SSP Daily Digest: 7/20 (Afternoon Edition)

• AR-Sen (pdf): One more poll added to Blanche Lincoln’s woes today. It’s from Republican pollster Magellan, and unlike a number of their polls lately that have been sua sponte, this one is on behalf of the conservative Judicial Crisis Network. It gives John Boozman a 60-29 lead over Lincoln. Lincoln decided to put a stop to the string of polls showing her DOA, by (taking a page from Raul Labrador here) releasing her own internal from Benenson showing her, well, only a little bit dead. It has her trailing Boozman “only” 45-36, with 6 going to indie Trevor Drown.

• KS-Sen, KS-Gov: SurveyUSA looks at the statewide primaries in Kansas yet again, and, as usual, finds Rep. Jerry Moran with a big lead over fellow Rep. Todd Tiahrt in the GOP Senate primary, 50-36 (which is actually an improvement for Tiahrt; the last SUSA poll was 53-33). College professor Lisa Johnston continues to lead the Dem Senate primary at 23, with 14 for Charles Schollenberger and 12 for state Sen. David Haley. The GOP gubernatorial primary continues to be a non-event, with Sam Brownback leading Joan Heffington 73-19.

• NE-Sen (pdf): Magellan, on behalf of JCN, is also out with a poll of the 2012 Senate race, presumably intended to scare Ben Nelson into voting against Elena Kagan. At this rate, it may not matter how he votes on Kagan or anything else: if he runs again, Nelson is losing to GOP Gov. Dave Heineman 58-28.

• NH-Sen: The Paul Hodes campaign continues to hit Kelly Ayotte over her being asleep at the switch on mortgage fraud with another ad on the topic. It’s a $100K ad buy, and it’s going up in Boston, meaning that it’ll hit a lot of eyeballs (but also that that $100K gets burned through pretty quickly).

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak has been fighting with local TV stations over them airing an ad from a conservative group attacking him on Israel policy. Now he’s getting some backing from liberal Israel policy group J Street, who are running a new TV spot saying he “consistently votes for aid to Israel.” NWOTSOTB, but it is running “in major media markets.”

• SC-Sen: Green, not Greene? The Columbia area AFL-CIO must not have been impressed with Alvin Greene’s first major policy speech last weekend, because now they’ve rolled out their endorsement of Green Party candidate Tom Clements instead.

• WI-Sen (pdf): But wait, there’s more! With your purchase of these fine AR-Sen and NE-Sen polls, you also get a bonus WI-Sen poll, perfect for triggering one of Russ Feingold’s patented flashes of maverickiness. Magellan, on behalf, of JCN, also finds Feingold leading Ron Johnson 45-43.

• CT-Gov: Dan Malloy got the endorsement of the six state affiliates of the SEIU in Connecticut, a key union endorsement. Ned Lamont isn’t hurting for union backing, though; he has the support of the Connecticut Education Association, the UAW, and the UFCW.

• MI-Gov: The Detroit News poll from yesterday also had a Democratic primary component to it. They find, with only weeks to go, Undecided still in the lead at 40. Andy Dillon leads Virg Bernero 34-25. 44% of respondents haven’t heard of Bernero, while 26% don’t know Dillon. On the GOP side, this may give some more moderate cred to Rick Snyder: he got the endorsement of ex-Rep. Joe Schwarz, who had briefly considered an independent run for Governor himself.

• MT-Gov: GOPers already have a candidate for Governor in 2012 in Montana, where Brian Schweitzer is termed out. Republican former state Senate minority leader Corey Stapleton just announced his bid. The article mentions some other possibilities too, including long-ago ex-Rep. Rick Hill on the GOP side. AG Steve Bullock may be the Dems’ best bet.

• FL-02: Politico has a profile of Rep. Allen Boyd, who’s getting squeezed both left and right as he first faces state Sen. Al Lawson in the Dem primary and then faces funeral home owner Steve Southerland. Boyd’s response? To play “offense,” including going negative in TV ads against Lawson. Boyd’s already spent $1.9 million this cycle, and still has many times more CoH than his two opponents together.

• NY-15: Buried deep in a Hill article about how Chuck Schumer is still standing up for Charles Rangel when no one else will, kicking him a $10K check for his re-election, is a noteworthy poll of the Dem primary. The poll was conducted by PPP, and was paid for by Democrats.com; it finds Rangel with a not-very-imposing lead of 39-21 over Adam Clayton Powell IV in the primary.

• NY-23: After being the flavor of the month for, well, a month or so prior to last fall’s NY-23 special election, Doug Hoffman seems to have fallen off most people’s radars. He wants you to know he’s still around, though, and just released an internal poll from McLaughlin & Associates that gives him a sizable lead over Matt Doheny (who has most of the local GOP establishment backing) in the GOP primary. He leads Doheny 52-20. Bear in mind, of course, that Hoffman already has the Conservative line and Doheny has the IP line, meaning they’re going to meet in the general election (and spoil each other’s days) either way.

• TN-09: Finally, here’s a poll of the Dem primary in the 9th. It looks like former Memphis mayor Willie Herenton is having the same trouble playing the race card that Nikki Tinker did in 2008; he’s trailing Steve Cohen by a 65-15 margin. The poll’s not an internal, taken by Yacoubian Research for WMC-TV, but there’s one reason to raise an eyebrow at it: it screens voters by asking them if they’re in the 9th District (and how many people in the real world know the number of their congressional district?).

• Rasmussen:

• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal (D) 53%, Linda McMahon (R) 40%

• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal (D) 52%, Peter Schiff (R) 34%

• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal (D) 52%, Rob Simmons (R) 38%

• ID-Sen: Tom Sullivan (D) 27%, Mike Crapo (R-inc) 64%

• ME-Gov: Libby Mitchell (D) 31%, Paul LePage (R) 39%, Eliot Cutler (I) 15%

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 39%, Rob Portman (R) 45%

69 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 7/20 (Afternoon Edition)”

  2. What the heck. Do you live in the 9th? Shouldn’t a pollster do the most basic of work to avoid this type of question screening? If a polling firm is conducting a poll, shouldn’t it insure the sample is, you know, representative by calling households/voters confirmed as being in the district?

    At the end of the day though, Cohen is going to win. The real race in Memphis to watch is the Shelby County Mayor’s race, where interim County Mayor Joe Ford (uncle of Harold Jr) is in a tough race against Shelby County Sheriff Mark Luttrell.  

  4. anyone catch this from politicalwire?

    http://politicalwire.com/archi…

    Greene’s last point of his speech sounds like standard teabagging talking points.  “reclaim ourcountry from the terrorists and communists”?  one, what is this, 1985?  Two, your party is in control of everything except for the supreme court and other parts of the judiciary, did he really call his own party commies?  

  6. Personally, I think it’s the kicky glasses and the propensity for sharp, patterned tops. For me, it was when she had Sean Tevis introduce her to kick off her campaign. Objectively, she probably does have the best website of the bunch, though Schollenberger’s isn’t bad (except that the red makes him look like a Republican). Haley’s, frankly, sucks.

    However, I’d bet Johnston wins the primary because she’s got something no other Democratic Senate candidate in Kansas has: lady parts. With low-info voters (and there hasn’t been a whole lot of info about the Dem primary), of whom a solid majority in the Democratic primary will be women, they’ll probably opt for the only lady, because hey, why not?

    Interestingly, the numbers also confirm that the three main candidates–Haley, Johnston & Schollenberger–basically represent the three parts of the KS Dem coalition. Haley, the “urban” rep, has his best showing among black voters and liberals and worst among conservatives and folks in the rural west. Though he lives in the suburbs, Schollenberger, a former farm reporter, is of the fading rural branch, with his best results among men, conservatives, gun owners and the rural west. Johnston, meanwhile, is the surburban option–running strong with women, the well-educated, and young people.

    One correction: Lisa Johnston is an Assistant Dean, not a professor. (I realize SurveyUSA did it first)

  7. to PPP the primary between Rick Scott and Bill McCollum has left a lot of bruised feelings on both sides.

    Just how divisive has this Republican primary gotten? Among people planning to vote for Bill McCollum, Scott’s favorability is 4% with 62% viewing him unfavorably. Among people planning to vote for Scott, McCollum’s favorability is just 7% with 65% viewing him unfavorably. You can imagine what that level of dissension within the GOP base is having on the party’s chances of winning the seat this fall.

    I think it would be fair to say the RPOF shouldn’t even try to host a unity rally for these two…

  8. This is ugly, they’ve got Robert Hurt crushing Perriello 58-35.

    http://www.surveyusa.com/clien…

    PPP had it a one-point race, both in the low 40s, a few months ago, pre-primary.

    This is one that makes me sad.  Perriello is a very courageous Congressman to be voting and otherwise conducting himself as he has in a very difficult district.

    But I never would have guessed an independent poll would have him down this big.  Even if it’s off and Hurt’s margin is inflated, at best for Perriello Hurt must be up double-digits.

  9. Sestak made the right move by getting another Jewish group to come to his aid.  Getting the Jewish vote to turn out heavily in his favor is key to him winning.  He does not need to go down in flames like the last two opponents of Gerlach in PA-6 who let Gerlach take a good chunk of the Jewish vote and secure wins when everyone wrote him off.

  14. http://www.myfoxtwincities.com…

    For KMSP TV

    Mark Dayton would beat Republican Tom Emmer 40 to 36 percent, with the Independence Party candidate Tom Horner netting 10 percent.

    Margaret Anderson-Kelliher scored 40 percent to Emmer’s 35, with Horner at 11 percent and Matt Entenza leads Emmer 37 to 36 percent, with Horner at 12 percent.

  15. finally got off his ass. he must have been tired of people incessantly pointing out how he never actually polled primaries right before they happened, which would actually hold his feet to the fire and determine how accurate his polls really are.

    Well, he polled GA-Gov (R), and here’s what he had, with actual results in parentheses. (Note that this poll was taken after Gingrich and Palin endorsed Deal and Handel, respectively.)

    Deal: 25 (34)

    Handel: 25 (23)

    Oxendine: 20 (17)

    Johnson: 13 (20)

    So he actually didn’t do that well. but I’m sure he’ll just say that the race completely changed in the week between his poll and the election.

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