Congressional Races With a Crimson Tint

Two College alums—Republican Nancy L. Johnson ’57 and Democrat James H. Maloney ’70—will battle for control of the Fifth Congressional District in Connecticut tomorrow.

There’s one catch: they’re both incumbents.

In perhaps the most interesting race involving College alums in Congress, reapportionment has merged Johnson and Maloney’s districts.

Now, Johnson is favored to win by what is predicted to be a comfortable margin. A poll by the University of Connecticut released Friday gave Johnson a 17-point lead over Maloney, 53 percent to 36 percent.

State legislators drew the two incumbents into the same district after Connecticut lost one of its six House seats following the 2000 Census.

Johnson, who has served 10 terms, and Maloney, a three-term incumbent, are both moderates who share many of the same views on issues.

Maloney has tried to characterize Johnson as closely tied to big business, while Johnson has stressed her seniority and experience.

Maloney, in addition to three terms as Connecticut’s Fifth Congressional District representative, has also served as a state senator and was twice named the state’s “Legislator of the Year.”

—William C. Martin and Benjamin A. Black

In West Virginia, U.S. Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV ’58, a Democrat, looks safe in his reelection bid against Republican Jay Wolfe, a former state senator.

Rockefeller received the support of 72 percent of surveyed voters in a Charleston Daily Mail/RMS Research poll conducted Oct. 29. Wolfe polled at 17 percent.

Rockefeller, who had outspent Wolfe 15-to-1 through mid-October, has run on a slate of traditionally Democratic issues, like improving education and health care, protecting Social Security and creating new jobs.

Wolfe has run a scrappy grass-roots campaign, concentrated on getting Republican voters out to vote.

Wolfe would like to eliminate the federal income tax and replace it with a national sales tax. He is pro-life and is endorsed by the National Rifle Association.

He has attacked Rockefeller for helping to block President Bush’s judicial nominees and supporting environmental measures that Wolfe argues would harm the state’s coal industry.

Rockefeller, a three-term incumbent, took 77 percent of the vote when he last ran for reelection in 1996. But Wolfe points to George W. Bush’s narrow victory in the state in 2000 as evidence that he can win.

In 1988, Wolfe received 35 percent of the vote as the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate against Democratic Sen. Robert C. Byrd.

—William C. Martin

Analysts predict U.S. Rep. Amory “Amo” Houghton Jr. ’50, a Republican, will easily win reelection in a reshaped district in upstate New York.

Houghton, an eight-term incumbent, faces Democrat Kisun J. Peters and two minor party candidates.

Peters also ran against Houghton in 2000, when he took 23 percent of the vote. Peters has worked as a caseworker and school counselor.

Houghton fought for nearly two years to save much of his former Thirty-First District during the state’s redistricting process. His new race is in the state’s renamed Twenty-Ninth District.

The former chief executive of Corning, Inc., Amo Houghton is the brother of James R. Houghton ’58, who is the senior fellow of the Harvard Corporation.

—William C. Martin

In Michigan, observers believe David Fink ’74, a Democrat, is fighting an uphill battle in his race for U.S. representative against GOP incumbent Joe Knollenberg.

Fink, an attorney, and Knollenberg, a five-term incumbent, are running in Michigan’s new Ninth District, which analysts considered a toss-up at the beginning of the election season.

Democratic leaders had touted Fink as one of the party’s brightest stars, especially given his fundraising abilities. Through mid-October, Fink had raised $1.2 million and contributed the same amount of his own money to his campaign. Knollenberg had raised $1.9 million.

Fink has tried to paint Knollenberg as too conservative for the district. The two candidates have sparred over, among other issues, environmental protections and the proper course for potential U.S. action against Iraq.

—William C. Martin

U.S. Rep. David Vitter ’83 is running in Louisiana’s First District against two fellow Republicans—including an ophthalmologist and a radio talk show host.

Vitter, who has drastically outspent his opponents in this election cycle, is expected to easily win re-election in the field, which also includes a Libertarian candidate.

Vitter was first elected in 1999 to succeed Rep. Bob Livingston, who stepped down from office because of his own previous extra-marital affairs during the time when Republicans were censuring President Clinton for sexual infidelities.

In that race Vitter defeated former Gov. David Treen, who had been endorsed by Livingston.

Politically, Vitter has shown himself to be a strong conservative. Last year, Vitter was one of two Republicans who introduced legislation that tightened control over who could dispense the abortion pill RU-486.

He was among a group of eleven representatives who toured Guantanamo Bay naval base in March to look over the facilities in which 300 suspected Taliban and al Qaeda members who were captured in Afghanistan were being held.

—Jyothi L. Ramakrishnan

Representative Barney Frank ’61 has always been a favorite in his Massachusetts district—the Democrat has been elected to Congress since 1981 for ten consecutive terms.

This year, Frank is running unopposed.

The outspoken Frank, who is one of three openly gay members of Congress, is considered one of House’s most liberal members.

Frank sponsored a bill to legalize medicinal marijuana in the nine states that have individually approved its use and refers to the negative pot associations as a “cultural lag [that] the public has gotten past.”

He has fought for abortion rights and gun control, and against NAFTA and welfare cutbacks. While he was sharply critical of President Bill Clinton during the Lewinsky scandals, he was one of the strongest opponents of the Republicans’ impeachment efforts.

More recently, when the White House issued a draft of a congressional resolution authorizing the use of military force against Iraq on Sept. 20, Frank co-wrote an alternate resolution that would place more pre-conditions on President Bush before he could use force in Iraq.

In addition to attending Harvard as an undergraduate, Frank taught at the Kennedy School of Government and, while serving in the Massachusetts State Legislature, completed a degree from Harvard Law School.

—Jyothi L. Ramakrishnan

Ron Kind ’85 was first elected to Wisconsin’s Third Congressional District in November 1996 after winning a five-person race for the Democratic nomination and then defeating the Republican nominee 52 percent to 48 percent.

Now, Congressional Quarterly has declared his seat “safe” in tomorrow’s election.

—Jyothi L. Ramakrishnan

James D. Matheson ’82, a Democratic representative, has overcome early challenges to emerge as the likely winner in Utah’s Second District—which covers almost half of the state.

The first-term member of Congress was displaced from much of his old Salt Lake City electorate due to redistricting, and instead found himself with 16 conservative rural counties. Nonetheless, Matheson is favored over his Republican opponent, John Swallow, who is currently a state representative.

Interestingly, Matheson has converted his largely Republican district by positioning himself as a bipartisan legislator—someone who, despite being a Democrat, supported President Bush’s views on many issues on a lot of issues.

After receiving his B.A. in government from Harvard, Matheson went on to get an M.B.A. from the University of California Los Angeles. He worked in the energy industry for 13 years, until 1998, when he started his own company, the Matheson Group. He was originally elected to Congress in 2000.

—Benjamin A. Black

Virginia Democrat Robert C. Scott ’69 has been running the sort of campaign politicians love best: an unopposed one.

The representative for Virginia’s Third Congressional District has been in office since 1992, when he became only the second black person to represent Virginia in the House, and the first since the Reconstruction Era. In this election, he has no serious contenders whatsoever.

Scott is the leading Democrat on the Judiciary Committees’s crime subcommittee and has championed such laws as the “Death in Custody Act,” which requires states to report information regarding the death of any person during arrests or while in the custody of law enforcement organizations.

Scott was born in Washington, D.C., and grew up in Virginia. He graduated from Harvard and Boston College Law School, then returned to Virginia to practice law.

He has served in both the Virginia House of Delegates and the Virginia State Senate for a combined total of 15 years, where he was active in increasing health care benefits and advancing education.

—Benjamin A. Black

Former Florida Secretary of State Katherine Harris is expected to win her race for a seat in the state’s heavily Republican Thirteenth District.

Harris, a 1997 graduate of the Kennedy School of Government who faces Democrat Jan Schneider and write-in candidate Wayne Genthner tomorrow, rose to national prominence following the 2000 presidential election for her role in the controversial recounts that followed.

GOP Rep. Dan Miller, who has held the district seat for four terms, is retiring this year.

Partly because of her role in the 2000 election, the race has been bitterly partisan. For instance, her opponents have called Harris, who has raised almost $3 million in the race, a “tool of the Bush family.”

Issues at the forefront of the race include defense spending, education, social security and the environment.

—Laura L. Krug

Republican Elizabeth Dole, former U.S. labor and transportation secretary, will face Democrat and ex-Chief of Staff Erskine Bowles for a North Carolina Senate seat in one of the most watched Senate races of the year.

Dole, who graduated from Harvard Law School in 1965, is favored to win the position, previously held by Republican Senator Jesse Helms, who is retiring this year.

The race has tightened recently, with a Mason Dixon poll showing Dole’s lead having shrunk over the last month. A month ago, she had a 14 percent lead over Bowles, according to the Associated Press. Currently, her lead is about 6 percent.

Analysts have predicted that Bowles would have won the race if the party’s primary had been held in the spring as originally planned. But it was delayed until the fall because of a redistricting fight. Although the race is likely to tighten, pollsters believe Dole will pull off a narrow victory.

Dole holds a master’s in government and education and is a recipient of the Radcliffe Medal, an award bestowed by the Radcliffe College Alumni Association.

—Laura L. Krug

Former Tennessee Gov. and former Secretary of Education Lamar Alexander returned to his home state to run for the Senate this year against Democrat Bob Clement. The position, which Alexander is favored to win, was opened when Republican Senator Fred Thompson announced his retirement this year.

Alexander is expected to win victory in the state, which has become increasingly Republican in recent elections.

Alexander was Goodman Visiting Professor at the Kennedy School of Government from January 2001 to May 2002 and announced his candidacy while still teaching.

—Laura L. Krug