Quick Hits

9:20 pm:

Delaware just goes to O'Donnell.  Castle's 44 years of public service comes to an end.  Despite Tea Party enthusiasm, this result must make Democrats ecstatic.  Delaware native Dave Weigel is worth following for analysis, in Twitter short form.

Wisconsin results can be followed here.

9:50 pm:

Gotta say, Wisconsin GOP primary is a lot closer than I'd have guessed.  Only 5% in, albeit, but Walker with a slim lead.  Wish I knew where those results were from.  This would be a pretty big upset.

10:00 pm:

Also interested in Rangel/Powell contest in NY.  Harlem politics can be fascinating, especially when familial revenge is at stake.  No numbers yet.

10:40 pm:

Come on DC.  I'm going to be ticked if everything comes out at once.  I like the suspense of results trickling in bit by bit.

10:50 pm:

A nice piece by Weigel on the now defeated Mike Castle.  He's reporting that O'Donnell is toast even before the applause of tonight dies down.

Drip, Drip, Drip...  DC starts coming in.

11:00 pm:

With a 14 point lead and 37% reporting, Wisconsin GOP Gov primary has been called for Scott Walker.  Not a surprise there.  Will set up an interesting general in that, historically, Wisconsin does not pick their governors from Milwaukee.  Now they will.

11:25:

Here we go.  Twitter to the rescue.  Mike Debonis w/precinct results for DC in real time.

11:30 pm:

Once again, people in New York just don't like Rick Lazio.

12:00 am:

Just a hunch, but this map is probably going to be useful in understanding the Fenty/Gray numbers.

12:10 am:

Rangel wins comfortably.

12:30 am:

The numbers coming out of Ward 4 don't look good for Fenty.  If he can't win his home ward, he's probably cooked.

1:15 am:

The Washington Post is reporting a Vince Gray win.  The numbers aren't fully out, but unless we have a 2000-like snafu, this seems pretty definitive.  Good enough for me to head to bed.  Some bloggers have real jobs.

Lots of analysis to come tomorrow.

Busy Primary Day, With An Emphasis On D.C. Mayor's Race

Let's get a little more current.  Today wraps up the primary season leading into November's midterms, gubernatorial, and various state and local races.  Seven states are up and there are a number of interesting races.  The one that is getting the most ink is the Republican Senate primary in Delaware.  A month ago this race was on nobody's radar.  The presumptive nominee is longtime Republican vote getter Mike Castle.  Castle is one of the politicians I profiled last year in my post on small state politics.  A fixture in state political circles since the mid '60's Castle has served as both governor (two terms) and as the state's lone House member since 1993.  Castle has fashioned himself as a prgamatic moderate, perfectly suited to a state which typically votes Democratic statewide.  The state GOP establishment has been firmly behind Castle and everything pointed to an easy pick-up for Republicans of the seat vacated by now VP Joe Biden. 

That, of course, was before the year of the Tea Party.  Over the past several weeks, Castle has seen his sure thing become much more precarious as Christine O'Donnell, fueled by a Sarah Palin endorsement and a slew of out of state funding and manpower, has tightened the race.  Like earlier contests in Utah and Alaska, which saw incumbent GOP Senators defeated, tonight's contest in the First State could provide fireworks.  The winner faces Chris Coons, New Castle County Executive.

Closer to home, the big tilt today is the DC Democratic mayoral primary (Washington Post blog coverage here).  Given the underlying political affiliation of DC voters, this is the whole shebang.  The winner will be the mayor.  Watching this race up close over the past months, this race has become fascinating.  The incumbent, Adrian Fenty shot to prominence four years ago through a retail politics performance par excellance.  He won every precinct in the city, casting himself as a results oriented reformer.  As is so often the case with reformers, patience and prudence take a back seat to action.  The flashpoint in all of this has been Fenty's efforts to reform the long moribund DC education system.  Under Chancellor Michelle Rhee, Fenty has overseen a mayoral takeover of the school system and a process of school consolidation and widespread teacher firings--with test scores both improving and ebbing as a result.  In a nutshell, Fenty has been highly polarizing, especially among DC's older establishment.  His opponent, City Council Chair Vince Gray has campaigned on the notion of "One City."  To supporters, he will bind back together what Fenty has blown up.  To detractors, he will be a throwback to the dysfunction of latter day Marion Berry/Control Board DC government.  The prevailing view of the underlying dynamics of this race suggests that race and age are the faultlines upon which the election will be decided.  Fenty has tended to draw his support from white, more educated, and younger voters whereas Grey is seen as strongest among African American and, especially, older voters.

John has been doing yeoman's work looking at this race from the ground level--see here, here, and here.  We're both going to try and get out today to capture some of what's going on at various polling places.  I'm also going to post as results start coming in later tonight. 

Also of note today is the GOP gubernatorial primary in Wisconsin.  Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker is taking on former 1st District Congressman and one time Senate candidate Mark Neumann.  The winner will take on Milwaukee Mayor and former 5th District Congressman Tom Barrett in the general.

UPDATE: As the results start coming in tonight, we're going to get very focused on the micro level for the DC mayor's race.  Here's a DC ward and precinct map so you can play along at home.  If the race shakes out as predicted, expect to see Gray do extremely well in Wards 5, 7 (his home), and 8.  Fenty can be expected to do well in Wards 2 and 3.  His home Ward 4 could be the real bellwether.  Wards 1 and 6 should be relatively competitive too I would think. 

John and I are going to hit some of the precincts in Ward 5 to get some local flavor.  Hopefully we'll have some pictures to go along with the numbers.  This should be Gray territory big time.

What Happens When You've Got More Senators Than Representatives??? The Crazy, Confusing, and Convoluted Politics of Our Smallest States

Republicans got a boost yesterday when Delaware House member Mike Castle announced that he would seek the Senate seat vacated by Vice President Joe Biden. With Biden's departure, the seat has been temporarily filled by appointed Senator Ted Kaufman, who vowed not to seek election to the remainder of Biden's term. Castle is a politician of long standing and high popularity in the First State. Since 1966 he has served in the Delware House and Senate, as Lieutenant Governor and Governor, and as the state's sole House member since 1993. That's quite an impressive resume. While Delaware went overwhelmingly for Barack Obama last year and Democrats have been dominant in the state of late, Castle's candidacy immediately gives the Republicans an opportunity to chip into the Democrats' 60 seat caucus. On the Democratic side, all eyes are now on Attorney General Beau Biden (son of Joe) to see whether he enters the race to seek his dad's old seat.

Besides setting up a potential barn burner of a race, Castle's candidacy gives us a chance to explore the politics of those smallest of states--those with only a single House member. When I read about Castle's entrance, I got to thinking about the advantages of running for a higher office within the same constituency as the one you're leaving. When other House member's seek to move on to the Senate or Governor, they need to introduce themselves to hundreds of thousands of new voters--a daunting and expensive task. Furthermore, the partisanship of one's House district likely differs dramatically from the state as a whole. Candidates like Castle don't have to worry about this. Thus, these Senate candidates might find themselves running a redux of their previous House races. What I didn't know was whether or not this was truly the case. How often do House members from single district states move on to the Senate??? Let's take a look. What we find is a fascinating, yet complicated, tangle of politicians, offices, and campaigns.

There are two ways we might look at this phenomenon. First, we can look at the Senate delegations of those states with at-large House districts and see how many came from the House. There are currently seven states that have a single House member--Alaska, Delaware, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming. Aside from Kaufman, the placeholder in Delaware, that leaves 13 Senators. Of these, 6 have previous service as their state's House member: Tom Carper (DE); Max Baucus (MT); Byron Dorgan (ND); Tim Johnson (SD); John Thune (SD); and Bernie Sanders (VT). Of these, 4 moved to the Senate directly from the House. The exceptions are Tom Carper who served two terms as Delaware Governor between the House and the Senate and John Thune who took an interesting path between the two chambers. After serving three House terms, Thune decided to challenge incumbent Senator Tim Johnson in 2002. After narrowly losing that race, he reloaded and mounted an attack on the other state's Senator, Tom Daschle, and was successful in a narrowly decided contest just two years later. The Thune example is instructive in a couple of ways. First, these races in small states are oftentimes extremely close. Due to the fact that Senators (namely incumbents) running against a House challenger share the same constituency, many of the normal incumbency advantages disappear now that both candidates share them. Second, Thune's case shows us how these states tend to have a small cadre of politicians who always seem to run against each other--appearing and reappearing as different elections get contested over time (you can throw gubenatorial contests in here as well).

This second point can be seen further as we look at the next way to explore this phenomenon. Rather than looking at the Senate delegations and tracing their paths backwards, we can look at the House members from these states and see who tried to move up--and whether or not they were successful. Here things can get a little nutty, especially in the Dakotas. Rather than try and create a chart or spreadsheet to present the data here, its probably best to just go state by state. I've taken a look at each of these states over the past few decades. I'd also note that their single district status has changed at different times. Montana, for example, became a single member state after the 1990 census while North Dakota lost a seat after the 1970 census and South Dakota after 1980.

Alaska: Alaska is a simple case to explore in that there's been no movement. Alaska's lone House member, Republican Don Young has held his seat since 1973 and has not attempted any run for higher office.

Delaware: Going back to the mid-60's, Delaware has had five House members. As noted above, Mike Castle has held the seat since his election in 1992. Prior to him, now Senator Tom Carper (D) held the seat between 1983 and 1993 when he assumed the governorship. He became Senator upon the retirement of incumbent Republican William Roth. Before Carper the seat was held for three terms by Republican Thomas Evans who was defeated by Carper (interesting backstory here). From 1971 until 1977 Pete DuPont IV (R) was in office before vacating the seat to run for, and win, the governor's office. DuPont was elected upon the vacancy of the seat by William Roth who held it between 1967 and his movement to the Senate following the 1970 election. Got that??? Essentially the House, Governor, and Senate seats from the state acted as a game of musical chairs for a very small set of actors (Carper, Roth, DuPont, and now maybe Castle).

Montana: Montana is a little more easy to follow with not a whole lot of movement. The current House member, Republican Dennis Rehberg has held the seat since his election in 2000. Previous to Rehberg, Republican Rick Hill held the seat for two terms before retiring. It was during the term of Hill's predecessor, Democrat Pat Williams, that Montana switched from two to one House seats. Williams, first elected in 1978, retired in 1996 without seeking to move to the Senate. Williams was preceded in the then 1st District by now Senator Max Baucus who was first elected to the House in 1974. So Baucus fits the pattern of taking advantage of a House seat to move up to the Senate.

North Dakota: This is going to be a bit complicated. Since 1993 North Dakota's House seat has been held by Democrat Earl Pomeroy. Before Pomeroy, current Democratic Senator Byron Dorgan occupied the office beginning with his election in 1980. Dorgan won election to the Senate in 1992 upon the retirement of Democratic Senator Kent Conrad. Wait. Isn't Conrad currently the other North Dakota senator??? Yes he is and this is where things get weird. Conrad was elected to the Senate first in 1986 from the position of ND Tax Commissioner (a position also held by Dorgan earlier in his career!!!) and promised to serve only one term unless the country's trade and budget deficits were not reduced. With the fiscal situation not resolved, Conrad announced his retirement in 1992. Later that year, however, the state's other Senator (Dorgan's still in the House, remember) Quentin Burdick died suddenly leaving the seat vacant. Upon the entreaties of state Democrats, Conrad decided to run in the special election which he subsequently won. So Kent Conrad has been elected to both of North Dakota's Senate seats (but not its House seat). He and Dorgan essentially entered the Senate at the same time.

OK, where were we? Prior to Byron Dorgan, ND's House seat was held by Republican Mark Andrews, first elected in 1964. In 1980, he gave up the seat to run for, and win, the open Senate seat vacated by Milton Young. In 1986 Andrews was defeated by Conrad. If anyone can keep this convoluted bit of political history straight they win the ElectionDissection.com Lifetime Achievement Award. The story of North Dakota, like Delaware, shows how a few politicians seem to continuously jockey for a limited number of offices.

South Dakota: A little less complicated than its northern neighbor, but not much so. The current SD rep. is Democrat Stephanie Herseth Sandlin who won the seat in a 2004 special election. That race was contested when her predecessor, Republican Bill Janklow (first elected in 2002 and a former Governor to boot) resigned upon being convicted of vehicular manslaughter. Janklow was elected when previous Rep. John Thune (see above) gave up the seat to run against, yet lose to, current Senator Tim Johnson. Remember, Thune came back in 2004 to knock off Tom Daschle (who we'll read more about in a second). Prior to Thune, the House seat was held by Tim Johnson, first elected in 1986. Johnson gave up the seat in '96 to run against, and ultimately beat, incumbent Senator Larry Pressler. Prior to Johnson, South Dakota's lone House member was??? That's right, Tom Daschle!!! Daschle vacated the seat in '86 to challenge and beat the other incumbent Senator James Abdnor. During Daschle's time in the House South Dakota lost its second House seat, which for two terms was held by----Larry Pressler until he moved to the Senate in 1979. That's four members--Pressler, Daschle, Johnson, and Thune--who've held both the House and Senate seats from the state and have run against and succeeded each other in various permutations.

Vermont: The current Vermonter in the House is Democrat Peter Welch, first elected in 2006. Welch's predecessor was current Senator Bernie Sanders. Sanders moved to the Senate directly from the House, to which he was first elected in 1990. Sanders Senate seat was created by the retirement of Independent (and former Republican) James Jeffords. Jeffords himself had held the House seat from 1975 to 1988. The two year interval between Jeffords and Sanders was the House term of Republican Peter Smith, who Sanders knocked off in 1990.

Wyoming: Wyoming is now represented by freshman Republican Cynthia Lummis who took the spot of retiring Republican Barbara Cubin, first elected in 1994. Cubin's predecessor was Craig Thomas. Thomas, first elected to the House seat in 1990, gave up the seat to run for, and win, the Senate seat of retiring Republican Malcolm Wallop. Thomas captured the House seat when then Rep. Dick Cheney vacated it to become George H.W. Bush's Secretary of Defense. Prior to Cheney (first elected in 1978), Wyoming's seat was held by Republican Teno Roncalio, who retired making way for Cheney.

Thus, in only one of these states, Alaska, have we not seen a House member successfully parlay their incumbency into a Senate seat at some point. The only reason Alaska hasn't seen this happen, perhaps, is because of 1) the long incumbency of both its House member and one of its Senators, Ted Stevens (defeated last year); and 2) its strong Republicanism, ensuring little partisan competition for these coveted few spots. Everywhere else we've seen much more fluidity with a seemingly constant cast of characters moving around from office to office throughout their careers and finding themselves often opposing a set of "usual suspects." With small states offering only a limited number of opportunities for politicians to achieve their ambitions, things can get awfully crowded at the top.

Have you kept all of this straight???