A week or so ago, I noticed that I had received an email from my Congressman, Jim McDermott (WA-07). I love the guy (rightwing Republicans used to call him "Baghdad Jim"), but I know he’s gonna cruise to an easy victory with at least 75% of the vote in this solidly Democratic district. I clicked on the email thinking he was going to ask for a donation for re-election. It turned out to be an appeal to donate money to Suzan DelBene, who is the Democrat running against the incumbent Republican, Dave Reichert, in WA-08. Kossacks might remember Darcy Burner’s two attempts in 2006 and 2008 to dislodge Reichert from his congressional seat.
So here’s an update about WA-08. Dave Reichert (R) vs. Suzan DelBene (D). I really think we can flip this district from red to blue.
I’ve been watching WA-08 and this is my third diary about it. The first one I wrote (December 2009) was this: WA-08: Can The Democrats Oust Reichert?. At the time there were four possible Democratic challengers. The second one was this: WA Congressional Races, where I looked at all nine WA congressional districts.
The state of Washington is mostly Democratic. We have nine congressional districts (six Democrats and three Republicans). Two of the districts (2 and 3) might possibly flip from D to R. WA-08 might flip from R to D. And that would be good.
First, you have to know that WA-08 has consistently elected a Republican to Congress for over twenty years.
Second, you should also know that the people in WA-08 will vote for Democrats for President. Gore won in 2000 by 2%, Kerry won in 2004 by 3%, and Obama won in 2008 by a very comfortable margin of 15%. The Cook Political Report classifies it as D+3.
Here’s the voting trend, from solid Republican in 1994 to almost 50-50 in the last three elections:
Here’s the latest poll, from Survey USA (and I would point out that, in my Democratic opinion, SUSA’s polls in WA have been suspiciously pro-Republican): here.
A new SurveyUSA/KING5 poll has Rep. Dave Reichert at 52 percent and Suzan DelBene, his Democratic challenger, at 45 percent.
"Compared to an identical SurveyUSA poll 4 weeks ago, DelBene is up 4 points; Reichert is down 2. Among moderates, Reichert had led by 4, now trails by 17, a 21-point swing to the Democrat. Among women, DelBene had trailed by 8 points, now leads by 3, an 11-point swing to the Democrat. Men and voters age 35 to 49 account for almost all of Reichert's advantage," SurveyUSA says.
The samplilng (sic) of 579 likely voters was taken Sept. 29. The margin of error was 4.1 percent.
So, DelBene is behind by seven points (which is bad), but she’s gaining ground from undecideds and independents and women (in a poll that might be skewed toward Republicans).
A few more links:
Cook Political Report (from Sept. 27, which was compiled before the latest poll) says WA-08 is likely Republican, even though Cook says the district has a Partisan Voting Index (PVI) of D+3.
In Nate Silver’s Five Thirty Eight (on the NY Times), he gives Reichert a 93.3% chance of winning if the election were held today. The only two polls he lists are Survey USA. It may be just my biased opinion, but I think SUSA’s polls in WA have had a Republican bias. But at least I’ll admit that I’m biased.
The NY Times in their non-Silver section rates it as leaning towards Reichert.
The Incumbent Reichert Refuses to Debate DelBene
Link here: Delbene: Reichert won't debate me
Rep. Dave Reichert's campaign has repeatedly called on Democratic challenger Suzan DelBene to talk about the issues. However the Republican incumbent apparently may not be discussing those issues with DelBene.
DelBene's campaign said Tuesday that Reichert, who had a sizable lead coming out of the August primary, had declined its request for debates.
Speaking to The (Tacoma) News Tribune, Reichert's spokesman Darrel Little said the DelBene campaign "waited to request anything until very late and Congressman Reichert's schedule had already filled up."
OK, it makes sense, sort of. Reichert is the incumbent. He’s ahead in the polls. He doesn’t need to debate. But, wait, there’s more. He’s been avoiding the media and editorial boards.
From SLOG (the Stranger’s Blog), a post from David "Goldy" Goldstein, who is a brilliant blogger from horsesass.org:
"What's wrong with Reichert's brain?"
"What's wrong with Dave Reichert's brain?" That's the question media and political types keep asking each other about the three-term congressman after a string of canceled appearances and a handful of disastrous ones. And the longer Reichert keeps avoiding editorial boards and other interviews, the more this speculation is going to grow.
In Reichert’s own words,
"The right side of my upper body went numb, my right arm went numb, right side of my cheek and neck went numb, and so the macho male and I think the cop thing in me is trying to (say) 'come on, you can, come back to life here,' and I thought maybe I'll just go to the doctors. So I went to the doctor, they said let's go to the hospital, the hospital did a C-T scan, this is at G-W, George Washington University in D.C., CAT scan discovered a blood, a pool of blood on the left side of my brain about the size of my hand, it had pushed my brain to the right side, quite a bit, and so they had to do emergency surgery. They drilled, I think, four holes in my head, and so I had some titanium plugs in my skull."
Goldy goes on to talk about a pool of blood in your brain. A pool the size of your hand. Doctors call it a chronic subdural hematoma.
And here’s a horribly confused (possibly brain-damaged) Reichert trying to explain why he’s against Wall Street Reform, but he wants to "hold Bernie Madoff accountable" without government regulations. It really makes no sense. Either you have strong government regulations to prevent Bernie Madoffs or you don’t. I might mention, too, that it was Bush’s Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) that ignored the warnings about Madoff.
Maybe it's just Republican talking points that don't make sense. Or maybe Reichert has brain damage. Sometimes it's hard to tell the difference.
Donate To DelBene
I believe we can change this seat from red to blue.
Donate at this link: DelBene For Congress.
It would make Darcy Burner happy.