SSP Daily Digest: 10/18 (Afternoon Edition)

• IL-Sen: Serial exaggerator Mark Kirk has a new one on his hands: he was previously claiming that he was the driving force behind a bill that cracked down on companies that do business with Iran (but that got turned into a Howard Berman bill so it could pass the Democratic House, says Kirk). Berman says that’s not the case at all, and that his committee didn’t even consider the Kirk version of the bill.

• NV-Sen: Sharron Angle had possibly the weirdest ever visit to a group of Latino high school students, first telling them that those weren’t supposed to be Latinos in her ad featuring scary-looking dark-skinned persons crossing the border. Maybe those are actually Arabs, and maybe they’re crossing the Canadian border, she mused? She then turned the tables back on the students, saying that “I don’t know that all of you are Latino. Some of you look a little more Asian to me.” Asian like… Middle Eastern terrorists, maybe? With Sharron Angle speaking, who even knows?

• IL-Gov: Whitey no more? Green Party candidate “Rich Whitey” will apparently get ballots in select Chicago wards changed back to his actual (and preferred) name, Rich Whitney. Apparently there was enough time to reprogram all the machines if crews work overtime.

• SC-Gov: I’m not sure whose side to take here: on the one hand, it’s good to see the DNC putting money into the late-breaking South Carolina governor’s race, where internals see it as a mid-single-digits race and a real opportunity now. On the other hand, South Carolina Dems just sound pissed, saying the $100K expenditure is too little too late (which is probably true).

• CA-03: Here’s an eye-catching independent expenditure: American Crossroads (aka Rove, Inc.) is pouring $682K into a TV buy against Ami Bera in the 3rd. That would tend to support the idea that Dan Lungren, who’s lost the fundraising game to Bera every quarter, is also putting up some middling internals too.

• PA-07: Now this isn’t good, especially this late in the game: the Pennsylvania state Teamsters suddenly revoked their endorsement of Bryan Lentz. There’s no official word on what caused the rift, but it seems to relate back to Lentz’s sponsorship of a bill that cracks down on construction firms that misclassify workers to avoid paying taxes.

• OH-St. House: The Cleveland Plain Dealer has a good profile of 10 of the most important races in one of our most important legislative chambers, where Dems have a small edge (53-46) and need to hold it for redistricting purposes. It’s a mix of suburban Cleveland, suburban Columbus, and the rural southern part of the state.

• AFL-CIO: Here’s an interesting memo out from the AFL-CIO’s political director today suggesting that they’ve made a lot of under-the-radar progress in the last few weeks, redirecting members who weren’t engaged or were flirting with the Republicans. In particular, Pennsylvania stands out, where they’re finding that Joe Sestak now has a 55-26 lead among union members, up from only 45-39 at the start of September. They also point out that Joe Manchin now has a 40-point lead among union members in another union-heavy state, West Virginia.

• Early voting: Early voting gets underway today in Florida and Texas, along with five other smaller states. Adding in the states where voting has already started, that means the election is truly afoot in nearly half of all states.

• Debates: We’re adding a new component to our digests: courtesy of our friends at C-SPAN, a list of all the debates that are on tap and on the air each night on C-SPAN. Because if you’re reading this, we know you can’t get enough politicking:

8 pm ET: WV-Sen

9 pm ET: WI-07

10 pm ET: IL-11

11 pm ET : AZ-05

• SSP TV:

• AK-Sen: Lisa Murkowski may be the only Republican running a pro-pork campaign, with her new ad talking about how Joe Miller will cut off the flow of federal funds to Alaska

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet hits Ken Buck on Social Security privatization and his hardcore pro-life positions

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway moves quickly along from the ‘Aqua Buddha’ ad, turning the conversation back to mine safety, while Rand Paul continues to whine about it, spending an ad touting his Christian faith

• MO-Sen: Roy Blunt tries out a little Medicare sleight-of-hand (the whole HCR-cut-Medicare!!1! line)

• NH-Gov: The DGA, via local group Citizens for Strength and Security, hits John Stephen for retaining his campaign manager even after he received a restraining order for stalking

• NRCC: If you’ve ever wanted to watch 40+ Republican House ads in one sitting, here’s your chance

• Rasmussen:

• AK-Gov: Ethan Berkowitz (D) 39%, Sean Parnell (R-inc) 52%

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 45%, Ken Buck (R) 47%

• CT-Gov: Dan Malloy (D) 49%, Tom Foley (R) 45%

• HI-Sen: Dan Inouye (D-inc) 53%, Cam Cavasso (R) 40%

• MA-Gov: Deval Patrick (D-inc) 47%, Charlie Baker (R) 42%, Tim Cahill (I) 6%

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 47%, Sharron Angle (R) 50%

• UT-Gov: Peter Corroon (D) 29%, Gary Herbert (R-inc) 66%

• UT-Sen: Sam Granato (D) 29%, Mike Lee (R) 54%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 49%, Dino Rossi (R) 46%

306 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 10/18 (Afternoon Edition)”

  1. MSNBC First Read reports:

    “What we know, what we know about ourselves is that we are a melting pot in this country,” Angle continued. “My grandchildren are evidence of that. I’m evidence of that. I’ve been called the first Asian legislator in our Nevada State Assembly.”

    Angle, who served in the statehouse between 1998 and 2006, was best known for frequently being the only “no” vote among the 42-member assembly on otherwise unanimous agreements.

    The basis for the “first Asian legislator” comment? Ralston writes on his blog: “I have no idea what she is talking about.”

    OH. MY. GOD.

    If she wins, it means Nevadans have truly lost their minds.

  2. To be greeted by Vince McMahon himself defending the company against “unfair” attacks brought about by the Connecticut Senate race. Half of me says “What the hell did you expect!” the other half says “Always the businessman!”

  3. Can anyone tell me why a member of a Union would even THINK about voting for a republican?  I know the Dems have strayed away from Labor issues since the 70’s, but Jesus Christ, voting for Corporate pigs like the republican party is just the worst thing they could do if they wanted to maintain any of the things they have today due to labor unions.

  4.    I don’t what is going on with teamsters.  That bill sounds like a great idea to me.

      Unions are very strange players in southeastern Pennsylvania.  They endorse a lot of Republicans.  For example, my Republican state senator is AFL-CIO endorsed.  Teamsters are usually Democratic though.  I think the Lentz team saw this coming, because Lentz was playing up his lack of connections from unions in the last debate.  Lentz has brass ones, so I am not surprised he would not kiss rings to get an endorsement.  

      On a more practical note, the teamsters are not a large presence in the district.

  5. I am the whitest white boy they know, so I have no idea what having the racial identity of a Hispanic or black is like. I know more motivates them than simple racial concerns, but Angle has made, from what I can tell, plenty of outrageous comments. Thus, I have to ask: how is it that any Hispanic person in the state of Nevada who has the ability to vote is NOT extremely eager to vote for Reid, or at least hurt her in some way?  

  6. present evidence that there are fundamental factors that could have helped them win the governorship and thus justified investment until a week or so, they can’t be pissed. It’s on them to present this information.  

  8. http://www.wral.com/news/local…

    Raleigh, N.C. – After three days, one-stop early voting is on a record-setting pace for a midterm election, and white Republican men are furiously casting ballots, according to an analysis by Democracy North Carolina.

    The nonpartisan political watchdog group says the total number of Republicans who voted between Thursday and Saturday still trailed Democrats statewide by about 4,300. Yet, the margin is significantly smaller than the 3-1 ratio Democrats held in 2008.

    “Early voting doesn’t favor one party or another, but reveals who’s most organized and enthusiastic about making their voices heard,” Bob Hall, executive director of Democracy North Carolina, said in a statement.

  9. A DCCC-sponsored Anzalone Liszt Research poll conducted Oct. 11-13 has this…

    Chad Causey (D) 44%

    Rick Crawford (R) 42%

    Ken Adler (I?) 3%

    400 LVs. 4.9 MoE.

    Take that for what you will.  

  12. from P-Trip

    Blunt 46

    Carnahan 41

    Dine (Libertarian) 3

    Beck (Constitution) 3

    Tie amongst women, Blunt up amongst men. Tie amongst people born between 1946 and 1965. Impossibly low 18-29 sample (6%?). Both candidates rate negatively on favorable/unfavorable #. Neither 3rd party guy is gonna get 3%.

    Also, it’s not purely cellphones, caller ID has to be involved too.

    Hey, there’s a plausible path to victory in those numbers.

  13. one minor spelling typo on a very small sub-set of machines.

    That’s NOT “re-programming” for crying out loud (which in my mind would be like adding races or adding/deleting candidates)

    Anyway, “Rich Whitey” got several million bucks of free publicity and free media of out that unfortunate outrageous typo.

  14. I’m guessing they will poll the top six winners.  I voted for NH, Need to see if Hodes can seal the deal or if he will fall just a bit short.

  15.  Is getting closer and the ad in the digest is definitely helping him. It reminded me a bit of the “Puppies” ad in 2006 that the DNC ran against Michael Steele.

    The Bennett ad starts of with “Colorado has extremes, extreme mountains, extreme rivers and extremists.” It then went on showing how Buck wanted to privitize social security, showing a picture of an old man with a grayish background. It did a few more examples with the gray background and sad faces. The ad still had a bright picture though with pictures of Colorado’s nature.

    It was overall a great ad.  

  16. they’ll do three east coast states.  In CT the only real race is malloy, where foley is, according to pollster, moving up pretty quickly, but the fundamentals still favor Malloy.  Deleware is a done deal, witch loses by double digits.  New York?  paladino loses by 20, or 30?  Maryland?  If there’s any late mo for elrich, WAPO or rassy will poll it.  Maine I could see as it’s an under polled tossup.  other people have been polling Georgia, as well as new hampshire.  please, no one has polled VT. please.

  17. When I saw it in my mailbox I thought for a moment I’d gotten my neighbor’s copy of People by mistake.  Barf.  It’s basically  “Jerry Brown’s Legacy of Failure” versus “Meg Whitman’s Plan for Creating Jobs.”

  20. Given that Denish is likely to lose (sigh) the real races for me are NM-01 and NM-02 (NM-03 is a big sleeper IMHO).

    First the good news, NM-01 should stay with the Democrats (after having Republican representation for my entire life, I’m owed a lot more than two years of a good Democrat!) If Barela wants to pull off an upset against Heinrich, he’ll need to keep it extremely close (or outright win) the Bernalillo County part of the district (ie Albuquerque proper) and rack up huge margins in the outlying parts of the rest the district which are generally a lot more Republican than Albuquerque (for a good comparison, the 2006 midterm is a very good place to look, Heather Wilson’s margin of victory came from scoring large margins in the parts Santa Fe and Torrance counties with in the district, as well as winning Valencia and keeping it close in Sandoval). All that said, I’m very confident that Heinrich wins, he’s run a solid (though not spectacular) campaign while Barela, while not a horrible choice, is still not a particularly strong pick for this district (I think Darren White could have won had run this year instead of 2008 in all honesty).

    The bad news is, despite Steve Pearce’s poor campaign and Harry Teague’s excellent campaign, I don’t think Teague holds on this year. NM-02 is a reflexively Republican district in a reflexively Republican year. One big wild-card is going to be the Hispanic vote down south. Unlike the rest of the state, the Hispanic vote in southern New Mexico is mostly new immigrants, so the drop-off in turnout among Hispanics is going to be felt hardest here (which is unfortunate for Teague) but given Susana Martinez’s campaign, it’s hard to say what will happen, I can very easily see a lot of Martinez/Teague voters (especially among Hispanics) but not a lot of Denish/Pearce voters (even though Denish, Teague, and Pearce live in Hobbs).

  21. http://www.talkbusiness.net/ar…

    AR-01: Rick Crawford (R) leads Chad Causey (D) 42-34.

    AR-02: Tim Griffin (R) leads Joyce Elliot (D) 50-38.

    AR-03: Steve Womack (R) leads David Whitaker (D) 59-21.

    AR-04: Mike Ross (D) leads Beth Anne Rankin (R) 52-34.

  23. weeks left until the election. Yet still no publicly released Hill V Young poll. I thought WHAS or WISH would commission one but no. We will probably not see any.  

  24. …for the first two hours poll closing on Election Night. See if this sounds about right. I’m only predicting Dem seats that could go Repub.

    6:00PM EDT closings: KY (Eastern time zone), IN (Eastern time zone)

    KY-3 stays D

    KY-6 stay D

    IN-9 goes R

    7:00PM EDT closings: KY (Central time zone), IN (Central time zone), FL (Eastern time zone), Georgia, South Carolina, Vermont, Virginia

    IN-2 stays D

    IN-8 goes R

    FL-8 goes R

    FL-22 stays D

    FL-24 goes R

    GA-2 stays D

    GA-8 stays D

    GA-12 stays D

    SC-5 goes R

    VA-2 goes R

    VA-5 goes R

    VA-9 stays D

    VA-11 stays D

    7:30PM EDT closings: North Carolina, West Virginia, Ohio

    NC-7 stays D

    NC-8 stays D

    NC-11 stays D

    WV-1 stays D

    OH-1 goes R

    OH-6 stays D

    OH-13 stays D

    OH-15 goes R

    OH-16 goes R

    OH-18 stays D

    So. Too optimistic? About right? What?

  30. I got a young Pennsylvania Democrat to send out her absentee ballot application today.  She failed to vote in 2008.  So…eat THAT enthusiasm gap!  Sadly, her residence is just barely outside Mark Critz’s district and she will have to vote hopelessly for Tim Murphy’s opponent (PA-18).  

  31. Why do Democrats even bother running anyone in Utah?  To that state’s citizens, they may as well be the Green Party or the Socialists.

  37. …everyone was nice/nice.. Seems to me that Manchin should have hit Raese more especially on his out-of-state ties, but it didn’t happen.  Manchin was awfully apologetic about Democratic policies, too… thought he would separate himself from national dems more.. While that makes me happy as a dem, I hope that won’t hurt him at the polls.. He does know his state, though.. so, he should know what would work.

    Some conservative outfit has a poll out tonight with Raese winning 49-47, so Manchin is still probably leading in real life.

  40. Heard my first ad on the radio today from the WA-3 race, NRA sponsored ad for Herrera basically stating “she’ll protect our 2nd Amendment Rights and stand up to Nancy Pelosi.”  First ad i’ve seen or heard from that race in the Seattle area.  Seemed an odd use of resources as I would think most of the district is outside the range of the station, plus I suspect the demographics of this station (contemporary & classic rock) didn’t strike me as the sort too be too concerned about gun rights.

  41. Apparently, a citizen ally of Republican Bill Schuette in the Michigan AG race who did a commercial for Schuette attacking her opponent, David Leyton, made an anti-Semitic posting on some local papers board.  Leyton is Jewish.  He’s demanding an apology, which I don’t see playing well even if she’s totally in the wrong.  

    This all started when Schuette found this woman — whose son was murdered and David Leyton didn’t initially prosecute the case I guess citing lack of evidence or something.  Eventually, the current GOP state AG was able to bring charges and the case was eventually reopened.

    Leyton is down in the polls (he’s far less well known than his opponent).  Maybe, this will get him some name recognition?

  43. Michigan voter registration numbers show that 95.5% of those of voting age are registered, now.  That’s a one percentage point increase from the 2006 gubernatorial election.  The turnout in 2006 was 50.7%, which was the highest turnout since the 1970 gubernatorial election.

    The general feeling around here is that the turnout is going to be abysmal, this year, but I’m really thinking we’re going to be seeing a surprise.  At least, that’s my expressed wish.

    As Michigan doesn’t register voters by party, it’s always really hard to tell who has the edge.  But in 2008, 34% of Michigan voters indentified as Democrats, and 24% as Republicans.

  44. “We’re going to have a poll that’s a bit of a game changer out around 10 this morning. Not saying what state…”

    They polled WA, IL and NC over the weekend. They said yesterday Murray is ahead so I’m guessing it must either be Alexi up big, Quinn ahead or Marshall close.

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