The Swing State Project Is Now Daily Kos Elections

The Swing State Project is now Daily Kos Elections. Please update your bookmarks to this link:

http://elections.dailykos.com/

Going forward, you’ll find all of SSP’s great content at DKE. Archives will remain available here at SSP, but comments, diaries, and new account creation have been disabled.  For more information on this transition, please check out this diary.

We look forward to seeing you at Daily Kos Elections!

SSP to Daily Kos FAQ

As you know, the Swing State Project is becoming a part of Daily Kos and will become “Daily Kos Elections.” This move will happen on Tuesday, May 3. I wanted to fully detail the transition in one place, to help folks understand what’s happening and to ease the process. (I previously explained the move in this post and also responded to many comments.) I also want to offer everyone another chance to ask any questions. This is a long post, but I’d encourage you to read the entire thing before hitting the comment boards. Alright – let’s start!

1) SSP is becoming part of Daily Kos? What does that mean?

In the simplest terms, all you have to do is bookmark this link:

http://elections.dailykos.com/

All the content you are accustomed to seeing here at SSP will now appear on its own sub-site at Daily Kos, called “Daily Kos Elections,” or “DKE” for short, starting May 3. So just visit DKE and you’ll be able to read the same great stuff you’ve always read at SSP, each and every day.

If you follow us on Twitter or Facebook, you don’t need to change a thing (though our account names will change, but that should be seamless for you). If you follow us via RSS, you’ll use this new link:

http://www.dailykos.com/user/Elections/rss/index.xml

If you’ve signed up for our daily email summary, there may be a short interruption as we migrate to the DK system, but I expect any disruption will be minimal.

2) What’s going to happen to swingstateproject.com?

The archives at swingstateproject.com will remain available. New user sign-ups, comment posting, and diary posting will be disabled. However, you’ll still be able to log in to your old account to find your old comments and diaries more easily. At some point, we’re likely to port our archives over to Daily Kos as well, but that’s something for further down the line.

3) Alright, you told me how I can read your stuff at DKE. But how can I comment? Will my SSP account still work?

Your SSP account will not work over at DKE. You’ll need to create a new account. I strongly urge you to do this right away if you haven’t yet already because there’s a one-day waiting period for new accounts at Daily Kos to post comments, and a one-week waiting period to post diaries. You can sign up for a new account by going here:

http://www.dailykos.com/newuser

One suggestion I’ve seen in comments that I like: If you choose to use a different username at DKE (or your SSP name is taken by someone else and you need to pick something different), you can edit your sig line to tell people what your new name is. (Or, on DKE, what your old name was.) To do this on SSP, click on your username anywhere you see it (or on “[Username]’s Page” in the right-hand sidebar), then click on the “Profile” tab. You can then edit your Account Info page as you see fit.

On Daily Kos, log in, then click the prominent “My Page” link that’s just below the site’s logo in the top-left area of the screen, then click on “Edit Profile” in the “Welcome Back” box in the top-right corner. Scroll down to the middle of the page until you reach the “Comment Preferences” section. There you’ll see a box for your signature line. After you’re done, just make sure to scroll all the way to the bottom and hit the orange “Save” button.

4) Yipes! I was once banned at Daily Kos. What do I do?

Send me an email: davidnyc [at] dailykos [dot] com. It’s easiest if we work things out privately, on an individual basis.

5) Okay, how about diaries? How do I post those?

Alright, this part is important. The site software works somewhat differently at Daily Kos, and there’s also one big huge thing you have to remember if you want your diaries to appear at DKE. So here goes:

In the “Welcome Back” box (which I mentioned above in #3), click on the word “New” next to where you see “Diaries.” You’ll be brought to a page which is very similar to the new diary entry form at SSP. You’ve got your title, of course, and then your “Intro” box, which is where the main text of your diary goes. If you’re writing something particularly long and want to put part of it below the fold, that goes in the box labeled “Extended.”

Then scroll down past the Extended box. You’ll see an area called “Tags.” You have to enter at least one tag. This is different from SSP, which lets you post diaries without any tags.

Now here’s the really important part: If you want your diary to appear on the right-hand sidebar of DKE, YOU MUST INCLUDE THE TAG “DK Elections” IN YOUR POST. If you include this tag, that tells the system to post it in the “Related Diaries” box in the right-hand sidebar on DKE. Here’s a screenshot to show you exactly where it will appear:

As you can see, I posted a test diary (since deleted) titled “This is a test” in that box. (Can you hear me in the back?) That’s where your diaries will appear, very similar to how they appear on SSP.

But again, how they get there is different. The “DK Elections” tag is crucial. If you include it, your diary will appear in the right place. If you don’t, it will not appear there.

When you are ready to post your diary, click on the “Save & Preview” button. If you are content, then click the “Publication Manager” button. Here’s where things are a little different. You will see either two or three options pop up. The first is “Publish Now.” That’s equivalent to hitting “Save” on an SSP diary – it’ll go live right away. In addition to appearing in the DKE sidebar if you remember to use the right tag, it will also appear on your personal blog by clicking the “Diaries” link in the “Welcome Back” box. (You have your own personal Daily Kos blog now!) If you hit “Publish Later,” you can set your diary to appear at a particular time and day of your choosing. (If you see a third option, “Queue to a Group Blog,” that means you’re probably already a DK power-user, so I don’t think I need to explain that feature.)

So once more, just remember: Include the “DK Elections” tag in all your election-related diaries!

(One side-note: If you include the “DK Elections” tag at the time you first publish your diary, it should appear in the “Related Diaries” sidebar at DKE right away. If you forget the tag but go back and add it later, that will work, too – but be aware that there will be a delay in your diary appearing in the “Related Diaries” box.)

6) Let’s go back to comments for a minute. What’s the deal with these “Recommend” and “Hide” buttons?

“Recommend” means you like a comment and want to give it an attaboy. It’s a nice way of showing that you think a comment is particularly smart, useful, funny, etc. I sometimes like to give recommends even to comments I disagree with, if I think the person has made a thoughtful point (even if I don’t share their views). I also think they can be helpful defusers – if a discussion gets a little more heated than I’d like, I might give someone a recommend just to show, “Hey, we’re cool.” It’s sort of a technological way of indicating that we can all “leave it on the court” (as they say in the NBA).

“Hide” means you think a comment is so offensive that it should literally be hidden from view. It’s not to be used for mere disagreement, or even sharp displeasure – a “hide” rating is a very serious sanction, and if a comment gets enough of them, it will in fact disappear from view (though it won’t be deleted). Use these sparingly, only for spammers, true trolls, or genuinely offensive rhetoric.

(Note that you may not see the “hide” rating button if you have a very new account. Only “Trusted Users” have access to “hide” ratings, and you need to build up what the site calls “mojo” in order to become a TU. Don’t worry – you can and likely will become a TU before long, if you aren’t already. The traditional way to gain mojo is by having your comments get recommended, but there are many others. If you’re interested in learning more about how mojo works, you can check out this post and this post from Markos.)

7) Looks like there are a lot of other new features at Daily Kos as well. What’s up with all of those?

Indeed there are, but I don’t want to make this post any longer than it is. However, if you are interested in a good primer about the site, Joan McCarter (one of the site’s senior editors) has written a great series of introductory posts:

Getting started at Daily Kos 4.0

How to read, write, and comment in Daily Kos 4.0

What’s new and/or improved in Daily Kos 4.0

8) Why are you making this change?

There are several key reasons. First, I think our coverage last cycle was absolutely top-notch – but we were operating at and in fact past capacity. I had a day job as an attorney which meant I couldn’t blog at all while at work. So those morning edition digests you saw were written by me late at night, after I came home from work, and keeping it up was incredibly exhausting. The other writers here all felt the same way about their workloads. So for us to maintain our existing level of coverage and in fact continue to grow, we had to make a big change. I’m not sure SSP would otherwise have been sustainable in the long run.

The second reason ties into the first. I’ve been hired to work full-time for Daily Kos. This means we get to produce more great content for you on a daily basis. It’s also a dream job for me – I’m getting paid to do what I’ve otherwise done as a hobby for almost a decade. Markos has been trying to bring me aboard for years, and the stars finally aligned. It was an offer I couldn’t turn down, and I’m very glad I didn’t.

And a third important reason is server uptime and general technology issues. As you know, SoapBlox often struggles during high traffic loads and has even gone down more than once. Daily Kos is infinitely more robust – Markos has made uptime one of his most important priorities. To give you an example, on election night in 2008, Daily Kos had nine million pageviews but didn’t so much as hiccup. That’s as many pageviews as SSP gets in three years! (Indeed, this performance was so impressive that the site’s tech guru, Jeremy Bingham, was invited to do a presentation about it at the prestigious O’Reilly Velocity conference.) And more generally speaking, SoapBlox has certainly been showing its age, while DK just underwent a major upgrade and continues to be actively developed. It’s just a much more modern, robust system that will simply never go down on election nights.

There are some other nice benefits for the community as well. We get access to greater resources through Daily Kos, and in my role as Political Director, I’m responsible for all polling that we undertake. I plan on involving you guys in those decisions – expect to see some PPP-style “vote on where we poll next” posts as the campaign season gets further underway.

9) So who’s going to be writing at DKE?

The staff will be (in alphabetical order by first name):

Arjun Jaikumar

David Jarman (Crisitunity)

David Nir (DavidNYC)

James L.

Jeffmd

Steve Singiser

And, of course, you’ll all still be writing diaries.

10) What’s going to happen to the community? To SSP’s policies?

DKE will remain an “elections-only” zone. Our focus will, as always, be on pure electoral horserace politics, not policy. There is no editorial direction from up on high at Daily Kos (and never has been) – DKE will retain complete editorial independence. I’m as free to disagree with Markos (or any other Daily Kos staffer) as you are – and I can (and do) exercise that freedom.

As far as community goes, we will do everything possible to maintain what we’ve built here. We will, as always, try to steer conversations in helpful ways and avoid derails and off-topic discussions. While I personally will not have the power to ban users, this is actually something we do quite seldom here at SSP – and if someone is truly disruptive, I can make it known to Meteor Blades, the Daily Kos Director of Community. If you also have concerns about a user, you can reach out to one of the staff members (see above).

Most importantly, though, is the role all of you will play. We are trying something new, by creating this site-within-a-site at Daily Kos, and some people who encounter us will simply not be familiar with our customs and our focus. I know it’s not always easy, but I ask that you be patient with people like that – try to explain to them, calmly and politely, what we’re all about. If someone says something that would be out of place at SSP, try not to get angry or frustrated but instead view it as a teaching opportunity. I’ve done this myself many times over at DK, and it’s proven surprisingly rewarding. Many people are genuinely grateful when you take the time to explain things. I know it may seem ridiculous when someone asks something like, “What’s the DSCC?” but if you tell them without condescension, they’ll appreciate it – and they’ll learn. (In fact, here’s a great example of me doing just that, and getting rewarded for it.) Remember, some folks simply don’t know a lot about the horserace and about how SSP/DKE works. Our mission is to spread the light!

One aspect of DKE that’s appropriate to explain here is how our work will be featured on the main page of Daily Kos – that is, if you go to www.dailykos.com. All of our posts will originate at DKE (elections.dailykos.com), so if you go there, you’ll never miss a thing. But some of our posts will also get published on front page (or “FP”) of Daily Kos itself. This mostly applies to our more general interest stuff: daily digests, stand-alone poll posts, and breaking news (like candidate announcements). Wonkier stuff (like the kind of data crunching that Jeff and Crisitunity are known for) will generally not get cross-posted to the FP.

So what this means is that some folks will “wander in off the street,” so to speak, and find DKE posts not because they first visited elections.dailykos.com, but because they went to www.dailykos.com. These sorts of people are apt to be less familiar with our customs, so they may require some more hand-holding. But I’ll tell you: We’ve cross-posted a bunch of content over the past couple of months, and in the horserace-specific posts, you tend to get a type of commenter who would fit in quite well at SSP. In fact, I’m quite eager to unite these folks with us under one banner. (Believe it or not, not every horserace geek has heard of SSP!)

Indeed, this might seem like a somewhat strange thing to say, but most of the stuff we’ve cross-posted to the DK FP has not gotten a lot of comments… and that’s a good thing! Part of that is because the flow of new posts on the FP is very high, usually one every 40 minutes or so. (The flow at DKE will be what you’re accustomed to here at SSP.) But another key reason is that horserace geeks like ourselves are generally a pretty self-selected bunch, and horserace geekery is only one of many reasons why people visit DK – whereas at SSP, it’s really the only reason. So a lot of the, shall we say, noisier folks that people have expressed concern about at DK aren’t really attracted to horserace diaries in the first place.

And there’s an additional point which is really worth making here: I know a lot of you have concerns about the integration of our two sites. There definitely are some commenters at DK who would not fit in well here (even if they mostly stay out of the horserace stuff) – I won’t disagree with that. But there’s no reason, absolutely no reason, why a few bad apples at Daily Kos should “take over” SSP culture and not the other way around.

You people are some of the smartest, most thoughtful election analysts around. Honestly, the combined brainpower of this place kicks the ass of any other election shop anywhere. (Are you telling me we couldn’t out-hustle the NRCC? Hell no you’re not. I would definitely take that Pepsi challenge.) But you’re also a really polite, friendly bunch who’ve shown how to make a great community work. Yeah, we step in to moderate sometimes, but really the vast majority of the time, this community knows what it’s doing.

So I think we have a lot of ability to make Daily Kos more like SSP rather than the reverse. We’ll have our own sub-site, of course, but even for the posts that also appear on the FP, we can make those comment boards our own, too. The current Daily Digest posts at DK seldom get more than a couple dozen comments. Here they get hundreds! How can a few irksome Kossacks change us, when we outnumber them by a huge margin? Indeed, SSP’s traffic is at record highs. To put it in terms we can all appreciate, our base is huge! Even though it’s a much bigger site overall, the DK horserace base is small, and mostly very much like us. Or put another way: When liberals from the northeast migrate southward for warmer climes, do they become more conservative? Of course not – quite the opposite: they make their new states bluer. There’s no reason why it won’t be the same for us.

I am sure it will be imperfect. I may occasionally post on a topic which unexpectedly brings out the crazy brigade in a way that even I can’t keep a lid on. It’ll happen, it’ll be annoying, and maybe I won’t be able to re-rail it… but you know what? These moments, I expect, will be few and far between, but if they happen, we’ll just move on to the next thread. SSP probably has to be about the least inflammatory progressive blog there is, so if a freak-out does occur, odds are the next post will be pretty chill, especially if it’s a Daily Digest.

And yeah, maybe there will be one or two people who keep wanting Alan Grayson to primary Bill Nelson, and maybe they won’t give up no matter how many times you patiently explain what a bad idea that would be. I don’t expect this see much of this, but if it ever winds up happening, just ignore `em. Or like I said, wait for the next thread. Or if you don’t feel like waiting, then post a new diary of your own.

Many of you have known me for a long time. You know I’ve always been honest with you, and you know I’ve worked hard almost every day for many years to make this site the best it can be. I don’t think anyone owes me anything, but I hope I’ve earned a measure of credibility with you – enough, at least, that you’ll give DKE a shot, that you’ll help export SSP’s brand of community to the new mothership, and that you’ll put up with occasional frustrations and growing pains so that we can continue to succeed in our new home.

I’m incredibly grateful for all the support you’ve shown me, my fellow writers, and this site over the years, and I’ll be even more grateful if you’ll join me in helping to make this transition work. Thank you.

A Note on Spammers

Sorry for the interruption, but it looks like a spam account snuck through in the last 12 hours or so. If you notice a spammer, please email one of the mods. Our email addresses are in the “About the Site” section of the right-hand sidebar. We can’t always read every comment on SSP, so we might miss spammers, and in any event, email is just usually going to be the quickest way to get our attention. Thanks.

Exciting News for the Swing State Project

I have some exciting news about the future of the Swing State Project that I’m very pleased to share with our community here. As many of you know, I got my start blogging at Daily Kos, and I still serve as a front-page contributing editor there. SSP has always had a close relationship with “the mothership,” with a lot of cross-pollination of users and content. So I’m thrilled to announce that SSP will soon get “beamed up” to DK – that is to say, the entire site will soon have a new home at Daily Kos, likely to be named “Daily Kos Elections,” with a new URL as well. (The old address will re-direct there.)

In practical, day-to-day terms, I can assure you that not much will change. It will still be the same great community – and you’ll still be seeing the same great content – that you’ve grown accustomed to. Our hallmark qualities will remain exactly the same: We will stay laser-focused on the electoral horserace, and we’ll steer clear of policy debates, just as ever before. I recognize that the communities at DK and SSP operate differently, but DK Elections will be its own sub-site, and we’ll retain our distinctive flavor. The comment boards will be friendly, on-topic, and free of personal attacks, just as they are now.

For the moment, we’re staying put. In a week, Daily Kos will undertake a major transition to a new software platform (which you can play with here). As you might imagine, the DK tech team has their hands full, so we won’t get ported over for a little while after that. (We’ll make sure our archives make the jump, too.) In the meantime, if you don’t have one already, I encourage you to create an account at the actual Daily Kos site (not the beta site linked to just above) so that you can hit the ground running when SSP makes its move.

One thing that will change is that I will be working for Daily Kos full-time, which will allow us to amp up our coverage. The rest of the crew will be staying on board – James, Crisitunity, and Jeff – and will continue to contribute as well. DK’s current horserace specialists, Arjun Jaikumar and Steve Singiser, will also join the squad. We’ll expand out our coverage a bit to include presidential primary polls – I think the GOP primary is just too fun not to cover. And when the time is right, we’ll also start looking at presidential polling – but, again, we’re going to stay an issue-free zone.

My official title at DK will be “Political Director,” and in addition to running DK Elections, my responsibilities will include, among other things, managing our polling operations and our Orange to Blue fundraising list on ActBlue. I look forward to getting your input in both areas – for instance, I definitely plan to do some “Where should we poll?” site polls, just like Tom Jensen does now over at PPP. (As you may know, Public Policy Polling is DK’s pollster, and we’ll continue to work with them.)

I do have one request to make of the community: Stick with us. Give it a shot – there will be some changes, but nothing too dramatic. And help us out. We’ll need you over at the new site. While, as I said, we’ll have our own sub-site, it’ll be fairly easy for other Daily Kos users who aren’t familiar with the SSP ethos to migrate over to DK Elections – and we’ll need you, all the longtime, experienced, and chill SSP users, to take newcomers by the hand and explain how things work. The mods will still be there in comments to regulate as needed, but it’s a big world out there, I will be grateful beyond words for your patience and assistance in helping new people adjust. As I’ve said many a time, this community is what makes me keep coming back every day, and regardless of what our web address is, or whether our color scheme is puke green or in-your-face orange, I really hope we can all stay together.

And not like I really need to say this, but if you have any questions, please fire away in comments!

UPDATE: Thank you for all the support in the comments. I also understand the reservations that have been expressed by many of you. I share some of those concerns myself, but I want to re-iterate: We’re going to do everything we can to preserve the SSP community, rules, ethos, and comment moderation policy. And we aren’t going to be swallowed up by Daily Kos – we’ll be our own sub-site, which you’ll probably access by going to http://elections.dailykos.com. That address will feature only horserace content posted by the SSP writers (plus Arjun and Steve) – in other words, it’ll look almost exactly like what the site looks like right now. So I really urge you to give us a shot.

UPDATE 2: I’d like to encourage everyone to read this comment from Susan Gardner, the executive editor at Daily Kos, about what we can expect as we make the transition.

Today on SSP

  • Social Media & Emergency Contingencies: If you haven’t been following us on Twitter and Facebook, my God, now is the right time to start. We’ll be tweeting all night in addition to our regular stream of front page content here. In the event of a server crash here at SSP World HQ, our Twitter feed will still be active. We’ve also set up a back-up site on Blogspot, which we’ll use if white smoke starts pouring out of our servers. SSP fans may want to bookmark this, just in case.
  • Maps: We’ve lovingly created a super-sexy poll closing times map and chart, complete with a list of key races. Bookmark it for later!
  • County Benchmarks: Advanced election watchers take note! The skinny tie crowd down at SSP Labs & Research has created some useful county benchmark charts for 10 key states.
  • Babka: Want to put your pride on the line for a chance to win a loaf of the most delicious chocolate babka known to man? Enter our predictions contest before 6pm Eastern. (Providing that you have a valid SSP account that was registered before 12:00am today.)
  • Race Ratings: Earlier today and yesterday, we posted our final House, Senate, and Gubernatorial race ratings.

Feel free to use this thread for any general pre-game chatter and tailgating.

The 2010 SSP Election Prediction Contest

As usual, SSP is offering our annual election prediction contest!

Winners, as always, get some delicious delicious Green’s Babka, courtesy of Mr. NYC himself! To get the deliciousness though, you’ll have to submit your predictions on these 9 races:

  • Governors Races: Connecticut, Ohio, and Oregon

  • Senate Races: Colorado, Nevada, and Wisconsin

  • House Races: FL-25, PA-07, and VA-11

Here, just pick the winner and margin of victory, feel free to go to as many significant figures as you’d like.

…but of course, things are never this easy. There are two curveballs here, where you’ll have to say percentages for each of the candidates:

  • MN-Gov: Mark Dayton, Tom Emmer, and Tom Horner

  • AK-Sen: Scott McAdams, Joe Miller, and Lisa Murkowski

To be babka-eligible, enter your guesses into our online form. No reading comprehension = no babka!

You’ll have to have created your SSP account before midnight EDT though. If you haven’t, you can still register and submit an entry for bragging rights, and the option to get more babka in the future!

Also, feel free to share your predictions on these races (and any others!) in this thread, but be aware that people may be reading your predictions for inspiration!

Contest closes 6pm EDT today.

Why 6pm? Well, if you look at our handy little map, it’s when first polls close!

SSP Daily Digest: 10/25 (Morning Edition)

  • Site News: Holy moly. We just passed ten million all-time visitors yesterday. Wow. Just really have to take a step back for a moment. When I started this site almost exactly seven years ago, I never, ever imagined we’d achieve anything like this. Just a huge thank you to every reader who has checked in since Oct. 19, 2003 to today – and beyond.
  • AR-Gov (Mason-Dixon): Mike Beebe (D-inc) 59, Jim Keet (R) 26
  • CA-Sen, CA-Gov (Greenberg Quinlan Rosner & American Viewpoint for the LA Times/USC): Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 50, Carly Fiorina (R) 42; Jerry Brown (D) 52, Meg Whitman (R) 39
  • CA-Gov (John McLaughlin & David Hill (R) for Meg Whitman): Jerry Brown (D) 46, Meg Whitman (R) 43
  • CO-Sen, CO-Gov (SurveyUSA for 9News/Denver Post): Michael Bennet (D-inc) 47, Ken Buck (R) 47; John Hickenlooper (D) 46, Dan Maes (R) 15, Tom Tancredo (ACP) 34
  • Bonus: SUSA also tested the state AG, SoS, and Treasurer races.

  • CO-Gov (Magellan): John Hickenlooper (D) 44, Dan Maes (R) 9, Tom Tancredo (ACP) 43
  • FL-Sen, FL-Gov (Ipsos for Florida media): Kendrick Meek (D) 20, Marco Rubio (R) 41, Charlie Crist (I) 26; Alex Sink (D) 41, Rick Scott (R) 44
  • Bonus: Ipsos also tested the AG, Ag Comm’r, and CFO races.

  • FL-Gov (Susquehanna for Sunshine State News): Alex Sink (D) 45, Rick Scott (R) 45
  • IL-Sen, IL-Gov (Mason-Dixon for St. Louis Post-Dispatch/KMOV-TV): Pat Quinn (D-inc) 40, Bill Brady (R) 44; Alexi Giannoulias (D) 41, Mark Kirk (R) 43
  • Note: The poll apparently asked respondents about “Alex Giannoulias.”

  • IL-Sen (Market Shares Corp. for the Chicago Tribune): Alexi Giannoulias (D) 41, Mark Kirk (R) 44
  • LA-Sen (Anzalone-Liszt (D) for Charlie Melancon): Charlie Melancon (D) 45, David Vitter (R-inc) 48
  • MA-Gov (Western New England College): Deval Patrick (D-inc) 44, Charlie Baker (R) 36, Tim Cahill (I) 8
  • MA-Gov (UNH): Deval Patrick (D-inc) 43, Charlie Baker (R) 39, Tim Cahill (I) 8
  • MD-Gov (OpinionWorks for the Baltimore Sun): Martin O’Malley (D-inc) 52, Bob Ehrlich (R) 38
  • ME-Gov (Critical Insights): Libby Mitchell (D) 20, Paul LePage (R) 32, Eliot Cutler 19
  • MN-Gov (Princeton Survey Research for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune): Mark Dayton (D) 41, Tom Emmer (R) 34, Tom Horner (I) 13
  • MO-Sen (Mason-Dixon for St. Louis Post-Dispatch/KMOV-TV): Robin Carnahan (D) 40, Roy Blunt (R) 49
  • NY-Gov (Marist): Andrew Cuomo (D) 60, Carl Paladino (R) 37
  • PA-Gov (Quinnipiac): Dan Onorato (D) 44, Tom Corbett (R) 49
  • WV-Sen (Global Strategy Group (D) for Joe Manchin): Joe Manchin (D) 48, John Raese (R) 43
  • Margins & Errors: On Sunday, Pat Toomey moved out to a 3-point lead in the Muhlenberg tracker, while Tom Corbett is +9… some sketchy details of IN-02 internals from Brian Howey: “Howard County Republican Chairman Craig Dunn said internal polling has shown Walorski chipping a 9-point Donnelly lead to “at the margin of error” around 4 percent.” … CNN sources tell them that Harry Reid’s internals have him up 6 over Sharron Angle in NV-Sen… PPP will have polls out for CA, CO, KY & WV this week

    SSP Daily Digest: 10/1 (Morning Edition)

  • AK-Sen: Another great catch by the Mudflats, and I’m ashamed I missed this one myself. In trying to explain why he applied for an indigent hunting license (for people making less than $8200/yr), Joe Miller claimed he was on a merit scholarship at Yale. Fortunately, Mudflats catches something about my alma mater that managed to slip my mind: Yale doesn’t offer merit scholarships. What lie will come next from the Miller camp?
  • CT-Sen: Heartless bastard Linda McMahon said she wants to lower the minimum wage – and even admitted she didn’t fucking know what the current minimum wage is! I love it when zillionaire assholes think that the guys on the bottom rung should be shoved down a rung further. Eh, fuck you, Linda McMahon.
  • Connecticut’s Working Families Party also took this opportunity to slam McMahon and endorse Dem Richard Blumenthal, who will benefit from having the WFP line. (Connecticut, like New York, allows fusion voting.) In case you were wondering, all five of CT’s Congressmembers have the WFP’s backing, as does gubernatorial nominee Dan Malloy.

  • DE-Sen: When called on the fact that her LinkedIn page made the extremely lulzy claim that she’d studied at Oxford, Christine O’Donnell claimed someone else had posted the profile. Now a different version has been uncovered at ZoomInfo (which says the profile was claimed – presumably by O’Donnell – through a “double opt-in process”), and it, too, has the Oxford bullshit. I’d say “busted!”, but is this even remotely a surprise?
  • KY-Sen: Have you seen Jack Conway’s excellent new ad about Kentucky’s drug problem? Well, Rand Paul thinks it’s “kind of tacky and really dishonest and kind of creepy.” Mike Donta, the man featured in the ad who lost his son to drug addiction, said Paul’s childish reaction is an “insult,” both to him and other families battling this problem.
  • And one other important note: The ad buy that the DSCC supposedly cancelled here has been “bought back,” according to Aaron Blake.

  • OH-Sen: The Cleveland Plain Dealer obtained an internal Lee Fisher finance document, which lays out a bunch of different scenarios for keeping the campaign financially afloat in the final month of the race. It’s not a pretty picture – one nuclear option involves laying off ten staff members to pay for TV time. And worst of all, Fisher apparently raised less than a million bucks in the quarter. Sigh.
  • WV-Sen: Despite John Raese’s efforts to paint him as weak on coal, Dem Gov. Joe Manchin secured the endorsement of the West Virginia Coal Association, which “represents 90 percent of the state’s coal producers.”
  • HI-Gov: He doesn’t sound quite like an anti-vax nutter, but Republican Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona is refusing to get a flu shot himself, saying he’s “not convinced that vaccines are more beneficial that harmful,” despite encouraging state residents to get vaccinated. Yeah, that’s helpful.
  • CO-04: If I had my dream job, newspaper writers would refer to me as “Democratic ratfucker DavidNYC,” because really, I love nothing more than a good ratfuck. So kudos to “Our Community Votes,” which is running a radio ad “attacking” a conservative independent candidate, ostensibly in the hopes of raising his profile and making him more appealing to wingers. It’s not clear who’s behind the group, but “public records shows that it shares Washington, D.C., office space with other groups tied to Steve Rosenthal, a longtime labor movement and Democratic strategist and former political director of the AFL-CIO.” And there’s real money behind this buy, too: $100,000 worth.
  • CO-07: The douchebags at the American Future Fund are spending $560K trying to unseat Ed Perlmutter, and apparently in a first for them, this includes a canvass operation, not just ad buys.
  • IL-10: Another day, another legal hassle for Bob Dold! The FEC dinged him for failing to report a $17,000 expenditure for “a motor coach that was used in Dold’s ads as part of a bus tour.” Dold submitted amended reports which showed several other expenditures and debts that somehow went missing from his earlier filings. How do you just forget about $17,000? Bob Dold!
  • WA-08: Ugh – this is pathetic. Evidently the League of Conservation Voters – another one of those ostensibly liberal groups that loved to endorse so-called “moderate” Republicans – enjoys getting abused. Earlier this year, Dave Reichert admitted that he occasionally votes a pro-environment line simply to remain in office. Despite this, the LCV is endorsing Reichert on account of his cap-and-trade vote. Glad to see they admire sincerity so much.
  • Site News: The Swing State Project just enjoyed its biggest month ever, with over 700,000 pageviews and more than 350,000 visitors. Here’s hoping the trend continues!
  • SSP-TV:

    • MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan attacks Roy Blunt for being a “prodigious pork-meister.” Does anyone else think this is as lame and boring as when Republicans try to pin this on us?
    • NV-Sen: Harry Reid has led the way with relentless, hard-hitting, and just plain good attack ads this cycle. Yeah, Sharron Angle provides a lot of fodder, but all Republicans have weak spots. This ad nails her for trying to repeal a law which requires insurance companies to cover mammograms
    • WV-Sen: Joe Manchin hits John Raese with his own words, including Raese’s infamous “I made money the old-fashioned way – I inherited it” gem
    • CO-Gov: Dan Maes (yeah, I know!!) has a really boring minute-long intro ad. No word on the size of the “buy,” but I doubt he could even afford to run Google ads on SSP
    • FL-25: Two ads from GOPer David Rivera – the first a boring spot about cutting government spending (check out the weird artifacts bouncing off his shirt at 27 seconds – you think YouTube? or is the broadcast version also messed up?); the second, a litany of attacks on Joe Garcia (and the production values are weak here, too). Meanwhile, Garcia has a much better ad hitting Rivera for the infamous “ramming a truck off the road” incident
    • IL-10: Bob Dold! thinks that Dan Seals is a job killer
    • ME-02: Fuck, these veteran ads always make me well up a bit. Another good one on VA health clinics, from Mike Michaud (his first in four years)
    • OH-09: Rich Iott attacks Marcy Kaptur as a “liar” for a supposedly misleading ad (I think this is it) and brings up the 11% unemployment rate in Toledo

    Independent Expenditures:

    • Concerned Taxpayers: $92K for GOPer Art Robinson (OR-04) and $47K against Frank Kratovil (MD-01)
    • FIRST!… Amendment Alliance: $117K against Harry Reid (NV-Sen) (Topic: The First Amendment Alliance doesn’t care about the first amendment or alliances. Discuss)
    • Realtors: $1.3 million spread among Bill Foster (IL-14), Pat Tiberi (OH-12), Ken Calvert (CA-44), and Dave Reichert (WA-08), including polls
    • Revere America: George Pataki’s band of fuckwits is spending over $400K on ads against Carol Shea-Porter (NH-01) and over $350K against John Hall (NY-19) (note second buy was made 9/17 but report filed 9/30 in violation of FEC rules)

    The Swing State Project Endorses Scott McAdams

    Every so often, people have asked us: Is the Swing State Project going to endorse anyone this cycle? Our answer has never changed: If we think there’s a special opportunity where a small blog like ours can make a real difference, we’ll seize on it. This cycle, though, we haven’t spotted any candidacies that fit the bill.

    Until now.

    If you read SSP on a daily basis, you probably won’t be surprised by our choice – but we hope you are pleased, and that you’ll join us in springing in to action. By now, you are of course familiar with Scott McAdams, the Democratic nominee for senate in the state of Alaska, and it is our pleasure to endorse him. We’re setting a goal of raising the equivalent of one maximum federal donation – $2,400 – for his campaign.

    So why do we like this race?

    • McAdams is a bona fide Alaskan with an authentic pedigree as a commercial fishing deckhand and a small-town mayor. I’m not sure you can get more genuinely Alaskan than that.
    • Joe Miller, his opponent, is a teabagger’s teabagger, with views that are pretty crazy even by red-state Republican standards. He wants to eliminate Social Security – as in, get rid of it completely. No exaggeration.
    • Lisa Murkowski, the incumbent Miller beat to make this race go topsy-turvy, has been notably mum on any endorsement. There’s definitely bad blood here, and it could linger.
    • McAdams is being backed to the hilt by Alaska’s senior Dem, Sen. Mark Begich, a true mensch who knows how to win in a very difficult state.
    • Finally, Alaska is a cheap state – damn cheap – and a little money can go a long way here. SSP may not have Chuck Schumer’s rolodex, but $2,400 can do a lot in the Land of the Midnight Sun.

    We know this has been a tough and in many ways dispiriting cycle. There haven’t been a whole lot of bright spots on the horizon. But this race is definitely one of them. We can make a real difference. Help us get started – now.