SSP Daily Digest: 10/14 (Afternoon Edition)

• AK-Sen: The story of how his employment with the city of Fairbanks ended is one of the key reasons why Joe Miller suddenly clammed up and said he wouldn’t answer questions about his personal background anymore. Now the city’s former mayor, Jim Whitaker, is offering his version of the story, saying Miller is “not truthful” about it. Whitaker says Miller’s use of borough resources for political purposes (namely, for gaming an online vote for state party chair in a Sarah Palin-orchestrated party coup) was a violation of borough ethics policy and it would have been a cause for termination if they hadn’t been so understaffed. Miller eventually resigned in 2009 anyway, partly because his request to go elk hunting got denied.

• FL-Sen: There are so many Kennedys I really can’t keep track which one is allied with who, but any time one leaves the reservation it’s interesting. Robert Kennedy Jr. announced that he’s backing Charlie Crist for Senate, saying that Kendrick Meek can’t win and the most important thing is blocking Marco Rubio. Meanwhile, with the current race not looking very interesting anymore, PPP has its eye on 2012 (which seems like it could be close, especially if Jeb Bush gets involved). They ran two other hypotheticals, one not very likely: Bill Nelson beats Rush Limbaugh 50-36 (if Limbaugh for whatever reason decided to take the huge pay cut). More plausibly, he also beats Rep. Connie Mack IV by 42-33.

• LA-Sen: Charlie Melancon is out with an internal poll from Anzalone-Liszt. Public pollsters have generally seen this as a double-digit race, but his poll, taken over Oct. 9-12, gives David Vitter a not-overwhelming 49-42 lead. The campaign says that’s a major improvement (no specific numbers, though) over their September poll.

• FL-Gov: The Florida Education Association (obviously a Democratic-leaning organization) polled the gubernatorial race, and found numbers very close to PPP’s results yesterday. The poll from Tom Eldon, taken Oct. 9-12, gives Alex Sink a 47-41 lead over Rick Scott. Scott’s faves are down to 33/50.

• IL-Gov: This is quite the screwup: Green candidate Rich Whitney’s name will appear as “Rich Whitey” on electronic voting machines in nearly two dozen wards in Chicago (half of which are predominantly African-American). And that leads inevitably to the question (to quote the Illinois Nazi Party): “Well, what are you going to do about it, Whitey?” Apparently, he can’t do much, as there isn’t adequate time left to reprogram and test the machines, although he’s looking into various legal options.

• AZ-07: I don’t know if there’s any hard evidence other than a Magellan poll and a McClung internal to prove there’s a real race here, but judging by efforts by some organizations on both sides, something’s going on. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee had members make 21,000 phone calls to the district to shore up Raul Grijalva, while Americans for Tax Reform is going to spend $230K on advertising in the district, hitting Grijalva with an ad for encouraging a boycott of his state in the wake of SB 1070.

• CA-44: Like CA-03, this is one offense opportunity in California that still seems to be alive and kicking. The Bill Hedrick campaign, short on cash but facing an underwhelming opponent that he nearly knocked off last time, is out with a Zata|3 internal poll showing Hedrick trailing GOP incumbent Ken Calvert by only a 48-43 margin (improved a 49-38 showing in September).

• GA-08: He made it implicit with his most recent ad (distancing himself from Nancy Pelosi, even going so far as to show 60s-era San Francisco hippies), but Jim Marshall is now explicitly joining Bobby Bright in the camp of incumbents saying they won’t support Pelosi for Speaker in the next Congress (if they’re there for it).

• IA-03: I didn’t think I’d be saying this a few months ago, but Leonard Boswell is starting to look like he’s in healthy shape for the election, thanks in large part of a variety of damaging details about Brad Zaun that went public. Boswell leads Zaun 47-38 in an internal from his campaign, taken Oct. 3-5 by Anzalone-Liszt.

• IL-10: Bob Dold sure can rake in the fundraising dollars, even if Bob Dold can’t seem to come up with a lead in the polls, in what’s looking like one of the Dems’ few pickups this cycle. Bob Dold raised $843K in the third quarter and is sitting on $979K CoH, enough to start running two broadcast ads this week, while Bob Dold’s opponent Dan Seals has yet to release any numbers. Bob Dold!

• MD-01, VA-02, VA-05: Another testament to the unpredictability of elections: even a few months ago, who’d have thought, that at this point, the DCCC would have cut loose Debbie Halvorson and Steve Kagen, but would be keeping on pumping money into the races of Frank Kratovil and Tom Perriello? Those two, along with Glenn Nye, are among the survivors of the triage process and will receive continued ad buys.

• NH-02: This race is also turning out to be close, and this can’t help Charlie Bass this close to the election: questions are emerging about a stock buy (in New England Wood Pellet, his nephew-in-law’s company) that he made while in Congress the previous time. He then set up a meeting between company officials and Bush administration officials, which is a potential House ethics violation.

• OH-01: Credit Steve Driehaus for having some fire in the belly. After having gotten thrown onto the bring-out-your-dead cart by the DCCC, instead of just shrugging and starting to look for a lobbying job, he’s doubling down on his fundraising efforts, using it as an incentive to ask for more from his supporters. In particular, he’s pissed that the DCCC let him go even while giving money to various Reps. who voted “no” on health care reform.

• OR-04: Well, here’s one more race to add to the watch list. Peter DeFazio hasn’t faced credible opposition in… well, ever. And he’s still not facing credible opposition this year (Art Robinson is kind of a clown; his main action item seems to be the elimination of public schooling, which would kind of help him out considerably, since his day job is selling curriculum supplies for home schoolers). Nevertheless, the mysterious group Concerned Taxpayers (who’ve also made a six-digit ad buy against DeFazio) is out with an internal poll from Oct. 4-5 from Wilson Research showing a single-digit race, with DeFazio leading Robinson 48-42. (MoE is a hefty 5.6%.)

• PA-10: Chris Carney is on the wrong end of a Critical Insights poll of his district (which will be in our Poll Roundup later), but he’s already getting out in front of it with an internal poll. The Oct. 12-13 poll from Momentum Analysis has Carney leading Tom Marino 48-41. With both candidates able to point to leads not just in internal polls but public polls too, this is quite definitely a “Tossup.”

• TN-08: Whew! One last internal. Not much surprise here… GOPer Stephen Fincher has an internal out giving him a double-digit lead in the open seat race against Roy Herron, very similar to yesterday’s 47-37 Penn/Hill poll. The Tarrance Group poll from Oct. 11-12 gives Fincher a 47-36 lead (with 3 to indie Donn James).

• FL-AG: This is one of the higher-profile downballot races around, and it gets a fair amount of polling attention too. This time, it’s Susquehanna’s turn (on behalf of Sunshine State News), and they give a lead to Republican Hillsborough Co. Prosecutor Pam Bondi, who leads state Sen. Dan Gelber 50-42.

• Money: Zata|3 is out with more of their super-helpful charts on the behind-the-scenes money game, which is where the Republicans are really winning this cycle, even more so than the polls. Compared with 2008, spending on Senate races (from both sides) has nearly doubled, and it’s up more than 50% on House races. And Republican groups are leading the way: the top 5, and 8 of the top 10, outside groups, spending-wise are GOP-leaning. That starts with the cash-flush RGA ($12 mil so far), followed by the Chamber of Commerce and American Crossroads.

• Polltopia: You may have already seen the new Pew study on cellphone use, but it’s a real eye-opener, one that should cast some measure of doubt on the accuracy of current polls or even the whole sense that polls can tell us anything. Pew, which in 2008 found a certain amount of pro-Republican bias in polls because of the exclusion of cellphone-only users, is out with a new round of polling showing that bias has only increased. At this point, nearly 25% of adults are “cell-only.” Pew finds a 5-point Republican increase would have occurred in their most recent generic ballot test if they hadn’t polled cellphones.

Also, on the polling front, Daily Kos is taking a page from PPP and asking where readers what gubernatorial and House race they’d like to see polled in the coming weeks.

• SSP TV:

• AK-Sen: This is actually kind of funny: Joe Miller spoofs Old Spice ads in an attempt to get voters to not write in Lisa Murkowski

• CO-Sen: Ken Buck’s out with a base-rallying ad using speech footage of him getting teabaggers fired up about how they got ignored for the last two years and are now out for blood; the NRSC is also on the air, hitting Michael Bennet over his support for the stimulus

• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan’s new TV spot pushes back against various Roy Blunt negative ads, especially on the subject of an extended family member’s wind farm

• PA-Sen: This may be an interesting tea leaf that those Dem internals yesterday may be showing some actual tightening: the NRSC, after letting surrogate orgs do all the work here, is finally having to step in with its own IE ad (a basic HCR/stimulus/cap-and-trade troika)

• WV-Sen: The DSCC goes after John Raese again over the minimum wage

• CA-Gov: What is this, the 80s? Meg Whitman’s new ad hits Jerry Brown for being soft on crime

• TX-Gov: Bill White’s newest ad goes after Rick Perry’s seeming habit of steering state contracts to cronies

• Rasmussen:

• AK-Sen: Scott McAdams (D) 27%, Joe Miller (R) 35%, Lisa Murkowski (WI-inc) 34%

• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 49%, Carly Fiorina (R) 46%

• IL-Gov: Pat Quinn (D-inc) 40%, Bill Brady (R) 46%, Scott Lee Cohen (I) 4%, Rich Whitney (G) 2%

• NC-Sen: Elaine Marshall (D) 38%, Richard Burr (R-inc) 52%

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 39%, Pat Toomey (R) 49%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 42%, Scott Walker (R) 51%

331 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 10/14 (Afternoon Edition)”

  1. But for some reason, It has not caught fire here on SSP.  It’s similar to CA-03.  An unpopular GOP incumbent who is ripe for “a-thumpin”.

    Wish this had got more national attention back in AUGUST.

    Hate to say I told you so, but there was no way in Hell Calvert was going to win this easily when he almost lost to someone I didn’t even know (AND I LIVE IN HIS DISTRICT!).

  3. But the GOP internal offerings this week have seemed pretty weak compared to earlier this cycle.  Now we have TN-08 where they release an internal that… matches up with a public poll.  Kind of makes me wonder if the Penn/Schoen polls represent a worst-case scenario for democrats if they’re on par with Republican internals.

  4. is that it only says “Rich Whitey” on the confirmation screen — the electronic ballot screen is correct. Since hardly anyone will vote for him in the first place it doesn’t make that much difference. Though he is right to try to get it fixed.

  8. I’m more optimistic about Anne Kuster’s chances everyday. Call me a dreamer.

    I figure that she can’t be taking the solid majority of undecideds in each successive poll and not win.

  10.    I am really starting to think McAdams could slip through.  Both Miller and Murkowski are at the perfect levels of support to get screwed by a well-liked insurgent.  What is Joe Miller doing with his money?  Is he going to release attack ads against Murkowski?  I hope so.

  12. Hear me out for a second.

    If Democrats manage to cobble together a tiny majority in the House next Congress, one wherein some conservative Dems wont vote for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker, could Pelosi and Hoyer switch places?

    House Speaker Steny Hoyer and Majority Leader Nancy Pelosi?

    Isn’t the majority leader elected by the majority in the party caucus (which Pelosi probably would have), but the Speaker is elected by the whole House (which Hoyer probably would have)?

  13. Is this dude truly that much of a hypocrite or does the news media only report negative stories about candidates?  I’m hoping McAdams slides through here, but I have my doubts.  It is a little sad that we have a better shot of winning Alaska then beating one of the architects and biggest cheerleaders for comparative advantage and free trade in Rob Portman.

  14. I looked at the “About” page on their site, and I still don’t know where the name comes from. Is it an acronym? And did they have two abortive launches, or was it started by a triumvirate?

  15. But it’s online only — no SBYA disclaimer, and it’s longer than :30.  

    As for RFK JR, he’s the one who loves rivers and hates vaccines.

  18. She’s effective and she’s a she.  The first part, at least, drives the blue dogs crazy, gutless as they are.  That’s why they want to get rid of her.  The second part is the reason the right demonizes her.

  20. Unchanged from a month ago.  It’s too bad that the main pollsters besides Rasmussen in NH are UNH and ARG, probably two of the worst pollsters in the nation.

  23. I’m this close to banging my head on the desk.

    Angle is stupid and talking in her choking on ever word style, while Reid is stiff and quiet. He’s loosening up, but still, this is painful.

  27. done watching the DE Senate debate on tivo. No surprises, rather boring. Being as non partisan as I can be it is clear Coons came out the winner. O’Donnell wasn’t HORRIBLE but she seemed inexperienced and did not come out looking stately at all. But she kept to the tax line and did not say anything overall controversial. As the expectations were low for her she did meh. Coons was decent. He seemed seasoned and knowledgeable. He did look a bit foolish repetitively calling O’Donnell a liar but in truth she was spitting out lies and distorted half truths and Coons had to say something about it, hopefully the electorate realizes the types of things she has said in the past and her trouble telling the truth. She looked incredibly stupid when she tried to use the bearded Marxist bit and both Wolfe and Coons called her out on it, with Coons providing the truth on the whole thing and her looking stupid. Also she came off looking dumb when Coons was talking policy and she randomly interjected wondering what character would play Coons on SNL, Coons gave a look that was basically uh ok…. laughed it off and he got back to talking.  So no real game changers, expect a Coons blowout.  

  28. Speaking of things we thought we’d never be saying a few months ago, the NRCC has the IA-01 and IA-02 challengers at the “young gun” level (top tier) and left Brad Zaun languishing as a “contender.” Not that they’re spending money in any of the Iowa districts, but it’s conceivable that Boswell could win and either Braley or Loebsack could lose. I would NEVER have believed that. I always figured Boswell would pull through, or at least wouldn’t be one of the first 40 seats Democrats lose, but I didn’t think IA-01 or IA-02 would be competitive at all.

    Just published a roundup of IA-02 campaign news at Bleeding Heartland, by the way. Turns out Miller-Meeks supports the “fair tax”–news to me.

  29. Des Moines rumor mill says that Boswell internal poll showed Culver trailing Branstad by far less in the third district than he did in previous internals. If Culver is closing the gap it should help down-ticket Democrats. Several competitive state legislative races are in the third Congressional district: Iowa House districts 74 and 75, Iowa Senate district 37.

  36. CA-03: $682K

    IN-02: $152K

    NY-22: $265K

    OH-18: $77K

    That CA-03 buy is amazing, even if it’s just meant to cancel out Bera’s fundraising in one fell swoop.

  44. AA voters are as engaged as 2008.

    The report  points to parallels in recent history. In 1986, two years after the Rev. Jesse Jackson ran for president and mobilized black voters, the gap between black and white turnout narrowed significantly. African Americans also voted in high numbers in the 1998 midterm elections – a fact that David Bositis, who wrote the report, attributed in part to high support among blacks for President Bill Clinton.

    Other key note:

    So often, the effort to turn out black voters is invisible to the larger white society,” Bositis said. “It is happening in black organizations. It is happening in black churches. This isn’t something you’re going to watch in real time on the Web and television.”

    This could have a huge impact in Senate and governor’s race especially in PA, IL, OH.

    WP

  45. where user DavidNYC said

    What would you do without the Daily Digests?

    (btw, welcome back user DCCylcone!)

  48. CT-Sen:  they have Blumenthal’s lead back down to 5, 51-46.  I guess this is Scotty’s Hail Mary pass for Linda, to try to save her?

    DE-Sen:  not as bad as CT-Sen, but still bad as they have Coons up only 11, 51-40.  This is smaller by several points than ALL other polling outfits.

    CO-Gov:  Scotty now has this a real race, with Hickenlooper leading Tancredo only 42-38, and Maes at 12.  Keep in mind Scotty’s previous venture here already was the closest race anyone had seen, at 43-35.  A strange turnout model this time, with indies at 40% and Dems and Repubs at only 30% each–that shows inflated indie interest and depressed GOP and Dem interest, not realistic in any counts.  And Tancredo wins indies by 10!  Only Rasmussen and PPP have polled here in October, and PPP had Hickenlooper up 47-33 just a couple weeks ago.

  53. AFF is spending $443K in their personal vendetta in IA-01 and IA-02.

    Americans for Tax Reform is spending big on ad time against Dems in some of the more fringe pickup opportunities:

    AZ-07: $230K

    GA-02: $310K

    MI-09: $513K

    TN-04: $476K

    TX-29: $332K

    WV-03: $308K

    PA-SEN: $338K

    TX-29, really?

  54. DesJarlais (R-TN-4) released ANOTHER (he updates us every week… how nice of him…) internal poll, has him up 45-40 on ConservaDem Davis, he seems to be making steady gains, and that this R+13 district is ready to dump their ConservaDem. Also rumor mill in MN, TV station (don’t remember all the ABCs) will release poll tonight that has Rep. Tim Walz (D-MN-1) in trouble.

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