• CT-Sen: Linda McMahon’s gotta be wondering why all those former employees couldn’t wait until after the November election to up and die. With the death two weeks ago of Lance McNaught still in the news, another WWE star, Luna Vachon, died over the weekend. An autopsy is scheduled, but the WWE paid for rehab for substance abuse for Vachon last year.
• KY-Sen: Democrat Jack Conway’s out with his first TV ad for the general election. The ad buy, touting Conway’s work against prescription drug abuse and child pornography as AG, is for about $150K. Meanwhile, Rep. Ron Paul is out with a doozy of a legislative proposal: to audit the nation’s gold reserves. As with many things that come out of the gray area between ultra-libertarianism and black helicopters-territory, the “huh? why?” part is best answered by reading the comments on the article, which apparently suggest that our nation’s gold supply actually been given away as collateral on all our debt to commercial banks/our Chinese overlords/the UN/the Bavarian Illuminati. Why is this getting filed under KY-Sen? Partly because those reserves are (allegedly!!!!1!) in Kentucky at Fort Knox, but also because at some point Rand Paul is going to inevitably get called on the carpet to say whether he agrees with dad’s latest scheme.
• NC-Sen: Civitas is out with a new poll of the Senate race in the Tar Heel State, but it’s an odd little critter, only polling “unaffiliated” voters. They seem to mirror the larger split statewide, with Richard Burr leading Elaine Marshall 39-32 (with 7 for Libertarian Michael Beitler). 34% of respondents had still never heard of Marshall. Burr is also out with his first TV ad of the cycle, focusing on his down-home-ness, presumably to ward off the “gone Washington” problem that sank Elizabeth Dole two years ago. The buy is for $578K (click the link to see the breakdown among the state’s many media markets).
• NH-Sen: Ovide Lamontagne just got a big score: the endorsement of the Manchester Union-Leader, the state’s largest newspaper and also one of the most consistently right-wing editorial pages anywhere. Newspaper endorsements can usually be shrugged off, but the Union-Leader’s endorsement of Lamontagne in the 1996 GOP gubernatorial primary helped him pull of the surprise upset of Rep. Bill Zeliff. Can this help him in a four-way split, though, instead of just a two-way, especially when Kelly Ayotte and Bill Binnie have dramatically outspent him so far? Lamontagne is also finally hitting the airwaves with his first TV ad, with the primary approaching in just a couple weeks. (No dollar figure given, but it’s only a one-week cable buy.)
• NV-Sen: Sharron Angle just keeps handing gift after gift to Harry Reid, this time unfortunately timed to coincide with Katrina’s 5th anniversary: video has surfaced from Angle’s 2006 NV-02 bid in which she says she would have voted against Katrina relief funds. One other minor Nevada point, also courtesy of Jon Ralston: Clark County‘s GOP chair just resigned, leaving more disarray in the local Republican hierarchy as far as staying organized and disciplined for November.
• OH-Sen: The national Chamber of Commerce is out with a new positive ad touting Rob Portman, which is odd since Portman has enough money in the bank that he can pay his own way and then some. (The establishment, free-tradin’ Portman is definitely their kind of guy, though, much more so than the teabaggers cluttering a number of other close Senate races.) NWOTSOTB.
• AL-05: Republican Mo Brooks (who blew out party-switching Parker Griffith in the GOP primary) has a decent, but not overwhelming, lead over Dem Steve Raby, at least according to his own internal courtesy of POS. Brooks leads 48-37; taking into consideration that it’s an internal, this race isn’t a likely pickup but certainly still on the table.
• KY-06: One other ad to consider today: Ben Chandler’s out with another spot, this time going negative against local attorney Andy Barr, hitting him on the issue of the bad kind of SSP (social security privatization).
• MI-01, MI-03, MI-07: We Ask America is out with a trio of House district polls in Michigan. As is their usual modus operandi, the Republicans are in the lead. In the Dem-held open seat 1st, Dan Benishek leads Gary McDowell 45-29 (even WAA admits they expect that to tighten a lot, based on Benishek’s name being in the news from the ultra-close GOP primary). In the reddish open-seat 3rd being vacated by GOPer Vern Ehlers, Justin Amash leads Patrick Miles 51-30. And the state’s most vulnerable Dem incumbent, Mark Schauer trails ex-Rep. Tim Walberg in a rematch, 45-37.
• OH-17: “Trafican’t” just got turned into “Trafican.” Although there’s no official word, supporters of ex-con ex-Rep. Jim Traficant are saying that re-canvassing of petitions has yielded enough valid signatures to get him on the ballot as an independent. He was only 20 shy, and they’ve found at least 27 new valid signatures. Traficant isn’t likely to be much of a factor against incumbent Rep. Tim Ryan in this solidly blue district, though.
• AGs: I know I can rely on Louis Jacobson to go even deeper into the weeds than we here at SSP ever will. Writing for Governing magazine, he handicaps and encapsulates the nation’s many state Attorney General races. He finds the Dems (who currenly have a 32-18 edge in AG positions) in danger of losing at least six seats this year, including Dem-held open seats in California, Arizona, and Georgia. One of the Dems’ best (if only) offensive opportunities is Bill McCollum’s old post in Florida. The St. Petersburg Times has a deeper profile of the race between Democratic state Sen. Dan Gelber, and the Sarah Palin-backed Hillsborough Co. prosecutor Pam Bondi.
• Mayors: Here’s a second poll in a week’s time showing current Washington, DC mayor Adrian Fenty significantly trailing in his bid for re-election, against Democratic primary opponent Vincent Gray. The Washington Post finds Gray leading Fenty 53-36 among likely voters, or 49-36 among registered voters.
• Rasmussen:
• AZ-Gov: Terry Goddard (D) 38%, Jan Brewer (R-inc) 57%
• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 44%, Ken Buck (R) 47%
• OK-Gov: Jari Askins (D) 37%, Mary Fallin (R) 52%
• OK-Sen: Jim Rogers (D) 24%, Tom Coburn (R-inc) 67%
• SC-Sen: Alvin Greene (D) 19%, Jim DeMint (R) 63%
• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 48%, John Raese (R) 42%
Even Rasmussen has more favorable poll numbers.
I don’t find it to be great, but I think strategically it works well. It would be perfect if Rand Paul steps on another landmine about anti-drug funding while this is on the air.
Think you might be interested in this:
The problem is, unlike Mike Castle, Ayotte and Binnie have run pretty conservative primary campaigns. There’s no obvious opening for the guy. Plus, Lamontagne’s generally viewed as a has-been among the state GOP crowd. (I lived in NH over the summer, and observed much of the political chatter.)
looks like they just took how the state is leaning politically this year and adjusted for incumbents. Except California, can someone validate that one>
has its vote on where to poll this week.
California, Connecticut, Georgia, Kentucky (that’s going to win, it’s just really disappointing that Tom included that), Maine (any Republicans that should be tested against Snowe in 2012?), Texas, West Virginia, Wisconsin.
I normally go over there to see their take on primaries and such, but recently I have been heading there multiple times a day.
I do this because the amount of squabbling over there is too rich. The site seems evenly split on the AK GOP Primary to the point that one anti Miller (Anti Palin by extension) commenter told a pro Miller commenter that “[Sarah] ain’t gonna’ have sex with you, so you can get your hands out of your pockets.” http://bit.ly/9Ol60O
This, in addition to the squabbling over the Delaware primary and the New Hampshire Primary should make anyone who loves cat fud to head over there and check it out even once.
One negative about going over there is that they don’t always have their facts right (surprise, Right?), but other than that, its all good fun over at Redstate.
Is North Carolina’s 11th congressional district, Heath Shuler released his internals. This is from Anzalone Liszt Research.
Shuler 51% (D)
Miller 34% (R)
Shuler’s approval is 62/32
Shuler is also going on the air with the size of the buy in the “high fives”
http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/ey…
In the de sen primary thread a lot of people were skeptical that castle would lose but I just want to point out the possible other good things that could happen if castle wins.
1. The primary will almost certainly cause his favs to go down.
2. It will force him and the rnc/tea party et al to spend money on a side war instead of the general
3. It could cause castle to go right giving the dem amo to attack castle with to turn dem voters away from castle.
4. A tea party loss takes some sine off the tea party which is good for good governance.
There’s very little down-side to a republic on republic escalilation of war 🙂
never forget that :p
Rand Paul and his ilk drives me nuts, even if you are against the drug war as most liberals are and that has to be some of his appeal, its not like Rand or his dad would support federal funding for drug treatment programs so people at least have a shot to get back on their feet.
Same thing about foreign policy, do you think Rand cares about our troops or the Afghans for example? No, he just doesn’t want his donors to have to pay taxes. Conway should light this guy up on these matters.
The spot is positive, introductory, and harmless. The buy is “in the six figures, airing on broadcast and cable stations.” The district is largely in the Charlotte media market, though part of it may be in Columbia’s.
Link: http://blogs.cqpolitics.com/ey…
going up with TV ads tomorrow.
http://www.philly.com/philly/b…
Just a heads up that I just uploaded Pennsylvania partisan data for Daves Redistricting App. (Thanks David H.!)
There is now partisan data for PA, NC, NM and MD (couple of people are working on fixing the broken parts of MD), as well as NY, TX and CA. For those last 3, you need to check “Use Test Data” because they have custom voting districts, courtesy of JeffMD.
Enjoy.
So, whats election night around here like? Is it like a normal primary night (except with a lot more races), or is there something special? Just wondering since were only 2 months away.
who are these people who want to vote for Greene? Hipsters voting for him ironically?
Bruce Braley went up on tv Monday night in Cedar Rapids and the Quad Cities, responding to last week’s hit job from the American Future Fund.
http://www.rasmussenreports.co…
http://minnesota.publicradio.o…
Latest Ohio and Pennsylvania polls are out – Portman up 5 (6 with leaners) apparently equals tossup despite the financial disparity. Toomey leads by 6 (6 with leaners) which equals leans Republican. Odd.