Ballot Watch: The South (Part 2, The Swinging South)

This is Bal­lot Watch. Today is the 15^th (and last) in the series of arti­cles on the upcom­ing bal­lot ini­tia­tives and some key local elec­tions. Some of these cov­ered top­ics in com­mon with mul­ti­ple states, but the remain­der looked at a state level. With this sec­ond part of our two-​​part arti­cle on the South, our series closes.

Of the ten states in this region, the only com­pet­i­tive states for Demo­c­ra­tic Pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates are Florida (29 elec­toral votes, with a state Par­ti­san Vot­ing Index of R+2) and North Car­olina (15 elec­toral votes, with a state PVI of R+4), the sub­jects of today’s arti­cle. Both went for Obama in 2008. Florida and North Car­olina also have one Demo­c­ra­tic Sen­a­tor each (Kay Hagen in North Car­olina, Bill Nel­son in Florida). Florida’s gov­er­nor is Repub­li­can Rick Scott, and North Carolina’s retir­ing gov­er­nor is Demo­c­rat Bev Per­due. Her seat is up for elec­tion next month. She declined to run this year in the face of mount­ing crit­i­cism; she has a dis­ap­proval rat­ing of 59 per­cent, the high­est for any gov­er­nor.

Florida’s Repub­li­can Gov­er­nor Rick Scott is also unpop­u­lar, with 38 per­cent approv­ing of his job per­for­mance vs 48 per­cent dis­ap­prov­ing. DC has given us a run­down on Scott’s effort to purge voter rolls: Scott said he expected to remove reg­is­tra­tion for 2,600 ille­gal immi­grant vot­ers. In the event, the Gov­er­nor was only 92 per­cent wrong. The real num­ber was 206, or 0.00184 per­cent of the 11.2 mil­lion reg­is­trants. Iron­i­cally, or per­haps pre­dictably, while Florida Repub­li­can lead­ers beat the bushes look­ing for fraud­u­lent voter reg­is­tra­tion, they’re embroiled in their own voter fraud scan­dal. It might back­fire on them in the gen­eral election.

In con­trast with the states of the Deep South, which have exactly one House seat in play (Georgia’s 12^th, cur­rently held by the only white South­ern Demo­c­rat), Florida has eight of 27, and North Car­olina five of 13, seats in play. Those are listed under the indi­vid­ual states after the jump, along with any impor­tant bal­lot ini­tia­tives and North Carolina’s guber­na­to­r­ial election.

 

The pre­vi­ous South Bal­lot Watch had eight states and only two com­pet­i­tive House seats. This Bal­lot Watch, with just the two states of Florida and North Car­olina, lists 11 com­pet­i­tive seats (accord­ing to the New York Times’s rat­ings): Florida’s 2^nd, 9^th, 10^th, 16^th, 18^th, 22^nd, and 26^th and North Carolina’s 7^th, 8^th, 11^th, and 13^th.

I’ve sur­veyed House race rat­ings from as many sources as I can find, and those who want to check on indi­vid­ual races can use the fol­low­ing links: Larry Sabato’s Crys­tal Ball; Cook Polit­i­cal Report; New York Times; National Jour­nal; Roll Call; RealClearPol­i­tics (RCP).

Florida

Florida voted for Barack Obama by 51–48 over John McCain in 2008. Its Class I Sen­ate seat is also up this year. Demo­c­rat Bill Nel­son is run­ning for reëlec­tion against Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Con­nie Mack, IV (R-​​Fort Mey­ers). Michael rates this race as “likely Democrat”.

Florida had 25 seats in the House of Rep­re­sen­ta­tives in the 112^th Con­gress. Even though the state is about evenly split between self-​​identified Democ­rats and Repub­li­cans, a Repub­li­can leg­is­la­ture cre­ated ger­ry­man­dered dis­tricts after the 2000 cen­sus so that 19 Repub­li­cans and only six Democ­rats rep­re­sent Florida in the House for the 112^th Con­gress, which was elected in 2010. Using 2010 cen­sus fig­ures, which gave Florida two more seats, this year’s Republican-​​controlled process pro­duced an even more hor­rific map.

To take one clear exam­ple of shame­less ger­ry­man­der­ing (from a House seat that’s not com­pet­i­tive), exam­ine Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 5, the pur­ple mon­stros­ity that (for no good rea­son) mean­ders from the west­ern sub­urbs of Jack­sonville to the north­ern sub­urbs of Orlando, a trip of over 150 miles. Along with non-​​competitive Dis­trict 5, the com­pet­i­tive House dis­tricts from Florida are shown with red numbers.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 2 is a Florida pan­han­dle dis­trict that includes the state capi­tol of Tal­la­has­see. This is a con­test between incum­bent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Steve Souther­land, II (R-​​Panama City) and Demo­c­rat Al Law­son, Jr. Souther­land is a Tea Party favorite who swept aside Blue Dog Demo­c­rat Alan Boyd in the Tea Party-​​fueled 2010 wave. Souther­land is quite con­ser­v­a­tive, with a DW-​​NOMINATE of 0.637 (the 36^th most con­ser­v­a­tive of 435 House mem­bers). All sources rate this “likely Repub­li­can” except The New York Times, which has only “lean” and “safe” cat­e­gories. Still, the Demo­c­ra­tic Con­gres­sional Cam­paign Com­mit­tee (DCCC) has added this to their “Red to Blue” list of the most com­pet­i­tive seats. That may help Law­son, who so far has raised a pal­try $187 thou­sand to Southerland’s $1.2 million.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 9 fea­tures the Phoenix-​​like return of fire­brand for­mer Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Alan Grayson (“The Repub­li­can health care plan: 1. don’t get sick; 2. and if you do get sick… 3. die quickly”) wants his job back in this PVI D+3 Orlando dis­trict. Grayson is good at rhetoric, but his votes are not all that lib­eral; he has a rel­a­tively mod­er­ate DW-​​NOMINATE of –0.393; if he had served in the 112^th Con­gress, he would be the 120^th most lib­eral House mem­ber. All sources rate this “lean” or “likely Demo­c­ra­tic”. Attor­ney Grayson (his cam­paign web­site domain name says it all about his atti­tude and self-​​regard: con​gress​man​withguts​.com) faces Repub­li­can attor­ney Todd Long. Grayson says his inter­nal polls have him a 48–34 favorite, but no inde­pen­dent polling is avail­able. He’s raised $2.8 mil­lion, which swamps Long’s fundrais­ing of $34,359.

The Devil isn’t run­ning against Whig Daniel Web­ster (DW-​​NOMINATE of 0.361) in Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 10, but Demo­c­ra­tic for­mer police chief Val Dem­ings is run­ning against Dis­trict 8 incum­bent Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Daniel Web­ster (R-​​Orlando), a for­mer Speaker of the state House who has been moved into Dis­trict 10 by redis­trict­ing. Web­ster is a beloved of con­ser­v­a­tives because he tossed Alan Grayson out of this dis­trict in the 2010 wave; now redis­trict­ing moved Grayson to Dis­trict 9. Webster’s vot­ing record has him at a rel­a­tively mod­er­ate DW-​​NOMINATE of 0.499, the 111^th most con­ser­v­a­tive. Dem­ings is not beyond stretch­ing the truth a bit to get a blue win. She is also out­rais­ing Web­ster by $1.1 mil­lion to his $0.9 mil­lion. This is a PVI R+7 dis­trict with a well-​​connected incum­bent, so it’s amaz­ing any­one thinks it’s com­pet­i­tive at all. Sabato, Cook and Roll Call have this as a “likely Repub­li­can” dis­trict while the New York Times and RCP have it as “leans Republican”.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 13 is roughly the same as Pinel­las County, with the city of St. Peters­burg.  The dis­trict is PVI R+1. RCP rates this as “likely Repub­li­can”; no one else sees it as com­pet­i­tive. Incum­bent C.W. Bill Young (R-​​Indian Shores) is cur­rently in the 10^th Dis­trict, with a very mod­er­ate DW-​​NOMINATE of 0.321. His oppo­nent is attor­ney Jes­sica Ehrlich. No pub­lic polling data is available.

The New York Times, Roll Call and RCP all have Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 16 (PVI R+5) as “lean Repub­li­can” while Sabato and Cook see it as “likely Repub­li­can”. Incum­bent Vern Buchanan (R-​​Sarasota), a self-​​made busi­ness­man from the toney island of Long­boat Key, has rep­re­sented the 13^th since 2007 with a DW-​​NOMINATE of 0.325 in the 112^th Con­gress. He has raised $1.9 mil­lion. His Demo­c­ra­tic oppo­nent is col­lege pro­fes­sor Keith Fitzger­ald who has close to $1 mil­lion in his war chest.

You could count on the fin­gers of one hand House races that could be con­sid­ered “nation­al­ized”, where a can­di­date has a national fundrais­ing reach and mega­phone. Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 18 is one of those. Repub­li­can Tea Party dar­ling and retired Army Lieu­tenant Colonel Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Allen West (R–Palm Beach Gar­dens) from Dis­trict 22 has a list of 78 Com­mu­nists in the 112^th Con­gress (shades of Tail Gun­ner Joe).

CNN anchor Soledad O’Brien had this testy exchange with West, as reported by the​blaze​.com:

“So name names for me,” O’Brien said. “Start nam­ing the 78 to 81…”

“Oh, we don’t have to…” West countered.

“Oh, we do! I’m dying to know,” O’Brien pressed. “Which are the mem­bers of the…”

“You can go look up the pro­gres­sive cau­cus…” inter­rupted West.

“I got ’em right here!” O’Brien inter­jected — and seem­ingly out of thin air pulled out a list of the mem­bers of the Con­gres­sional Pro­gres­sive Cau­cus.

“Well then you’ve got the names,” West said.

“So Keith Elli­son is a com­mu­nist?” asked O’Brien. “Raúl Gri­jalva is a communist?”

“Well, look, I’m just talk­ing about the fact that the ide­ol­ogy and prin­ci­ples — you can call it what­ever you want…”

“Tammy Bald­win is a com­mu­nist? Judy Chu is a com­mu­nist?” O’Brien continued.

“You can call it what­ever you want,” West replied.

“Yeah, but I want to know what you’re call­ing it,” O’Brien said.

“I’m call­ing it this,” West clar­i­fied. “Com­mu­nist, pro­gres­sive, Marx­ist, sta­tist, another term being used. I’m look­ing at things they believe in. If you don’t think we have to stand upon truth and be able to iden­tify and clearly con­trast the dif­fer­ent prin­ci­ples and val­ues and ide­olo­gies of gov­er­nance here in this coun­try, then we’re never going to get to the fact of accept­ing the true debate hap­pen­ing in Amer­ica. We don’t need a bureau­cratic nanny state. We need to stay a Con­sti­tu­tional Repub­lic. I think a lot of peo­ple need to study that and under­stand what it is.”

West has raised a whop­ping $10.8 mil­lion for this dis­trict. It’s the first time he’s actu­ally lived in the dis­trict he rep­re­sents; he used to live in Plan­ta­tion, in the “old” Dis­trict 20. Iron­i­cally, his Rep­re­sen­ta­tive there was Deb­bie Wasserman-​​Schultz, one of the names on his list. That area is now rep­re­sented by Dis­trict 22 (see below). Demo­c­rat Patrick Mur­phy has raised “only” $2.4 mil­lion. His col­leagues in the Florida Leg­is­la­ture gave West a chal­lenge, first draw­ing a Demo­c­ra­tic dis­trict around him. He’s moved to Dis­trict 18, a dis­trict with bound­aries that give it a PVI of R+1. Cook and RCP have this one as a tossup, while The New York Times, Sabato, and Roll Call reckon it leans Repub­li­can. No pub­lic polling is avail­able, but West’s cam­paign said he had a 52–41 lead in late Sep­tem­ber. Repub­li­can polling shows Mur­phy with a four point lead, and Demo­c­ra­tic polling has Mur­phy up by nine points, lead­ing Politico to con­clude that West is in trouble.

Now if we can arrange a West-​​Grayson matchup, I’m mov­ing to that district.

Redis­trict­ing made Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Allen West’s dis­trict major­ity Demo­c­ra­tic, so he shifted to the 18^th. The Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 22 elec­tion now pits Demo­c­ra­tic West Palm Beach Mayor Lois Frankel against Repub­li­can health care attor­ney Adam Has­ner. Frankel has the demo­graphic advan­tage in this PVI D+5 dis­trict; all major ana­lysts have this as “lean Demo­c­ra­tic”. West’s vot­ing record, a mod­er­ate (by Repub­li­can stan­dards) DW-​​NOMINATE of 0.467 is a con­trast to his über­con­ser­v­a­tive pub­lic image. Com­pare these scores to Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Paul Ryan’s (R-​​Janesville, WI) 0.567, which is only a few seats to the left of Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Michele Bachmann’s (R-​​Stillwater, MN) 0.579. The most con­ser­v­a­tive mem­ber of the House, Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Jeff Flake (R-​​Mesa, AZ), is run­ning for the Sen­ate seat from Ari­zona. His is a whop­ping 0.988. Has­ner has a minor fundrais­ing advan­tage with $2.4 mil­lion to Frankel’s $2.3 million.

In Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 26, a new PVI R+4 dis­trict, Dis­trict 25 incum­bent David Rivera (R-​​Miami), with a DW-​​NOMINATE 0.304, faces Demo­c­rat Joe Gar­cia. Pre­dic­tions range from “lean Demo­c­ra­tic” (Sabato) to “tossup” (New York Times, Cook, Roll Call) to “lean Repub­li­can” (RCP). Rivera has been dogged by ethics vio­la­tion com­plaints through­out his term as Con­gress­man (he was in office only three weeks before the first com­plaint was filed). Rivera is under inves­ti­ga­tion by the FBI and his for­mer asso­ciate Ana Alliegro, a pistol-​​packing self-​​described “Repub­li­can polit­i­cal guru and con­ser­v­a­tive bad girl” has dis­ap­peared as the Fib­bies are look­ing for her. She’s accused of pay­ing off for­mer night shift hotel worker (Justin) Lamar Ster­nad to run in the Demo­c­ra­tic Pri­mary to pro­vide Rivera with an easily-​​defeated opponent.

Accord­ing to the Miami Her­ald:

A key wit­ness in a fed­eral grand jury case involv­ing U.S. Rep. David Rivera is still miss­ing, but she left impor­tant evi­dence behind for inves­ti­ga­tors: at least four envelopes that had been stuffed with unre­ported cam­paign cash.

Ana Alliegro, a Repub­li­can polit­i­cal oper­a­tive, deliv­ered the cash-​​stuffed envelopes to a Hialeah mail house that sent out fliers in a con­gres­sional race against a Rivera polit­i­cal rival, the mail house owner told the FBI.

The FBI has the envelopes to check for fin­ger­prints and hand­writ­ing comparisons.

Also in the hands of FBI agents: at least six invoices ini­tially made out to the atten­tion of David Rivera — all marked paid “cash” — to cover the mail­ings for Demo­c­ra­tic pri­mary chal­lenger Justin Lamar Ster­nad, a sus­pected Rivera straw-​​man can­di­date. The con­gress­man demanded that his name be removed from the invoices with Wite-​​Out, doc­u­ments and inter­views show.

What is it about Con­gress­men and “envelopes stuffed with cash” that makes such a good lede? So far, Garcia’s reported dona­tion envelopes have been stuffed with $554 thou­sand while Rivera’s envelopes only had $417 thou­sand in them.

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Eleven legislatively-​​referred Con­sti­tu­tional Amend­ments are on the ballot.

Amend­ment 1 is typ­i­cal of the anti-​​Obamacare con­sti­tu­tional amend­ments DC told you about in an ear­lier Bal­lot Watch.

Amend­ment 3 is a scheme called “Smart Cap” that indexes state bud­get increases to infla­tion and pop­u­la­tion growth. The State Sen­ate Pres­i­dent is a sup­porter; the AARP and League of Women Vot­ers are not.

Amend­ment 4 alters prop­erty tax assess­ments so that if your home declines in value, your prop­erty taxes can­not be raised. It also changes the exist­ing home­stead exemp­tion. Amend­ments 2, 9, 10 and 11 amend the Con­sti­tu­tion to make spe­cial tax breaks for defined pop­u­la­tions such as vet­er­ans, first respon­ders and low-​​income seniors.

Amend­ment 5 gives the Leg­isla­tive more power over the Judi­ciary by impos­ing State Sen­ate con­fir­ma­tion of Florida Supreme Court jus­tices and set­ting forth impeach­ment pro­ce­dures sim­i­lar to those of the United States Congress.

Amend­ment 6 pre­vents the use of pub­lic funds (includ­ing publicly-​​funded insur­ance) for most abortions.

This pro­posed amend­ment pro­vides that pub­lic funds may not be expended for any abor­tion or for health-​​benefits cov­er­age that includes cov­er­age of abor­tion. This pro­hi­bi­tion does not apply to an expen­di­ture required by fed­eral law, a case in which a woman suf­fers from a phys­i­cal dis­or­der, phys­i­cal injury, or phys­i­cal ill­ness that would place her in dan­ger of death unless an abor­tion is per­formed, or a case of rape or incest. This pro­posed amend­ment pro­vides that the State Con­sti­tu­tion may not be inter­preted to cre­ate broader rights to an abor­tion than those con­tained in the United States Con­sti­tu­tion. With respect to abor­tion, this pro­posed amend­ment over­rules court deci­sions which con­clude that the right of pri­vacy under Arti­cle I, Sec­tion 23 of the State Con­sti­tu­tion is broader in scope than that of the United States Constitution.

It is sup­ported by a group called “Cit­i­zens for Pro­tect­ing Tax­pay­ers and Parental Rights” which receives most of its fund­ing from the Catholic Church. It is opposed by “Vote No on 6″.

Amend­ment 7 would have removed the cur­rent state Con­sti­tu­tional ban on state fund­ing for reli­gious insti­tu­tions. In Decem­ber 2011, a court ordered the bal­lot lan­guage was prob­lem­atic and took it off the 2012 bal­lot. The court found par­tic­u­larly trou­ble­some a phrase that said it would be con­sis­tent with the United States Con­sti­tu­tion. The court ruled that this phrase implied sep­a­ra­tion of church and state. Attor­ney Gen­eral Pam Bondi rewrote the bal­lot text for the amend­ment, which now appears on the bal­lot as Amend­ment 8. It now reads:

Propos­ing an amend­ment to the State Con­sti­tu­tion pro­vid­ing that no indi­vid­ual or entity may be denied, on the basis of reli­gious iden­tity or belief, gov­ern­men­tal ben­e­fits, fund­ing, or other sup­port, except as required by the First Amend­ment of the United States Con­sti­tu­tion, and delet­ing the pro­hi­bi­tion against using rev­enues from the pub­lic trea­sury directly or indi­rectly in aid of any church, sect, or reli­gious denom­i­na­tion or in aid of any sec­tar­ian institution.

Amend­ment 12 appears to be non-​​controversial. It changes how the stu­dent mem­ber is appointed to the Board of Gov­er­nors of the State Uni­ver­sity System.

North Car­olina

Barack Obama won North Carolina’s elec­toral votes in 2008 by a mere 14,000 out of 2.2 mil­lion cast. North Car­olina has Class 2 and Class 3 Sen­ate seats, so there is no Sen­ate elec­tion this year.

North Carolina’s redis­trict­ing using 2010 Cen­sus data was con­trolled by Repub­li­cans. Here’s their plan:

 

Incum­bent Mike McIn­tyre (D-​​Lumberton) faces off against State Sen­a­tor David Rouzer in Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 7, a PVI R+11 dis­trict. McIntyre’s DW-​​NOMINATE is a very middle-​​of-​​the-​​road –0.168, typ­i­cal of a Blue Dog Democrat.

In August, a Demo­c­ra­tic Con­gres­sional Cam­paign Com­mit­tee poll showed McIn­tyre up by 19 while Repub­li­can inter­nal polling at the same time showed McIn­tyre up by only four. In other words, we’re fly­ing blind here. Sabato and Cook call it a tossup, while The New York Times and RCP have it as “leans Republican”.

Politico says this is the fifth most expen­sive House race in the coun­try, with $3 mil­lion being spent. That would seem to indi­cate both par­ties feel this is a tossup as well.

In Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 8, a PVI R+12 dis­trict, incum­bent Larry Kissel (D-​​Briscoe) has a Blue Dog DW-​​NOMINATE of –0.230. He’s fac­ing mar­ket­ing con­sul­tant and for­mer Repub­li­can Con­gres­sional aide Richard Hud­son. Kissel has the funds advan­tage, hav­ing raised $973,000 to Hudson’s $631,000. The New York Times rates this a tossup, but Sabato and Cook fig­ure it’s a “lean Repub­li­can” and Roll Call and RCP, fig­ur­ing vot­ers will tell Kissel to kiss off, call this one “likely Republican”.

In the PVI R+11 Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 9, Repub­li­can for­mer assis­tant to the Pres­i­dent of Cam­pus Cru­sade for Christ and real estate investor Robert Pit­tenger faces Demo­c­rat Jen­nifer Roberts. Pit­tenger has raised $2.3 mil­lion com­pared to Roberts’ $253K. Only RCP thinks this is at all com­pet­i­tive, rat­ing it “likely Republican”.

Retir­ing Blue Dog Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Heath Shuler (D-​​Waynesville), rep­re­sent­ing Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 11, has the most con­ser­v­a­tive DW-​​NOMINATE of any Con­gres­sional Demo­c­rat, a –0.102 [the most lib­eral Repub­li­can is Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Chris Smith (R-​​Hamilton, NJ), with +0.121]. Repub­li­can Mark Mead­ows and Demo­c­rat Hay­den Rogers are both vying to replace Shuler. Mead­ows is a self-​​described “Chris­t­ian con­ser­v­a­tive busi­ness­man” and Rogers is Shuler’s cam­paign man­ager. The funds race is almost tied, at $492,000 each. The dis­trict is  PVI R+13 so Repub­li­cans have a nat­ural advan­tage here. All ana­lysts have this as “likely Republican”.

Con­gres­sional Dis­trict 13 is a PVI R+10 dis­trict in the cen­ter of the state. Repub­li­can U.S. Attor­ney George Hold­ing (with a war chest of a mil­lion dol­lars) faces off against Demo­c­rat state human resources man­ager Charles Mal­one, who report­edly has raised only $6,000. The New York Times and Cook have this as lean­ing or likely Repub­li­can, but Sabato and RCP say it’s not competitive.

The polling data for North Car­olina Gov­er­nor is equiv­o­cal. Real­Clear­Pol­i­tics has a polling aver­age of +13 for the Repub­li­can, Duke Energy exec­u­tive Pat McCrory, over the Demo­c­rat, Lieu­tenant Gov­er­nor Wal­ter Dal­ton. But an early Sep­tem­ber PPP poll, which used auto­mated call­ing and thus missed Democrat-​​favoring cell phones, puts McCrory at 45 per­cent to Dalton’s 39 with Lib­er­tar­ian can­di­date Bar­bara Howe get­ting 5 per­cent. A mid-​​September NBC News/​Wall Street Jour­nal/​Marist poll gives McCrory a 52–39 lead. Cook calls this “leans Repub­li­can” while Sabato thinks it’s “likely Republican”.

Related arti­cles

• Bal­lot Watch: The South (Part 1, The Solid South) (log​a​rchism​.com)
• Va. GOP fires ven­dor over Fla. issues (miami​her​ald​.com)