Outgoing Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell
Leading Off:
• AK-Gov: On Friday, multiple media outlets called Alaska's gubernatorial race for independent Bill Walker. More ballots still need to be counted but Walker currently holds a 48-46 percent lead over Republican Gov. Sean Parnell, who has conceded. Parnell is only one of two Republican governors to lose during what was an incredibly good year for his party. His defeat is all the more notable since Alaska Republicans beat Democratic Sen. Mark Begich the same night.
This was one of the stranger races of a very turbulent election year. At the beginning of the cycle Parnell looked like the heavy favorite to win, but there were signs that Alaskans wanted a change. A Public Policy Polling survey from February of 2013 found Parnell easily leading each of his hypothetical Democratic challengers, but only sporting a 46-44 job approval rating. Parnell's poor relationship with the legislature, his huge tax cut for oil companies, and his eventual decision to reject the Medicaid expansion led to a general sense of fatigue with the incumbent. While voters in this red state weren't necessarily ready to turn the governor's mansion over to a Democrat, they were willing to consider alternatives to Parnell.
Where did things go wrong for the Republican? Head below the fold to find out.
With the polls showing Parnell destroying the competition, the governor did not adequately prepare for a real race. This proved to be a major mistake. From the beginning of the 2014 cycle it was clear that both parties would drop enormous sums of cash on the U.S. Senate contest, and that any other statewide campaigns would need to raise and spend real money to get their message through the clutter. There was no way that any state-level candidate could compete with all the spending that would go into the nationally-watched Senate race, but a smart campaign could at least ensure that it could get its message out. But Parnell didn't make the preparations he needed to make, calculating that he was safe.
And for a time it looked like he was. Democrats were fielding Byron Mallott, the little-known former director of the Alaska Permanent Fund, while Walker was running as an independent. Walker, a former mayor of Valdez, had lost to Parnell 50-34 in the 2010 Republican primary and he seemed credible enough to split the anti-Parnell vote but not strong enough to win a three-way race. PPP's February 2014 poll confirmed this, finding Parnell leading Mallott 41-26, with Walker at 15. Parnell's approval rating was only 44-41, barely changed from a year ago, but the governor still looked certain to win another term.
However, in early September Parnell's life got a whole lot more difficult. After initially resisting Walker's calls to drop out of the race, Mallott ended up doing just that. The Democrat joined Walker's ticket as his running mate, forming an anti-Parnell unity ticket. As a Republican-turned-independent, Walker could reach out to voters who didn't like Parnell but didn't like Democrats either. Polling data conformed that the deal had transformed this into a real race. In August Parnell led Mallott and Walker 37-22-20 respectively; in September PPP found Walker leading 42-41.
Parnell's campaign began to commission ads for this suddenly competitive contest, but it was too late. Both parties and their allies had purchased so much ad time for the Senate race that Parnell couldn't buy much space when he finally decided he needed to. In mid-October, National Journal reported that while 51,041 spots had aired in the Senate contest on state broadcast TV, only 1,300 had aired in the gubernatorial race. To make matters worse for Parnell, only 170 of those ads were his.
Parnell ran a hard-hitting commercial against Walker but could only air it in the Juneau media market, where just 12 percent of the state lives. Ongoing questions about how Parnell handled sexual-assault cases in the state National Guard only made things worse for the governor. A group affiliated with the Republican Governors Association aired some ads for Parnell in late October, but they couldn't buy many more eyeballs than he could.
PPP's final poll, released days before the election, found Parnell sporting a 44-45 job approval rating, not all that different than the 46-44 rating they had found almost two years ago. However, Walker had emerged from the campaign with a 45-26 favorable rating, much better than the 31-19 score PPP initially gave him in August. If Parnell could not improve his own image he at least needed to damage Walker's, but few voters ever saw his anti-Walker messaging.
Parnell's mediocre approval ratings were nearly enough to win him another term in a red state in a red year. But in the end, Alaskans fired him even as Begich was losing his own seat. This type of bipartisan incumbent loss is incredibly rare: Eric Ostermeier of the University of Minnesota's Smart Politics blog tells us that the last time a sitting senator and governor from opposite parties lost re-election at the same time was in 1990 in Minnesota, when Democratic Gov. Rudy Perpich and Republican Sen. Rudy Boschwitz were both tossed. Ultimately, Parnell's weak campaign turned what probably could have been a close win into a close loss.
Parnell's defeat offers a few lessons. Incumbents should be careful about being misled by optimistic early poll match-ups. Parnell's initial approval rating proved to be much more important than his leads against hypothetical opponents. It's notable that Parnell's approvals barely budged during the entire campaign, even as the horserace numbers did.
Candidates should also be ready for the unexpected to happen. Mallott dropping out and joining Walker was certainly a surprise but it was never out of the realm of possibility. Indeed, as early as July, Walker began arguing that he could beat the governor if Mallott would drop out. This arrangement looked unlikely back then but Parnell should have prepared for it. If he had purchased ad time back in July he could have gotten his message out in the fall instead of being frozen out.
However, Parnell's biggest mistake wasn't that he didn't prepare for the unpredictable; it was that he didn't prepare for the predictable. Parnell and everyone else knew from day one that the Senate race would be a titanic affair. Even if he thought he was safe, it made sense to raise enough money and purchase enough early ad time just in case things went south. It's always better to waste money on an easy re-election than to not have funds for a competitive race.
In the end Parnell failed to notice the early signs that he was vulnerable, failed to acknowledge that the three-way race could suddenly turn into a two-way fight, and failed to recognize that the Senate race could cause him problems. Lazy pundits will claim that Sarah Palin's late endorsement won the race for Walker, but the reality is that had Parnell taken his re-election seriously from the start, he would almost certainly be the winner rather than one of the few Republicans to lose in 2014.
Senate:
• AK-Sen: On Monday, Democratic Sen. Mark Begich conceded to Republican Dan Sullivan. With most votes counted, Sullivan leads 48-46. We almost certainly haven't seen the last of Begich though: There is speculation that he'll run against Republican Sen. Lisa Murkowski in 2016, or for Republican Rep. Don Young's House seat sometime in the near future.
• IL-Sen: Oh please, oh please:

I can personally guarantee that Mark Kirk couldn't survive a Republican primary in 2016. I'm damn sure.
— @WalshFreedom
Moments like these are the very reason
why cat fud was invented.
• LA-Sen: Well this isn't a good sign. The NRSC just canceled all its reserved ad time against Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu for Nov. 20-26, just weeks before the Dec. 6 runoff. It's almost impossible to believe that they'd be doing this if they felt Landrieu had any chance to beat Republican Bill Cassidy. This follows the DSCC's decision to cancel all its ad reservations (though they just made a small radio buy). Other national conservative groups like Ending Spending and the NRA are still airing ads here.
Politico reports that private polling has Cassidy up by "high single digits," but the only surveys we've seen have shown him doing even better than that. On Thursday, a Cassidy internal from Magellan Strategies gave him a 16-point lead. On Monday, a Gravis poll for Human Events gave him an even better 21-point edge. Even if both polls are overestimating Cassidy, it doesn't sound like Team Blue has dramatically better numbers for Landrieu anywhere.
• NV-Sen: If there was anyone born to play Great Mentioner, it's Jon Ralston, and he certainly lives up to expectations. In a new piece, he goes deep—way deep—in listing possible GOP challengers to Democratic Sen. Harry Reid, whom he thinks will be more vulnerable in two years' time than he was in 2010. We've already run through about half the names here in recent days (like NRSC dream pick Brian Sandoval), but Ralston being Ralston, he mentions several more we hadn't previously considered. You'll have to click through, though, if you want to get down in the Nevada weeds.
And in the event that Reid decides to retire rather than endure another punishing race, Ralston thinks outgoing state Attorney General Catherine Cortez Masto is the best bet to try to succeed him. In fact, says Ralston, Reid would probably try to "tip off" Cortez Masto at the last possible minute, presumably to try to give her a leg up and avoid a contested primary.
• OH-Sen: Democrat Nina Turner, who got crushed 60-35 in her bid to unseat Republican Secretary of State Jon Husted earlier this month, isn't making any firm plans about her political future just yet. Turner could run for mayor of Cleveland in 2017, but incumbent Frank Jackson, whom she's tight with, could still choose to run for a fourth term. However, Turner did appear to rule out a run against GOP Sen. Rob Portman, saying, "The Senate does not interest me."
Meanwhile, the National Organization for Marriage and a bunch of other reactionary dead-ender groups would very much like to see Portman earn a primary challenge from the right, since he was the first sitting Republican senator to come out in favor of same-sex marriage. However, the anti-equality brigades so far haven't been able to rustle up a single potential name—not even a sausage.
• PA-Sen: Can't say we're unhappy about this: State Treasurer Rob McCord, who ran a douchey campaign for governor earlier this year and finished third with a pitiful 17 percent in the Democratic primary, says he won't run against freshman GOP Sen. Pat Toomey in 2016. Plenty of other Democrats are eyeing the race, though. Ex-Rep. Joe Sestak, who narrowly lost to Toomey in 2010, has been "exploring" (and raising money) for a rematch since forever, and state Attorney General Kathleen Kane has also expressed interest, though lately she's been mired in some ugliness in her current job. Montgomery County Commissioner Josh Shapiro is also an option.
Gubernatorial:
• WV-Gov: With Democratic Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin termed out in 2016, both parties are preparing for a competitive contest to succeed him. On the Democratic side, Sen. Joe Manchin is openly considering running for his old job in Charleston. Manchin recently declared, "If there is an opportunity in West Virginia and the people would want me to come back home, I would definitely consider that move." West Virginia law only bars governors from serving more than two consecutive terms, so Manchin would be eligible to run for re-election in 2020 if he returns to the governor's mansion.
It's not surprising that Manchin is considering this. Plenty of governors-turned-senators quickly get frustrated in the gridlocked Congress, and become nostalgic for those bygone days when they were their state's top dog. Now that Manchin is in the minority, the Senate is an even less pleasant place to be.
It may also be in Manchin's electoral interest to run for governor in 2016 rather than for re-election in 2018. With West Virginia growing more Republican each year, it makes sense for him to run for the less partisan job while he still can. So far Manchin has been able to defy his state's trend, winning his Senate seat by double digits in 2010 and 2012. However, after watching once popular red state Democrats like Mark Pryor, John Barrow, and fellow West Virginian Nick Rahall lose badly this year, Manchin may want to leave Washington voluntarily before he gets thrown out.
In the red corner, the ascendant state Republican Party is hoping to win this seat for the first time since 1996. State party chairman Conrad Lucas recently played Great Mentioner in an interview with the The Intelligencer / Wheeling News-Register, naming Rep. David McKinley, Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, and presumptive state Senate President Bill Cole as potential candidates. McKinley ran for governor back in 1996 and flirted with running for U.S. Senate in 2014, and there's no doubt that he's ambitious enough to consider another statewide bid.
House:
• CA-26: On Friday, Republican Jeff Gorell conceded to Democratic Rep. Julia Brownley. Brownley's win in this ancestrally Republican swing seat is a rare bright spot for her party in a tough year.
• NV-04: Roll Call previously reported that the DCCC was hoping to get ousted Rep. Steven Horsford to run for what will soon be his former seat in 2016, and now Horsford himself says he's considering the idea. First, though, Horsford plans a "listening tour," but he's already accurately diagnosed what ailed Democrats this cycle, more or less:
"We didn't lose because Republicans voted more," Horsford said. "We didn't lose because Democrats voted for Republicans. We lost because the people who had the biggest stake in the outcome, middle class people, for whatever reason decided they weren't motivated to vote.
Meanwhile, in a
predictable Politico piece featuring Democrats carping about Nancy Pelosi off the record, some nameless members of the Congressional Black Caucus also took swipes at outgoing D-Trip chair Steve Israel, saying his committee failed to protect Horsford. However, Horsford didn't blame the DCCC but instead attacked Crossroads GPS, which blasted him with $820,000 in late ads. The DCCC did spend $700,000 to try to save Horsford, but it was too little, too late.
• DCCC: In an out-of-nowhere pick, Nancy Pelosi has tapped New Mexico Rep. Ben Ray Lujan, who is about to start his fourth term in Congress, to head up the DCCC for the 2016 cycle. Lujan comes from a politically well-connected family—his father was once speaker of the New Mexico House, and Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham, another member of the state's delegation, is his cousin—plus he'll also be the first Latino to run the committee. Maryland Rep. Donna Edwards, whose name had surfaced as a possible D-Trip chief, will instead become co-chair of the Democratic caucus' policy and steering committee.
Other Races:
• Chicago Mayor: Mayor Rahm Emanuel has looked vulnerable for a long time, and a new Lake Research Partners poll for the Chicago Teachers Union says that hasn't changed. In October, Teachers Union head Karen Lewis pulled the plug on her planned campaign due to health reasons, and Cook County Commissioner Jesus "Chuy" Garcia quickly jumped in to replace her as the main anti-Rahm candidate. This is the first publicly released poll to test Garcia, and it finds him trailing Rahm 33-18, with Ald. Bob Fioretti at 13. All the candidates are Democrats.
If no one takes a majority in the February 2015 non-partisan primary, the top-two candidates advance to a runoff. In a hypothetical duel with Rahm, Garcia trails 36-31. It's not a great sign for Rahm that he's this far from 50 percent. However, the mayor is a very formidable candidate with a massive warchest at his disposal, and he won't be easy to beat.
Grab Bag:
• Cities: In an interesting blog post resurrecting an old item from 1998 about the growth of networks, Paul Krugman offers a fascinating tidbit on urban growth patterns:
Somewhat mysteriously (see my book The Self-Organizing Economy) the size distribution of cities in the United States has long been quite well described by the "rank-size rule": the second city has half the population of the first, the third 1/3 the population, and so on.
No kidding—it turns out this is basically true! You can
check out this list of the top 20 cities in the US by population. It's not a perfect correspondence, but it pretty much pans out. Amazing.
• Exit Polls: Here's a cool interactive tool from the New York Times that lets you zoom back through exit polls of the national House vote over the last two-plus decades.
• Midterms: David Jarman debunks the notion that passing the Affordable Care Act in the 2009-2010 session, instead of more post-stimulus piece-meal jobs bills, killed the Democrats' chances in the midterm election. That's against the backdrop of a guided tour of the last century's worth of midterms, almost all of which were a disaster for the presidential party, whether or not the presidential party passed transformative legislation or not.
• Ties: Every cycle, there's always at least one election somewhere that ends in a tie. This time, the honor belongs to the tiny town of Neptune Beach (pop. 7,037) in northeastern Florida's Duval County, after two candidates for city council both netted 1,448 votes each. Hilariously, the county put forth a three-part set of rules to break the tie, which involved drawing names, then a coin toss, then pulling out ping pong balls from a sack of 20, with victory going to the guy with the highest-numbered ball.
Ultimately, the winner was Richard Arthur, who grabbed ball no. 12; Rory Diamond could only manage no. 4. No, it's not quite as impressive Jimmy DiPlacido coming up with tile no. 30 of 30 in a tie race last year in Pennsylvania's Abington Township, but a win's a win!
• WATN?: Here's a new definition of chutzpah: running a political campaign attacking the Affordable Care Act, then asking your governor to put you in charge of implementing the ACA in your state. But when we tell you that the hot mess behind this brilliant scheme is Republican Monica Wehby, you won't be surprised. (And yes, she did literally ask newly re-elected Gov. John Kitzhaber to name her director of the Oregon Health Authority. Seriously.)
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, with additional contributions from Jeff Singer, David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Taniel, and Dreaminonempty