SSP Daily Digest: 5/24 (Afternoon Edition)

AR-Sen: Blanche Lincoln is retooling her ad message quite a bit, now that it’s come crashing home to her that she actually has to suck up to that annoying Democratic base for a few weeks in order to win her runoff in two weeks. Her new ad features lots of Obama footage, and highlights her support of the stimulus package and… well, “support of” might be overstating it, so her vote for HCR. Compare that with her old ad saying “I don’t answer to my party. I answer to Arkansas.”

IL-Sen: Jesse Jackson Jr. seems to be up to some serious no-good in the Illinois Senate primary, although the reason isn’t clear. He’s withheld his endorsement from Alexi Giannoulias so far, and now is going so far as to talk up his respect for Mark Kirk (they serve on Appropriations together) and float the idea of endorsing him. Is he using his endorsement as a bargaining chip to get some squeaky-wheel-greasing (like Jackson’s pet airport project – recall that he didn’t endorse 1998 IL-Gov nominee Glenn Poshard over that very issue), or is he war-gaming his own run against a first-term Kirk in 2016?

NY-Sen, NY-Sen-B (pdf): Siena is out with a slew of New York data today. They find Kirsten Gillibrand in good position in the Senate race against three second-tier opponents; she beats Bruce Blakeman 51-24, Joe DioGuardi 51-25, and David Malpass 53-22. In the GOP primary, DioGuardi is at 15, Blakeman at 8, and Malpass at 4. I guess they want to be thorough, because they also took a rather in-depth look at the usually neglected NY-Sen-_A_. Charles Schumer beats Nassau Co. Controller George Maragos 65-22, Jay Townsend 63-24, Gary Berntsen 64-23, and Jim Staudenraus 65-21. Political consultant Townsend leads the primary at 10, followed by Maragos at 5, with some dudes Bertnsen and Staudenraus at 3 and 1. They even poll Schumer’s primary, wherein he beats Randy Credico 78-11.

AK-Gov: DRM Market Research (not working for any particular candidate) polled the two primaries in the Alaska gubernatorial race (which aren’t until August), finding, as expected, GOP incumbent Sean Parnell and Dem Ethan Berkowitz with big leads. Parnell is at 59, with 9 for former state House speaker Ralph Samuels and 7 for Bill Walker. Berkowitz is at 48, with 17 for state Sen. Hollis French and 8 for Bob Poe. Diane Benson, who ran for the House in 2006 and 2008, is running for Lt. Governor this time, and leads the Dem primary there.

AL-Gov: Ron Sparks is out with some details from an internal poll with one week left to go before the primary, needing to push back not only against an Artur Davis internal but today’s R2K poll. For some reason, there aren’t specific toplines, but Sparks is touting a one-point lead over Davis. The poll also sees Davis polling at only 43% among African-Americans.

NY-Gov (pdf): Siena has gubernatorial numbers, too. Believe it or not, Andrew Cuomo is winning. He beats Rick Lazio 66-24, Steve Levy 65-22, and Carl Paladino 65-22. In the GOP primary, Lazio is at 29, Carl Paladino at 16, and Steve Levy at 14. How bad do you think state party chair Ed Cox is feeling that his hand-picked Killer-App party-swapper isn’t even polling ahead of a bestiality-email-forwarding teabagger? Well, Cox’s performance here and the Senate races has been so miserable that the latest local conspiracy theory is that Cox is throwing in the towel on the Senate race so that his son, Chris Cox, can have an unimpeded run against Kirsten Gillibrand in 2012. (Of course, the cart is a few miles down the road ahead of the horse; there’s no guarantee Cox Jr. can even make it out of the GOP primary in NY-01, let alone past Tim Bishop.)

OK-Gov: I don’t know if Mary Fallin is feeling any heat here, but nevertheless, she put out an internal poll taken for her by Cole, Hargrave, Snodgrass & Associates. She leads both Dems, Lt. Gov. Jari Askins and AG Drew Edmondson by an identical 52-30 margin. (UPDATE: The Fallin campaign writes in to say this wasn’t an internal, but CHS acting on its own.)

OR-Gov: Chris Dudley airballed his first salvo of the general election against John Kitzhaber. Dudley accused Kitzhaber of having tried to put the state in debt by borrowing to balance the state’s budget during the 2001 recession. Ooops… Kitzhaber did the exact opposite, as he fought against doing so, against legislators of both parties. (Ted Kulongoski eventually signed off on the idea in 2003, after Kitz was out of office.)

PA-Gov: Maybe one of his younger, hipper staffers warned him that he was heavy-handedly barking up the wrong tree, as AG and GOP nominee Tom Corbett did a 180, pulling his Twitter subpoena to try and ascertain the identities of several anonymous critics.

SC-Gov: Well, as is usually the case, the most salacious political news of the day is also the biggest. A South Carolina blogger, Will Folks, who used to be on Nikki Haley’s payroll is now claiming that he and Haley had an affair (prior to Folks’s marriage, but after Haley’s). Folks, believe it or not, is supporting Haley, but apparently wanted to get this out there as other candidates have been pushing oppo research on this to reporters. Haley had had some recent momentum, with a big ad buy on her behalf from the Mark Sanford camp and a corresponding lead in the most recent Rasmussen poll of the primary.

TX-Gov: This is an internet poll by British pollster YouGov, so, well, have your salt and vinegar shakers handy. Working on behalf of the Texas Tribune and the Univ. of Texas, they find incumbent GOPer Rick Perry with a lead over Dem Bill White 44-35 (and similar-sized leads for the Republicans for all the other statewide offices downballot).

Polltopia: Here’s some more hard evidence that pollsters are increasingly missing the boat by not polling cellphone users. A new Centers for Disease Control survey finds that nearly a quarter of the adult population is simply being missed by many pollsters (especially autodialers like Rasmussen and SurveyUSA, given limitations on auto-dialing cellphones). The CDC also hints at how cellphone-only adults are not just more urban, more poor, less white, younger, and more Internet-savvy, but also less “domestic” and more “bohemian,” which Nate Silver thinks indicates a different set of political beliefs, too. Given the statistically significant difference between Pew’s generic congressional ballots that include and exclude cellphone users, the cellphone effect seems to be skewing polls away from Dems this cycle — the real question is, are those cellphone-only users at all likely to show up in November?

Demographics: Josh Goodman has another interesting piece in his redistricting preview series of population changes in big states, this time in Illinois. He finds the greatest population growth in the suburban collar counties of Illinois, also the most politically competitive part of the state these days. While these all trended sharply in the Democratic direction in 2008, the question is whether that trend hold without the Obama favorite-son effect this year.

64 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 5/24 (Afternoon Edition)”

  1. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/37

    Now with a fresh anonymous source:

    The official said Monday that Rossi – a two-time candidate for governor – is hiring staff and is preparing to make his widely anticipated campaign official on Wednesday. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss private campaign plans.

  2. I like Jessie Jackson Jr., and until the craziness with Blago, was hoping that he’d be a top contender for that seat.

  3. Les Phillips, who’s challenging Parker Griffith in AL-05, has this one up on his website today. It kinda-sorta refers to President Obama as a “domestic enemy.” http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/ey

    The Alabama GOP should win an award for “extremism in advertising” or something.

  4. I found this amusing

    http://politicalwire.com/archi

    GOP Leaders Rally Against Their Own Candidate

    North Carolina Republicans “have escalated an unprecedented campaign against one of their own congressional candidates,” with the party chairman calling Tim D’Annunzio (R) “unfit for public office at any level,” according to the Charlotte Observer.

    Newly-surfaced court documents portray D’Annunzio as “a self-described religious zealot” who once called the federal government the Antichrist and told his ex-wife that he’d found the Ark of the Covenant.

    D’Annunzio finished first in the May 4 primary and faces a June 22 runoff against Harold Johnson (R) in the state’s 8th congressional district. The winner faces off against Rep. Larry Kissell (D-NC).

  5. Can someone explain why he won’t run for the Senate when he ran 10 years ago?  Why does he take on unwinnable races?  Does he really not want to win?

  6. I know I shouldn’t be surprise, and I am happy about it, but I was initially startled that a Generic Republican in New York can only get between a fifth and a quarter of the vote. Just 30 years ago the NY GOP was one of the strongest in the nation, and now they are effectively the Idaho Dem party. Shows just how out of touch the GOP really is.  

  7. I’ve seen estimates 30-35% of Washington state residents are cell only. I haven’t seen cell-only seniors written about anywhere else.

    Within the last 2 years all my senior snow bird friends who used to maintain landlines in their Washington home and their CA or AZ winter site have switched to year-’round cell only communication. All these folks are 55-85 left-of-center, regular voters.

    I don’t think anybody would call us “bohemian” but we are all internet-savvy. Most of us have college degrees. About half have advanced degrees.  

  8. All the downballot races, aside from Lt. Governor and AG, are somewhere in the neighborhood of 39-28, which sounds something like “Generic R vs. Generic D.”  Greg Abbott gets 47%, I guess his damn posturing on the health care reform gets him three points over Perry.

  9. Ugh. Case won’t quit Hawaii race

    Apparently whoever emerges the winner from the Dem HI primary in September might be bloodied and broke.

    Plus there’s not a lot of time for fence-mending with the loser’s supporters before the Nov. election.

    That can only be helpful to Rep. Djou in November in his long odds attempt to be reelected.

  10. http://www.startribune.com/pol

    In a sign that he will fight hard for votes among northern Democrats, former U.S. Sen. Mark Dayton picked Yvonne Prettner Solon as his gubernatorial running mate.

    Dayton’s choice of the three-term state Senator from Duluth puts his stake in the ground in the 8th District, a DFL-heavy stretch of voters who tend to come out in all elections.He is vying against DFL-endorsed Margaret Anderson Kelliher and Matt Entenza in an August DFL primary

    I don’t think Lt Governor picks matter a whole lot but this pick makes sense. It adds gender and geographic balance and being a seasoned politician she is unlikely to make any serious gaffs that could hurt the ticket (First rule of running mates, do no harm)

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