Posts Tagged ‘Solomon Ortiz’

More Redistricting Fallout

Friday, March 2nd, 2012

Now that redistricting is (mostly) settled (for this year), reverberations are still being felt around the state in various races. First a correction: Candidates have until March 9 to file, not the March 6 date I reported yesterday.

Other tidbits:

  • Republicans have a list of newly filed candidates, including former winery owner John Yoggerst running against Lloyd Doggett in District 35.
  • The Democrats don’t have a separate page, but you can sort by date on the main candidate page. So far there are only a couple of new Sheriff filings.
  • Following yesterday’s roundup, Democrat Pete Gallego is warning fellow Democrat Ciro Rodriguez not to jump into the District 23 congressional race against Republican incumbent Francisco “Quico” Canseco (who unseated Rodriguez in 2010). Rodriguez is currently running against Lloyd Doggett in District 35.
  • For the second election in a row, Solomon Ortiz has been booted. Ortiz Sr. was defeated by Blake Farenthold in 2010, and now Solomon Ortiz, Jr. is calling it quits from the Texas House because “District 33 has been eliminated.” I was going to make fun of him for exaggerating, but dang, he has a point: District 33 has gone from Corpus to NE of the Metroplex.
  • Finally, not Texas, but Dennis Kucinich’s district was eliminated in Ohio’s redistricting, forcing to run against fellow Democratic incumbent Marcy Kaptur. (Cue the nelson.jpg.) That primary is March 6. At least he’ll have someone to console him is he loses…
  • Solomon Ortiz Concedes

    Monday, November 22nd, 2010

    Blake Farenthold is now officially the next congressman from Texas’ 27th Congressional District. That brings the Republican totals up to a 62-seat pickup for 2010, with possibly as many as 64, and at least 241 seats in the House, the most Republicans have controlled in 60 years.

    (Hat tip: Instapundit)

    LinkSwarm for Saturday, November 20, 2010

    Saturday, November 20th, 2010

    Time for another LinkSwarm, with a good dollop of Texas political news:

    Fat Lady Starts Clearing Her Throat for Solomon Ortiz

    Wednesday, November 17th, 2010

    Most of the recount is finished, and the vote total of has only fluctuated by a few votes. Unless Ortiz has a few magic ballot boxes up his sleeve in Nueces County, Republican Blake Farenthold is the new U.S. Congressman for Texas’ 27th Congressional District.

    LinkSwarm for Thursday, November 11, 2010

    Thursday, November 11th, 2010

    Another LinkSwarm of sundry sundries:

    Solomon Ortiz Tries To Pull An Al Gore, Gets Bitch-Slapped By the State Supreme Court

    Wednesday, November 10th, 2010

    Remember during the aftermath of the 2000 election when Al Gore tried to get a recount done in just the counties that favored Democratic voters?

    Well, soon-to-be-Ex-Rep. Solomon Ortiz just tried to do the same thing in the race he lost to Republican Blake Farenthold, asking for a recount of just three Nueces County precincts.

    The Texas Supreme Court rejected his appeal, noting that state law requires all precincts to be included in the re-count.

    Ortiz said he’ll refile the petition. A bit more information here, though it still doesn’t say which precincts. FWIW, here are the Nueces election night precinct-by-precinct results.

    Pending House Races Update

    Tuesday, November 9th, 2010

    National Journal updates the state of play in the House races that still haven’t been decided yet.

    Short version:

    • California 11: Democratic incumbent Jerry McNerney holds a 628-vote lead over Republican David Harmer, but not all ballots from Republican-leaning locales have been counted yet.
    • California 20 Republican Andy Vidak leads Democratic incumbent Jim Costa by a mere 145 votes.
    • Illinois 8: Republican Joe Walsh leads Democratic incumbent Melissa Bean, which should hold up unless Cook County cooks up some fraud (and when has that ever happened?).
    • Kentucky 6: Democratic incumbent Ben Chandler leads Republican Andy Barr by 649 votes, recanvass starts next week
    • New York 1: Republican Randy Altschuler leads Democratic incumbent Tim Bishop by either 392 votes or 383 votes.
    • New York’s 25: Republican Ann Marie Buerkle leads Democratic incumbent Dan Maffei by 659 votes, but there are still ballots to be counted.
    • Texas 27: Republican Blake Farenthold leads Democratic incumbent Solomon Ortiz by 792 votes, with only 736 overseas and provisional ballots left to count. Ortiz wants a manual recount.

    Still Waiting to Find Out How Many House Seats Republicans Picked Up

    Thursday, November 4th, 2010

    Since I still haven’t found that complete list, here’s Jim Geraghty saying that it’s at least 60, and could be as high as 71. Right now Republicans are leading in five of those races, including Blake Farenthold leading Solomon Ortiz.

    When I know the final total I’ll let you know.

    Post Election Analysis: Bart Stupak’s Turncoats Go Down in Flames

    Wednesday, November 3rd, 2010

    One of the most satisfying results of last night’s election was just how many of Bart Stupak’s block of ObamaCare flippers went down in flames.

    If you remember back to the ObamaCare debates, Stupak’s bloc of “Pro-Life Democrats” was never, ever, ever, ever going to vote for a bill that included government funding of abortions. That is, right up until they did.

    As shown below, on November 2, the clear majority of them paid the price for betraying their principles as well as their constituents. Unless otherwise noted, the election margins below are taken from this CBS table. Since WordPress doesn’t let me set font colors to red, I’ve marked GOP pickups in bold.

    • Rep. Jerry Costello of Illinois’ 12th district defeated Republican Teri Newman
    • Rep. Joseph Donnelly of Indiana’ 2nd district edged Republican Jackie Walorski by less than 3,000 votes.
    • Rep. Brad Ellsworth left his Indiana’s 8th Congressional seat for an unsuccessful run for the Senate. Republican Larry Bucshon flipped the seat by defeating Trent Van Haaften by almost 40,000 votes.
    • Rep. Bart Stupak retired from Michigan’s 1st congressional district when it became apparent his ObamaCare betrayal doomed his electoral chances. Republican Dan Benishek flipped the seat by defeating Gary McDowell by 25,000 votes.
    • Rep. James Oberstar of Minnesota lost to Republican Chip Cravaack. You may also remember Oberstar for racking up only a single in-district donation to his reelection campaign.
    • Rep. Steve Driehaus of Ohio’s 1st district lost to Republican Steve Chabot by 23,000 votes.
    • Rep. Charles Wilson of Ohio’s 6th district lost to Republican Bill Johnson by 10,000 votes.
    • Rep. Marcy Kaptur of Ohio’s 9th district beat James Iott (AKA Nazi Costume Guy) by a wide margin.
    • Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper of Pennsylvania’s 3rd district lost to Republican Mike Kelly by over 20,000 votes.
    • Rep. Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania’s 11th district lost to Lou Barletta by over 15,000 votes.
    • Rep. Solomon Ortiz of Texas’ 27th district loses to Republican Blake Farenthold by less than 1,000 votes.

    That’s eight out of eleven Stupak bloc flippers whose seats are now in the hands of the GOP. And of those eleven races, I correctly picked ten, missing only Donnelly’s narrow victory in Indiana’s second district (which I originally had down as a longshot).

    A few lessons:

    1. Voters hate ObamaCare.
    2. They hate congressmen who break promises. (Republicans should take special note of this one anytime they contemplate letting a GOP-controlled congress slip back to the old free-spending ways of the Bush43 years.)
    3. They hate Blue Dog Democrats who vote like liberals when the really important issues are on the line.
    4. Voters may be wising up to the fact that it doesn’t matter how much a Democrat swears up and down how Pro-Life, fiscally conservative, pro-gun, etc. they are; when push comes to shove, they’ll always cave in and vote with their liberal leadership.

    As a reward for laying down their careers in the cause of ObamaCare, at least Blue Dogs have the consolation of the respect and gratitude of liberal activists everywhere. Ha, just kidding. The Daily Kossacks are saying “we can do without their sabotage.”

    Oh yes, I’m sure that running Democrats ideologically closer to Nancy Pelosi than Dan Boren in places like Indiana, Pennsylvania and Ohio is a great way to pick up seats. I encourage you to get started on that right away.

    BattleSwarm Blog’s Election Prediction for 2010: GOP Gains 67 House Seats, 10 Senate Seats

    Monday, November 1st, 2010

    With the election tomorrow, I thought it was high time to offer up my own election predictions.

    I have carefully and scientifically evaluated each and every House and Senate race, taking into account length of incumbency, previous voting trends for each district and state, fund-raising advantage, the most recent polls, and the fact that every preceding clause in this sentence prior to this one has been a complete and utter lie.

    I have looked at a lot of polls and data but damn, there are only so many hours in the day. My predictions are based on general national mood, gut-feeling, and detailed looks at trends for select races.

    This is going to be worse for the Democrats than 1994. The rise of the Netroots and the overwhelming support among the traditional news media dangerously blinded liberal insiders from how badly out-of-sync with the rest of the country they had become, and their insistence to push onward with ObamaCare despite widespread opposition and a lousy economy turned what was already going to be a bad year for them into a once-in-a-lifetime political slaughter.

    I predict that the Democrats will lose 67 House seats.

    As I admitted above, that’s not a wild-assed guess, but a guestimate based on current polling data and news on individual races. I don’t see Republicans gaining less than 50 seats, and there’s an outside possibility they could get 100. To my mind, it’s much more likely they’ll gain more than 67 than less than 50.

    Among the individual House races, I predict all the Stupak-bloc flippers except Marcy Kaptur (who had the luck to draw Nazi Uniform Guy as her opponent) and Jerry Costello (much as I appreciate GOP candidate Teri Newman popping in to say the race is tied, I just don’t see any traction at all in a 54% Obama district; I’d love to be surprised) will lose, including:

    1. Rep. Joseph Donnelly of Indiana
    2. Indiana’s open 8th congressional district (formerly held by Brad Ellsworth)
    3. Michigan’s open 1st congressional seat (formerly held by Bart Stupak)
    4. James Oberstar of Minnesota
    5. Steve Driehaus of Ohio
    6. Charles Wilson of Ohio
    7. Kathy Dahlkemper of Pennsylvania
    8. Paul Kanjorski of Pennsylvania
    9. Solomon Ortiz of Texas

    Additionally, I’m predicting that all of the following Democrats representing districts that voted for McCain in 2008 lose their jobs:

    1. Bobby Bright of Alabama
    2. Arkansas’ open 1st congressional district (formerly held by Marion Barry (AKA “the other Marion Barry”))
    3. Arkansas’ open 2nd congressional district (formerly held by Vic Snyder)
    4. Ann Kirkpatrick of Arizona
    5. Harry Mitchell of Arizona
    6. Gabrielle Giffords of Arizona
    7. John Salazar of Colorado
    8. Betsy Markey of Colorado
    9. Allen Boyd of Florida
    10. Suzanne Kosmas of Florida
    11. Jim Marshall of Georgia
    12. Baron Hill of Indiana
    13. Ben Chandler of Kentucky
    14. Louisiana’s open 3rd congressional district (formerly held by Charlie Melancon)
    15. Frank Kratovil of Maryland
    16. Ike Skelton of Missouri
    17. Travis Childers of Mississippi
    18. Gene Taylor of Mississippi
    19. Mike McIntyre of North Carolina
    20. Heath Schuler of North Carolina
    21. Earl Pomeroy of North Dakota
    22. Harry Teague of New Mexico
    23. Michael McMahon of New York
    24. New York’s open 29th congressional district (formerly held by Eric Massa)
    25. John Boccieri of Ohio
    26. Zack Space of Ohio
    27. Christopher Carney of Pennsylvania
    28. Mark Critz of Pennsylvania (serving the remainder of the late John P. Murtha’s term)
    29. John Spratt of South Carolina
    30. Stephanie Sandlin of South Dakota
    31. Lincoln Davis of Tennessee
    32. Tennessee’s open 6th congressional district (formerly held by Bart Gordon)
    33. Tennessee’s open 8th congressional district (formerly held by John Tanner)
    34. Chet Edwards of Texas
    35. Tom Perriello of Virginia
    36. Rick Boucher of Virginia
    37. West Virgina’s first district (held by Allan Mollohan, who was defeated in the Democratic primaries)

    That’s 46 seats right there, and I think there’s easily another 21 seats to be had in districts that went narrowly for Obama in 2008 to provide the final margin of victory.

    I predict that the Democrats will lose 10 Senate seats.

    The Senate is a tougher nut to flip this year, and as I set down to gauge Republican chances, I was shocked to find that, despite insider predictions, I actually had them winning ten seats to take control of the Senate. Running down the Senate races that Real Clear Politics shows as tossups I was only getting nine seats, but then I remembered that Blanche Lincoln is losing so badly in Arkansas that they had that down as a safe Republican flip.

    Republicans should take over the following ten Senate seats:

    1. Arkansas
    2. Colorado
    3. Illinois
    4. Indiana
    5. Kentucky
    6. Nevada
    7. Pennsylvania
    8. Washington
    9. West Virginia
    10. Wisconsin

    Much as I’d like to see an upset in California, I don’t see Carly Fiorina getting any traction in an overwhelmingly blue state; I think the out-migration of California’s best and brightest due to the high tax rates, crummy economy, the overwhelmingly powerful public sector unions and a near-bankrupt government (all related phenomena) has, ironically, made Californian even bluer.

    The two races of the ten that will be most difficult for Republicans to pull off are Washington and West Virginia. Washington may be the tightest, simply because the Left Coast is so blue, but Rossi has been steadily gaining on Murray, and actually pulled ahead in the latest PPP poll. And PPP usually has a Democratic bias, so in a wave election, you have to give it to the Republican if polling is within the margin of error.

    In West Virginia, I’m going to go out on a limb and predict a victory for Republican John Raese even though Joe Manchin is up four points in the most recent poll, for the following reasons:

    • McCain won West Virginia by 13.1 points in 2008, which was four points above the poll RCP average. Asking Manchin to run 14 points better in 2010 than Obama did in 2008 is a pretty tall order.
    • The state has been trending Republican for years. It went for Clinton over both Bush41 and Dole, but for Bush43 over Gore by 6.3%, and Bush43 over Kerry by 12.9%.
    • West Virginia fits the classic demographic pattern for “Reagan Democrats”: It’s 94.4% white, and is relatively rural and blue collar, and with a household income significantly below the national average. Those are the very voters that are abandoning Democrats this year.
    • Along those same lines, Hillary Clinton beat Obama handily here in 2008, even though Obama had all but clinched the nomination at the time. West Virginia voters fit the classic “Jacksonian” profile, the portions of the Democratic base that has been most alienated by Obama’s policies.
    • Say what you will about the late Senator Robert Byrd, but he was extraordinarily popular in his home state right up to the end. But his name isn’t on the top of the ballot this time around, and without that reminder of their old “born and bred” Democratic allegiance to remind them, 2010 may finally be the year when remaining West Virginia conservative Democrats make the switch to the GOP.
    • The areas that have been most fruitful for Democratic fraud efforts in the past have been urban enclaves with strong Democratic minority machine politics, which are pretty much absent here.
    • Logic dictates that if that this truly is a nationalized “wave” election, it will show up strongly here.

    Honestly, I think the Democrats taking the Washington senate seat is more likely that West Virginia.

    So the Republicans take both House and Senate in an electoral slaughter unprecedented in modern times. So I have foretold, and so it shall be!

    And if you disagree, post your own predictions below.