Heck, with all the news showing up of new candidates and the Q4 Numbers, it's time for another diary to update people on the districts without Democrats running.
First off, the overall target is 434. The only officially uncontested race is in the Midland/Odessa-based 11th District of Texas. And the DCCC site is wrong when they list a candidate there. The state of Texas' site is what i'm going with for a candidate list. I blame the DCCC listing on bad Fanta.
I'll go though some good news from Kentucky under the fold
Are you under the fold yet?
Kentucky news: At the very least, we have more willing candidates. People want to bring up 2002, when Bush had approval ratings around 65%, but this is 2006, and George W's carriage has turned into a pumpkin. The candidates are even coming out of the woodwork in Kentucky. Three candidates in the 1st, Two candidates in the 2nd, Three candidates in the 3rd, Ken Lucas in the 4th, Two candidates in the 5th, and Ben Chandler in the 6th.
Why yes, we did fill Kentucky. I don't know who Ken Stepp or James Tapley are. But I know that they've stepped up to oppose Harold Rogers, and I salute them for that.
West Virginia was never really in doubt, although Richie Robb running as a Democrat was a surprise. Welcome to the party Richie, try and overlook the people looking at you weirdly for opposing Calleghan in the primary.
This month has four deadlines, and the states with the deadlines are New Mexico (the 14th), Ohio (the 16th), Indiana (the 17th), and North Carolina (the 28th).
We're set in Indiana.
But the following seats don't appear to be contested yet.
NM-2 (Pearce) - Yes, I know Al Kissling is getting petitions, but right now, the 2nd will get on the list. I hope that Kissling or someone else does get to file.
OH-8 (Boehner) - John Boehner's seat doesn't appear to be contested either. It's in dark red territory though. But that's not an excuse. Hopefully somebody in the area is thinking of running.
NC-5 (Foxx) - I've heard rumors about Allen Joines, but nothing convincing enough to get me to remove this seat from the list.
NC-6 (Coble) - Coble never does seem to get much opposition in this dark red district.
Why yes, there are only four unopposed seats that are open for filling right now.
Although my "areas of concern" amongst NM/OH/IN/NC include
OH-3: Neither Studebaker or Fierst has raised over $10K in this 54/46 Red district.
OH-16: I don't recall reading anything from Jeff since November. I'm pretty sure the lack of FEC filing or anything else isn't a total red flag, but I just don't remember reading anything from him lately.
OH-12 might be close to concern, but I don't have enough info on Singh to put it there.
Other than that, let's move on to other states.
Nebraska: With the entry of Maxine Moul, we have candidates in all three districts.
Mississippi: No candidates have gotten onto my radar when it comes to Pickering or Wicker. Wicker has his ties to Rove. But they're both in "cozy" districts. Either way, there's enough diehard Democrats to get one guy/girl who could run.
Both Nebraska and Mississippi's filing deadlines are on March 1st.
On March 7th, the deadline for filing in Oregon and Pennsylvania appears.
There's no rumored/confirmed opponents for Walden (OR-2), or Peterson (PA-5).
The DCCC lists Stanley Hetz in the 9th. But their "bad fanta" caused them to list Paul Politus. But for all we know, they might be right on a few of these new listings of 2004 candidates.
Peterson, Sherwood, and Platts were unopposed by Dems in 2004. So at the very least, two of those three will be opposed.
Let's make it 3 of 3.
California is coming up on the 10th, and that will be a slight challenge. My understanding is that $1621 or 3000 signatures are required. Although the signatures are apparently required by the 23rd of this month)
The officially unopposed candidates in California are Devin Nunes (CA-21) and Bill Thomas (CA-22).
The "gray area" entries are Lungren (CA-3), Radanovich (CA-19) and Calvert (CA-44). I don't know enough yet to determine if Gabe Castillo or Louis Vandenberg are running. Also, i'm pretty sure TJ Cox is running in the 19th, but there isn't enough confirmation quite yet.
And the Republicans who recently got opposition include Herger (from Bill Falzett), Buck McKeon (from Roberto Rodriguez), and Jerry Lewis (from Louis Contreras)
For the sake of skepticism, I have Lungren, Nunes, Thomas, and Calvert down as unopposed. But we could only have two districts to fill. And in 2004, Thomas and Lewis were unopposed.
Other states with March deadlines with unopposed Republicans include
Iowa (IA-4, Latham), deadline is on the 17th
Utah (UT-3, Cannon), deadline is also on the 17th
Missouri (MO-7, Blunt and MO-8, Emerson), the deadline is on the 28th.
South Carolina (SC-2, Wilson and SC-4, Inglis), the deadline is on the 30th.
Unopposed Republican districts with April deadlines:
Arkansas: AR-3 (Boozman) - 4/4
Tennessee: TN-1 (Jenkins), TN-2 (Duncan), and TN-7 (Blackburn) - 4/6
Alabama: AL-1 (Bonner), AL-2 (Everett), AL-3 (Rogers), AL-4 (Aderholt), and AL-6 (Bachus) - 4/6
New Jersey: NJ-4 (Smith) and NJ-11 (Frelinghuysen) - 4/10
Virginia: VA-4 (Forbes), VA-6 (Goodlatte), and VA-7 (Cantor) - 4/19
Georgia: GA-9 (Deal), GA-10 (Norwood), and GA-11 (Gingrey) - 4/28
The unopposed seats with deadlines of May or later include:
FL-10 (Young), FL-12 (Putnam), and FL-14 (Mack) - 5/12
MI-03 (Ehlers) - 5/16
OK-01 (Sullivan) and OK-04 (Cole) - 6/7
KS-04 (Tiahrt) - 6/12
WI-06 (Petri) - 7/11
NY-03 (King) and NY-13 (Fossella) - 7/13
WA-05 (McMorris) - 7/28
LA-04 (McCrery), LA-05 (Alexander), LA-06 (Baker), and LA-07 (Boustany) - 8/11
My listings have 52 unopposed Republicans and we're on a pretty good pace for the number of people running.
So yeah, feel free to add tips, rumors, or questions of "Are you sure (X) is opposed?"