Will Obama Controversies Affect Democratic Recruitment?

The Obama administration was under fire this week. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call File Photo)

There is no doubt that the three major controversies on which President Barack Obama finds his administration on the defensive — Benghazi, the IRS targeting of conservatives and the seizure of AP phone records — have changed the political narrative of the day. Instead of mobilizing all of his resources to promote his agenda, the president and administration officials are having to spend time and energy answering and rebutting Republican charges.

But it isn’t clear how much of an impact, if any, the controversies will have on the 2014 midterms. Even if (when) those controversies fade, however, there could be short-term consequences for both the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee in the area of recruitment.

Are potential 2014 candidates now looking at the environment and concluding that next year won’t be as good a Democratic year as they had hoped? Are they reassessing their intentions, concluding that the IRS scandal, in particular, will produce an energized and united GOP? Full story

A GOP Senate Switch in South Dakota Looks More Likely

Former Democratic Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin’s announcement that she is passing on a Senate race in 2014, combined with secondhand reports that U.S. Attorney Brendan Johnson (son of retiring South Dakota Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson) has also decided against a Senate bid, must have put big smiles on the faces of Republican strategists.

It’s early in the 2014 election cycle, but these developments in the Mount Rushmore State definitely affect the two parties’ prospects. The GOP now has an advantage in the contest.

Former GOP Gov. Mike Rounds is already in the race. But the lack of a big name Democratic standard-bearer could encourage the state’s at-large congresswoman, Kristi Noem, to enter the Republican primary.

Noem would be a formidable fundraiser, and conservative support might well coalesce around her.

Some Republican insiders are even speculating that Herseth Sandlin passed on the Senate race in the hope of getting Noem to run for the Senate, allowing the Democrat to jump into the race for her old House seat.

Democrats won’t be without a credible Senate candidate, however. Rick Weiland, a former aide to ex-Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, has announced his candidacy and has already won the support of his former boss.

But Weiland’s record of success in running for federal office isn’t good. He lost by about 20 points in 1996, when he faced Republican John Thune in an open House seat contest after Tim Johnson had decided to run for the Senate. Weiland then lost a Democratic primary to Herseth in 2002, when Thune left his House seat to run for the Senate. (Thune lost that race by 524 votes to Johnson but came back two years later to defeat Daschle.)

I remember Weiland, and he wasn’t a bad candidate. But that’s not the same thing as saying that he has Herseth Sandlin’s demonstrated skills or Brendan Johnson’s obvious asset (his family name) in a general election, especially during a midterm election with Barack Obama in the White House.

Bob Burns, a South Dakota State University political science professor, is quoted in an article in the Argus-Leader questioning whether someone like Weiland could win, or whether Democrats needed a moderate like Herseth Sandlin.

Without Herseth Sandlin, Democrats’ prospects of retaining this seat sink. A formal announcement from Brendan Johnson that he isn’t interested would be another blow to Democratic hopes. But even now, Tim Johnson’s South Dakota Senate seat looks increasingly likely to switch parties next year.

PA 13’s Daylin Leach: Liberal but Not Angry

Leach is running for Congress. (By Douglas Graham/CQ Roll Call)

Daylin Leach, who is running for the Democratic nomination in Pennsylvania’s open 13^th Congressional District (currently held by gubernatorial hopeful Rep. Allyson Y. Schwartz), doesn’t run from the liberal label.

In fact, he proudly calls himself “the most progressive member of the Pennsylvania Legislature.” (See Roll Call Politics editor Shira Toeplitz’s “The Candidate” interview with him here.)

His campaign literature describes him as “the first legislator in Pennsylvania history to introduce a marriage-equality bill,” and it asserts that he “has led the charge to protect public education, the environment and civil rights” in the Legislature.

He promises that in Congress he will “lead the fight for women’s rights, access to reproductive services, LGBT equal rights, workers’ rights, access to justice, environmental protection and voters’ rights.” Shortly before he announced his bid for Congress, he introduced a marijuana legalization bill.

But if this makes you think the Keystone State Democrat would be another Alan Grayson, you might want to think again. Full story

Baucus Exit Turns Montana Senate Race Into Tossup

(Chris Maddaloni/CQ Roll Call File Photo)

The announcement that Montana Democrat Max Baucus is retiring shakes up the fight for the Senate in 2014 more than a bit.

Baucus has been mentioned as a GOP target, but only a second-tier one, far behind Republican opportunities in two open seats — West Virginia and South Dakota — and against two Democratic incumbents, Mark Pryor of Arkansas and Mary L. Landrieu of Louisiana.

But an open seat in Montana catapults that contest into the top tier as a potential Republican takeover opportunity. Full story

Why Isn’t Maine’s Susan Collins Vulnerable?

(Bill Clark/CQ Roll Call File Photo)

On one level, Maine’s lone Republican in Congress, Sen. Susan Collins, looks like a defeat waiting to happen.

She is a Republican from a state that went comfortably for Democrat Barack Obama twice. And she is from New England, a part of the country where the GOP is all but extinct in federal office.

Collins almost appears to be a Republican version of Arkansas Sen. Mark Pryor, a moderate Democrat who is vulnerable next year because his party label, which once was an asset back home, has become a liability as his state’s politics has changed.

But while Collins’ profile suggests vulnerability as she mounts another bid for re-election, there are no signs of a serious challenge on the horizon. In fact, veteran Democratic insiders scoff at the idea that the moderate Republican will even have to break a sweat in her sprint to a fourth term. A Public Policy Polling (a Democratic firm) survey in January showed Collins with a 65 percent job approval rating and holding leads of 18 points and 25 points over the state’s two Democratic House members. Full story

Democrats’ Prospects in 2014 Are Worth an Honest Debate

Over the years, I’ve complained about the tone of our political discussions, including some of what supposedly passes for political analysis. Too much of it is merely political advocacy cloaked in pseudo-analysis, and it drives me nuts.

Maybe that’s why I’m pleased to recommend a piece recently posted on Daily Kos, a liberal website that happily produces serious analysis and useful data, even while it often — too often for my taste — reflects a strong ideological bent.

Steve Singiser’s “The real, but unknowable, path to a Democratic House majority,” posted on March 31, is a thoughtful reaction to my March 19 Roll Call column, “Democrats Need to Expand House Playing Field.” I take it as an invitation to start a conversation, not an argument.

I looked at individual districts and concluded that Democrats still have a long way to go before they can realistically talk about having a chance to flip control of the House. Full story

Not All State Offices Are Political Launching Pads

My colleague Nathan Gonzales has written a terrific piece on Kentucky Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes, the young Democrat mentioned as a potential challenger to veteran GOP Sen. Mitch McConnell. He explains her election as Kentucky secretary of state and her family’s connection to the Clintons, among other things.

But while her position as a statewide elected official would seem to make Grimes a formidable contender for the Democratic nomination and possibly even a threat to McConnell, her office probably isn’t much of a launching pad for a tough U.S. Senate race.

Other than state attorney general and state treasurer, most downballot state offices don’t have enough visibility to translate immediately to a high-profile federal race. There are former secretaries of state in the Senate, but they generally were elected to another office — Joe Manchin and Jay Rockefeller became governor, while Sherrod Brown, Dean Heller and Roy Blunt were in the House — before winning election to the Senate. Full story

Mixing Apples and Oranges in West Virginia

Hoping to hang on to retiring Sen. Jay Rockefeller’s open seat, Democratic strategists are passing the word that attorney and energy company executive Nick Preservati is looking closely at the 2014 Senate contest in West Virginia.

National Journal’s Hotline on Call describes the possible Democratic candidate as “a wealthy, pro-coal, pro-business Democrat in the style of Sen. Joe Manchin,” the state’s junior senator who is best known for his opposition to the Obama “cap and trade” plan and his support for gun owners’ rights.

I know nothing more than that about Preservati, and he could turn out to be an interesting option for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which, after all, would be happy to have a fighting chance to hold the Senate seat in next year’s midterm elections.

But there are lots of reasons to be skeptical, at least at this point. Here are just two.

First, Democrats have the same problems in West Virginia these days that Republicans have in Vermont, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Maryland and Hawaii. It is called partisanship. Full story

Democrats Need to Expand House Playing Field

Watch the candidate recruiting that DCCC Chairman Steve Israel and his team do over the next few months. (Douglas Graham/CQ Roll Call)

Can Democrats win back the House in 2014? Not unless a strong recruiting cycle and national events give them a big boost. My column in Tuesday’s Roll Call looks at the top Democratic opportunities around the country — district by district — and finds the party well short of the three to four dozen serious targets that it needs. (For Rothenberg Political Report House ratings, click here.)

“That makes 17 districts where Democrats start with realistic opportunities to make gains. The list could grow, of course, with GOP retirements, unusually strong Democratic recruits or redrawn districts in Florida and Texas. But 17 districts are not nearly enough opportunities to give Democrats a decent chance of taking back the House.”

Democrats have some opportunities, of course. But not every Republican who had a “close” race last year automatically is vulnerable again in 2014, and not every Democrat who survived a tough challenge or defeated an incumbent Republican last time can figure that he or she will win again in 2014.

So, the one thing to watch over the next six to nine months is how many strong House challengers Democrats can put on the field.

Committee Recruitment, Candidate Programs Are All the Rage

DCCC Chairman Steve Israel announced a new candidate program this week: “Jumpstart.” (Douglas Graham/CQ Roll Call)

My colleague Jessica Taylor notes in a new piece on the Rothenberg Political Report that the House campaign committees are relying more and more on “recruitment programs” and “candidate programs” to woo candidates into races, to make sure that they develop quality campaigns and to generate local and national media attention to enable them to raise money. Her piece, which looks at recent “win-loss” records for the past couple of cycles, is worth reading.

My own view is that the programs aren’t always all that they seem.

The DCCC’s “Red to Blue” program seeks to highlight Democratic takeover opportunities — except that the committee often puts a handful of Democratic open seats on the Red to Blue list, thereby mixing messages.

Both the NRCC’s “Young Guns” program and the DCCC’s “Red to Blue” program often put a few marginal races on their lists. After all, it doesn’t cost the committees anything to put another campaign on a list, so why not either try to expand the playing field or, at the very least, give the impression that there are more opportunities than there really are?

Full story

Can House Democrats Improve on ’12 Recruiting Flops?

Democrats nominated a sub-par candidate against Valadao in 2012. They won’t make the same mistake in 2014 if they want to be in a position to put the House into play. (Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call File Photo)

If Democrats are going to have any chance of netting 17 seats during the 2014 midterms — and taking back control of the House — they are going to have to do a much better job in a handful of districts where their recruiting fell far short in 2012. Here are four districts where they have much room for improvement.

• Pennsylvania’s 7th: This Philadelphia-area district is very competitive. It went very narrowly for Mitt Romney in 2012 and for Barack Obama four years earlier. But Democratic nominee George Badey drew just 41 percent against GOP Rep. Patrick Meehan. Badey raised slightly more than $560,000 to Meehan’s $2.6 million, so Democrats need a much stronger fundraiser to test Meehan’s strength.

• Pennsylvania’s 8th: Romney and Obama finished in almost a dead heat here last year, and Obama won it comfortably in 2008. But GOP Rep. Michael G. Fitzpatrick had little trouble with Democratic challenger Kathy Boockvar. He beat her 57 percent to 43 percent. Boockvar’s fundraising wasn’t terrible — she took in $1.45 million — but Fitzpatrick raised $2.67 million in a district covered by the expensive Philadelphia media market. Full story