NH Senate 2008- Republicans Hold 3 of the 4 most vulnerable seats

by: Mike Hoefer

Wed Sep 26, 2007 at 09:14:42 AM EDT

Some have said that the popularity of Lynch (most popular Democratic Gov. in the nation) might depress the ticket but I'm not worried about that with the big races up ticket. Ironically the Democrats down ticket may be hurt by their vote to repeal "straight ticket" voting. If it is a factor at all I think it will be more by under voting or fall off than by the choice of a Republican over a Democrat in a particular down ticket race.

With this in mind I've crunched some numbers and created a Reelect Index of our current member of the NH Senate. I am not a trained Politico or experienced electoral statistician. I've just made some assumptions based on common sense and available data.

My Formula
Plurality + Vote Gap + Incumbency = Reelect Index
The higher your Reelect Index score the more likely you are to be reelected

Plurality: I rounded Plurality in the 2006 election to a whole number and gave 1 point for each percentage point above 50%. E.G. Theodore Gatsas=51% plurality = 1 plurality point. Sylvia Larsen = 71% Plurality = 21 plurality points.

Vote Gap: The vote difference between the winner and loser of a seat divided by 100 (just to get a lower number). This should account for the fact that 1% of the vote might be 100 votes or a more signifigant hurdle such as 1000 votes. Theodore Gatsas won by 314 vote = 3 vote gap points. At the other end of the spectrum Sylvia Larsen won by 7757 for 78 vote gap points

Incumbency: The longer you have been in the more likely you are to stay in. To account for this I gave everyone a point per year of service. Freshmen Senators got 2 points and Sheila Roberge (Dean of the Senate) has 24 points.

I weighted each of the 3 criterion evenly. The potential flaws in the methodology include a lack of recognition of the strength of the challenger. A 2006 win over a strong challenger should be worth more that a win over a weak challenger. There also no accounting for (my perceived) blue trending of the state and the assumption that Democrats will have a better turn out in 2008 than the Republicans.  I'm sure there are others flaws that will be pointed out in the discussion that follows.

Without further ado... Here is the Reelect Index sorted from most to least vulnerable.

For purposes of discussion here I'll consider scores under 20 to be most vulnerable.

The good news for the Democrats is 3 of the 4 most venerable seats belong to Republicans. If four seats were to flip the Democratic Majority grows to 17. If the Democrats in District 4 work hard to reelect Sgambati perhaps we even get to 18.

Let's look at those 4 most vulnerable seats in a bit more detail.

Kathleen Sgambati (D)- Won in 2006 with a 2% Plurality and Vote Gap of 733 (twice the cushion that Gatsas has) She is hurt in this formula by her newness to the Senate. Assuming the Republicans see this as a pick up opportunity and field a strong candidate, she will need to run a strong campaign to retain the seat. Let's hope the second half of this bi-annium in good for Kathleen. The up ticket factors and the electoral trends should help Sgambati as well, and are not accounted for in this ranking. You can support her campaign at Act Blue.Also note that Kathleen has posted http://www.bluehamps... here on BH in support of Hillary's Heath Plan].

Joseph Kenny (R)- Joseph is a 3 term Senator from District 3. Kenny won in 2006 with a 51% Plurality and small vote gap of 439 votes. His incumbency works to his favor in this ranking, other wise he scores below Sgambati.

Theodore 'Ted' Gatsas (R): Although the ranking has him at number 3, I feel this is our most likely pick up opportunity. Gatsas was part of the coup that removed Eaton from the Senate Presidency in the 2005/6 session, the fallout from which helped to set up a huge win for Kelly in District 10. Mr. Gatsas, the sitting Senate President, returned to seat #16 on 314 votes. If not for the incumbency factor he would have the lowest score at 6. Let's hope the Manchester area Democrats work hard to swing this seat to the Blue side.

Michael Downing (R): Although Michael had a 53% plurality, (A margin Bush could only dream of!) it only represents 824 vote gap in District 22. It would seem that a well run and funded campaign in 2008 could bring this seat to the Democrats as well.

A couple of other things worth noting:

1. Robert Letourneau (R) and Iris Estabrook (D) ran unopposed in 2006. I have ranked them as if they won by the average winning plurality of their party in 2006 (60% Dem, 55% Rep).
   
2. Excluding the note above, raw data is as accurate as cut and paste from the NH Sec of State Site and in some cases Wikipedia.
   
3. My data is available here
   
4. As noted in the first paragraph of the diary, I have no formal background in handicapping political races. You should take the diary and my "Reelect Index" for what it is, the output of an occasional diarist who is comfortable with excel.

So that is my armchair quarterbacking for the 2008 NH Senate race. Do you see something in the data that I missed? Have your own theories or formulas?

Any serious challengers should be getting ready now. What are you hearing in your area about 2008 challengers?

What do you hope to see from the NH State Senate in the 2008 session?

Let us know in the comments below.