republicans

PolitickerME.com has broken down all 151 House races. Click on the below links for a county-by-county analysis.

ANDROSCOGGIN COUNTY | AROOSTOOK COUNTY | CUMBERLAND COUNTY | FRANKLIN COUNTY | HANCOCK COUNTY | KENNEBEC COUNTY | KNOX COUNTY | LINCOLN COUNTY | OXFORD COUNTY | PENOBSCOT COUNTY | PISCATAQUIS COUNTY | SAGADAHOC COUNTY | SOMERSET COUNTY | WALDO COUNTY | WASHINGTON COUNTY | YORK COUNTY

According to PoltickerME.com ratings, we’ve arrived at the following totals:

• 45 seats are ranked SAFE DEMOCRAT. This includes 41 seats with Democratic incumbents and four open seats.
• 15 seats are ranked LIKELY DEMOCRAT. This includes eight seats with Democratic incumbents and seven open seats.
• 16 seats are ranked LEANS DEMOCRAT. This includes six seats with Democratic incumbents and 10 open seats.
• 26 seats are ranked TOSSUP. This includes 13 open seats, five seats with a Republican incumbent and eight seats with a Democratic incumbent.
• 14 seats are ranked LEANS REPUBLICAN. This includes nine seats with a Republican incumbent and five open seats.
• 7 seats are ranked LIKELY REPUBLICAN. All seven have Republican incumbents.
• 27 seats are ranked SAFE REPUBLICAN. This includes 26 seats with a Republican incumbent and one open seat.
• 1 seat is ranked SAFE INDEPENDENT, and has an independent incumbent.

There are 76 seats that favor the Democrats, 48 that favor the Republicans, 1 independent seat and 26 tossups.

This brings the 124th Legislature House total between 102 Democrats and 48 Republicans, with all tossups going to the Democrats, to 76 Democrats to 74 Republicans, with all tossups going to the Democrats. It will be somewhere in between.

Therefore, for the Democrats to get a supermajority in the House, they would need to win all but two of the tossup seats. For the Republicans to get a majority, they would need to win all the tossups and two more seats. Both scenarios are highly unlikely.

Barney Frank's new ad for his re-election campaign is sure to turn heads.

The ad, the first of two ads Frank is running, features vintage footage of elephants as a deep-voiced narrator heaps blame on Republicans for their role in the current financial crisis.

"The Republicans are running scared from today's financial crisis," the narrator says, as elephants run across the screen. "For 12 years they did the bidding of the financial giants that wanted no regulation. Right wing Republicans are still carrying the high flyers of Wall Street who caused this crisis."

"One man is taking them on and looking out for average people," the narrator adds. "Barney Frank wants these giant institutions brought into line."

Frank, a Newton Democrat, is currently being challenged by Republican Earl Sholley and Democrat-turned-independent Susan Allen.

The ad was produced by local Democratic strategist Dan Payne's media shop.

The Statesman Journal is reporting that of the 10 ballot initiatives looking to be added by the voters, nine of them are sponsored by Republican interests.

While the Democrats have been eating up the airwaves with the Clinton-Obama celebrity death match, Republican presidential challenger Ron Paul has been steadily amassing nearly 40 percent of state delegates.

Doug Bruce has been vilified this term by both Democrats and Republicans. And with a new compromise measure that threatens to scrap much of TABOR in return for concessions on Amendment 23, some insiders are guessing much of the hostilty towards Bruce from the right side of the aisle was aimed at helping passage of the measure. Either way TABOR supporters are promising a fight to retain the TABOR spending restrictions.  

Today the Inside Edge takes a look at Colorado's 30th Governor, John Vivian. Known as the "spend nothing" Governor, Vivian mantained an open-door policy for fifteen minutes every weekday to see citizens that had concerns or questions. This favorite son of Jefferson County was twice elected Governor after serving under Ralph Carr as Lt. Governor begining in 1938.

Below is video of the PolitickerCO.com Republican primary debate for the candidates hoping to replace retiring U.S. Rep. Tom Tancredo (R-Littleton). The candidates are Secretary of State Mike Coffman, businessman Wil Armstrong, state Sen. Ted Harvey and state Sen. Steve Ward. The debate was held on April 21 in Highlands Ranch.

The Democrats are the first of this political season to launch a Web ad. Their ad shows the Republican Gov. Jim Douglas waffling and being evasive to reporters' questions during a recent press conference. The tag line is that the governor is devoid of leadership on key issues.

We have learned that the Democratic Party has been openly taping the governor press conferences. They are building a sizable video library of the governor. Some insiders are quick to point out that the Web ad is heavily spliced and don't show any context to the questions being asked. And while the ad by many insiders we have talked with from all three parties say it was not likely to do much damage. The bigger question is will the governor's team respond or just ignore the ad.