SSP Daily Digest: 7/13 (Afternoon Edition)

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway is pulling in some big fundraising numbers now that Dems are seeing an opening here. He raised $1.4 million last quarter (although $400K of that was a loan from himself). That tops Rand Paul’s $1.1 million raised, although Paul will point out that all of his haul came from donors. No word on either side’s CoH.

• LA-Sen: It seems like the scandal that’s emerged surrounding David Vitter’s employment of violent aide Brent Furer was what pulled ex-state supreme court justice Chet Traylor into a last-minute credible challenge to Vitter in the GOP primary. Traylor says “if Vitter was in good shape, I wouldn’t be running,” and his camp says they’ll be focusing on Vitter’s “personal foibles” rather than ideological differences. In fact, Traylor’s campaign manager (whom the Monroe local newspaper identifies as “sweet potato kingpin” Lev Dawson) says “I don’t think there’s a difference politically.” Traylor also tells ABC News that many local GOP establishment figures urged his last-minute entry out of fears that Vitter may be too badly damaged politically to survive the general against Charlie Melancon. Meanwhile, we’ve all known that Vitter is quite willing to experiment with interesting new, um, practices, but as he seeks to move even further right in view of Traylor’s challenge, he’s now going birther-curious.

• NC-Sen: If there’s a reason Richard Burr is able to hold on to the “cursed” seat this year, it’s going to be his bank account. The GOP freshman Senator raised $1.9 million last quarter, and is sitting on $6.3 million CoH. While Elaine Marshall seems to have gotten a good fundraising boost after the Democratic runoff, she’s likely to have only a fraction of that.

• SC-Sen: Be afraid. Be verrrrrrrrry afraid. (Alvin Greene is about to give his first formal speech as candidate, addressing a local NAACP chapter on Saturday.)

• WA-Sen: Here’s the good news for Patty Murray: she had a $1.6 million quarter, which is a lot of money in the “other” Washington. She’s sitting on $6.8 million CoH. The bad news is that conservative group American Action Network is spending $750K on a statewide buy for TV ads attacking Murray. The ad, continuing in Demon Sheep/Boxer Blimp impresario Fred Davis’s avant-garde performance-art tradition, features various Joe and Jane Sixpacks lying in the dirt getting walked all over by an unseen figure in white tennis shoes.

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin’s giving a little more clarity to his timeline in West Virginia. He says he expects to fill Robert Byrd’s seat with a temporary appointment by “this Sunday,” possibly as early as Friday if the special legislative session about the special election is done by then. He’ll announce after that (probably by Monday) whether he intends to run in the special.

• CO-Gov: This is a surprisingly amateurish thing to get taken down over: the Denver Post has observed that a series of articles on water rights “written” by Republican ex-Rep. Scott McInnis as part of a 2005-06 fellowship were simply plagiarized from articles written twenty years earlier by Gregory Hobbs, who’s now a Colorado Supreme Court justice. The foundation McInnis was working for would like the salary returned to them that they paid him. It’s unclear how much damage this will do to McInnis, or how this stacks up compared with allegations of dishonesty leveled at Mark Kirk and Richard Blumenthal… but locked in a dead heat with John Hickenlooper, McInnis doesn’t have any margin of error to shed a few points over character issues. (For what it’s worth, RCP seems to think he’s finished. Too bad the only GOP alternative, Dan Maes, is completely broke and in campaign-finance hot water.)

• IL-Gov: The DGA is out with a new ad running on Chicago area TV stations, trying to introduce the area’s many residents to downstate state Sen. Bill Brady and disabuse them of any notion that he’s the sort of GOP moderate that’s typically occupied the state house over the last few decades. The ad points out his extreme positions on reproductive health and minimum wage.

• TN-Gov: Republican Knoxville mayor Bill Haslam is still the man with the money, although everybody’s moved into the seven digits. Haslam has $2 million CoH, compared with Ron Ramsey’s $1.35 million and Zach Wamp’s $1.29 million. On the Dem side, Mike McWherter has $1.5 million CoH, having raised $315K last quarter.

• AR-01: Radio broadcaster Rick Crawford, the GOP nominee, has a small cash edge in the 1st, as Democrat Chad Causey’s pretty depleted after having to go through a runoff. Crawford raised $131K post-primary and has $221K CoH. Causey raised $416K over the quarter, but spent $420K on the primary. No word on Causey’s CoH (although I assume it’s something higher than -$4K).

• CO-04: With Corey Gardner having released his financial numbers, it’s clear Betsy Markey has the money edge for now. His $377K raised last quarter is still pretty impressive, but it’s less than Markey raised, and Gardner’s $763K CoH is about half of Markey’s $1.5 million.

• FL-25: Joe Garcia reports raising $700K last quarter, including $230K in online contributions (thanks, netroots!). He still lags behind likely GOP nominee David Rivera, though.

• NH-02: Of the candidates in the 2nd, Ann McLane Kuster (another netroots project) was the big raiser. She pulled in $316K, for $745K CoH. Fellow Dem Katrina Swett raised $188K, but has more CoH at $1.15 million. GOPer Charlie Bass leads in the polls but not at the bank: he raised $170K, for $360K CoH.

• NJ-03: Freshman Democratic Rep. John Adler is out with an internal poll that has him sprinting for the end zone while Jon Runyan limps along behind: the Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll gives Adler a 51-34 lead over Runyan, with 12 to independent teabagger Peter DeStefano (I’d imagine that lead would tighten as the DeStefano share shrinks). Runyan raised $501K last quarter (a bit more than Adler’s $415K), but $301K was from donors and the other $200K was from himself. Runyan seemed to burn a lot on his surviving his primary, though; he’s sitting on $472K CoH compared with Adler’s more than $2 million.

• NV-03: Rep. Dina Titus is in good shape financially (less so, poll-wise). The freshman Dem raised $426K and has $1.2 million CoH.

• PA-04, PA-17: Keystone State Blue Dogs Jason Altmire and Tim Holden posted good numbers. Altmire raised more than $300K in May and June and is sitting on $1.4 million CoH. Holden raised $213K in that period and is sitting on $885K CoH, which isn’t huge but far more than David Argall (who had $70K before the primary he barely survived) is likely to have.

• TN-09: Here’s a big score for Steve Cohen, facing a primary from former Memphis mayor Willie Herenton that’s, as is usually the case in the 9th, all about the race card. Cohen just got an endorsement from prominent African-American politician Barack Obama, as well as financial backing from several key House CBC members (John Lewis, Alcee Hastings, William Clay) apparently unenthused with the specter of the potentially-embarrassing Herenton joining their ranks.

• Rasmussen:

• CO-Sen: Andrew Romanoff (D) 42%, Jane Norton (R) 44%

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 40%, Jane Norton (R) 47%

• CO-Sen: Andrew Romanoff (D) 42%, Ken Buck (R) 47%

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 39%, Ken Buck (R) 48%

• MD-Sen: Barbara Mikulski (D-inc) 58%, Eric Wargotz (R) 33%

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 43%, Sharron Angle (R) 46%

If you’re Scott Rasmussen, what do you like to do on your day off? Well, you might like to go on a cruise. A cruise for fans of conservative magazine National Review, as their all-expenses-paid guest.

90 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 7/13 (Afternoon Edition)”

  2. In my neck of the woods, Pat Meehan raised over $500k this quarter and has over a $1 million COH.  No numbers for Lentz yet.  

    I wonder at what point the DCCC cuts their losses in PA-7.  I suspect if the COH advantage goes 2 to 1 for Meehan, the DCCC might cut their losses especially if Fitpatrick and Barletta post good numbers compared to Murphy and Kanjorski this quarter.

  3. I get that this is a scandal, but it doesn’t seem that damaging, certainly not somehting that would cause McInnis to lose such a big lead in the primary. Am I missing something?  

  5. In the gubernatorial race Bill Haslam is a steamrolling TN-RINO. He outperformed his two Republican opponents and Democrat Mike McWherter last night by a country-mile in a statewide televised debate carried on the NBC affiliates. I’d speculate that a lot of Democrats will support Haslam by November; as McWherter is lackluster candidate with no charisma or articulation on a good night. He didn’t help himself by trying to go to the right of the centrist Haslam on social issues during the debate either. In fact, if one wasn’t told, you’d be convinced Haslam was the Democrat and McWherter was the Republican. Unless Haslam somehow flukes out of the primary, he is going to be elected Governor by a big margin.

    In TN-9 the support of President Obama will hopefully help shut the door on the political career of Willie Herenton, who tarnished his tenure as Mayor of Memphis by staying on to long, and by now bringing race EVEN further to the front of the congressional race. Issues, Herenton has articulated virtually none. God help Memphis and West Tennessee if he were to get elected.

  6. The American Action Network ad is embarrassingly bad. I saw it for the first time today on KING 5 during the Noon news. I can’t imagine why they think that ad would be effective in Washington state.

  8. while I obviously would like to see Senator Melancon, I would be happy with Vitter being tossed out in the primary or having the conservative third party candidate winning a three way race.

  9. poll down in Florida shows Crist in the lead with 34%, Rubio a close second with 29%, and Meek a distant third with 17%. Someone fly Bill Clinton down to Florida to convince Meek to drop out because a Senator Crist is more attractive than a Senator Rubio at this point.

    Scott leads sink 34 to 31% in the governor’s race while Sink leads McCollum 31 to 30%

    http://www.reuters.com/article…

  10. But anyone of where I can find the Congressional election results for every state both House and Senate archived in one place dating back to the 1920’s?  (Or I spose later wouldnt hurt either because I gotta start somewhere with this project.)

  11. A $400k personal loan? Uh….is Jack Conway also rich?  ….because that would be helpful….  Or is he just kinda-rich, enough to give himself a loan? Anyone know?

  14. It’s as if the reporters at Politico just make shit up in their analysis of politics.  They make up foolish stories entirely at times, and other times foolish analyses in what could be good stories.

    So now they’ve got what on the surface looks like a good piece, by Manu Raju, on Harry Reid’s campaign strategy of being personally quiet about Angle while surrogates do the attacking.  She even points out that one day after refusing to take the bait from a reporter’s question on Angle, Reid’s campaign launched an attack ad.

    And then I scream when Raju writes, “Yet Reid’s strategy of staying quiet while others doing the attacking is a risky one.”

    Sigh!

    Letting surrogates attack your opponent and playing nice yourself is CAMPAIGNING 101.  Do these dimwits at Politico not get that?  They’re supposed to be political reporters, shouldn’t they understand garden variety strategy that every good campaign follows?

    That’s Reid’s silence is conspicuously noticed in reality makes me that much happier than he’ll pull this out.  He does, indeed, have a penchant for flying off the handle, and he’s demonstrated textbook discipline after Angle won the primary.

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