SSP Daily Digest: 10/27

• CA-Sen: Everyone has been treating Carly Fiorina as already running for Senate, but she’s never officially announced anything. It looks like Nov. 6 is her launch date, though; she has a “very important announcement” scheduled at a Pleasanton event.

• NV-Sen: With right-wing former Assemblywoman Sharron Angle’s entry into the GOP primary a few days ago, I hinted at the prospect of a bloody civil war erupting in Nevada — and here’s some more fuel for that fire. Movement conservatives in the Silver State are setting up a specifically anti-Sue Lowden PAC, dedicated to stopping the media-designated frontrunner. The Fair Nevada Elections PAC seems run by Paulists, who remain upset over Lowden’s actions in the 2008 caucus, when she was the state GOP party chair, which ended with voting being shut down when it looked like Ron Paul would wind up winning delegates. While there’s no explicit Paulist in the primary (unlike, say, Kentucky and Connecticut), Angle seems like the most kindred spirit for these types.

• CA-Gov: Meg Whitman’s sputtering campaign got a boost when she nailed down the endorsement of popular GOP moderate Richard Riordan, the former Los Angeles mayor — which might keep her from losing votes to ex-Rep. Tom Campbell on her left. Her other opponent, state Treasurer Steve Poizner, also announced his own endorsement, from American Conservative Union head David Keene. Not that any Californian would have any idea who Keene is, but this seems like a more fruitful endorsement vein to mine, as all three candidates are on the party’s moderate side — good for the general, but bad for making it out of the primary dominated by California’s rabid base.

• MA-Gov: There’s a new poll of the Massachusetts governor’s race showing embattled Dem incumbent Deval Patrick walloping his opponents — and it comes from Rasmussen, of all places. Despite only 36% of respondents thinking Patrick should run (49% say don’t run), Patrick leads GOPer Christy Mihos and independent Tim Cahill 34-23-23, and leads Charlie Baker and Cahill 34-24-23. This doesn’t jibe at all with their previous poll from August, which gave the GOP candidates leads over Patrick but didn’t account for Cahill’s presence, absorbing anti-Patrick votes — but it does pretty closely match Suffolk‘s September poll, so maybe Patrick is stabilizing a bit after some terrible numbers over the summer.

• NJ-Gov: After a week of unadulterated good news, the two most recent polls from New Jersey show Jon Corzine taking a slight turn for the worse. And the reason seems to be clear — Chris Daggett is starting to lose votes, perhaps as a share of soft Daggett voters who dislike Corzine more than they dislike Chris Christie are realizing that they’re contributing to a spoiler effect and shifting to Christie, helped along by RGA ads attacking Daggett. PPP (pdf) finds Christie leading Corzine and Daggett 42-38-13. Rasmussen gives toplines (based on their re-allocation of Daggett leaners) of 46-43-7 for Christie, while their “initial preference” this time, interestingly, gives an even better result for Christie, at 42-38-14. (Discussion underway in DCCylone and JFM110‘s diaries.

• OH-Gov (pdf): The Ohio Newspaper poll (conducted by University of Cincinnati) projects a close race in the Ohio gubernatorial race, as Democratic incumbent Ted Strickland leads GOP ex-Rep. John Kasich 49-46 among likely voters. Contrary to what one might expect, Kasich pulls closer among all registered voters, with a 48-47 Strickland lead.

• VA-Gov: Three different polls in Virginia, all of which showing Creigh Deeds trailing by double digits. (Ooops, almost typed “triple digits.”) The Washington Post is the most encouraging with a mere 55-44 lead for Bob McDonnell; Deeds has a 56-43 lead in northern Virginia, which may help retain some of the tight House of Delegates seat there. PPP (pdf) sees the race as 55-40 for McD (with similar-sized leads for the GOP’s LG and AG candidates); SurveyUSA has the widest spread, at 58-41 for McD. Deeds’ fundraising seems to be dying down, also, as the establishment realizes this one is over; McDonnell outraised Deeds $4 million to $3.1 million in the first 3 weeks of October (with most of Deeds’ money coming from the Tim Kaine-led DNC).

• FL-08: Alan Grayson saying something bombastic is getting to the point of not being newsworthy anymore (he called a Fed official a “K Street whore” on a radio show a month ago, although the pearls are just getting clutched today), but fellow camera-hogging Rep. Anthony Weiner gets some ups for saying what we’re all thinking: “Is this news to you that this guy’s one fry short of a Happy Meal?”

• IL-07: Rep. Danny Davis, after a drawn-out period of vacillation, finally got off the fence, and filed to run for President of the Cook County Board (although he plans to also file for his 7th District seat too; he has until Nov. 9 to withdraw one of his petitions). Assuming that he continues to follow through, this creates an open seat in the dark-blue, African-American-majority 7th and a hotly contested Dem primary.

• KY-St. Sen.: The special election is on, in Kentucky. GOP state Sen. Dan Kelly was appointed to a state circuit court judgeship yesterday, creating an open seat that Dems have a shot at picking up. The election is set for Dec. 8, the same day as a House special election to fill the seat of Dem Robin Webb (who was promoted to the state Senate in another recent special election).

• Mayors: The Charlotte mayoral race will go down to the wire; PPP finds that Anthony Foxx and John Lassiter each poll at 45. Foxx leads among African-Americans 80-9, while Lassiter leads among whites 63-29 (Charlotte is 33% black).

• Blue Dogs: Here’s an interesting fundraising tidbit: donations to the Blue Dog PAC fell to only $12,500 in September (from only three donations — from Ernst & Young, the Food Marketing Institute, and the NRA). They had averaged more than $176K per month in the first half of the year. Is this a blip, or a sign of things to come?

• FEC: If you can’t get enough about campaign finance disclosures and regulations, we’ve got the blog for you. The FEC has its own blog now… if you can consider something that has no bomb-throwing invective or pictures of hilarious cats to be a blog.