Pastor Fireball wrote:silverscreenselect wrote:Nate Silver's FiveThirtyEight is out with his first projections on who will control the House of Representatives and he gives the Democrats a roughly 75% chance of taking the House with a projected gain of 35 seats.
At this point in time, 35 seats seems
way too generous. Going through the most recent projections from CNN, Daily Kos, Charlie Cook, and Larry Sabato, the average Democratic net gain sits at 10. Seats that are more likely to flip than the six that SSS mentioned:
--AZ-2: Gabrielle Giffords's old district; currently represented by Martha McSally, who is running to replace Sen. Jeff Flake
--CA-49: Darrell Issa, who is retiring after his razor-thin win in 2016
--FL-27: moderate Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, who is retiring because her district has becoming increasingly blue over the years
--NJ-2 and NJ-11: Frank LoBiondo and Rodney Frelinghuysen are both retiring from their respective purple districts
--at least three seats in Pennsylvania, after the courts un-f**ked the district map earlier this year
--VA-10: Barbara Comstock's northern Virginia district, which backed Hillary Clinton by 10 points in 2016
The Tucson area is split into three congressional districts. Therefore, we're getting bombarded with three times the number of political ads as most other cities (well Phoenix is worse). The primary is August 28.
Of the Democrats running in AZ-2, only Matt Heinz and Ann Kirkpatrick have significant support. Ann is a former AZ-1 rep, Matt is a former state rep. Each is running many ads, mostly accusing each other of being too NRA-friendly and anti-healthcare. Both have votes on record substantiating those.
The Republicans have four candidates who have no distinction. I have not seen one ad from any of them. It seems the Republicans have conceded AZ-2.
In AZ-1, Tom O'Halleran, the Democrat incumbent, is running unopposed. He's my rep. Oro Valley was gerrymandered away from the other Tucson communities. I met him on Tuesday evening. He's a nice guy but too willing to "reach across the aisle." The problem is that the Republicans have been unwilling to extend a hand across the aisle.
The Republican AZ-1 candidates are Wendy Rogers, Tiffany Shedd, and Steve Smith.
Rogers, a retired Air Force pilot, has made her support for the president central to her campaign. She highlights her support for building a border wall, reducing gun restrictions, and overturning Roe v. Wade. As trump won the district by just 1%, that's probably a poor tactic.
Shedd has the party talking points: Pro-wall, anti-Obamacare, pro-gun. She says the 2nd amendment is non-negotiable.
Smith is the only one with experience. His endorsers include House Freedom Caucus leader Mark Meadows, the National Border Patrol Council, Sen. Ted Cruz, and a number of state legislators. He hasn't come out strongly for anything and doesn't mention trump or the NRA. I predict he will win the primary.
AZ-3 is the west side of Tucson and goes up to the Phoenix area and all the way to the California state line. Raul Grijalva is the Democrat incumbent and Joshua Garcia is a declared write-in candidate. There's zero change Garcia will win the primary. Grijalva is a cousin of mine of some degree.
The Republicans have three candidates running in the AZ-3 primary: Sergio Arellano, Nicolas Pierson, and Edna San Miguel. None have any distinction.
In the Senate race to replace Jeff Flake who isn't running again, Kyrsten Sinema and Deedra Abboud are running in the Democrat primary. Sinema has the vast majority of support. She is the current AZ-9 Congresscritter. She's the first openly bisexual member of Congress.
The Republicans have Joe Arpaio, former sheriff of Maricopa County, Martha McSally, U.S. representative, and Kelli Ward, a former state senator. I won't say much about Arpaio and McSally. Ward introduced state legislation pushing back against the National Security Agency and the federal government’s warrantless surveillance programs and is being attacked in ads for that. She's pro-2nd Amendment and anti-amnesty. I say it's a toss-up between McSally and Ward.