Campaign and Election News – Covering Key Races Around the Country
SSP Daily Digest: 9/3
AK-Sen: Joe Miller sure sounds like he’s measuring the drapes here, doesn’t he, with his talk about how much he’d “love” to serve on the Judiciary and Armed Services committees? Donate to Scott McAdams and help make sure we force Joe Miller to make a humiliating, droopy-dog run back to Neiman Marcus to return those curtains.
DE-Sen: Oh, I’m afraid the Tea Party Express will be QUITE operational by the time Mike Castle arrives! The NYT reports that the TPX is going up with five different ads (two TV and three radio) on behalf of Christine O’Donnell, and they have a rough cut of one of the TV spots (check the link). As for how big a buy we’re talking, the TPX just filed its first independent expenditure report, for $46K. Their usual practice is to dribble things out in smallish reports one at a time – but don’t worry, it’ll snowball.
FL-Sen: Charlie Crist is spending over half a million on a new TV buy. We don’t know what ads he’ll be running, but the St. Petersburg Times has some pretty good info on where they’ll appear (notably in Dem-leaning markets). Check the link for full details.
WI-Sen: GOPer Ron Johnson raised $1.2 million between July 1 and Aug. 25th, while Sen. Russ Feingold took in $920K. Johnson also loaned his campaign another $2.9 million out of his own coffers (which of course have been greatly bolstered over the years by government loans and grants to his plastics company). RonJo has been outspending Feingold, though, and has $1.6 mil in the bank compared to the senator’s $3.1 mil.
FL-Gov: Alex Sink has a new ad, touching on the oil spill and calling for a diversification of Florida’s economy. NWOTSOTB, but the spot is apparently airing in Florida’s panhandle.
GA-Gov: Nathan Deal just performed a classic document dump – and not one that’s likely to help him. He made public 28 years of his personal income tax returns, but none of this has anything to do with his auto salvage business which was the focus of a probe by the Office of Congressional Ethics.
CO-04: The House Race Hotline reports that the NRCC has reserved over $1 million in air time in the 4th CD. Let’s see if they actually come through with all that scrilla, though.
FL-08: Put away your can openers – no cat fud here. All six of Dan Webster’s Republican primary rivals have endorsed him, including teabagger Patricia Sullivan. However, Peg Dunmire is still in the race, on the actual Tea Party line.
IN-02: Joe Donnelly has a new spot out (NWOTSOTB), hitting Jackie Walorski for her support of a 23% national sales tax (as well as her desire to eliminate the home mortgage interest deduction). This issue is one that helped sink GOPer Tim Burns in the PA-12 special, so it has potency. I know that sometimes when Dems sink their teeth into this one, weenie liberals like to whine that what Republicans really mean is that they want to replace other taxes with this one. You know what? Let them make that argument. You don’t need to make it for them.
IN-09: Republican Todd Young has a new ad out, featuring footage of Baron Hill imperiously telling a journalism student that she couldn’t videotape a town hall. NWOTSOTB, but CQ notes that the spot is “currently airing only in the Louisville, Ky. market.”
LA-02: With Al Franken acting, you know, senatorial, it looks like Joe Cao has decided to take up the mantle of Stuart Smalley. Sayeth Cao: “I love the president, and I believe he truly likes me.” What a wiener.
MA-09: Labor activist Mac D’Alessandro scored the endorsement of NARAL in his primary bid against anti-choice incumbent Rep. Stephen Lynch. D’Alessandro raised $178K in the pre-primary period (7/1-8/25) and had $158K on hand for the stretch run. Lynch took in only $66K but had a million bucks in the bank.
NJ-03: Dem Rep. John Adler received the endorsement of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which did not back anyone in the race two years ago. They also say they’ll provide financial help. (The Courier Post notes that the district includes Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.) Adler’s also got a second negative spot out, hitting Republican Jon Runyan for his minimalist voting record. NWOTSOTB, and get a load of this stonewalling: “Campaign manager Geoff Mackler would not disclose the size of the buy, where the ads were committed to air or for how long they would air, saying he does not discuss strategy with reporters.” But I don’t think that should be the end of the story for a journalist. Hell, one of my jobs on a campaign I worked on in the 90s was to track down enemy ad buys. Reporters can do it, too. (And BTW, if you haven’t seen Adler’s first ad, I highly recommend you do so.)
NH-01, NH-02: John DiStaso has an asburd wealth of updates on New Hampshire’s two House races, including word that Charlie Bass is set to release his first ad (watch it here), a $40,000 buy on New Hampshire TV. There’s also news of a GOP primary poll in the 1st CD, taken by Cross Target on behalf of the right-wing group Americans for Prosperity. Sean Mahoney is at 33, Frank Guinta at 26, Rich Ashooh at 10, and Bob Bestani at 5. Mahoney’s been out with a positive/negative ad comparing his record to Guinta’s, making it clear that he thinks this poll is right about who the real contenders are. Guinta apparently has a new response ad coming this week.
NY-24: Mike Arcuri is up with a new ad, a positive bio spot. NWOTSOTB, though he has two slightly different versions, one of which is airing in Utica, the other Syracuse (see both here).
PA-07: A nice break for Dem Bryan Lentz: After a series of adverse rulings, Pat Meehan’s campaign withdrew its legal challenge to the candidacy of Jim Schneller, a teabagger who petitioned his way on to the ballot… thanks to a lot of help from Lentz supporters.
PA-10: Interesting: Back when he was a US Attorney, Tom Marino served as a reference for a casino application for a man his office was investigating. In fact, the news was so explosive it led to the DOJ transferring the investigation to another office – and to Marino’s resignation as USA. Back in May, though, Marino told a radio host that the DOJ had given him written permission to provide that reference, but he hasn’t produced it (yet). Dem Chris Carney is hitting him for this, asking, “Where’s the letter?”
WI-08: Steve Kagen is up with his first ad, and it’s a good one. Among other things, he touts the fact that he has refused congressional health coverage until everyone in America has health insurance. He also refers to himself as “Dr. Steve Kagen,” which is probably a helpful alternative to “Congressman” these days.
Enthusiasm Gap: Tom Jensen takes a look at a painful “what if” – as in, what if there were no enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans this year? Among other things, he thinks Alex Sink would have a double-digit lead and that Elaine Marshall would be running slightly ahead of Richard Burr. But check out his full chart.
Dumping Ground: We’ve brought up some serious methodological issues in the past that we have with those zone-flooding American Action Fund House race polls, so it’s best if we just confine the following to their own quarantine zone. (Those issues, by the way, included extremely aged samples and the fact that the GOP pollster, Ayres McHenry, asked respondents about their opinion of the healthcare bill right before diving into the topline match-ups.)
AZ-01: Ann Kirkpatrick (D-inc) 41%, Paul Gosar (R) 47%
AZ-05: Harry Mitchell (D-inc) 44%, David Schweikert (R) 50%
AZ-08: Gabby Giffords (D-inc) 46%, Jesse Kelly (R) 46%
CA-11: Jerry McNerney (D-inc) 44%, David Harmer (R) 45%
CA-47: Loretta Sanchez (D-inc) 45%, Van Tran (R) 43%
OR-05: Kurt Schrader (D-inc) 44%, Scott Bruun (R) 36%
87 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 9/3”
While the Tea Party Express will be “quite operational,” O’Donnell’s performance over the past few days has been the equivalent of the Empire including that weird passageway that leads directly to the Death Star’s only weakness. It will be just like shooting wamp rats back on Tatooine for Castle I’m afraid.
Couldn’t help myself.
Gosar is ahead of Kirkpatrick in those GOP polls. Think you have the numbers right but the candidates reversed.
Anyone attacking someone over the national sales tax needs to also attack them on it being economically unsound. No academic economist on the right or left supports the plan and there seems to be an ideological consensus among economists that its bad.
You may have Guinta confused with NH-02 candidate Bob Giuda.
was friggin’ devestating. Best ad I’ve seen this year so far. The superimposition of the donkey at the end is just priceless.
is a great spot for Young. I have said all along that the town hall would make a good ad and am not surprised to see it in ad form. Although I expected it to air closer to the election, I guess it still could. Had it not been for that town hall this would be a lean D race. Hill really hurt himself, there is no denying it. Hopefully he can make some hay on Young’s views on SSP, which he has not backed down from FYI.
At least CA-47, AZ-01, NM-01 and OR-05 should be won by Democrats.
Hard for me to really believe that Gabby Giffords is tied with a far right tea bagging opponent in Jesse Kelly. He makes Randy Graf (her opponent in 2006 who was famous for his “Operation Wetback” organization) look moderate. This guy doesn’t even have a college degree. Had Jon Paton won the primary I would agree with a tied poll. Giffords caught a major break with Kelly. Giffords is a very capable politician who has tons of money in the bank and her district is pretty moderate. With PVIs it looks a more red but considering that McCain was running in 2008 that makes a difference.
I think that Giffords is definitely a rising star in the Party and should Kyl retire in 2012 she would be a top recruit to run for that seat.
Or are we just going to let the Republican ones flood the field, the way Rasmussen does? Maybe it’s a byproduct of Citizens United.
Slightly better than expected, but the unemployment rate went up. Wall Street relieved, but not deliriously happy. Not a game changer for Dems, but I was worried they’d be a lot worse.
Do they not understand the Delaware GOP is the furthest thing away from, ideologically, Alaska’s GOP. This is one of the most moderate, center-right Republican bases in the country, and O’Donnell’s bombed with them before. Mike Castle, moderate he may be compared to most national GOP-ers, is actually perfectly in-line with most state Republicans. This is a state where McCain and Romney garnered nearly 80% of the ’08 primary vote. I’ll be stunned if Castle doesn’t net around that – O’Donnell is that disliked, even among rank-and-file conservatives. She will get the Tea Party vote, which, in Delaware, is about 15% of the primary electorate.
Lomantagne surging in Magellan poll, although he is still down 13 to Ayotte, 34-21. This is an increase of 12 for Lamontagne, and a decrease of 4 for Ayotte since the last Magellan poll of the race.
A Lamontagne win would be a dream scenario for Hodes.
A poll just came out showing him trailing the Republican David Schweikert by 6 points – and Schweikert was polling 50% of the vote. Mitchell voted for Obamacare, some of the TARP bailouts, and cardcheck. He votes with Pelosi and the Obama administration and ignores the nonstop Tea Party protests outside his office, he doesn’t represent his Republican-leaning district. He is completely bought and paid for by the unions (http://epaper.aztrib.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=RVZULzIwMDcvMDMvMTIjQXIwMzgwMQ==&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom) Any incumbent polling less than 50% at this point in the race is considered probably going to lose. The fact that it was a partisan poll doesn’t matter – every generic poll from Gallup to Time has shown Democrats losing to Republicans in Congress losing by about the same margin. http://www.realclearpolitics.c…
How will this play out in Michigan? It’s nothing groundbreaking (he even acknowledges the camera there), but Michigan IS a labor-heavy state and NAFTA/CAFTA are hated there.
Meaning Gov, Sen and house races at the same time?
Wouldn’t it be interesting to see:
1. How Cuomo/Schumer/Gillibrand might or might not be helping Arcuri or Murphy in NY
2. How Brewer might help flip a couple of AZ house seats
3. How the Colorado GOP implosion might help keep Markey adn Salazar in office for another term
4. How IL voters are splitting their votes (I’m guessing there will be more non-locial ticket splitting in IL in 2010 than in any state in any year ever).
Sigh, I’d love to see if there were any ticket splitters in states with multiple races. Or if candidates at one level are carrying those at others. Is there any hope?
While the Tea Party Express will be “quite operational,” O’Donnell’s performance over the past few days has been the equivalent of the Empire including that weird passageway that leads directly to the Death Star’s only weakness. It will be just like shooting wamp rats back on Tatooine for Castle I’m afraid.
Couldn’t help myself.
Gosar is ahead of Kirkpatrick in those GOP polls. Think you have the numbers right but the candidates reversed.
Anyone attacking someone over the national sales tax needs to also attack them on it being economically unsound. No academic economist on the right or left supports the plan and there seems to be an ideological consensus among economists that its bad.
You may have Guinta confused with NH-02 candidate Bob Giuda.
was friggin’ devestating. Best ad I’ve seen this year so far. The superimposition of the donkey at the end is just priceless.
is a great spot for Young. I have said all along that the town hall would make a good ad and am not surprised to see it in ad form. Although I expected it to air closer to the election, I guess it still could. Had it not been for that town hall this would be a lean D race. Hill really hurt himself, there is no denying it. Hopefully he can make some hay on Young’s views on SSP, which he has not backed down from FYI.
At least CA-47, AZ-01, NM-01 and OR-05 should be won by Democrats.
Hard for me to really believe that Gabby Giffords is tied with a far right tea bagging opponent in Jesse Kelly. He makes Randy Graf (her opponent in 2006 who was famous for his “Operation Wetback” organization) look moderate. This guy doesn’t even have a college degree. Had Jon Paton won the primary I would agree with a tied poll. Giffords caught a major break with Kelly. Giffords is a very capable politician who has tons of money in the bank and her district is pretty moderate. With PVIs it looks a more red but considering that McCain was running in 2008 that makes a difference.
I think that Giffords is definitely a rising star in the Party and should Kyl retire in 2012 she would be a top recruit to run for that seat.
Or are we just going to let the Republican ones flood the field, the way Rasmussen does? Maybe it’s a byproduct of Citizens United.
Slightly better than expected, but the unemployment rate went up. Wall Street relieved, but not deliriously happy. Not a game changer for Dems, but I was worried they’d be a lot worse.
Do they not understand the Delaware GOP is the furthest thing away from, ideologically, Alaska’s GOP. This is one of the most moderate, center-right Republican bases in the country, and O’Donnell’s bombed with them before. Mike Castle, moderate he may be compared to most national GOP-ers, is actually perfectly in-line with most state Republicans. This is a state where McCain and Romney garnered nearly 80% of the ’08 primary vote. I’ll be stunned if Castle doesn’t net around that – O’Donnell is that disliked, even among rank-and-file conservatives. She will get the Tea Party vote, which, in Delaware, is about 15% of the primary electorate.
http://www.weeklystandard.com/…
I thought that SUSA poll was crap.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/…
http://www.magellanstrategies….
Lomantagne surging in Magellan poll, although he is still down 13 to Ayotte, 34-21. This is an increase of 12 for Lamontagne, and a decrease of 4 for Ayotte since the last Magellan poll of the race.
A Lamontagne win would be a dream scenario for Hodes.
http://www.publicpolicypolling…
PPP’s look at Ohio shows Republicans lead the generic congressional ballot 47-41.
Mike DeWine has a +2 approval rating
30% think Boehner spends too much time on his tan
DeWine leads by 4 in Attorney General race
I imagine the Republican leads in SoS and Auditor race. We know they do in the governor and senator races.
Ohio is going full Republican this year.
endorses Prop 23….funny she should of said it during on the debate on Wednesday instead of tip toeing around it.
http://twitter.com/CapitolAler…
A poll just came out showing him trailing the Republican David Schweikert by 6 points – and Schweikert was polling 50% of the vote. Mitchell voted for Obamacare, some of the TARP bailouts, and cardcheck. He votes with Pelosi and the Obama administration and ignores the nonstop Tea Party protests outside his office, he doesn’t represent his Republican-leaning district. He is completely bought and paid for by the unions (http://epaper.aztrib.com/Repository/ml.asp?Ref=RVZULzIwMDcvMDMvMTIjQXIwMzgwMQ==&Mode=HTML&Locale=english-skin-custom) Any incumbent polling less than 50% at this point in the race is considered probably going to lose. The fact that it was a partisan poll doesn’t matter – every generic poll from Gallup to Time has shown Democrats losing to Republicans in Congress losing by about the same margin. http://www.realclearpolitics.c…
How will this play out in Michigan? It’s nothing groundbreaking (he even acknowledges the camera there), but Michigan IS a labor-heavy state and NAFTA/CAFTA are hated there.
Meaning Gov, Sen and house races at the same time?
Wouldn’t it be interesting to see:
1. How Cuomo/Schumer/Gillibrand might or might not be helping Arcuri or Murphy in NY
2. How Brewer might help flip a couple of AZ house seats
3. How the Colorado GOP implosion might help keep Markey adn Salazar in office for another term
4. How IL voters are splitting their votes (I’m guessing there will be more non-locial ticket splitting in IL in 2010 than in any state in any year ever).
Sigh, I’d love to see if there were any ticket splitters in states with multiple races. Or if candidates at one level are carrying those at others. Is there any hope?