Blue Dog Pulse

"Blue" Dogs or Republicans?

2010-09-24T18:55:00.000-07:00

A couple interesting SPSS outputs (of course I'm not revealing everything I have).

Among Democrats Elected in 2006 and 2008: Obama (D) %
	Mean	N	Std. Deviation
Blue Dogs	47.42	24	6.114
Progressives	70.06	17	11.755
Total	56.8	41	14.294

2008 victory margin
	Mean	N	Std. Deviation
Blue Dogs	55.88	24	4.599
Progressives	73.93	15	14.845
Total	62.82	39	13.157

Partisan Voting Index Scores Among Democrats Elected in 2006 and 2008
	Mean	N	Std. Deviation
Blue Dogs	5.46	24	5.942
Progressives	-16.12	17	11.973
Total	-3.49	41	13.909
Cook PVI Scale - 40 (liberal) to + 40 (conservative)

For the not political nerds: These indices demonstrate that among NEW Blue Dogs (those elected in 2006 or 2008) 1) Obama lost their Congressional district compared to Progressive districts and 2) they barely won. The CPVI score is a good confirming variable. Also, check out that ideological cohesion (as measured by the sigma.) It's the stuff young polisci student's dreams are made of.

Three Reasons Why O'Donnell won in Delaware

2010-09-14T20:05:00.000-07:00

I realize that tomorrow morning many Delaware Republicans are going to wake up with a headache. Although they're not Blue Dog Democrats, the continued erosion of moderate Republicans against Tea Party candidates is an interesting phenomena that mirrors left-challenges to conservative Democrats. As an Delaware-adoptee, here's my immediate reaction to this result...

Reasons Christine O'Donnell won:
1. Closed Republican Primary
There were 182,796 people eligible to vote in Delaware's Republican primary today, yet 57,582 actually did. I suspect that the percentage of leaning Republican identifiers (i.e., those not 'registered' with the Republican Party, simply those moderates who support Castle) WOULD have voted in the Delaware Republican primary if the election was open. The people who did come out: the Tea Partiers, who feel intensely about their candidate.

2. The Electorate
Given that the people who usually vote in Republican primaries are the most politically participatory, it might not be surprising that more Republicans describe themselves as being more conservative. Christine O'Donnell won because she earned the support of the Delaware Republicans most conservative, plus maybe a few moderates. Mike Castle had to get out the vote among more traditional Republicans who may be a little less likely to vote. That could be the difference between 3,500 votes sometimes.

3. The Geography
A few interesting observations from Congressional Quarterly:

Delaware is deeply divided ideologically with its two southern counties Kent and Sussex greatly more conservative than New Castle. 55% of the state's registered Republicans are located in New Castle, but only 50% of the votes in the last comparable Republican primary were cast in New Castle. If Tuesday's vote mirrors past elections, 15% of the rest of it should come from Kent and between 30-35% from Sussex.

Castle couldn't overcome O'Donnell's early lead. Why? Because the early vote was more likely coming in from New Castle County (50%) of the electorate, who were voting for O'Donnell marginally over Castle. When the more rural, small town, conservative Kent and Sussex county votes came in later - it could only buttress O'Donnell's lead.

In short, for Castle to have pulled it off, he would have needed a better GOTV operation in New Castle County. In all likelihood, it's where he's MOST popular, and could make the easiest sell. I think polling this race would have been enormously difficult, because pollsters simply didn't know the electorate. If Castle's ground game was better, PPP would have got their projection completely off. Fortunately for them, for O'Donnell, and in all seriousness, for the Democrats, they're weren't.

Blue Dogs in Danger of Losing Their Seats, Democrats to Hold House

2010-07-27T12:03:00.000-07:00

Analysis of the New York Times and University of Virginia's Race Ratings for the 2010 Midterms reveals that 16 Blue Dogs (29% of the coalition) face tough reelection challenges. 5 Blue Dogs are in imminent danger of losing their seats.

This November, anywhere between 57 and 82 seat are actually competitive, however that number can be reduced to 33-37 seats if seats "leaning Democratic" are excluded. Republicans need 38 seats to capture the House of Representatives. According to this analysis, if everything holds otherwise constant, Republican recapture is unlikely given that many Democrats in toss up districts will win reelection. Republicans would need to sweep in all toss-up districts to gain a majority and win some leaning Democratic districts.

*New York Times Race Rating Blue Dogs Crosstabulation**
Count
		Blue Dogs		Total
		Rest of Democratic Party	Blue Dogs	Total
New York Times Race Rating	Toss Up	16	12	28
	Leaning Democratic	29	20	49
	Leaning Republican	1	4	5
Total		46	36	82

*University of Virginia Race Rating Blue Dogs Crosstabulation**
Count
		Blue Dogs		Total
		Rest of Democratic Party	Blue Dogs	Total
University of Virginia Race Rating	Toss Up	15	11	26
	Leaning Democratic	10	10	20
	Leaning Republican	6	5	11
Total		31	26	57

Health Care Vote Politics II: Geography & Race

2010-04-04T23:53:00.000-07:00

Following up on my last post touching the generalities of the health care vote, I wanted to look specifically at the impact of congressional district geographic location and race.

Blue Dogs from Southern districts voted against the health care bill. There were also a number of Blue Dogs from East Coast and Midwestern states with low percentages of racial minorities who voted against the bill. Examples of these include New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland and Ohio. Further research will investigate the income distribution of these districts, but I can speculate that they're in predominately working class, blue-collar areas. As a result, the number of Blacks is skewed higher in both the average and the median racial composition.

Blue Dogs who voted for the bill came from the West and parts of the Midwest. Traditionally, these individuals represented large Hispanic and similarly blue collar constituencies with low Black populations.

Below you will find two graphs demonstrating the racial compositions of Blue Dog representatives who voted for or against the health care bill. Please note that this data is based on the 2000 Census and therefore information is limited by the availability of new data. Furthermore, the data sometimes does not equal 100% of the population. I excluded Asians from the graphs for the sake of simplicity. Asians constituted a very small sample of these populations.

Key: Blue = White; Red = Blacks; Green = Hispanics

No Votes

Race	Mean	Median	Range
White	80.1%	83%	52-96%
Black	13%	8%	0-42%
Hispanic	2.6%	2%	1-7%

Yes Votes

Race	Mean	Median	Range
White	69.8%	78%	17-96%
Black	7.6%	3%	0-44%
Hispanic	16.5%	5%	1-65%

Hoyer Beats Hildebrand in South Dakota

2010-04-03T18:06:00.001-07:00

A compelling article in the Rapid City Journal reveals the back story behind progressive Dr. Kevin Weiland's (D) decision did not challenge Blue Dog Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin in South Dakota.

Barack Obama campaign deputy Steve Hildebrand was actively involved in recruiting Dr. Weiland. The morning Weiland decided not to run, Hildebrand all ready had assembled three times the petitions required to declare candidacy with the headline "It’s official: 3,834 South Dakotans said I should run.”

That was, until Weiland received pressure from Washington to abort his campaign.

“Congressman Hoyer called me at home Monday evening. I was on a call with a patient, but I got back to him. He had some huge concerns about my primary campaign and about losing this congressional seat and the risk of losing (Speaker Nancy) Pelosi’s majority,” Weiland said Wednesday. “I spoke with him for 25 to 30 minutes.”

And then a call from Rep. Chris Van Hollen:

Weiland got another compelling phone call on Tuesday, this time from U.S. Rep. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md. Van Hollen, an assistant to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, also urged Weiland to reconsider his primary run.

No Primary Challenge for Herseth Sandlin

2010-04-01T18:41:00.001-07:00

South Dakota Representative Stephanie Herseth Sandlin will not face a primary challenge. According to the Sioux Falls Argus Leader: "Dr. Kevin Weiland did not file the necessary petitions to challenge Stephanie Herseth Sandlin in the Democratic primary for the U.S. House seat." Weiland was expected to be the leading progressive contender to block Herseth Sandlin from renomination. Weiland's interest follows in a trend of progressive Democrats challenging conservative Blue Dogs who voted against health care reform.

More from CNN:

Steve Hildebrand, a top campaign strategist for Obama, was the first person to threaten a challenge. He decided against it after the health care legislation was approved by Congress, and Hildebrand endorsed Weiland's challenge to Herseth Sandlin.

Health Care and Cap & Trade Comparisons II

2010-03-31T22:47:00.001-07:00

Yesterday I wrote about how health care and cap & trade were similar in terms of the simple closeness of the vote (219-212). A more detailed look reveals a more interesting aspect of the Blue Dog caucus.

Political. President Bush won Blue Dog congressional districts that voted against both bills by roughly 58%, and McCain won in 2008 with about 55%. District partisanship reflects this attitude. Using an average of the Cook PVI, "No districts" are strongly oriented toward conservatives while "Yes districts" are strongly oriented toward Democrats. These political factors make sense in the context of party unity; Blue Dogs who voted against both bills only vote with their party 88% of the time (comparatively low, considering most votes are procedural).

Demographic. "No" districts are more White than "Yes" districts, but No districts have a higher proportion of Blacks. Yes districts tend to have more Hispanics, more foreign born and more speakers of foreign languages. This indicates two corresponding trends: first, No districts are disproportionately Southern (where there are high proportions of African Americans) and Yes districts are disproportionately Western.

Interest Groups. I threw this analysis to just make things interesting. Given that No districts are disproportionately Southern, we can speculate that we would expect social conservatism. This speculation is reinforced. No districts do not support LGBT issues or womens' issues at the same level of Yes distrusts. In fact, the margin between them on both wedge issues is significant (35-74 for womens' issues; 38-83% for LGBT). It is notable that the level of support from the Human Rights Campaign and Planned Parenthood for LGBT and womens' issues respectively is much higher in than 74% and 83% in the progressive caucus.

	No (n = 19)	Yes on Health care, No Cap & Trade (n = 11)	Yes (n = 19)
2004 result	Bush 58.3%	Bush 54.7%	Kerry 50.1%	Political
2008 result	McCain 55.7%	McCain 50.3%	Obama 55.9%
Cook Partisan Voting Index	R + 9.7	R + 3.6	D + 2.4
Votes with Party Index	88.1%	92.0%	96.1%
District % White	77.5%	82.8%	62.3%	Demographic
District % Black	15.1%	3.3%	10.1%
District % Hispanic	2.7%	10.1%	20.3%
Foreign Born	2.7%	6.0%	14.2%
% Speaks Language Other Than English	6.1%	12.1%	24.1%
Support from the Human Rights Campaign (LGBT)	35.1%	58.8%	74.0%	Interest Group Support
Support from Planned Parenthood (womens' issues)	37.8%	60.2%	83.0%
Support from the AFL-CIO (labor)	81.4%	92.7%	93.9%

Health Care and Cap & Trade Comparisons I

2010-03-31T00:59:00.001-07:00

Today the Obama Administration is expected to announce that it is opening the nation's East Coast oil reserves to drilling along the Atlantic coastlines of Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida, as well as the North Arctic reserves in Alaska. This announcement increases the urgency in the Senate to pass cap and trade legislation.

So I started thinking, what would a Blue Dog crosstab of the health care vote and the cap and trade vote look like. Amazingly similar, in fact, check this out...

The final vote for H.R.3200: America's Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009: 219-212
   Blue Dogs for: 30    Blue Dogs Against: 24
The final vote for H.R.2454: American Clean Energy and Security Act of 2009:   219-212.
   Blue Dogs for: 24      Blue Dogs Against: 30
Same margin, different Democrats. Here's the list, with crossovers in green and purple, dissenters in red, supporters in blue.

		Healthcare	Cap & Trade
Bobby Bright	AL-02	N	N
Marion Berry	AR-01	N	N
Mike Ross	AR-04	N	N
Jim Marshall	GA-08	N	N
John Barrow	GA-12	N	N
Walt Minnick	ID-01	N	N
Charlie Melancon	LA-03	N	N
Travis Childers	MS-01	N	N
Gene Taylor	MS-04	N	N
Mike McIntyre	NC-07	N	N
Mike Arcuri	NY-24	N	N
Dan Boren	OK-02	N	N
Jason Altmire	PA-04	N	N
Tim Holden	PA-17	N	N
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin	SD-AL	N	N
Lincoln Davis	TN-04	N	N
John Tanner	TN-08	N	N
Jim Matheson	UT-02	N	N
Glenn Nye	VA-02	N	N
Harry Mitchell	AZ-05	Y	N
Jim Costa	CA-20	Y	N
John Salazar	CO-03	Y	N
Joe Donnelly	IN-02	Y	N
Brad Ellsworth	IN-08	Y	N
Earl Pomeroy	ND-AL	Y	N
Scott Murphy	NY-20	Y	N
Charles Wilson	OH-06	Y	N
Kathy Dahlkemper	PA-03	Y	N
Patrick Murphy	PA-08	Y	N
Chris Carney	PA-10	Y	N
Ben Chandler	KY-06	N	Y
Frank Kratovil, Jr.	MD-01	N	Y
Collin Peterson	MN-07	N	Y
Heath Shuler	NC-11	N	Y
Zack Space	OH-18	N	Y
Gabrielle Giffords	AZ-08	Y	Y
Mike Thompson	CA-01	Y	Y
Dennis Cardoza	CA-18	Y	Y
Adam Schiff	CA-29	Y	Y
Jane Harman	CA-36	Y	Y
Joe Baca	CA-43	Y	Y
Loretta Sanchez	CA-47	Y	Y
Betsy Markey	CO-04	Y	Y
Allen Boyd	FL-02	Y	Y
Sanford Bishop	GA-02	Y	Y
David Scott	GA-13	Y	Y
Leonard Boswell	IA-03	Y	Y
Baron Hill	IN-09	Y	Y
Dennis Moore	KS-03	Y	Y
Mike Michaud	ME-02	Y	Y
Kurt Schrader	OR-05	Y	Y
Jim Cooper	TN-05	Y	Y
Bart Gordon	TN-06	Y	Y
Henry Cuellar	TX-28	Y	Y

Barrow: A Challenge from the Left

2010-03-30T03:09:00.001-07:00

A new ad from Blue America PAC is targeted straight at Blue Dog John Barrow.

Barrow represents GA-12, a swing district that leans Democratic. Given Barrow's recent vote against health insurance reform, this challenge from former State Senator Regina Thomas (D) could be formidable.

Can a progressive Democrat win? In 2008, GA-12 voted for Barack Obama 54-45, and in 2004 voted for Kerry 50.2 to Bush 49.5. A Thomas victory would rely heavily on high turnout and voter dissatisfaction with Barrow's anti-health care vote. This is not helped by the fact that since his election in 2004, Barrow has increased his margin of victory from 3.6% over his opponent to 36% in 2008. While it is possible that a progressive could inherit this seat, the district political landscape could favor it - an insurgent would have to work hard to unseat a solidified incumbent with name recognition. That might prove futile in the anti-Democratic atmosphere that is the 2010 midterm.

Health Care Vote Politics I

2010-03-29T19:33:00.001-07:00

This is Part I of promises to be a multipart series. Of Blue Dog votes on the motion to concur with the Senate and reconcile H.R. 3590 The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act - 24 voted no, 30 voted yes.

Of the 24 no votes - Bush won those districts with an average of 58% in 2004, and McCain won with 55% in 2008.
Of the 30 yes votes - Bush won those districts with an average of 50.7% in 2004 and Obama won with 53.6% in 2008.
Means: Blue Dogs who voted with their party on health care vote with their party on average 94.6% of the time. Blue Dogs who voted against health care reconciliation, vote with their party only 88.5% of the time.
Medians: The median vote with party index for Blue Dogs who voted for health care reconciliation is 96.0%. Outliers - Mitchell (AZ-5) - 80.3%; Murphy (PA-8) -84.8%.
The median 'vote with party' index for Blue Dogs who voted against health care reconciliation is 90.2%. Outliers - Minnick (ID-2) - 69.6%; Bright (AL-2) - 71.3%.

The Votes:

Bobby Bright	AL-02
Marion Berry	AR-01
Mike Ross	AR-04
Jim Marshall	GA-08
John Barrow	GA-12
Walt Minnick	ID-01
Ben Chandler	KY-06
Charlie Melancon	LA-03
Frank Kratovil, Jr.	MD-01
Collin Peterson	MN-07
Travis Childers	MS-01
Gene Taylor	MS-04
Mike McIntyre	NC-07
Heath Shuler	NC-11
Mike Arcuri	NY-24
Zack Space	OH-18
Dan Boren	OK-02
Jason Altmire	PA-04
Tim Holden	PA-17
Stephanie Herseth Sandlin	SD-AL
Lincoln Davis	TN-04
John Tanner	TN-08
Jim Matheson	UT-02
Glenn Nye	VA-02
Harry Mitchell	AZ-05
Gabrielle Giffords	AZ-08
Mike Thompson	CA-01
Dennis Cardoza	CA-18
Jim Costa	CA-20
Adam Schiff	CA-29
Jane Harman	CA-36
Joe Baca	CA-43
Loretta Sanchez	CA-47
John Salazar	CO-03
Betsy Markey	CO-04
Allen Boyd	FL-02
Sanford Bishop	GA-02
David Scott	GA-13
Leonard Boswell	IA-03
Joe Donnelly	IN-02
Brad Ellsworth	IN-08
Baron Hill	IN-09
Dennis Moore	KS-03
Mike Michaud	ME-02
Earl Pomeroy	ND-AL
Scott Murphy	NY-20
Charles Wilson	OH-06
Kurt Schrader	OR-05
Kathy Dahlkemper	PA-03
Patrick Murphy	PA-08
Chris Carney	PA-10
Jim Cooper	TN-05
Bart Gordon	TN-06
Henry Cuellar	TX-28

Hill's Office Receives Death Threats

2010-03-29T02:17:00.001-07:00

According to the local paper in Evansville, Indiana - the Washington office of Blue Dog Baron Hill has received several death threat phone calls this past week because of Hill's vote on health insurance reform:

The office of Rep. Baron Hill has received threats in the wake of Sunday's passage of contentious health care reform legislation and has turned over information to authorities.

Katie Moreau, Hill's spokeswoman, said the Seymour Democrat received death threats via the mail and over the phone after voting in favor of the bill. The Capitol Police and FBI have asked Hill's office to collect the pertinent information and pass it along so they can determine how to proceed.

"We are following their directives,'' Moreau said. "I would like to stress, however, that these unfortunate instances are rare, and that the majority of folks who call or write in from Southern Indiana — on both sides of the health reform issue — are respectful in their tone and actions.''