SSP Daily Digest: 9/24

AZ-Sen (pdf): John McCain is probably safe for re-election in 2010. PPP released the second half of their Arizona sample, and find McCain beating two strong opponents who seem to have no intention of running anyway: Sec. of Homeland Security and ex-Gov. Janet Napolitano (53-40) and Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (57-30). He also leads Tucson city councilor Rodney Glassman, who is at least a rumored candidate, 55-25. McCain only has 48/42 approvals, but with kind of a bipartisan spin: an unusually low 65% of Republicans approve, while an unusually high 32% of Democrats approve.

IL-Sen: Facing some unrest on the right flank, the RNC’s Michael Steele has withdrawn sole support from Rep. Mark Kirk in the Illinois Senate GOP primary, according to the Chicago Observer. He’s back to a neutral position, which certainly counts as a victory for Patrick Hughes, who’s been gaining some momentum at coalescing the party’s right-wing. Considering how Kirk acted when Andy McKenna was going to run, is another temper tantrum in the offing? On the Dem side, Alexi Giannoulias got the endorsement of the SEIU, which led his new rival, former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman, to “go there,” invoking the specter of Rod Blagojevich, who was elected via SEIU support.

NH-Sen: This isn’t going at all according to plan for Kelly Ayotte (or the NRSC). Yet another random rich GOPer is showing up to scope out the Senate race, the third in a week. Today it’s Jim Bender, an investor who used to be the CEO of Logicraft in the 1990s.

OH-Sen: Everyone forgets about wealthy auto dealer Tom Ganley in the GOP primary in Ohio against establishment pick Rob Portman, probably because he doesn’t have a built-in constituency. Looks like he’s trying to hook up with the teabaggers as a result, positioning himself as a populist alternative to the free-trading Portman. Ganley is also getting some help from a Republican insider: an endorsement from Bay Buchanan (sister of Pat), pleased by Ganley’s anti-immigrant rhetoric.

WV-Sen: Looks like Robert Byrd’s stay in the hospital was a lot shorter than his stint this spring; he was released today.

GA-Gov: Strategic Vision looks at the primary fields in the Georgia governor’s race, and finds not much has changed since last time. For the Dems, ex-Gov. Roy Barnes is at 45%, with Thurbert Baker at 30, David Poythress at 5, and Dubose Porter at 2. (It was 45-29 last month.) For the GOP, Insurance Comm. John Oxendine leads at 38, with Karen Handel at 15, Nathan Deal at 10, and four other guys in single digits. (Oxendine was at 39 last month, although Deal was in 2nd last month at 13, so maybe he took a minor hit from that corruption probe.) No head-to-heads yet, unfortunately.

MI-Gov: Here’s another poll of a potentially exciting gubernatorial race, but primaries only. An Inside Michigan Politics finds a tight GOP primary, with AG Mike Cox in the lead at 27, followed by Rep. Pete Hoekstra at 23 and Oakland Co. Sheriff Mike Bouchard at 15 (with businessman Rick Snyder and state Sen. Tom George each at 2). Lt. Gov. John Cherry is at 40 in the Dem primary with only light opposition from state Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith (9) and former state Rep. John Freeman (8). A March poll from the same pollster had Cox at 17 and Hoekstra at 15 (but both losing to Oakland Co. Exec L. Brooks Patterson, who isn’t running).

NJ-Gov: Two very different pictures from partisan pollsters of the New Jersey governor’s race out there. First comes one from Democracy Corps, who have the race as close as anyone has had it since early spring: Chris Christie leads Jon Corzine and Chris Daggett 40-39-11, and Christie has net negative favorables for the first time, at 32/34. (Their poll two weeks ago had Christie up 41-38-10.) The other is Strategic Vision, who see Christie up 46-38-8. Still an improvement from their last poll in July: 53-38-5… like most pollsters, they see Corzine essentially unable to move up, but succeeding in dragging Christie’s numbers down. One more bucket of mud for Corzine to throw at Christie arrived yesterday: news that Christie owned stock in Cendant Corp. at the same time as he was investigating them through the US Attorney’s office.

NY-Gov, NY-Sen-B (pdf): Marist has a poll out that finds New Yorkers thinking that Barack Obama should butt out of New York governor’s race, by a 62-27 margin. Nevertheless, only 25% think David Paterson should run next year (63% say no); they just want him to arrive at that decision on his own. While the poll doesn’t contain gubernatorial matchups (not that we need any more of them), it does have some Senate numbers, confirming other local pollsters, finding the not-running Rudy Giuliani beating Kirsten Gillibrand 51-40 and the probably-not-running George Pataki beating Gillibrand 45-41.

Meanwhile, the NYT has a profile of a rather melancholy Paterson, saying “I didn’t sign up for this.” They also have a quote that could be seen as hopeful that he may still bail out on seeking another term: “if I got to a point where I thought that my candidacy was hurting my party, obviously it would be rather self-absorbed to go forward.” (Unless he’s made peace with just being self-absorbed.) If you’re wondering what’s taking him so long to make a decision, though, Josh Goodman has a nice pithy summary of the decisionmaking process, not just for Paterson, but all the race’s players:

Paterson thinks he can beat Lazio, but not Giuliani, so he doesn’t want to decide whether he’s running until Giuliani makes up his mind. Giuliani thinks he can beat Paterson, but not Cuomo, so he doesn’t want to decide whether he’s running until Cuomo makes up his mind. Cuomo thinks he can beat anyone, but doesn’t want the messiness of a primary battle, so he doesn’t want to decide whether he’s running until Paterson makes up his mind.

VA-Gov: It looked briefly like ex-Gov. Doug Wilder might endorse Creigh Deeds after all, but today he backed down and said he won’t endorse. Wilder also leveled some criticism at Deeds for proposing tax increases to fix northern Virginia’s increasingly dire transportation problems. It’s a wtf? moment from the mercurial Wilder, whose endorsement would do a lot to move African-American turnout for Deeds, where he hasn’t generated much excitement yet.

MO-04: No surprise here, but state Sen. Bill Stouffer made it official that he’ll be taking on 17-term Dem incumbent Ike Skelton in the dark-red 4th. Christian Right former state Rep. Vicky Hartzler is already in the race; Stouffer, however, seems to be working more of a fiscal discipline angle.

PA-07: While state Rep. Bryan Lentz seems to have the inside track on the Dem nomination (despite no formal announcement), another Democrat is getting in the race: Teresa Touey, a political consultant who has worked for Joe Sestak and Ted Kennedy. One problem for her, though: although she is a native of the 7th, she’s been living in Massachusetts since the early 1990s.

NYC-Mayor: Quinnipiac finds mayoral results in line with just about everybody else: incumbent Michael Bloomberg leads Dem comptroller William Thompson 52-36, with Conservative Party candidate Stephen Christopher pulling in 2.

Redistricting: Roll Call has a detailed piece on how the parties are ramping up financially for the post-2010 redistricting fights. A new 501(c)(4), euphemistically titled Making America’s Promise Secure, with Newt Gingrich and Trent Lott among its founders, will be coordinating the effort (since campaign reform passed since 2002 prevents the RNC from using soft money to spearhead the effort now). The DCCC’s counterpart is the National Democratic Redistricting Trust, although a 527, the equally euphemistic Foundation for the Future, looks like it’ll do the financial heavy lifting.

28 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 9/24”

  1. I’m not exactly sure what Michael Steele is thinking in regards to pulling back his support for Kirk and placing his car in neutral.  Kirk is the only Republican that, IMO, has a shot at this race.

    Michael Steele will be seen in the future as one of the worst RNC chairmen ever.  Ever since he backed down from Rush, he’s lost his integrity.  If you back someone, don’t take away their support to help with the right-wing nut base of your party.  

  2. I thought McCain would be pulling in less than 60% against high profile candidates. Too bad the ones included in this survey have not shown any interest in running against the Maverick.

    As for McCain’s numbers with either party, it’s not surprising since GOP Conservatives hate his guts and moderate Democrats still respect him enough.  

  3. The ad states that Christie was able to get out of traffic violations because “Christie threw his weight around as US Attorney and got off easy”.

    Throwing his weight around!  That was a riot.  At the end of the ad, it showed Christie getting out of a car.  Nothing like showing NJ that Christie is not only ethically challenged, but is rather huge. Great choice of words.

    Gotta love these commercials!

  4. Deeds Closes On McDonnell

    A new InsiderAdvantage/Majority Opinion poll in Virginia finds Creigh Deeds (D) has pulled to within four points of Bob McDonnell (R).

    McDonnell leads Deeds, 48% to 44%, with 7% having no opinion.

    Said pollster Matt Towery: “The race has definitely tightened. Virginia is still very much a state that is up for grabs.”

    “The poll showed stronger party support for Deeds than McDonnell. Eighty-nine percent of Democrats said they back Deeds, compared to 79 percent of Republicans who would vote for McDonnell. Among Independents, McDonnell leads by a significant margin, 55-33 perc

    It is of all registered voters

  5. …which is why Giuliani’s really in the shittiest position of all. It’s his call which will have the domino effect on the Paterson/Cuomo decisions, and since he’s said he’ll announce late this year, he seems to realize that (the sense seems to be Cuomo decides early-ish next year). So, really, Giuliani’s decision will have to be based upon whether or not he believes he can beat Cuomo.  

  6. and polled Glassman against McCain!  Pretty cool.

    I actually think those numbers for Glassman are pretty good.  Glassman wouldn’t be trying to win, just bloody McCain a little and raise his profile for a statewide race, something that’s always hard for Tucson-based candidates (even Giffords might have a problem).  These numbers indicate he could easily break 40% and might have a shot of even topping 45%.

  7. They polled the favor abilities of the likely candidates and found that no one is that popular.  Brown does the best with a 36%-30% favorably rating.  Campbell has 19%-16%, Whitman 20%-19%, Poizner 9%-18% (with most of that disapproval coming from Republicans), and Newsome at 17%-34%.  None of the candidates are seen as particularly qualified to be Governor either: oin a ten point scale with 1 being least qualified, Brown is the only one to break 5 (with a 5.6).  The others are trapped in the 4’s.  

    http://www.surveyusa.com/clien

  8. today and he is trying to prevent Deeds from becoming Governor this time around.  Mr. Wilder might just as well be Bob McDonnell’s campaign manager, because he is doing everything he can to further McDonnell’s career.

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