1) This close to Election Day, what is your sleeper race? That race that has gotten little to no attention but winds up much closer than expected or flips and shocks everyone? (Doesn't necessarily have to be a federal race)
2) Since it was mentioned in Friday's digest, what race do you think ends up b…
1) This close to Election Day, what is your sleeper race? That race that has gotten little to no attention but winds up much closer than expected or flips and shocks everyone? (Doesn't necessarily have to be a federal race)
2) Since it was mentioned in Friday's digest, what race do you think ends up being the VA-10 (of 2018) of this cycle? The race everyone seemed to agree that one side had in the bag and yet money kept being spent there to the detriment of other races.
As an aside, I don't watch much live local TV so I rarely see local political ads. I started watching my local CBS Station here in San Antonio about 2 hours ahead of the Allred-Cruz debate and stated keeping track of what I saw. In that time frame I counted 25 political ads:
12 on the U.S. Senate race (7 Anti-Cruz, 2 Anti-Allred, 2 Pro-Allred, 1 Pro-Cruz)
12 from State House race candidates (HD 74, HD 80, HD 118, & HD 121)
I'd feel better about IA-02 if the Democrat there wasn't being massively outraised and outspent. I wanna see Corkery win, but I doubt she has the infrastructure, network and resources to win over and reach enough voters.
Right, but that's why it's a sleeper - not necessarily to win but to be closer than expected, if Democrats in Iowa are actually having a comeback year.
I think Ne-Sen is the sleeper race of all sleeper races. Outside of politics needs and Nebraskans I doubt anyone really realizes that there is a decent chance a Republican incumbent might lose.
Yeah, I'd definitely like to see Dems invest more in El Paso County and Colorado Springs. IMO Dems have a lot of potential for significant gains there.
My sleeper race is AZ-02. This is the northeastern AZ district where the one-term GOP incumbent is not very popular and the Democratic candidate is a former president (or chairman, i forget the proper title) of the Navajo Nation, which is probably the largest ethnic group in the district. There are also some other indigenous groups in the district as well as others who may vote Dem. I gave a small donation to Jonathan Nez, the Dem about a week ago, thinking this was one of my longshot races. Now there is a poll showing Nez tied with Crane at 42%. There are lots of undecided people left but the top of the Repub ticket is weak (Tr*mp and Lake) and so with a high native turnout it might be winnable.
It would be pretty sweet if the seat which the GOP grossly gerrymandered in 2020 to put a Dem Congressmember out of reach for most of the D+80 native population of AZ concentrated therein, manages to overcome that due to the batshit crazy behavior of the first term GOP incumbent.
This is my choice too but your write-up says most of what I would have written. (Great minds!) Cook and Sabato rate this race as Safe-R. Crane has raised and spent almost 2X what Nez has raised and spent and, until Inside Politics polled it this week, I knew of no polls and no media attention. Even after Inside Politics polled the race, it kept its rating as Likely R (which surprised me). Sounds like a sleeper race to me.
One reason I would also pick it is that the Inside Politics poll found that neither candidate is very well known and the undecided voters "really don't like Eli Crane." Who knows? Lightning could strike.
BTW, I made a small donation to Nez today, violating my personal rules re donating to non-competitive races, particularly so late in the season.
The district is very tough to poll. Nez needs maximal minority turnout, not just native turnout, maximal college student turnout (NAU), maximum ticket splitting by sane GOPers, and low turnout by discouraged GOP voters.
I donated to Nez early on. I like to give seed money to long shot candidates who I think could be transformational - especially in places where they're unlikely to attract much funding. (So not running against, say, MTG)
Per the census the seat (formerly majority-minority with about 1/4th native is now 55% non-Hispanic white, with 18% native and 19% Hispanic population and 4% multiracial with the small remainder of the population very small numbers of Black and Asian residents. Most of the Hispanic population in this district is multi-generational U.S. born (including a lot of my extended family), it’s similar to NM and SW Colorado in that way. It’s also one of the most Mormon districts in the country outside Utah, I haven’t run the numbers lately but top 10.
MI 04. Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Holland, St. Jo/Benton Harbor. GOP incumbent Huizenga won in 2022 with 54% when challenger only had $35000 in funds vs $3.2M. This year's D, Jessica Swartz, has raised 900k vs 2.8M. A well known Libertarian candidate also on ballot again that I'd probably "not ask" outside groups to support.
SC01 Nancy Mace. She wins primaries by rather slim margins. Charleston continues to grow immensely. SC gerrymandered asany Blacks out of district as possibly but she still only got 56% last time. New challenger, Michael Moore (not that one) has ties to the AA musuem. Mace has 3 to 1 fundraising advantage.
NC11. The Hurrican Helene district. Chuck Edwards didn't win by a ton least time. Who knows how the hurricane disruptions will affect turnout? Asheville hit hard, but population is denser there so easier to get to polls. Likely high number of climate change voters.
Indiana Gov. Covered in previous dailies.
Wasted $ race.
FL Senate. I wish I felt differently, but I think Demographics in FL have gotten worse for Ds in last 4 years, not better. I'd prefer the money go to Kunce or Osborne. Or into races in IN or WV. I know a lot will disagree with me here about how viable DMP is. I sincerely hope you are right and I'm wrong.
I doubt MO or WV are more viable than FL as well. But they are cheaper. Jim Justice is just as tainted with mining as Rick Scott is with health care and Hawley only just got over 50% against McCaskill. DMP vs Scott reminds me of Lyndsey Graham vs Jaime Harrison or McConnell vs Amy McGrath in 2020. Especially with Graham's race, there were good polls for Harrison, but you had to have a very rosy view of demographics.
FL is not comparable to SC, let alone KY. Or at least it hasn't been. If Siena is right and Trump wins FL by 13, we'll have something else to talk about. But I don't understand your concern with money. Which campaign is lacking in money? Also, really, please forget about WV! Super-safe Republican!
Just responding to Jacob M's question about which race seems settled but everyone is still spending a lot of money at the expense of other races. I thought it would be fair to suggest where else the money might go.
Democratic Senate Candidate Glenn Elliott has been doing good with fundraising, namely with unemployed voters in WV. He’s getting traction because Jim Justice is really a lame duck GOP Senate Candidate who is doing nothing to stop the negatives he’s been getting a lot.
At the same time, Elliott unlike Lucas Kunce in the MO-SEN race has been getting significantly less media attention. Elliott as of just recently got an interview with Forbes, which may get him traction but he also went on Fox News months ago. It’s really hard to say how this media attention he’s getting is going to impact WV voters.
Kunce by contrast has been regularly on MSNBC for months and has been interviewed by Chris Hayes and others. It’s pretty clear MO is more friendly to Democrats than WV but that’s not a ringing endorsement.
The article I cited reveals that unemployed people across the country donated to Elliott’s campaign. Quite frankly, this may be referring to WV, where there are in fact many unemployed or underemployed West Virginians. I don’t know how the unemployed outside of WV would donate to Elliott’s campaign considering he wouldn’t exactly represent them or even win the race.
Some retired, spouse-supported, or independently wealthy types like to put unemployed in the field where it asks for an employer. It’s not usually indicative of penury or drawing unemployment insurance benefits in this context.
Right but because WV has been considerably lower in the radar for the DSCC and notably Democratic grassroots organizations, the likely conclusion is that most donations from the unemployed are from WV residents.
Glenn Elliott has made a 55-county tour of the state, which has given him more visibility than typical newcomer Democratic Senate candidates in the state. He likely appeals to the unemployed because he’s looking out for the little guy which is in stark contrast to what Jim Justice is doing in his Senate campaign.
40% of the votes would certainly be an improvement over 2014 Democratic Senate Candidate Natalie Tennant, who got 34.5% of the votes back then in the race vs. Shelley Moore Capito.
MO-SEN Race but it depends on who is reporting it.
-Democratic Candidate Lucas Kunce has dominated the fundraising the whole year.
-He is cutting Senator Josh Hawley’s lead to single digits in multiple polls as of recently.
-Kunce’s rallies have been consistently packed for over a month now.
-Hawley himself has not been doing well in his campaign as far as running for re-election. Has continuously been on the defensive as a result of the pressure from Kunce’s campaign.
Of course, Hawley is still likely to win. However, I fail to see how this is a Solid Republican race. I remain convinced it’s Likely Republican but that Hawley won’t win by a sizable margin.
If Kunce improves on the percentage of votes that Jason Kander got as a Democratic Senate Candidate back in 2016, then that’s real progress.
Frankly, more investment should be made in MO by Democrats so they don’t have to rely on a war veteran like Kander or Kunce to get traction. MO is not a deep red state like ID or WY. Lots more Democrats in MO, which also happens to be a midwestern state.
Surprised no one has mentioned MO-02 yet. It moved left from Senate 2016 Jason Kander (3 point loss statewide) to 2022 Trudy Busch Valentine (13 point loss statewide).
My sleeper race is MN-Sen. With each new round of polls, Amy Klobuchar's lead gets more pathetic. Partly because Republicans are so embarrassed about their nominee, even local GOP leaders shrug Royce White off and admit he's gonna lose. But the polls tell a different story. I'm confident Klobuchar will still win, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if she only outran Harris by a point. Klobuchar +5 seems like a real possibility at this point, and three months ago just about everybody would have figured it would be Klobuchar +25.
I'm not anticipating a lot. I know we shouldn't put too much emphasis on a single poll but that MN-02 poll this week showing Craig +8 in the same sample as Trump +2 was a bit of an eyebrow-raiser. Right now, I'm guessing Harris-Walz finish somewhere between Hillary in 2016 and Biden in 2020 in Minnesota. And that Klobuchar gets remarkably less distance than expected from the top of the ticket.
A couple of questions for the weekend:
1) This close to Election Day, what is your sleeper race? That race that has gotten little to no attention but winds up much closer than expected or flips and shocks everyone? (Doesn't necessarily have to be a federal race)
2) Since it was mentioned in Friday's digest, what race do you think ends up being the VA-10 (of 2018) of this cycle? The race everyone seemed to agree that one side had in the bag and yet money kept being spent there to the detriment of other races.
As an aside, I don't watch much live local TV so I rarely see local political ads. I started watching my local CBS Station here in San Antonio about 2 hours ahead of the Allred-Cruz debate and stated keeping track of what I saw. In that time frame I counted 25 political ads:
12 on the U.S. Senate race (7 Anti-Cruz, 2 Anti-Allred, 2 Pro-Allred, 1 Pro-Cruz)
12 from State House race candidates (HD 74, HD 80, HD 118, & HD 121)
1 Presidential (Anti-Trump)
IA-02 seems like a decent candidate.
I'd feel better about IA-02 if the Democrat there wasn't being massively outraised and outspent. I wanna see Corkery win, but I doubt she has the infrastructure, network and resources to win over and reach enough voters.
Right, but that's why it's a sleeper - not necessarily to win but to be closer than expected, if Democrats in Iowa are actually having a comeback year.
I think Ne-Sen is the sleeper race of all sleeper races. Outside of politics needs and Nebraskans I doubt anyone really realizes that there is a decent chance a Republican incumbent might lose.
CO-5. I’m angry it got no attention. I’m angry no one invested in El Paso County, CO.
Yeah, I'd definitely like to see Dems invest more in El Paso County and Colorado Springs. IMO Dems have a lot of potential for significant gains there.
I think we are a cycle or two away from being competitive in this district. I think money spent on CO-3 and CO-8 is a better investment right now.
My sleeper race is AZ-02. This is the northeastern AZ district where the one-term GOP incumbent is not very popular and the Democratic candidate is a former president (or chairman, i forget the proper title) of the Navajo Nation, which is probably the largest ethnic group in the district. There are also some other indigenous groups in the district as well as others who may vote Dem. I gave a small donation to Jonathan Nez, the Dem about a week ago, thinking this was one of my longshot races. Now there is a poll showing Nez tied with Crane at 42%. There are lots of undecided people left but the top of the Repub ticket is weak (Tr*mp and Lake) and so with a high native turnout it might be winnable.
I feel like a sleeper has to be rated Safe-R, not Likely, but others might disagree.
Cook and Sabato both rate AZ-2 as Safe R.
It seems like their ratings are wrong, then.
It would be pretty sweet if the seat which the GOP grossly gerrymandered in 2020 to put a Dem Congressmember out of reach for most of the D+80 native population of AZ concentrated therein, manages to overcome that due to the batshit crazy behavior of the first term GOP incumbent.
This is my choice too but your write-up says most of what I would have written. (Great minds!) Cook and Sabato rate this race as Safe-R. Crane has raised and spent almost 2X what Nez has raised and spent and, until Inside Politics polled it this week, I knew of no polls and no media attention. Even after Inside Politics polled the race, it kept its rating as Likely R (which surprised me). Sounds like a sleeper race to me.
One reason I would also pick it is that the Inside Politics poll found that neither candidate is very well known and the undecided voters "really don't like Eli Crane." Who knows? Lightning could strike.
BTW, I made a small donation to Nez today, violating my personal rules re donating to non-competitive races, particularly so late in the season.
The district is very tough to poll. Nez needs maximal minority turnout, not just native turnout, maximal college student turnout (NAU), maximum ticket splitting by sane GOPers, and low turnout by discouraged GOP voters.
I donated to Nez early on. I like to give seed money to long shot candidates who I think could be transformational - especially in places where they're unlikely to attract much funding. (So not running against, say, MTG)
Also partly because I saw the native vote as being so huge in Biden taking AZ, so wanted to both reward that and encourage more of the same!
Per the census the seat (formerly majority-minority with about 1/4th native is now 55% non-Hispanic white, with 18% native and 19% Hispanic population and 4% multiracial with the small remainder of the population very small numbers of Black and Asian residents. Most of the Hispanic population in this district is multi-generational U.S. born (including a lot of my extended family), it’s similar to NM and SW Colorado in that way. It’s also one of the most Mormon districts in the country outside Utah, I haven’t run the numbers lately but top 10.
Good questions.
My answer for Sleeper races.
MI 04. Kalamazoo, Battle Creek, Holland, St. Jo/Benton Harbor. GOP incumbent Huizenga won in 2022 with 54% when challenger only had $35000 in funds vs $3.2M. This year's D, Jessica Swartz, has raised 900k vs 2.8M. A well known Libertarian candidate also on ballot again that I'd probably "not ask" outside groups to support.
SC01 Nancy Mace. She wins primaries by rather slim margins. Charleston continues to grow immensely. SC gerrymandered asany Blacks out of district as possibly but she still only got 56% last time. New challenger, Michael Moore (not that one) has ties to the AA musuem. Mace has 3 to 1 fundraising advantage.
NC11. The Hurrican Helene district. Chuck Edwards didn't win by a ton least time. Who knows how the hurricane disruptions will affect turnout? Asheville hit hard, but population is denser there so easier to get to polls. Likely high number of climate change voters.
Indiana Gov. Covered in previous dailies.
Wasted $ race.
FL Senate. I wish I felt differently, but I think Demographics in FL have gotten worse for Ds in last 4 years, not better. I'd prefer the money go to Kunce or Osborne. Or into races in IN or WV. I know a lot will disagree with me here about how viable DMP is. I sincerely hope you are right and I'm wrong.
FL-Senate is a Lean-R race, but the idea that MO, let alone WV are more viable doesn't hold any water for me.
I doubt MO or WV are more viable than FL as well. But they are cheaper. Jim Justice is just as tainted with mining as Rick Scott is with health care and Hawley only just got over 50% against McCaskill. DMP vs Scott reminds me of Lyndsey Graham vs Jaime Harrison or McConnell vs Amy McGrath in 2020. Especially with Graham's race, there were good polls for Harrison, but you had to have a very rosy view of demographics.
FL is not comparable to SC, let alone KY. Or at least it hasn't been. If Siena is right and Trump wins FL by 13, we'll have something else to talk about. But I don't understand your concern with money. Which campaign is lacking in money? Also, really, please forget about WV! Super-safe Republican!
Just responding to Jacob M's question about which race seems settled but everyone is still spending a lot of money at the expense of other races. I thought it would be fair to suggest where else the money might go.
It's fair for you to suggest and for others to argue with you. That's what political discussion is.
Mining and screwing the Feds aren’t negatives in WV.
On WV:
Democratic Senate Candidate Glenn Elliott has been doing good with fundraising, namely with unemployed voters in WV. He’s getting traction because Jim Justice is really a lame duck GOP Senate Candidate who is doing nothing to stop the negatives he’s been getting a lot.
At the same time, Elliott unlike Lucas Kunce in the MO-SEN race has been getting significantly less media attention. Elliott as of just recently got an interview with Forbes, which may get him traction but he also went on Fox News months ago. It’s really hard to say how this media attention he’s getting is going to impact WV voters.
Kunce by contrast has been regularly on MSNBC for months and has been interviewed by Chris Hayes and others. It’s pretty clear MO is more friendly to Democrats than WV but that’s not a ringing endorsement.
Unemployed people have been contributing a lot to Elliot's campaign? I wouldn't think anyone would get a lot of contributions from unemployed people!
I cited this information in my blog post on DK but the Charleston Gazette-Mail is what has reported the information.
https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2024/10/18/1586387/-WV-SEN-Democratic-Senate-Candidate-Glenn-Elliott-Outraises-Governor-Jim-Justice-in-Third-Quarter
The article I cited reveals that unemployed people across the country donated to Elliott’s campaign. Quite frankly, this may be referring to WV, where there are in fact many unemployed or underemployed West Virginians. I don’t know how the unemployed outside of WV would donate to Elliott’s campaign considering he wouldn’t exactly represent them or even win the race.
Some retired, spouse-supported, or independently wealthy types like to put unemployed in the field where it asks for an employer. It’s not usually indicative of penury or drawing unemployment insurance benefits in this context.
Right but because WV has been considerably lower in the radar for the DSCC and notably Democratic grassroots organizations, the likely conclusion is that most donations from the unemployed are from WV residents.
Glenn Elliott has made a 55-county tour of the state, which has given him more visibility than typical newcomer Democratic Senate candidates in the state. He likely appeals to the unemployed because he’s looking out for the little guy which is in stark contrast to what Jim Justice is doing in his Senate campaign.
If he gets 40%, I'll be relatively happy.
40% of the votes would certainly be an improvement over 2014 Democratic Senate Candidate Natalie Tennant, who got 34.5% of the votes back then in the race vs. Shelley Moore Capito.
MO-SEN Race but it depends on who is reporting it.
-Democratic Candidate Lucas Kunce has dominated the fundraising the whole year.
-He is cutting Senator Josh Hawley’s lead to single digits in multiple polls as of recently.
-Kunce’s rallies have been consistently packed for over a month now.
-Hawley himself has not been doing well in his campaign as far as running for re-election. Has continuously been on the defensive as a result of the pressure from Kunce’s campaign.
Of course, Hawley is still likely to win. However, I fail to see how this is a Solid Republican race. I remain convinced it’s Likely Republican but that Hawley won’t win by a sizable margin.
Likely-Republican is a reasonable rating for it, but a Kunce victory would be shocking!
Indeed!
If Kunce improves on the percentage of votes that Jason Kander got as a Democratic Senate Candidate back in 2016, then that’s real progress.
Frankly, more investment should be made in MO by Democrats so they don’t have to rely on a war veteran like Kander or Kunce to get traction. MO is not a deep red state like ID or WY. Lots more Democrats in MO, which also happens to be a midwestern state.
True, it's not as bad as ID or WY.
Getting Democrats elected in ID and WY, unless we’re talking at the local level, is like pulling teeth.
Funny thing is, ID is more friendly to Democrats than WY but at the state and federal level it’s hard.
Surprised no one has mentioned MO-02 yet. It moved left from Senate 2016 Jason Kander (3 point loss statewide) to 2022 Trudy Busch Valentine (13 point loss statewide).
My sleeper race is MN-Sen. With each new round of polls, Amy Klobuchar's lead gets more pathetic. Partly because Republicans are so embarrassed about their nominee, even local GOP leaders shrug Royce White off and admit he's gonna lose. But the polls tell a different story. I'm confident Klobuchar will still win, but it wouldn't surprise me in the least if she only outran Harris by a point. Klobuchar +5 seems like a real possibility at this point, and three months ago just about everybody would have figured it would be Klobuchar +25.
You don't think Walz' presence on the ballot will have coattails in MN?
I'm not anticipating a lot. I know we shouldn't put too much emphasis on a single poll but that MN-02 poll this week showing Craig +8 in the same sample as Trump +2 was a bit of an eyebrow-raiser. Right now, I'm guessing Harris-Walz finish somewhere between Hillary in 2016 and Biden in 2020 in Minnesota. And that Klobuchar gets remarkably less distance than expected from the top of the ticket.
It'll be interesting to see. Thanks.
I have a strong feeling that this race has a large R undervote total from normal R voters
I think the days of senate candidates osignificantly uutrunning presidential candidates are pretty much over.