Justin's Political Corner

Missouri Rep. William Lacy Clay is heavily favored to win his Democratic primary Tuesday, in a match-up with fellow Democratic Rep. Russ Carnahan that was triggered by redistricting, according to a new SurveyUSA poll.

Clay leads Carnahan 56 percent to 35 percent. The survey of 490 likely Democratic primary voters was conducted August 2-4, and has a 4.5 percent margin of error.

h/t: TPM LiveWire

The St. Louis region’s two Democratic members of Congress, William Lacy Clay Jr. and Russ Carnahan,  once again tangled over congressional redistricting – and who was to blame for their predicament — during their first and only public debate.

The two squared off for an hour this morning in the studio of radio station KMOX (1120 AM), with Charlie Brennan as the host. They also sparred over the rent-to-own industry, the bank bailout, the estate tax and how long to keep troops in Afghanistan.

The two are vying in the Aug. 7 primary over who gets to stay in Congress.  The two were tossed into the same congressional district when the Republican-controlled General Assembly drew up a new state map in 2011 reflecting population shifts in the 2010 census, which also led to Missouri losing a congressional district.

Legislators then overrode the veto of Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat.

In the debate’s first exchange, Carnahan repeated his assertions that Clay was to blame for the map and alleged he had pressured fellow Democrats in his district to override Nixon’s veto.

Carnahan had sought additional debates or forums, and appeared without Clay at a forum on Saturday held by the St. Louis League of Women Voters. Clay also declined a debate, now cancelled, that had been proposed to be televised on KETC-TV (Channel 9). The cohosts were to include the Beacon and public radio station KWMU.

h/t: Jo Mannies at the STL Beacon

ST. LOUIS • Is the 1st District congressional race about race?

Both major Democrats in the upcoming primary for the new district — U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay and U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan — insist that it’s not.

“I’m not going there, because I don’t think it’s necessary,” says Clay, who is black. “People in this community know me.”

Carnahan, who is white, answers the question by paraphrasing Martin Luther King Jr.: “Judge people on the content of their character and not the color of their skin.”

But behind the stated denials of the candidates, race is undeniably a factor in the contest, which will likely determine who will become the sole representative of a city divided deeply by race.

“It’s there,” says Gentry Trotter, a black Carnahan supporter who heads his own publishing and public relations firms. “You see it. You feel it.”

Carnahan and Clay, two sitting Democrats and former allies, have been thrown into a bitter battle for their political lives by a new redistricting map that edged Carnahan out of his seat. With St. Louis still solidly Democratic, the winner of the Aug. 7 primary will almost certainly become the new district’s congressman in the Nov. 6 general election.

Race is a clear if unspoken theme in the campaign fight that has ensued.

It’s the not-so-subtle backdrop to a recent radio ad by Clay, in which pastors at two prominent black churches implore listeners to stand behind “leaders like Lacy Clay and President Obama,” as soft jazz plays in the background.

It’s implicit in Carnahan’s campaign attack on Clay’s financial and legislative ties to the rent-to-own industry — an industry whose prey, Carnahan’s campaign says, is primarily in black neighborhoods.

And it underlies Clay’s attack on Carnahan for supporting the Wall Street bailout, with the slogan: “Wall Street Russ versus the rest of us.”

Their very campaign structures and strategies hint at a need to address the other side of the racial divide. Key players in Clay’s campaign are white, and he has taken pains to remind voters of support from white officials such as Mayor Francis Slay and Gov. Jay Nixon, as well as his record on organized labor issues important to working-class whites.

Carnahan’s campaign manager is black — a fact that the city’s major African-American newspaper recently suggested was racial positioning — and its campaign mailers have been largely tailored toward black communities and concerns.

Clay Jr. won the district in 2001 and took over his father’s seat. Before this year’s redistricting altered its borders, the 1st District covered much of north St. Louis city and county, with a racial makeup of 49.8 percent black and 46.9 percent white, according to the most recent U.S. Census.

Carnahan, son of the late Missouri Gov. Mel Carnahan, was elected to the neighboring 3rd District in 2004. That district covered much of southern St. Louis city and county, as well as Jefferson and Ste. Genevieve counties. The district was 85.7 percent white and 9.1 percent black in the last census.

Then came redistricting, a process that each state has to go through every 10 years to reflect new Census data and which determines the offices on the ballot this fall. The old 3rd District was eliminated as Missouri lost one of its nine congressional seats.

The new Republican-drawn map took a chunk of that loss out of St. Louis, leaving the city with just one district, the new 1st. It includes about 80 percent of Clay’s old district, with a racial makeup of about 49.5 percent black and 43.7 percent white.

Until their current battle, Clay and Carnahan were not just political allies, but generational ones. They were heirs to a biracial Democratic coalition that stretched back decades, under both their fathers.

That coalition held up even after photos emerged from the early 1960s showing the elder Carnahan in blackface, singing in a barbershop quartet at a Rolla minstrel show when he was 26. When the photos became public in 1999, the elder Carnahan, by then governor, publicly apologized.

Among the black leaders who publicly accepted the apology and offered support was Clay Sr., then in Congress. “There is nothing in his background or his behavior since I’ve known him the last 20 to 25 years to lead me” to think he’s a racist, Clay Sr. said at the time.

That old alliance soured after redistricting began last year. While Republicans clearly benefited from the redistricting process, its outcome — a citywide majority-minority district — was virtually preordained by federal civil rights laws. Those laws prevent the redistricting process from discriminating against minorities by diluting their political representation in places such as St. Louis, which has a large and concentrated black population.

After some talk of Carnahan running in the Republican-leaning new 2nd District, he instead filed Feb. 28 to challenge Clay in the new 1st, a decision that rocked the state’s Democratic universe.

Warren, the SLU political scientist, who is white, and Washington University professor of education William Tate, who is black, both said race could be an even bigger factor in the contest than it might normally be, because of the candidates’ similar positions on issues.

“Ultimately, it’s going to come down to which of these gentlemen makes people feel like, ‘He’s in my corner,’” said Tate, who has specialized in minority education and civic issues. “That’s where race factors into it, whether people want to admit that or not.”

Warren said that “they both are Democrats who have similar voting records. It’s only natural for people to vote for who they are most comfortable with. You would expect the black community to overwhelmingly vote for Lacy Clay and the whites, to a lesser extent, for Carnahan.”

“Polarized voting is an electoral reality,” he said.

For some local African-American leaders, such as the Rev. B.T. Rice, first vice president of the St. Louis County NAACP, the issue is a difficult one because both congressmen have been perceived as supportive of the community.

h/t: Kevin McDermott at STLToday.com

ST. LOUIS • Seldom does the titular head of the state party take sides in a high-profile primary.

But, when it does happen, it’s hard to overstate the import. 

U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay, in his first competitive election in a dozen years, announced the support on Tuesday of Gov. Jay Nixon, dealing a mighty blow to the opposition.

Clay is locked in a primary battle with fellow Democratic U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan over the right to represent a new merged St. Louis district carved out during redistricting. 

In a statement distributed by the Clay campaign, Nixon called the congressman “a close personal friend.”

“For over 25 years, Lacy Clay has been a powerful voice for working families and a tireless advocate for the people of St. Louis,” Nixon said. “He’s the right man to continue serving the people of the First Congressional District and I fully support his re-election.”

Nixon’s endorsement not only provides Clay a major boost, it makes clear that, especially after an earlier endorsement of Clay by Mayor Francis Slay, the Democratic establishment is paying no deference to the Carnahan dynasty.

Read more: Jake Wagman at St. Louis Post-Dispatch

JEFFERSON CITY • U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan is challenging fellow St. Louis Democratic U.S. Rep. William Lacy Clay, setting up an intense and potentially divisive primary matchup this summer.

Carnahan, whose current district was eliminated in redistricting, filed Tuesday morning to run for the seat currently occupied by Clay, who filed for re-election less than an hour later.

Tensions have been high between the two since last year, when Clay supported a version of the new congressional map that preserved his district but discarded Carnahan’s. 

Carnahan said Tuesday he still hopes the new map is declared unconstitutional — there is a legal challenge outstanding —  but in the meantime he is making good on his promise to seek another term in Congress, even if it means challenging a fellow Democratic incumbent.

“These are the maps we have today,” Carnahan said shortly after filing his papers in the office run by his sister, Secretary of State Robin Carnahan. “I made it clear over a year ago that I’m running for re-election regardless of how the maps turn out.”

Clay  said he wasn’t worried about facing a fellow Democratic incumbent. He said the new First District includes only 20 percent of Russ Carnahan’s old district.

For Clay, this will be the first time in more than a decade that he has faced a formidable primary challenger.

Both men are the scions of prominent Democratic families. Carnahan’s father, Mel Carnahan, was governor.

Clay took over for his father, Bill Clay, in Congress in 2001.

While Carnahan has moderately more cash in his campaign account, Clay is expected to draw on a political organization honed by decades of his and his father’s political influence.

Bad move by Russ Carnahan.
h/t:  Virginia Young at St. Louis Post-Dispatch

ST. LOUIS • Last week, the arm of the Republican Party charged with maintaining a majority in Congress targeted U.S. Rep. Russ Carnahan with a round of robocalls to his constituents. 

The calls, as the blog PoliticsMO puts it, were programmed to do something that Carnahan is not — run in his Third Congressional district. 

That district, of course, was eliminated this spring when Republican lawmakers in Jefferson City redrew the state’s Congressional map.

Since then, Carnahan has indulged in a Summer of Indecision, raising tens of thousands of dollars for a campaign without a destination.

Carnahan has insisted he wants to stay on Capitol Hill, but has been coy about whether he will (A) challenge fellow St. Louis Democratic Congressman Lacy Clay in a primary or (B) take his chances in the newly configured district next door.

Republicans clearly think he will take option B, hence the automated calls from the National Republican Congressional Committee.

Carnahan has also apparently commissioned his own poll that found he would be competitive with either of the two Republicans vying for their party’s nomination, former ambassador Ann Wagner or Ed Martin, Carnahan’s 2010 opponent.

The district has been held for a decade by Wildwood Republican Todd Akin, but has been redrawn in a way — less St. Charles County, more St. Louis County —that could benefit a Democrat.

But is Carnahan that Democrat?

Carnahan, whose home is in Compton Heights, does not currently live in the district. Though the law requires candidate’s to live only in the state they represent, not the actual district, it is still a liability to not be able to vote for yourself. (That concern may be nullified if Martin, who also does not live in the district, is the GOP’s nominee.)

Last year, Carnahan ran the toughest re-election fight of his career staving off Martin. He would need to summon all that energy and then some to win in a new district.

On paper, Carnahan may have an easier time in 2012 challenging Clay for the lone Congressional seat representing the city of St. Louis, though the collateral damage — racial divisiveness, bad blood within the party —would be substantial.

In the end, Carnahan may conclude the best opportunity for success — if not necessarily victory — would be to take on the winner of the Wagner/Martin duel. 

Carnahan’s family has already established roots in the D.C. area, and his post-Congressional employment prospects in the Beltway may be better if he’s seen as someone who took one for the team, rather than in an acrimonious primary.

And that’s a worst case scenario — if things go his way, he could still be called Congressman.

h/t: Jake Wagman at St. Louis Post-Dispatch.

If polling is his guide, Missouri Rep. Russ Carnahan may just run for reelection in his newly configured 2nd congressional District after all.

An internal poll commissioned by the fourth-term Democrat and obtained exclusively by POLITICO shows Carnahan in virtual dead heats with both potential Republican challengers, Ed Martin and Ann Wagner.

The August survey found Carnahan up two points on Martin, 42 percent to 40 percent and leading Wagner by a single point, 40 percent to 39 percent.

Following the Medicare attack, Carnahan takes the lead over Wagner 42 percent to 41 percent.

This reveals that while Martin may be more vulnerable to personal attacks about his past than Wagner, the Medicare message appears to be more salient with voters in either contest.

The Lake survey also found that the tea party is viewed more favorably than President Obama by about 5 percent.  It puts the “tea party movement’s” favorability at 45 percent in the new 2nd Congressional District, compared to Obama’s 40 percent rating.  Akin comes in with 47 percent favorability.

Akin would defeat Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill 49 percent to 41 percent in the 2nd Congressional District and Gov. Jay Nixon would best Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder 45 percent to 34 percent, according to Lake’s poll of hypothetical match-ups.

H/T: David Catanese at Politico.com