And then there were five

Rep. James Walsh, R-NY-25 has announced he will forgo seeking a hard re-election battle and retire at the end of his term. This now brings the total number of Republican Congressional members from New York state to five; Rep. King, McHugh, Reynolds, Kuhl, and Fossella. Out of 29 Congressional seats 23 are controlled by Democrats (Walsh's has no incumbent), all but two practically safe from any challenge. Walsh's district is even more Democratic leaning than Fossella's at a PVI D+3 meaning this is a likely pick up for Dan Maffei the 2006 challenger, giving Democrats 24 of 29 seats easily. In 2006 Democrats picked up three seats with Rep. Hall, Gilibrand and Arcuri. Republicans could not mount a serious candidate against either Spitzer or Clinton statewide. It is a good trend that does not bode well for Fossella. New York State is trending blue and proving to be a difficult place to be a Republican. New Yorkers just are not buying their policies and realizing substantively they have little in common with them.

Vulnerable Republican representatives

There is an interesting if not slightly complex analysis by a blogger over at Swing State Project that attempts to use statistics to understand competitive Congressional districts. I won't say I can elaborate any more on plf515's analysis but some of it may look familiar as I have tried to tackle similar topics (demographics and PVI);

If you want to model the probability that a district will elect a Democrat, then the predicted value is the probability of them electing a Democrat. If they *do* elect one, then the residual is 1 - the probability. If they elect a Republican, then the residual is the probability. So, one way of looking at vulnerability is to see Republicans who have high residuals - that is, the district seems likely to elect a Democrat.

For our first model, we'll use Cook PVI as the IV. Cook PVI is basically a measure of how the district voted in 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.

Not surprisingly, there's a strong relationship between Cook PVI and congresperson's party: The mean Cook PVI in Republican represented districts was R + 9; in those represented by Democrats, it was D + 11.

There are 25 districts where the model predicts a Democrat, but there really is a Republican:

Now, let's look at models of demographics:
If we model race (%Black, %Latino and %Other Race.... leaving out %White to avoid collinearity) we get the not surprising result that increases in any of these make the district more likely to elect a Democrat.

Based on this model, there are 70 vulnerable Republicans

TX02 AL01 AL03 AZ01 CA03 CA21 CA24 CA26 CA41 CA42 CA44 CA45 CA48 CA49 CA50 CA52 CT04 DEAL GA01 GA10 IL06 NC08 NJ07 NM01 NM02 NV03 NY13 OH01 OH12 OK05 TX03 TX07 TX10 TX26 TX31 TX32 VA01 VA05 VA10 VA11 WA08 SC04 AL02 FL21 GA07 MS03 NJ02 OK04 TX24 VA02 AKAL CA19 CA22 CA25 CA46 FL18 FL25 GA08 LA04 LA05 LA06 LA07 MS01 OK01 SC01 SC02 TX01 TX06 TX14 VA04

NY13 has a D+1 PVI and is the 12th most vulnerable district in terms of PVI vs. incumbent's political party.

Next, I looked at income and urban-ness, and, again not surprisingly, districts that are higher income are more likely to be Republican, and those that are more Urban are more likely to be Democratic. Based on this model there are 79 vulnerable Republican districts:

AZ02 AZ03 CA03 CA21 CA26 CA41 CA44 CA45 CA49 CA50 CA52 FL01 FL07 FL08 FL09 FL10 FL12 FL13 FL14 FL15 FL24 IL06 KS04 LA01 MI11 NJ03 NJ04 NM01 NM02 NV03 NY13 OH01 OH12 OH15 OK05 PA15 PA18 TX03 TX07 TX13 TX26 TX31 TX32 WA04 WI01 SC04 FL06 FL21 NE02 NJ02 OH03 TX11 TX24 UT03 VA02 AZ06 CA02 CA19 CA22 CA25 CA46 CO05 FL04 FL18 FL25 LA06 LA07 NV02 OH08 OK01 SC01 TN02 TX02 TX06 TX12 TX19 UT01 WA05

The 2000 Census shows that in Staten Island family household income was struggling to make ends meet. 15.2% of the borough made less than $25,000.

5.3% made less than $10,000
3.3% made $10,000 to $14,999
6.6% made $15,000 to $24,999

Finally, let's put it all into one model. This model worked somewhat better, and identified 20 hyper-vulnerable Republicans.
AL03 AZ01 CT04 DEAL FL10 KY05 MI07 NM01 NV03 NY13 NY23 PA03 PA15 WA08 NJ02 PA06 IA04 MI04 MI06 OH06

Only 5 members of Congress feel into all three categories, one being our very own Rep. Vito Fossella.

Activists vs. Institutional candidates; clearing the primary field

So we are headed into a primary race for the chance to take on Rep. Fossella and with that the sparing back and forth between candidates and candidate supporters over who can win and who should drop out.

One of the one side you have Harrison supporters suggesting that Steve took on Fossella when no one else could be bothered and that with almost no support from the local or national party he gave Fossella the closest race he has had yet. He has built name recognition and a small army of volunteers. Surely if the party would get behind his efforts he can start where he left off, at 43% instead of having to rebuild a campaign and spend money and time building name recognition for someone else.

On the other side is the Councilman Recchia supporters that are saying Domenic has the experience running and winning his Council elections that can easily be translated into building a Congressional campaign. He appears to have institutional support which could potentially translate into access to money and donors. Many appreciate what Steve did but feel someone with a longer political resume would make this a closer race instantly.

And with that both lay out their reasons why the other should drop out. I on the other hand am a fan to some degree of a primary. The race would put both challengers in the media more than Harrison alone was able to do in 2006 (not a knock on Harrison in any way). The media tries its hardest not to cover this race, and that will be the case no matter who the challenger is if there is no primary. With a primary there would be inherent interest in this race earlier than September which would be important given that next fall every race will be second tier to the Presidential conversation. There will be debates. There will be news coverage increasing candidate name recognition. Finally if the two agree to run a positive primary campaign they could focus their efforts on going after Fossella.

If you believe primaries will only hurt your candidate or if you believe that the very very late New York primary (September) makes it impossible for a challenger to win consider this:

NY-19
John Hall John Hall managed to not only over come a six candidate primary in New York's 19th Congressional District, carrying 49%, he won over a DCCC backed Democratic challenger, Judy Aydelott (26%) only to then knock off the incumbent Republican Rep. Sue Kelly.

NH-01
Carol Shea Porter, a social worker, won a primary against Jim Craig, the New Hampshire House Democratic minority leader 54%-34% and then went on to beat Rep. Jeb Bradley.

CA-11
Jerry McNerney stepped up to run for this seat in 2004 when no Democrats could be bothered to do so. He struggled to even get on the ballot and went on to lose, though garnering an eye opening vote against the incumbent Rep. Richard Pombo (R). In 2006 he was challenged in the primary by a DCCC endorsed candidate Steve Filson and went on to beat him and a third candidate Stevan Thomas with 52.8% of the vote. McNerney went on to defeat Republican Richard Pombo in a much more Republican leaning district PVI R+3) than NY-13 (PVI D+.5).

So instead of going after each other or wasting time doing work for Fossella, let's use this time to explain to voters of the district that Fossella continues to want the war in Iraq to go on indefinitely, Fossella continues to support President Bush and his failed policies and when given the chance Fossella has failed to step up and do anything meaningful in Congress.

The Democratic Challengers, where are they?

Upstate!

There are six Republican held Congressional seats in New York state. Thus far three have declared candidates with websites and ground games up and running 18 months prior to the election. Here in the thirteenth we have possibly three great challengers but no declarations and zero ground game. Is this going to be a repeat of the disasterous effects of '06 where candidates sat around and played games before clearing the way for Harrison to run on a very condensed schedule?

NY-03, held by Rep. Peter King (R), no candidates
NY-13, held by Rep. Vito Fossella (R), no candidates
NY-23, held by Rep. McHugh (R), no candidates
NY-25, held by Rep. James Walsh (R), Dan Maffei Democratic Challenger
NY-26, held by Rep. Tom Reynolds (R), Jon Powers Democratic Challenger
NY-29, held by Rep. Randy Kuhl (R), Eric Massa Democratic Challenger

A while back we looked in the PVI, Party Voter Index system that Cook Reports uses to judge the political leanings of Congressional Districts. Rep. Fossella by their measure is in the 12th most Democratic district held by a Republican. He is the third most vulnerable member of Congress in terms of PVI from NY State, behind on Rep. King (NY-03) and Rep. Walsh (NY-25) [who has a challenger]. So you can see that in less Democratic friendly districts we already have optimistic candidates working hard on winning and here we sit idly by without anyone to keep on the offensive against Fossella.

So my question is when are we going to have a candidate running and a ground game in operation? When are we going to start building off the work of challengers like Manny Innamorato and bring our message to the South Shore? When do we start working with Mike Ryan, Democratic Candidate for DA this fall and go door to door offering solutions and possibly more important an interest to listen to the residents of Staten Island (and all of the 13th).

It is June already.

Fossella and the PVI

From the Cook Political Report;
"PVI: The Partisan Voting Index (PVI) is a measurement of how each district performs compared to the nation as a whole. The PVI listed here reflects the results of 2000 and 2004. A PVI score of D+2, for example, means that in the 2000 and 2004 Presidential election, the district per formed an average of two percentage points more Democratic than the nation as a whole, while an R+3 score means that the district per formed three points more Republican than did the nation."

The Cook Report lists its 2008 potentially competitive races, listing Rep. Vito Fossella as tied for the 12th most endangered Congressional seat based on the PVI. NY13 is listed as D+1, which does not bode well for a Republican running for re-election in a presidential year, since the district is trending to turnout for Democratic Presidential candidates more so than Republicans.

Two Republican incumbents from NY are listed with a more dangerous PVI, and that is Rep. Walsh with a D+3 and Rep. Peter King (NY-03) with a D+2. Walsh barely squeaked past Maffei and King had a late entering opponent in Mejias, who if he runs again should give King a real fight for his seat.

Hall and Arcuri flipped seats with an R+1 PVI and Gillibrand did so in a district with a R+3 PVI. This is not good news for Rep. Vito Fossella
.