SSP Daily Digest: 7/27 (Afternoon Edition)

CO-Sen: Andrew Romanoff, who’s had seeming trouble articulating a motivation for his primary campaign against appointee Michael Bennet (other than “it was my turn”), still seems like he’s confident in his chances of winning the primary. He just doubled down by selling his house and lending the $325K proceeds to his campaign (or maybe he was just eager to sell the dump, anyway). Romanoff had $464K CoH on June 30, but most of that has been gobbled up by ad buys. Also on the ad front in Colorado, the shadowy, Ken Buck-backing 501(c)(4) Americans for Job Security is out with another anti-Jane Norton ad, attacking her over her support for anti-TABOR Proposition C.

DE-Sen: Christine O’Donnell, the forgotten right-winger in the Delaware GOP primary against Rep. Mike Castle, keeps hitting wingnut paydirt. Having already secured the Susan B. Anthony List endorsement, she’s now getting backing from two more of the engines pulling the crazy train: the Tea Party Express (the corporate astroturf umbrella org for the teabaggers), and Concerned Women for America (Phyllis Schlafly’s group). The Politico article includes a litany of O’Donnell’s baggage as rattled off by Delaware’s GOP state party chair, so it seems like the establishment is taking note and starting to push back.

FL-Sen: Well, that was fast; I guess when you have a few hundred million dollars at your disposal, you can whip up ads pretty quickly (or just have  a couple extra sitting in the can, ready to go). With Kendrick Meek having launched his first Dem primary ad yesterday, a negative ad against Jeff Greene, today Greene hit back with two different anti-Meek ads. One focuses on Meek’s family connections to a corrupt developer, and the other focuses on the cigar-maker carveout from SCHIP. As always, NWOTSOB.

KY-Sen: The Jack Conway camp has leaked Daily Kos an internal from Benenson giving them a 44-44 tie with Rand Paul, and a 48-46 lead over Paul with leaners pushed. The poll’s a little stale, having been taken June 26-29, but it’s good news; if nothing else, it’s confirmation for the most recent PPP poll, which also saw a tie. We have a copy of the full memo here. Another small reason for optimism in the Bluegrass State: there’s word of a new (and apparently nameless, for now) 527 headed by former progressive Democratic ’08 Senate candidate Andrew Horne, that will be playing in the Kentucky race. They have $2 million pledged by various business leaders to work with, and they’ve lined up Anzalone Liszt and Zata|3 to work for them.

CT-Gov: This is one of my favorite headlines since “Lamborn Primaried by Local Crank“: “Looney Backs Malloy in Governor’s Bid.” (Martin Looney is the state Senate majority leader.)

FL-Gov: Taking a page from Raul Labrador, Bill McCollum’s out with an internal. His own poll from McLaughlin & Associates finds him trailing Rick Scott 37-31. (The polling memo actually has the audacity to ask, “Why hasn’t Rick Scott done better?”)

MD-Gov: Local pollster Gonzales Research is out with their second look at the Maryland gubernatorial race; they find a 45-42 lead for Martin O’Malley over Robert Ehrlich, which very closely echoes the PPP poll from a few weeks ago. Their trendlines go back to January, when a Ehrlich re-run was only vaguely being discussed; then, O’Malley had a 9-point lead.

MN-Gov: Fundraising reports in Minnesota were due yesterday. GOPer Tom Emmer might well need to use that giant jar of pennies he had dumped on his table in order to buy some ad time, as he’s lagging on the financial front. Emmer has less than $300K CoH and raised under $800K in the first six months of the year, while DFL endorsee Margaret Anderson Kelliher has $385K CoH and raised about $1 million. Kelliher, however, still might not get out of her primary against two rich guys: Matt Entenza raised $360K during that period but also loaned himself $3.5 million (and spent $3.9 million, mostly on TV ads). Mark Dayton hasn’t filed yet.

OR-Gov: Republican Chris Dudley is padding his financial advantage over John Kitzhaber in Oregon’s gubernatorial race: he’s raised $850K since the May 18 primary, compared with $269K for Kitzhaber. Dudley has raised $2.6 million all cycle long, compared with Kitz’s $1.7 million. (One historical note, though: Ted Kulongoski was easily re-elected in 2006 despite being outspent by opponent Ron Saxton and his $7 million.) Much of Dudley’s money seems to be coming in from out-of-state, as the former NBA player and current financial advisor is getting a lot of Wall Street and sports industry money. Interestingly, the timber industry, usually a Republican force in the state, is staying largely on the sidelines this election, as they’re fairly friendly with Kitzhaber.

TN-Gov: Having nowhere to go in the GOP primary polls but up, Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey is going the out-and-proud Islamophobe route. Spurred on by the ongoing controversy over the construction of a mosque in Murfreesboro, Ramsey, in response to a question at an appearance, said, “You could even argue whether being a Muslim is actually a religion or is it a nationality, way of life or cult, whatever you want to call it.”

ID-01: Raul Labrador, a conspicuous absence from the NRCC’s anyone-with-a-pulse Young Guns program, says that he “opted out” of the Young Guns. (Yeah… just like I “opted out” of junior prom.) He didn’t give a specific reason why, although tensions between him and the NRCC have been high.

MN-03: I’m not exactly sure why Jim Meffert thought it was a good idea to release this internal, but I guess he needed to let people know that he’s actually contesting this thing. His poll (no mention of the pollster in the article) finds him trailing freshman GOP Rep. Erik Paulsen 44-27, with 7% for an IP candidate. The number he’d probably like us to focus on is that Paulsen has only a 33% re-elect (although only 12% say they’re a definite “no”).

MN-06: Seems like Johnny Law doesn’t like Michele Bachmann’s particularly freaky brand of law and order: the state’s police union, the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, just gave its endorsement to Dem Tarryl Clark in the 6th.

RI-01: The American Federation of Teachers, having just endorsed indie Lincoln Chafee instead of Dem Frank Caprio, also went for unconventional with their 1st District endorsement. They went for young up-and-comer state Rep. David Segal, who’s tried to stake out the most progressive turf in the Dem primary, instead of Providence mayor and presumed frontrunner David Cicilline.

TN-09: On top of having gotten SSP’s annual John Hostettler Award for outstanding performance at filing quarterly reports (for failing to electronically file his FEC report on time, despite having only $19K CoH), Willie Herenton got a much worse piece of news: the Congressional Black Caucus either doesn’t think much of his chances, or think much of him. Although they wouldn’t let Steve Cohen join their club in 2007, they did just endorse him, and sent $5,000 his way.

Rasmussen:

AL-Sen: William Barnes (D) 29%, Richard Shelby (R-inc) 59%

AZ-Sen (D): Rodney Glassman (D) 15%, Cathy Eden (D) 11%, Randy Parraz (D) 10%, John Dougherty (D) 7%

CO-Sen: Andrew Romanoff (D) 40%, Jane Norton (R) 44%

CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 39%, Jane Norton (R) 48%

CO-Sen: Andrew Romanoff (D) 42%, Ken Buck (R) 48%

CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 42%, Ken Buck (R) 48%

MA-Gov: Deval Patrick (D-inc) 38%, Charlie Baker (R) 32%, Tim Cahill (I) 17%

56 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 7/27 (Afternoon Edition)”

  1. The Democratic primary is really getting nasty, which means that there’s a good chance of Meek supporters going to Crist rather than Greene (or vice versa.) He’s looking more and more like the favorite down there.

    The question is, does the Democratic dysfunction on the Senate line (Meek/Greene) hurt Alex Sink at all by sending some liberal Crist voters to fellow Indie Bud Chiles? Or can Sink stay above the partisan fray?

  2. Shttp://www.kob.com/article/stories/S1669545.shtml?cat=504

    SurveyUSA did a poll on New Mexico’s First Congressional district and surprisingly it shows Republican Jon Barela ahead of Democratic incumbent Martin Heinrich 51%-46%.  This district favored Obama by a wide margin in ’08 and had elected Republican Heather Wilson to the seat for multiple terms.  If Barela is leading by a small margin, Republican Steve Pearce is probably leading Democratic incumbent Harry Teague by double digits in New Mexico’s Second Congressional district.

  3. Nobody should be surprised to see David Segal winning the endorsements of movement organizations (as opposed to party machine orgs) in his campaign for Congress.  There is no other congressional challenger in the US right now with his amazing track record of delivering progressive victories, and the folks he’s done all that with are going to get his back, even if Cicilline is the perceived front-runner.  

    In a low-turnout primary, these labor boots on the ground are going to matter more than another hundred grand in tv ads.  In addition to the PCCC and Congressional Progressive Caucus, these endorsements really give Segal some momentum with about six weeks left in the race.

  4. anyone know if there is a Mason Dixon poll showing Hal Rogers leading his very liberal opponent just 52-45? It is on his wikipedia page and I have read several blogs saying such a poll exists. He was re-elected with 84% in 2008 so I have trouble believing it. Can anyone confirm or deny it?

  5. This is probably hard to compare to other cases due to Hillary being his wife and all, but has there have been an instance of this kind of payback to endorsers?  All I can think of is people who are clearly going to run for President, and Hillary is in the State Dept. and can’t do any campaigning.

    I wonder because maybe Bill is keeping all of these people happy and buttered up so that they can endorse Hillary again in 2016.

  6. Best Buy is now supporting Emmer as well, to the tune of 100k to a 527 group that be the corporate wing of money for ads on the Emmer side.  Fuck them and Target.  

    These are both local companies and Target pretty much runs downtown with their headquarters, a two-story Target store, Target Center, Target Field and I wouldnt be surprised to see Target Stadium for the Vikings in a few years.  They own downtown Minneapolis.  Target is getting some pretty negative press for this, so at least I am getting to see first-hand the push and pull of the SCOTUS ruling.

  7. reserves ad time for Kratovil, Shea-Porter, and Kurt Schrader. Their also reserving ad time to protecting open seats AR-1, AR-2, MI-1, NH-2, WA-3, TN-8, MA-10, PA-7, WI-7, IN-8 & WV-1. Their also reserving ad time in Djou, Dent, Cao’s districts, open seats at DE-AL, FL-25, and IL-10.

    Thank god the DCCC’s fundraising didn’t sputter out this cycle like the DSCC’s.

    http://www.politico.com/news/s

  8. I’m actually very close to getting it. Its not pretty. I have 2 completely finished districts, one which will not be touched because I’m only off by 1 person, and another which will probably have to have some black precincts taken away to help another district, but I’m only off 24 on that one. This is gonna be one ugly map. I hope to have it finished in a few weeks.  

  9. may well have endorsed Christine O’Donnell in the Delaware GOP Senate primary, but it is definitely not “Phyllis Schlafly’s group”, which is Eagle Forum.

    Phyllis Schlafly is a Harvard-educated attorney and author whose leadership in Republican politics dates back to the first of her three races for Congress in 1952. Concerned Women for America was founded in 1979 by religious fundamentalist Beverly LaHaye as an alternative to Eagle Forum, at least in part due to opposition to the leadership of Phyllis Schlafly, a Roman Catholic.

    The anti-Catholicism seems to have subsided somewhat, but there is still a clear difference between the two groups, the more politically-oriented Eagle Forum and the more religious-right Concerned Women for America.

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