Burnt Orange Report

What I'll be looking for..

By Byron LaMasters

With the elections today, what should we look for?

I see four big elections. The two governor's races and the two big city mayoral races (respectively Kentucky, Mississippi, Houston and Philadelpia). Interestingly, the race with the biggest implications on the 2004 Presidential election is likely to be the Philadelphia mayoral race. Keeping a Democrat (Street) in charge there will help Democratic turnout next November (and we all know that Pennsylvania is a swing state). Fortunately, Street seems to have a small but solid lead in recent polls.

As for the others. The best thing that could happen for Democrats strategically would be for Ben Chandler to be elected governor in Kentucky. I don't think that it will happen, because he's been behind Rep. Ernie Fletcher in recent polls - but if it does, it proves that Democrats are able to win in RED states by attacking the Bush administration. That would have a huge impact in Democratic strategy next year from the state legislatures all the way up to the presidential race.

Mississippi could be perhaps the closest race. Voters there have a chance to make history today by electing an African-American Lt. Governor in Barbara Blackmon. I doubt that it will happen, though. The real race is for governor between Haley Barbour and Ronnie Musgrove. If anyone knows anything about Mississippi politics, perhaps you can make some sense out of this very unscientific exit poll by the Jackson Clarion Ledger.

As for Houston, we've talked about it before. Although, it would be sweet to see Sanchez knocked out today, I'm not counting on it. I'm betting on White leading with Sanchez beating Turner out by a few points to make the runoff. The main concern for Democrats here should be stopping Orlando Sanchez.

In other elections, it will be interesting to follow the legislative races in New Jersey and Virginia. In New Jersey, Democrats have a chance to win full control of the state senate (it's a 20-20 split now), while in Virginia the focus is on whether Democrats (who have no chance of winning back either legislative chamber) can make legislative gains for the first time in twenty years. Northern Virginia is the major battleground, the Washington Post reports.

Finally, in the most fun race of the day, San Francisco is electing a new mayor. It's an open-seat race, and the only candidates that I've heard of are the two city supervisors in the race: Tom Ammiano, the gay, former drag queen and Harvey Milk colleague who made it into a runoff with Brown four years ago, and Matt Gonzalez, one of the more prominent Green Party elected officials in the country. They both trail the more moderate Gavin Newsom (whom I've never heard of). If Ammiano makes the run-off again, I'll pay attention.

Anyway, I'll be posting links for returns when I get the chance.