Posted on 10/29/2006 9:24:34 PM PST by rhinohunter
On Monday President Bush flies into Houston to campaign for a congressional candidate who — at one point — looked like a long shot.
But an exclusive poll indicates that Shelley Sekula-Gibbs may pull off a political upset and win her write-in campaign for Congress.
(Excerpt) Read more at khou.com ...
That is great news! I was not aware of their endorsement of Sekula-Gibbs. Thanks for the heads up.
Your point is well-taken, but more likely than not the people who haven't heard of the write-in are more likely to be Democrat, because in this CD, the Republicans tend to be middle to upper-middle class and well-educated, with Democrats being mainly black, Hispanic and less educated (the good parts of Missouri City being the exception).
I guess for this reason and a couple of others I'm viewing this as being better for the GOP than you are (though not as good as this forum, obviously): 1/5 of the write-ins in this poll are not sure, they're not voting for someone else; more people know who Sekula-Gibbs is than Lampson, which indicates to me that Lampson might not have a very good GOTV operation.
The negatives are that it's Zogby; secondly, I don't think 60% of people are going to know how to write-in a candidate when only 20% say they've done it before. The smarter ones will be able to figure the system out, but alas, not everyone is smart.
In general, the biggest problem for anyone trying a write-in campaign in Texas is the straight-ticket issue, since so many people use it, especially in urban/suburban areas. The other issues you list are less important in my mind.
Anyway, the number it would probably take for Sekula-Gibbs to win is probably around 75,000. I really can't see Lampson getting more than that in an off-year election, and he might get less.
One other thing, I agree the reporters of the Houston Chronicle are idiots. I was forced to read their crap for years for local news and am now moreso reliant on them since I moved out of the area. For that reason alone, I might agree with you. :)
Sugar Land is two words.
Hastert is at a fund-raiser for Graf today. McCain has endorsed Graf.
The commission that counts the votes and determines what the voter meant has one more Republican than Democrat in Texas 22.
I forgot to mention the most important reason why I view this as being better than you are (and the reason why the race has moved up on my list the past couple of weeks).
My contacts in Houston tell me that Lampson has been saturating the airwaves with commercials the past week or two attacking Gibbs personally. I have little to explain why he would be doing this if the race was safe. (though I guess Lugar in Indiana advertising makes no sense either)
God is involved in this election. I'm sure of it.
The three IN seats are the keys. If we take all three, we gain; if we take 2/3, we keep the house, but lose a seat or two; and if we lose all three, long night.
We are already set to gain four Dem incumbent seats. I can barely find 10 GOP seats that are truly in play, meaning that at worst, it's -6, and at best, it's a gain.
One thing is certain. Most of the seats that the dems are barely winning, or winning by trickery or scandal are in Republican districts. Even if they do win them on election day, they may find holding onto them a bit harder in an actual, fair election, i.e. the Republican candidate's name appears on the ballot.
Unless the dems build a true majority (not 3 seats as Barone predicts) in the House, it will be a short lived one.
you say Sekula I say Ceculah etc.
Shelly Gibbs or Gibbs would simplify matters, I would think.
If she does win don't be suprised if Ronnie Earle contests the election because the name isn't spelled correctly on many ballots.
The margins are quite close everywhere, which is why I'm supremely confident. Close elections are determined by turnout, and we could easily see a GOP wave on election day where dozens of races are determined by 1-2%, but all in our favor.
It's not really all that unusual for candidates to run a vigorous campaign while obviously thinking the race is tight, and then going on to win by 10% or more on election day. I think TX-22 is one of those races. Could I be wrong? Sure, it's possible. If this were a normal election Lampson would not break 42%. But it's not and my assessment is clear. There's no point in beating the topic into the ground. We'll know soon enough!
Question: who gets the votes for TOM DELAY, if a voter clicks "tom delay" on the ballot?
"If she wins outright, that's great. And if she garners enough to force a run-off, then she will run in a head-to-head race with her name on the ballot with the "R" behind it. In such a runoff, she will win by a margin of 65-35."
No run-off for this race. The person with the most votes wins, even if it’s less than 50 percent.
If someone wants to write Shelly Sekula Gibbs in, it’s not that hard. The hardest part is to convince a person to remember to do so. The actual process is very simple. You get to the space for the CD-22 vote and move the choice to “write in”. After that you just work the letters one at a time. A list of the write-in candidates is placed inside each voting booth, so remembering the name is not a problem.
One giant megaditto to that. As Freepers, we should always refrain from charging the air with negativity. If one cannot speak out faith and hope, they should not speak at all.
Tom DeLay's name does not appear on the ballot in TX-22.
I will admit there is some confusion on this point among the national media. I heard a Fox News Radio update at 9:30 a.m. CST this morning and the reporter was erroneously stating that DeLay's name remains on the ballot.
I've been sitting on 220 seats for the GOP for about a week now. I've seen people say we'll lose 18. I heard Barone say last week on Hannity we'll lose 16. I heard Russert last week say he talked to a GOP pollster and he we'd lose 5 in the Senate and 14 in the House. Every poll that I've seen over the last couple of weeks is within the margin of error. Burns, Allen, Corker, Talent, Kean, Steele in the Senate. The House races are tight. It all comes down to turnout. And I believe the base is fired up to vote against the democrats.
That would be hilarious.
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