, CT-5) retirement gives Republicans an upset opportunity and is another example of how #MeToo is contributing to a high number of open House seats this cycle. Table 1: Crystal Ball Senate and gubernatorial ratings changes Mirror images of partisan vulnerability in Senate and gubernatorial races With Mississippi now hosting two Senate races this year, 2018’s Senate and gubernatorial races have achieved something of a mirror-image symmetry. On the Senate front, Democrats are defending 26 seats (including two independents who caucus with Democrats from Maine and Vermont) while the Republicans, even with the addition of a special election in Mississippi, are still only defending nine. In the gubernatorial races, it is the Republicans defending 26 seats while the Democrats are defending just nine. There is one other governorship on the ballot not included here — Alaska — but an independent, Bill Walker, is seeking reelection. He defeated a Republican incumbent in 2014 and has a Democratic running mate, but Walker himself

Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley

Notes on the State of Politics: Senate Shenanigans in Alabama and Tennessee

Roy Moore’s Rolling Tide There were no surprises in Alabama on Tuesday as former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Roy Moore (R) dispatched appointed Sen. Luther Strange (R) by about 10 points, 55%-45%, in the state’s Republican primary runoff. Most of the final polls in the race showed a margin around that mark, and as people have a bad habit of only noting when pollsters miss, pollsters deserve kudos for getting this one right. Strange’s defeat came despite endorsements from President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence, overwhelming support from the GOP establishment, and a huge spending edge over Moore. Overall, Strange and his allies — particularly Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) Senate Leadership Fund — outspent Moore and his allies almost five-to-one on television advertisements and ran about four times as many ads. But as we discussed in our preview of the Moore-Strange runoff, Moore’s profile and his base of support always seemed more in line with Trump than Strange’s, and the former jurist won nearly every county in the state. The president even seemed unsure of his Strange endorsement when campaigning on behalf of the beleaguered senator the Friday before the election, when he said at

Geoffrey Skelley and Kyle Kondik

The Electoral College: Pennsylvania Moves Toward Clinton

While there is some suggestion that Pennsylvania might be slowly trending Republican, and while it has a lot of the white, working-class voters that Donald Trump is targeting, recent polling has suggested that Hillary Clinton is obviously the favorite there right now. She leads Trump by close to seven-to-nine points in Keystone State polling averages, which suggests to us that whatever Trump is gaining in blue-collar western and northeastern Pennsylvania over traditional Republican performance is more than being canceled out by his tremendous weakness in diverse Greater Philadelphia and amongst college-educated whites in the state more broadly. Therefore, we’re moving Pennsylvania from Leans Democratic to Likely Democratic in the presidential race, which is where we had it as of a couple of months ago. This doesn’t change our overall total of 347 electoral votes for Clinton and 191 for Trump — precisely where our map has been since we unveiled it March 31. Map 1: Crystal Ball Electoral College ratings Table 1: Crystal Ball Electoral College ratings changes Ultimately, a better Republican candidate might have been able to push the state into the Toss-up column. But right now Trump looks like a poor fit for the state — just like

Kyle Kondik

Notes on the State of Politics

West Virginia governor: Manchin’s choice makes Republicans a narrow favorite After months of hinting that he might prefer to return home to run for a third term as governor, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) decided to stay put in the Senate. That creates an open seat in the Mountain State — Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin (D) cannot run again — and there are many potential candidates on both sides. Ultimately, West Virginia’s movement toward the GOP in recent elections suggests that the Republicans should start this race with a small edge, so we’re moving West Virginia’s gubernatorial contest from Toss-up to Leans Republican. While Democrats have suffered setbacks all over the country during President Obama’s time in office — historically, that’s a regular price a party pays for holding the White House (though it’s been particularly rough for Obama) — the party’s losses in West Virginia are amongst the worst in the country since 2009. In 2012 Obama got just 35.5% of the vote in the state — the worst performance for a Democratic presidential nominee in West Virginia since George McClellan (D) versus Abraham Lincoln (R) in 1864, which was the first election held in the new state after it

Kyle Kondik

Notes on the State of Politics

The retirement of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) last week gives Republicans something they have been lacking in the early stages of this Senate cycle: a 50-50 shot at picking up a seat currently held by a Democrat. True, Reid’s poor approval numbers meant he was going to be a target of Republicans anyway. But he’s also a proven commodity who would have had the power of incumbency. In our view, the open-seat race is now a Toss-up, as opposed to the prior rating of Leans Democratic. Democrats are only defending 10 of the 34 Senate seats that are up for election in 2016, which is a consequence of their poor performance on this map during the 2010 cycle, the last time this group of Senate seats (Class III) was contested. But of those 10 seats, three are open: In addition to Reid, Sens. Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) also have already announced their retirements. Reid’s retirement is almost certainly the most costly — we still consider both the California and Maryland seats to be Safe Democratic, a rating that so far has been vindicated by the seeming lack of interest from big-name Republicans in running for

Kyle Kondik

The Surge: Our Book on 2014 & 2016 Is Available for Pre-Order

The Surge, the University of Virginia Center for Politics’ postmortem of the 2014 midterms and preview of the 2016 presidential election, is now available for pre–order. Edited by Center for Politics Director Larry J. Sabato and Sabato’s Crystal Ball editors Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley and published by Rowman and Littlefield, The Surge: 2014’s Big GOP Win and What It Means for the Next Presidential Election brings together some of the nation’s top political journalists and analysts to explain why and how the Republicans took the Senate and where American politics stands as the country’s polarized political parties gear up for 2016. The contributors and their chapters are: Larry J. Sabato provides an overview of the 2014 election, including a look at historical election patterns and demographic voting trends. Long-time political expert and Crystal Ball Senior Columnist Rhodes Cook explores the 2014 primary season and how those nominating contests influenced the November results. Politico’s James Hohmann and the Crystal Ball’s Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley provide in-depth analysis of, respectively, the Senate, House, and gubernatorial races. Former Federal Election Commission chairman Michael Toner and former FEC staffer Karen Trainer examine the ever-growing pot of money involved in American elections and

UVA Center for Politics

Notes on the State of Politics

The GOP’s Jayhawk blues Washington Republicans were reaching for the Pepto-Bismol Wednesday night when the already intriguing Kansas Senate race took a dramatic turn: Chad Taylor, the Democratic candidate, is leaving the race. This gives independent businessman Greg Orman a clean shot at incumbent Sen. Pat Roberts (R). It’s been clear for much of the summer that national Republicans were going to have to spend substantial sums to save embattled, divisive Gov. Sam Brownback (R) in his reelection contest. Now they will have to mount a parallel rescue operation to save Roberts, too. Just last week we flagged this race, noting that Roberts — bearing ugly scars from his primary — was in a stunningly weak position, leading his two other major opponents but drawing less than 40% of the vote in some polls. We switched the race from Safe Republican to Likely Republican because Orman and Taylor were splitting the anti-incumbent vote. Roberts still appeared poised to pull off a plurality victory, unimpressive for a senior incumbent but a win nonetheless. Now his situation has worsened, and we’re downgrading him again: The Senate race in Ruby-Red Kansas, which hasn’t elected a Democratic senator since Franklin Roosevelt’s first presidential victory,

UVA Center for Politics

Notes on the State of Politics

Reaction to third-party piece In an article on the topic last week, we asked readers to chime in with other races where they thought third-party and independent candidates might have an impact on some statewide races. We got a lot of e-mails and tweets about the gubernatorial and Senate contests in Georgia, but multiple readers also mentioned the Connecticut gubernatorial race. Some thoughts on those three races are below. GA-Gov: With ethics troubles making his life more difficult, Gov. Nathan Deal (R) may not be able to win in November; that is, he might have to win in a December runoff. Deal’s problems, which also include lingering frustration with the state’s response to ice storms this past winter, might push some voters toward Libertarian Andrew Hunt, a former tech company CEO. In a June SurveyUSA poll, Hunt garnered 7%. Hunt could send the race into overtime, so to speak, if he helps keep either Deal or his opponent, state Sen. Jason Carter (D), from winning a majority. Should that happen, a Dec. 2 runoff looms. Nonetheless, unless Deal’s problems get even worse (which they could), he would likely be positioned to win that runoff, which would almost certainly feature lower

UVA Center for Politics

NOTES ON THE STATE OF POLITICS

House ratings changes A race-by-race analysis, as well as history, suggests Republicans are in line to make a small, mid-to-high single-digit addition to their majority, but there’s been little movement one way or the other in most races or in the overall climate. We’re planning to take a fuller look at the House picture next month, but in the meantime we have a handful of House ratings to tweak: Rep. Cheri Bustos (D, IL-17) — Leans Democratic to Likely Democratic: Bustos won a tough race against former Rep. Bobby Schilling (R) in 2012, and Schilling is running again. However, conversations with partisans on both sides of the race suggest that other contests in Illinois are looking more competitive, such as Democratic-held IL-10 and IL-12 and Republican-held IL-13. Bustos has more than triple the cash on hand of Schilling and, in recently announced multi-district ad buys, both the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee — the parties’ House campaign arms — ignored this district (although House Majority PAC, a kind of unaffiliated shadow DCCC, did make some future ad buys in markets here). It’s worth noting that the only district Republicans hold that matches President Obama’s 57%

Kyle Kondik and Geoffrey Skelley

Notes on the State of Politics: Primary Edition

National Republicans get their men (and women) The key takeaway from Tuesday night’s primaries, and the primary season in general so far, is that national Republican leaders are getting the general election nominees they want in key races. What they do with those nominees in the fall remains to be seen. In Tuesday’s marquee event, the Republican Senate primary in Georgia, businessman David Perdue (R) — the cousin of former Gov. Sonny Perdue (R)  — and Rep. Jack Kingston (R, GA-1) finished first and second. They will advance to a runoff election nine weeks from now. While of course both candidates could be damaged by the ongoing primary campaign, they are the two preferred candidates of D.C. Republican Senate strategists. Karen Handel (R), the former Georgia secretary of state who finished third, might also have been a decent general election candidate, but she disappointed many Republicans with her lack of fundraising. Bringing up the rear among the top candidates were Reps. Phil Gingrey (R, GA-11) and Paul Broun (R, GA-10), who performed so poorly that their combined vote total didn’t even match third-place finisher Handel. Broun and Gingrey have made controversial social issues comments in the past, the kind that

Kyle Kondik