As the Blue Grass State candidate filing period closed yesterday, Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Louisville) drew surprising opposition.  Kentucky Health and Family Services Secretary Vicky Yates Brown Glisson (R) will challenge the Congressman in the state’s lone Democratic congressional seat.  The 3rd District encompasses the greater Louisville metropolitan area, and voted for Hillary Clinton with a 55-40% margin.  Rep. Yarmuth begins this race as a strong favorite for re-election, since redistricting made this seat safely Democratic in 2011.  He was first elected in 2006, defeating veteran Republican incumbent Anne Northup (R-Louisville), and has averaged 61% of the vote in his succeeding five re-election campaigns.

--Jim Ellis

Hampered by poor fundraising receipts, former US Representative, gubernatorial, and presidential candidate Tom Tancredo (R) announced yesterday that he is ending his 2018 open seat race for the Centennial State’s top political position.  Mr. Tancredo was also faring poorly in hypothetical general election pairings with Rep. Jared Polis (D-Boulder), commonly viewed as the Democratic front-runner.  Remaining in the GOP race are Attorney General Cynthia Coffman and state Treasurer Walker Stephenson, among many others.  Gov. John Hickenlooper (D) is ineligible to seek a third term.

--Jim Ellis

The aforementioned Tennessee Star poll (see Tennessee Senate above) also tested the open gubernatorial race.  In this polling exercise, former Nashville Mayor Karl Dean was the only Democrat tested against the Republican field.  Again understanding that a slight Republican skew exists within this particular respondent group, Mr. Dean loses to every GOP candidate who is still actively running.
 
Against US Rep. Diane Black (R-Gallatin), Mr. Dean trails, 46-35%.  If state House Speaker Beth Harwell were the Republican nominee, the GOP margin would be 42-32%.  The spread is 43-34% against entrepreneur Randy Boyd, while state Higher Education Commissioner Bill Lee outpaces Mr. Dean by only four points, 38-34%.  Former state Sen. Mae Beavers (R-Juliet) was included in the poll, but has since announced that she is suspending further efforts for the party nomination.  In her pairing, she and Mr. Dean were tied with 36% apiece.

--Jim Ellis

The Tennessee Star online publication conducted a Triton Research poll for the impending Volunteer State US Senate campaign (1/21-24; 1,003 TN likely general election voters) and found Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Brentwood) jumping out to a lead beyond the margin of polling error when paired with former Gov. Phil Bredesen (D).  The results found Ms. Blackburn holding a strong 50-39% advantage, but the 46R-25D-27I partisan division skews Republican.  Additionally, African Americans look to be under-represented in the polling sample.
 
Local political analyst Steve Gill calculated the skew and projects that while Rep. Blackburn still has a strong lead, it is likely closer to seven points, rather than the posted eleven.  When former Rep. Stephen Fincher (R-Crockett County) was paired with Mr. Bredesen, it was the Democrat who led 41-38%.  Considering the polling skew, the former Governor’s edge over Mr. Fincher is likely several points greater.

--Jim Ellis

As we predicted, it wouldn’t be long before we saw polling data that counters the new Fallon Group survey (1/16-19; 801 OH likely general election voters) that gave Attorney General and former US Sen. Mike DeWine (R) a commanding 48-29% lead over ex-Consumer Financial Protection Bureau director and former Attorney General Richard Cordray (D).   We only had to wait a day.  Yesterday, Public Policy Polling (1/22-23; 585 OH registered voters), conducting a survey for the Ohio Democratic Party, finds DeWine’s lead not 19, but a scant one-percentage point, 45-44%.   DeWine’s lead expands to 48-37% if his general election opponent were former US Representative and Cleveland Mayor Dennis Kucinich (D). 
 
The PPP data also looks to be relatively sound, showing both Democrats and Republicans claiming 38% party membership and the presidential vote margin just one point low (for President Trump).  Obviously, we will have to see more data from this campaign in order to make a more consistent race projection.

--Jim Ellis

With already 12 Democrats in the race vying to replace retiring Rep. Niki Tsongas (D-Lowell), the field shrunk by a candidate yesterday.  Former Cambridge City Councilman Nadeem Mazen (D) decided to end his congressional campaign.  His move entering this particular race never made much sense.  Mr. Mazen is from a city that is nowhere near the 3rd District, forcing him to compete with more than ten others who at least live in the central population area.  His time on the City Council would have netted him very little politically because none of the constituents who he previously served would be eligible to vote for him.  Therefore, he always stood little chance of success, and obviously came to a recent similar conclusion; hence, his withdrawal announcement.  The Massachusetts primary is not scheduled until September 4th, so this nomination campaign is merely beginning.

--Jim Ellis

House Appropriations Committee chairman Rodney Frelinghuysen (R-Morristown) announced yesterday that he would not seek re-election to a 13th term in the House, thus bringing his 24 year congressional career to an end once this Congress adjourns.  Mr. Frelinghuysen’s father, Peter Frelinghuysen, served for 18 years in the House and represented a similar northern New Jersey constituency.  Mr. Frelinghuysen is the eighth committee chairman to announce is retirement.  He becomes the 36th Republican to retire, and the 51st member overall to not seek re-election. 
 
New Jersey’s 11th District was designed to be a safely Republican district, but the electorate has been changing over the last few elections.  President Trump carried the 11th by only one percentage point (49-48%), while losing the state, 41-55%.  Four years earlier, Mitt Romney won the seat by a close but more substantial, 52-47%.  Romney lost New Jersey to President Obama, 41-58%.  In the battle to challenge Rep. Frelinghuysen, two Democrats, former federal prosecutor Mikie Sherrill already has amassed more than $820,000 in her campaign account, while businesswoman Tamara Harris is knocking on the door of having $450,000 in spendable funds.  But, the two will have to spend a substantial amount of their political capital to win the June Democratic primary.

--Jim Ellis

Kay Ivey (R), who ascended to the Governorship when incumbent Robert Bentley (R) was forced to resign as part of a plea bargain arrangement, is coalescing her political strength as she seeks her first elected term.  Following Agriculture Commissioner John McMillan’s lead from earlier this month, state Auditor Jim Ziegler (R) announced that he, too, would end his gubernatorial campaign.  Mr. McMillan made public statements as early as last May that he would run for Governor, but reversed course in early January only now to re-surface in the state Treasurer’s race.  Mr. Ziegler’s future plans are not clear, but the Governor’s campaign is coming down to a battle against an interim incumbent who is demonstrating political prowess. 
 
But, Gov. Ivey is not yet home free for the Republican nomination.  Still in the race is Huntsville Mayor Tommy Battle and state Sen. Bill Hightower (R-Mobile).  The Democrats are fielding Tuscaloosa Mayor Walt Maddox and former state Supreme Court Chief Justice Sue Bell Cobb.  The state primary is June 5th, with a run-off scheduled for July 17th if no candidate receives an absolute majority in their respective party nomination elections.
 
--Jim Ellis

A new Buckeye State survey just produced some surprising results.  According to Fallon Research, polling for Ohio’s 1984 Society, Attorney General and former US Senator Mike DeWine (R) would open the general election with a major lead over former Consumer Protection Financial Bureau director and ex-Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray (D).  Fallon projects, in a survey that looks to have a reasonable reliability factor, that DeWine holds a whopping 49-28% advantage over Cordray, a highly unexpected margin at this early juncture in the campaign cycle. 
 
The Ohio Governor’s race has not been frequently polled as yet, but this result may serve as an impetus to conduct further surveys.  We can expect the Democrats to soon counter with numbers showing Mr. Cordray in better position vis-à-vis Mr. DeWine.  In 2010, former Sen. DeWine ousted then-Attorney General Cordray, 47.5 -46.3%.

--Jim Ellis

With Alabama’s candidate filing deadline fast approaching on February 9th, state Sen. Bill Holtzclaw (R-Madison), who months ago declared a challenge to Rep. Mo Brooks (R-Huntsville), announced at the end of last week that he will discontinue his primary challenge campaign.  This leaves businessman Clayton Hinchman as the only Republican candidate organizing to challenge the four-term Congressman.  Sen. Holtzclaw had not performed well on the fundraising trail, which became a major factor in his decision not to move forward.  Mr. Hinchman is a more well rounded candidate, but he, too, is a major underdog to the current incumbent. 
 
AL-5 is a solidly Republican district (Trump ’16: 65-31%; Romney ’12: 64-35%), so the eventual GOP nominee will have little trouble holding the seat in November.

--Jim Ellis