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Conservative Southern U.S. House members go down
Republicans make a net gain of four seats across the region
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
ELECTION CENTRAL (CFP) — Four embattled Democratic incumbents who represent conservative U.S. House districts lost their seats in the November 4 midterm election, while the GOP lost a seat in the Florida Panhandle.
The four Democrats — Nick Rahall in West Virginia, John Barrow in Georgia, Joe Garcia in Florida and Pete Gallego in Texas — all represented districts that Mitt Romney carried in 2012. The GOP also took an open Democrat-held seat in North Carolina where Romney also won.
With those wins, the GOP will hold a 112-39 advantage in Southern U.S. House seats come January.
U.S. House nominee Gwen Graham
The Democrats’ only good news came in Florida’s Tallahassee-centered 2nd District, where Gwen Graham, the daughter of former U.S. Senator Bob Graham, narrowly defeated Republican U.S. Rep. Steve Southerland by a margin of 50 percent to 49 percent.
Democrats had also targeted five open seats in Arkansas, Virginia and West Virginia. Republicans held all five.
Barrow, who represents Georgia’s 12th District, had survived four previous attempts by Republicans to push him from Congress, which included having his district gerrymandered twice by the state legislature. But the fifth time proved the charm as he lost to Republican Rick Allen by a margin of 55 percent to 45 percent.
U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall
Despite 19 terms representing West Virginia in Congress, Rahall could not overcome President Obama’s marked unpopularity in the Mountaineer State, losing to State Senator Evan Jenkins in the 3rd District, by a margin of 55 percent to 45 percent. .
In Florida’s 26th District, Garcia lost to Republican Carlos Curbelo by a margin of 52 percent to 48 percent. This Latino-majority district, which stretches from southwest Miami-Dade County to Key West, has now switched hands in the three straight elections.
The GOP also won in Texas’s 23rd District, a vast district that sprawls across more than 500 miles of southwest Texas, from the suburbs of San Antonio to the suburbs of El Paso.
Will Hurd, a former CIA agent who, uniquely, was a black candidate running in a majority Latino district, defeated Gallego by a margin of 50 percent to 48 percent. This closely divided district has now switched hands three times since 2006.
Republicans also picked up a seat in North Carolina’s 7th District, which opened up when Democratic U.S. Rep. Mike McIntyre decided to retire. Former State Senator David Rouzer easily defeated New Hanover County Commissioner Jonathan Barfield.
Ten things to watch for in Tuesday’s election
U.S. Senate, U.S. House and governorships are on the ballot all across the South
By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
(CFP) — As voters go to the polls on Tuesday, here are 10 things to watch for in races across the South:
Will There Be A Peach State Runoff? — Georgia has a unique election law providing for a general election runoff if neither candidate gets an outright majority — a distinct possibility in a close race with a third-party candidate. Polls show that both the U.S. Senate race between Republican David Perdue and Democrat Michelle Nunn and the governor’s race between incumbent GOP Governor Nathan Deal and Democratic State Senator Jason Carter could be razor close. If that happens, a runoff in the governor’s race would be December 9, but the Senate race would not be settled until January 6.
U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu
Is Battle For Senate Control Headed To The Bayou? — Regardless what happens in Georgia, the in Louisiana between incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu and her GOP opponent, U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy, is certain to head to a runoff. If Republicans need the Louisiana seat to gain control of the Senate, the Pelican State could become the focus of the American political world until the December 6 runoff.
How Much Of A Drag Is Obama? — The president’s approval ratings are anemic across the South, and none of the major Democratic candidates have brought him into the region to campaign. Linking each and every Democrat to Obama (and Obamacare) has been part and parcel of just about every Republican campaign. Tuesday will determine whether Obama’s unpopularity was a millstone that drowned Democratic prospects.
Will Florida Voters Resurrect Crist? — Charlie Crist’s political career looked to be all but over after a disastrous run for the U.S. Senate four years ago. But now he’s back — this time as a Democrat — and, if the polls are to be believed, within striking distance of the governor’s mansion once again. If Crist pulls it off, it will be a remarkable feat of political redemption.
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott
How Big Will Abbott Win? — There’s no question that Republican Greg Abbott will win the governor’s race in Texas over Democratic State Senator Wendy Davis, who ran a remarkably inept campaign. The only question is how badly Davis goes down. Democrats talked a good game earlier this year about turning Texas blue. Tuesday’s results could show how distant that dream really is.
Fallin And Haley On National Stage? — Both Oklahoma Governor Mary Fallin and South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley are cruising to easy re-election wins, which could catapult them into the national conversation for 2016. Historically, being a governor has been the best way to become president, and perhaps one reason we haven’t had a female president is that no female governor has ever sought the White House. Tuesday’s results could start those kinds of conversations in Columbia and Oklahoma City.
Are Nunn And Graham Their Father’s Political Daughters? — Both Nunn, running for the U.S. Senate in Georgia, and Gwen Graham, who is seeking a U.S. House seat in Florida, are scions of prominent Democratic political families making their political debuts. Both have run strong campaigns in areas that lean Republican. So Tuesday could be a night of political deja vu.
How Many Southern Senate Seats Can Democrats Keep? — Right now, the Democrats have only eight out of 28 seats. They seem certain to lose one of those, in West Virginia, and three others — Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina — are in jeopardy. So the party of Jackson that once strode strong across the South could be reduced to having less than 15 percent of region’s Senate seats.
Has Georgia Turned Purple? — If Democrats pull off wins in the U.S. Senate and governor’s races in Georgia, they will no doubt crow about changing political winds in the Peach State. Tuesday’s results will show if Georgia, like Virginia before it, is becoming less reliably Republican, which would no doubt encourage Democrats to try to put the state into play in 2016.
Can Rahall Survive in West Virginia? — When Democratic U.S. Rep. Nick Rahall was first elected to Congress, bellbottoms were still the rage. But after 38 years in Washington, he is fighting for his political life in a state where opposition to the Obama administration’s environmental policies is dragging down the Democratic brand. If Rahall goes, the state’s entire House delegation will be in GOP hands, a sea change in a state that a generation ago leaned Democratic.
Four southern U.S. Senate races are still too close to call
GOP holding leads in Arkansas and West Virginia; Democrats holding tough in Georgia and Kentucky
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
WASHINGTON (CFP) — Two weeks out from election day, races for four southern U.S. Senate seats — two held by each party — are still too close to call, with control of the Senate hanging in the balance.
The latest polling shows races in North Carolina, Kentucky and Georgia are within the margin of error, while the race in Louisiana now seems certain to be heading toward a December runoff.
Depending on how these Southern races turn out, the question of which party will control the Senate could linger for more than a month before runoffs in Louisiana and possibly Georgia.
U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton
However, Republicans appear poised to pick up an open Democratic seat in West Virginia, and GOP U.S. Rep. Tom Cotton appears to have opened up a small lead over incumbent Democratic U.S. Senator Mark Pryor in Arkansas.
Democrats hold only eight out of 28 southern Senate seats. One of those seats, in West Virginia, is likely gone, and three others — in Arkansas, Louisiana and North Carolina — are in jeopardy.
The good news for Democrats is that two GOP-held seats, in Kentucky and Georgia, have turned out to be surprisingly competitive, despite the Republican tilt in both of those states.
Here are the current states of the southern Senate races:
Arkansas: The race between Cotton and Pryor has been neck-and-neck for the better part of a year, as outside groups poured tons of money into the Natural
State. But a Talk Business and Politics/Hendrix College poll released October 15 showed that Cotton has opened up an 8-point lead, the third media poll in a row that put the challenger ahead.
Louisiana: Recent polling shows Democratic U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu and her chief Republican rival, U.S. Rep. Bill Cassidy, about even but both far from the 50 percent either would need to avoid a runoff in the state’s jungle primary, where all candidates from all parties run in the same race. That would set up a December 6 runoff between the two, a head-to-head match-up that’s still too close to call.
West Virginia: This race is to pick a successor to retiring Democratic U.S. Senator Jay Rockefeller, and it looks increasingly like a GOP pickup, with U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito opening up a significant lead over Democratic Secretary of State Natalie Tennant. A CBS News/New York Times/YouGov poll in early October had Capito ahead by 23 points.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell
Kentucky: The Senate’s top Republican, Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, is in a pitched battle with Democratic Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes. Recent polls have shown the race as either too close to call or with McConnell slightly in the lead.
Georgia: This race, to pick a successor to retiring Republican U.S. Senator Saxby Chambliss, is a contest between two political newcomers, Republican David Perdue and Democrat Michelle Nunn. Despite Georgia’ GOP tilt, Nunn has run a strong race, and the latest polling shows the contest within the margin of error. An interesting twist in Georgia is that if neither Perdue nor Nunn wins a majority, they would meet in a runoff December 10 — a possibility if the race is close and votes are syphoned off by third-party candidates.
North Carolina: Democratic U.S. Senator Kay Hagan is seeking a second term against Republican State House Speaker Thom Tillis. Recent polling has shown this race is also within the margin of error.
Alex Mooney tops crowded field to win GOP U.S. House primary in West Virgina
Republican primary race in state’s 2nd District featured Tea Party-versus-establishment battle
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com editor
CHARLESTON, West Virginia (CFP) — Just a year after moving across the Potomac River from Maryland into West Virginia, Republican Alex Mooney has won his party’s nomination for his new state’s open 2nd District U.S. House seat.
GOP House candidate Alex Mooney
In a seven-way race, Mooney captured 36 percent of the vote, defeating Ken Reed, a pharmacy owner from Berkeley Springs, who came in second at 22 percent, and Charlotte Lane, a Charleston lawyer and international trade commissioner under President George W. Bush, who took 18 percent of the vote.
West Virginia does not have primary runoffs.
The battle for the GOP nod in the 2nd District turned into a closely watched tussle between outside conservative activists and Tea Party groups, who backed Mooney, and business and party leaders who lined up behind Lane. Reed poured more than $500,000 of his own money into the race.
Lane had the backing of the powerful West Virginia Coal Association. Mooney was endorsed by the Senate Conservatives Fund, the Tea Party Express and former Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee. Despite her establishment credentials, Mooney eclipsed Lane in fundraising by $150,000, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission.
Both Lane and Reed had accused Mooney, who served in the Maryland Senate from 1999 to 2010, of being a carpetbagger who parachuted into West Virginia to seek political office.
He had formed an exploratory committee for a U.S. House race in Maryland in 2012 but eventually decided not to run, and he moved to West Virginia in 2013. His Maryland Senate district was adjacent to the Mountaineer State.
Nick Casey, the former chairman of the West Virginia Democratic Party, easily won his party’s nomination for the 2nd District seat and will face Mooney in November.
The 2nd District meanders across 17 counties from Charleston, the state capital, to the Eastern Panhandle sandwiched between Maryland and Virginia. The seat is currently held by Republican U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, who is giving it up to run for the U.S. Senate.
Capito easily won her Senate primary and will face Democratic Secretary of State Natalie Tennant in the fall.
Even though Capito has held the seat since 2001 and Mitt Romney captured 60 percent of its presidential votes in 2012, Democrats see the seat as a potential pickup target. Casey has raised more than $890,000 in a district with modest media advertising costs, according to FEC reports.
Capito did not endorse any of the candidates in the Republican primary.
West Virginia Senate Race: Democratic Secretary of State Natalie Tennant takes on GOP Rep. Shelley Moore Capito
Poll points to close race in Democratic state where Obama is unpopular
♦By Rich Shumate, Chickenfriedpolitics.com
CHARLESTON, West Virginia (CFP) — Democrats trying to keep a U.S. Senate seat in West Virginia out of Republican hands finally have a major candidate to rally around, Secretary of State Natalie Tennant, with a recent poll showing her giving the presumptive Republican nominee, Rep. Shelley Moore Capito, a run for her money in 2014.
Tennant, 45, a former television reporter in her second term as Secretary of State, kicked off her campaign September 17 with a series of events around the state and a slickly produced YouTube video featuring her planted on her family’s farm and running on to the field in buckskin as the Mountaineer mascot during her days at West Virginia University.
Secretary of State Natalie Tennant
In that video, Tennant — an Obama delegate to last year’s Democratic National Convention who criticized fellow Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin for not attending – took a direct swipe at the president for his environmental policies, which are deeply unpopular in West Virginia’s coal country.
“I will do everything in my power to stop (restrictions on coal), including standing up to President Obama,” she said.
The language in her announcement shows the delicate needle Tennant will have to thread in this race. While West Virginia is strongly unionized and Democrats dominate at the state and congressional levels, it has become reliably Republican in presidential politics. Obama lost the state by a whopping 27 points in 2012.
That deep red shade on the Mountaineer State has given the GOP hope that Capito, 59, serving her seventh term in the House, can move up to the Senate and take over the seat being vacated by retiring Democratic Senator Jay Rockefeller.
However, the state hasn’t sent a Republican to the Senate since the 1950s, and a poll taken in August by the Charleston Daily Mail showed Capito leading Tennant only by a margin of 45 percent to 40 percent, within the poll’s margin of error.
In her announcement video, Tennant wrapped herself in the images of Rockefeller and the late Senator Robert Byrd and criticized Capito as a Washington insider. In particular, she assailed the congresswoman for voting for a measure that would increase interest rates on student loans and voting against a mine safety measure named for Byrd.
U.S. Rep. Shelley Moore Capito
For her part, Capito has kept up an anti-Obama drumbeat, voting to defund Obamacare and denouncing as “incredible” and “overbearing” new Environmental Protection Agency rules that would prohibit construction of any new coal-fired electric plants, which she said would result in the loss of thousands of jobs in the state.
While the Charleston Daily Mail poll points to a close race, Tennant only managed a third place finish in the 2011 gubernatorial primary, running weakly in the southern coal counties. She entered the race after several Democrats perceived as stronger decided not to run, including former governors Bob Wise and Gaston Caperton and U.S. Rep. Rick Rahall.
To get at Tennant, Capito must first fight off a Tea Party challenge from former State Delegate Pat McGeehan, who has criticized her from being a Washington insider who is not sufficiently conservative.
Two major conservative groups that have backed Tea Party insurgents in previous Republican primaries – the Club for Growth and the Senate Conservatives Fund – have offered similar criticism of the congresswoman, although they have so far stopped short of endorsing McGeehan.
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