Photograph by William Thomas Cain/Getty Images

Rep. Joe Sestak (D-PA), standing onstage with his wife Susan and daughter Alex, concedes the Pennsylvania Senate race to Republican Pat Toomey November 3, 2010 at the Radnor Hotel in St. Davids, Pennsylvania.

Just six months have passed since the last election and 18 months remain until the next one in November 2014. Pennsylvania Democrat Joe Sestak already is planning for the election after that.

Sestak, a former House member who lost a Senate race in 2010, will prepare for a rematch against Republican incumbent Pat Toomey in a 2016 Senate election still 42 months away, Sestak said in a video today.

“The Senate needs a leader accountable only to we the people, not any other interest,” Sestak said in the three-minute video, which uses Independence Hall in Philadelphia as a backdrop.

“Together we can have an honest discussion about the issues and the challenges we face. We will hold our leaders and ourselves accountable to have a government of the people, by the people, for the people,” Sestak said as he announced what his website calls an “exploratory committee.”

Sestak raised $460,250 in the first three months of 2013, according to a report he filed last month with the Federal Election Commission. He may use those funds for a Senate campaign.

Toomey beat Sestak in 2010, a good Republican year, by 51 percent to 49 percent after Sestak beat party-switching Sen. Arlen Specter in the Democratic primary.

Toomey is a former president of the Club for Growth, a group that promotes free trade and supports slashing government spending and taxes, though he’s attracted attention recently as a co-sponsor of an amendment that would have expanded the background check system for firearm purchasers. Toomey was one of four Republicans who supported the amendment, which failed to win the requisite 60 votes last month.

Original post is Sestak Eyes Pennsylvania Comeback — in 2016 by Political Capital.

Photograph by Marcy Nighswander/AP Photo

Newly sworn-in Rep. Marjorie Margolies Mezvinsky, D-Pa. along with her family, take part in the opening session of the 103rd Congress on Capital Hill in Washington on Jan. 5, 1993.

Former Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. Marjorie Margolies, who lost her seat in Congress two decades ago after backing a deficit-reduction law, is making preparations for a comeback House campaign as she nears a final decision on the race.

“Marjorie 2014“ was organized May 3 with the Internal Revenue Service as a 527 group, a political organization named for that section of the tax code.

The purpose of the organization is to “support candidacy of Marjorie Margolies and other legal purposes,” according to the document filed by Ken Smukler, her senior political adviser.

Margolies would file candidacy papers with the Federal Election Commission if she decides to run, Smukler told Political Capital today.

“If that decision is to go forward, we will have prepared to launch immediately upon her making that decision,” Smukler said. “So this is all just kind of preparatory for her making a decision, which she has said she will make by the end of the month.”

Smukler has also purchased domain names, including www.marjorie2014.com

In August 1993, Marjorie Margolies-Mezvinsky, as she was then known, was a deciding vote for a deficit-reduction plan that included some tax increases and was promoted by President Bill Clinton. Her vote became a defining issue in her bid for a second term in 1994. She lost to Republican Jon Fox.

Margolies’ ties to the Clintons extend to the personal. Her son Marc Mezvinsky is married to Chelsea Clinton, the only child of the 42^rd president and former Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Margolies would seek the open 13th District, which takes in parts of Philadelphia and Montgomery County, including sections of the district she represented two decades ago. It’s a Democratic bastion, having backed President Barack Obama with 66 percent of the vote in the 2012 election, so the Democratic primary probably will be the decisive election.

Rep. Allyson Schwartz isn’t seeking re-election in the district as she seeks the Democratic nomination for governor.

Original post is Ex-Rep. Margolies Nears Decision on Pennsylvania Comeback by Political Capital.

Photograph by Matt Rourke/AP Photo

Rep. Allyson Schwartz in Philadelphia.

Republicans don’t have much of a chance at winning the Philadelphia-area congressional district that Democratic Rep. Allyson Schwartz plans to give up to run for governor next year.

And that’s just fine by Republicans.

That’s because Republicans who redrew district lines before the 2012 elections packed Democrats in Schwartz’s 13^th district, taking in parts of Philadelphia and inner suburban Montgomery County, as part of a strategy to draw and concede a few overwhelmingly Democratic districts as a small price to pay for helping Republicans win more districts by smaller but consistent margins.

The plan worked. Republicans won 13 of 18 Pennsylvania districts even as they lost the statewide House vote by 2.8 million to 2.7 million votes. Republicans won their districts with an average of 59 percent of the vote compared with 76 percent for the five Democrats. In the presidential balloting, the districts also broke 13 to 5 in favor of Republican Mitt Romney even as he lost Pennsylvania by more than 5 points and 309,000 votes to President Barack Obama.

In Montgomery, Republican line-drawers gave almost all of the strongly Democratic areas to Schwartz and Democrat Chaka Fattah while shifting competitive and Republican-leaning precincts to the districts of the three Republicans who represent part of the county. Obama won 63 percent of the vote in the Montgomery precincts in Schwartz’s district, compared with 57 percent countywide.

An analysis of the precinct-by-precinct vote in Montgomery underscores how Democratic voters are more heavily clustered than Republican voters who are spread out more efficiently.

Obama won at least 75 percent of the vote in 48 Montgomery County precincts, of which 38 are in Schwartz’s district and seven in Fattah’s Philadelphia-centered district. Romney didn’t win 75 percent in any Montgomery precinct that cast more than 20 votes. Of the 113 precincts that Romney did win, usually with less than 60 percent of the vote, 90 are in districts represented by Republicans.

Original post is Why Republicans OK Conceding Schwartz’s Pennsylvania District by Political Capital.

Photograph by Jonathan Fickies/Bloomberg

Haley Barbour

Former Republican National Committee Chairman Haley Barbour is not a supporter of Republican proposals to allocate electoral votes in some states by congressional district rather than winner-take-all.

“I don’t think it’s a good idea,” he says in an interview on “Political Capital with Al Hunt,” airing this weekend on Bloomberg Television.
“I don’t think anybody can predict with any form of precision who it’ll help from this election to the next.”

Republican lawmakers in several states won by Democratic President Barack Obama, including Virginia, Michigan and Pennsylvania, are discussing awarding electoral votes by congressional district rather than giving them all to the candidate who wins the most votes statewide.

Since those congressional districts were drawn by Republican-controlled state legislatures to favor Republicans, such a proposal would give the Republican presidential candidate some electoral votes in states that otherwise have voted for the Democratic candidate. In Virginia, Gov. Bob McDonnell and key Republican legislators have come out against the proposal.

Original post is Barbour: Dividing Electoral Votes Wrong by Political Capital.

Money well spent, as he carried the trio en route to racking up 332 electoral votes to Republican challenger Mitt  Romney’s 206.

Obama’s Pennsylvania expenditure – $545,000 — came after Romney mounted a last-ditch effort to try to win it as polls showed the race there tightening. The state has been reliably Democratic in recent presidential elections, and Obama held on to it, 52 percent to 47 percent (down from his 10 percentage point win four years ago).

Ohio was seen by both campaigns as potentially the race’s fulcrum — the state that would determine the overall winner. Polls showed Obama with a small but consistent lead in the battleground, and he made a final investment of $762,000 to keep his advantage. He won it by two points — 50 percent to 48 percent.

Florida, with 29 electoral votes the biggest prize among the election’s most competitive states, was central to the Romney camp’s math for winning the White House. The Republican and his aides went into Election Day confident he would win it, and some polls agreed. Obama funneled $636,000 in last-minute spending there, and won it by less than 75,000 votes out of more than 8.4 million cast — a 0.9 point margin.

After winning the election, the Obama committee made bonus payments totaling $171,375 on Nov. 23 to four senior campaign aides. Campaign manager Jim Messina received $68,550, and deputy campaign managers
Stephanie Cutter, Julianna Smoot and Jennifer O’Malley Dillon each got $34,275.

Original post is Obama’s Spending: Battleground States, Staff Bonuses by Political Capital.

Photograph by Brendan Smialowski/AFP via Getty Images

President Barack Obama looks at a K'nex roller coaster at a Rodon Group manufacturing facility on Nov. 30, 2012 in Hatfield, Pennsylvania.

The folks who make Tinker Toys say this is no time to be tinkering with public confidence in the economy.

Michael Araten is president and CEO of K’NEX, the toy company in Pennsylvania that President Barack Obama visited today to pitch his plan for higher taxes on the wealthiest Americans. He’s also an Obama supporter, and a Democrat who contributed $200 to the president’s re-election campaign.

He was asked why he support the president’s plan if it will cost him money.

“It will cost us a lot more money if demand is taken out of the system,” the toymaker said. “If you lose $200 billion of discretionary spending from the American economy, that is going to hurt businesses a lot more than the incremental 3 percent I might pay more on my taxes.”

Business is good, he says — orders up 20 percent over last year.

The chief executive also expects lawmakers and the White House to take all the time they have to negotiate an alternative to the “fiscal cliff” of automatic tax increases and spending cuts scheduled at year’s end. The president, touring the toy factory today, warned of “prolonged negotiations.”

“I’m 100 percent confident they will come together at the last minute here,” Araten said. “I’d be surprised if it wasn’t until after Christmas. They’re going to go to the wire. … But at the end of the day they will get it done because they recognize it is too important to the American economy and the American people are watching. When the American people watch, usually our leaders in Washington pay attention.”

That’s what the president was counting on with this visit today, which Republican leaders in Congress have dismissed as a diversionary campaign-styled tactic — getting the public’s attention.

“It is time to rise above all the partisan rhetoric,” Araten said. “It’s too important to the country. It’s not a red issue. It’s not a blue issue. This issue is a red, white and blue issue. Manufacturing is a red, white and blue issue. The fiscal cliff is a red, white and blue issue.”

Original post is Tinker Toy Maker: `Fiscal Cliff’ a `Red, White and Blue Issue’ by Political Capital.

Photograph by Mandel Ngan/AFP via Getty Images

President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney shake hands at the end of the third and final presidential debate on Oct. 22, 2012 at Lynn University in Boca Raton, Florida.

On the final day, both President Barack Obama and Republican Mitt Romney have commended each other for a campaign well run.

Romney offered some  rare words of praise for his opponent today, during a stop at a campaign office in Green Tree, Pennsylvania.

“”This president has run a really a strong campaign. I believe he’s a good man,” Romney said. “But it’s time for a new direction.”

Obama, during a visit to one of his campaign offices in Chicago today to greet volunteers, said he knows Romney’s volunteers are as enthusiastic, and added: “I want to congratulate Governor Romney and his team for a hard fought race as well.”

Lisa Lerer and Margaret Talev reported from Pennsylvania and Chicago. 

Original post is Obama-Romney Salute One Another by Political Capital.

A voting machine in Pennsylvania allegedly wants Mitt Romney for president.

The electronic voting machine was pulled from service after a voter recorded the machine changing a vote for President Barack Obama to a vote for Romney. The voter posted the video to YouTube under the username “centralpavoter,” and NBC confirmed that the machine was sidelined.

Watch the mischievous machine here:

The news-gathering Web site Storyful is skeptical of the video’s authenticity and says it is working to verify it. Centralpavoter does not specify where in Pennsylvania the machine is located, and has not provided his or her real name.

The voter, a self-described software developer, posted a written account of the incident along with the video, and defended the video’s authenticity:

There is a lot of speculation that the footage is edited. I’m not a video guy, but if it’s possible to prove whether a video has been altered or not, I will GLADLY provide the raw footage to anyone who is willing to do so. The jumping frames are a result of the shitty camera app on my Android phone, nothing more.

This post will be updated if more information becomes available. In the meantime, keep an eye on your voting machine.

Original post is Voting Machine Switches Obama Vote to Romney in Pennsylvania by Political Capital.

Photograph by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images

Mitt Romney is seen reflected in a teleprompter as he speaks during a campaign rally at the Smithfield Foods Hangar on Nov. 4, 2012.

Brian Gardner, Washington research chief for investment bank Keefe, Bruyette & Woods, predicts Mitt Romney will be elected president even though he will lose Ohio, becoming the first Republican presidential candidate to fail in the Buckeye State but win the big prize.

In a research note today headed “KBW Election Call — Sometimes You Just Go With Your Gut,” Gardner and colleague Michael Michaud say Romney will win 277 Electoral College votes to President Barack Obama’s 261.

Romney’s path to the White House, they say: Victories in Florida, Virginia, North Carolina, Colorado and — in their boldest pick — Pennsylvania, with its 20 electoral votes. Lower Pennsylvania turnout for Obama than in 2008 and “a strong showing” for Romney in the western part of the state will make the difference, according to the analysts. They say a lack of early voting in Pennsylvania also will help Romney as he benefits from a recent momentum shift there.

Romney campaigned in Pennsylvania on Nov. 4 and plans a stop in Pittsburgh (as well as Cleveland) today.

On ABC’s “”This Week” on Nov. 4, David Plouffe, White House senior adviser, called the Pennsylvania visit “a desperate ploy.” On “Fox News Sunday” the same day, Rich Beeson, Romney’s political director, called Pennsylvania “very fertile ground” for the former Massachusetts governor.

Original post is Pro-Romney `Gut’ Call: Pennsylvania by Political Capital.

Photograph by Darren McCollester/Getty Images

Voters walk past supporters holding signs on their way to casting ballots at Northwest Elementary School on Nov. 6, 2012 in Manchester, New Hampshire.

Mitt Romney and 10 0allied groups ran television ads in Pennsylvania in the past week, a last-ditch effort to shift the Democratic-leaning state’s 20 electoral votes to the Republican column in today’s election.

The pro-Romney side supplied 5,115 of the 8,052 ads, or 64 percent, on Pennsylvania broadcast stations in the seven-day period ended Nov. 4, according to Kantar Media’s CMAG, a television ad tracker. President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign supplied 2,840 ads, or 35 percent.

Romney’s campaign accounted for 1,057 ads, or just 21 percent of the total Republican ads. The rest of the pro-Romney groups on Pennsylvania television read like a who’s who in Republican super-political action committees and non-profit groups.

American Crossroads, a Republican super-political action committee, provided 889 ads, followed by Restore Our Future, a pro-Romney super-PAC, with 822 spots. The Republican National Committee provided 625 spots and American Future Fund, a nonprofit founded by Iowa Republican political operatives, placed 535 spots.

Here are the rest of the Republican-leaning groups: Americans for Prosperity (409 ads), a non-profit group founded and funded by the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch; Super PAC for America (285), linked to political commentators Michael Reagan and Dick Morris; Americans for Job Security (281 ads), a non-profit group; 60 Plus Association (116 ads), an advocacy group representing seniors; the American Energy Alliance (88 ads), which ran ads in Pittsburgh and Johnstown attacking Obama’s proposed cap-and-trade system to reduce carbon emissions; and the Republican Jewish Coalition (8 ads).

Obama’s most popular ad in the Philadelphia market attacked Romney on abortion. The president’s most-aired ad in Pittsburgh accuses Romney of favoring large tax cuts for wealthy income-earners, noting that he paid about a 14 percent rate on more than $20 million in income in 2010.

Obama got a little help on Pennsylvania television from Patriot Super PAC, a pro-Democratic group that paid for 74 ads on Pittsburgh television linking Romney to Bain Capital LLC, the Boston-based private equity company he co-founded.

Randall Terry, an anti-abortion activist, ran 23 ads.

Pennsylvania last voted Republican for president in 1988. Obama carried the state by 10 percentage points four years ago. Most surveys show Obama with a smaller edge in the state.

Original post is Who’s Who of Republican Groups Airs Pennsylvania Ads — 2/3 Romney by Political Capital.