SSP Daily Digest: 10/21 (Afternoon Edition)

• AK-Sen: Congrats to Scott McAdams, who just cleared the McMillion hurdle with $1 million in fundraising so far. The majority of contributions were from Alaska, with 88% contributions of $200 or less.

• KY-Sen: Matt Taibbi’s new Rolling Stone article as he works the Rand Paul beat is a must-read even if it doesn’t have any revelations as freaky as the “Aqua Buddha” story, although there’s some vague and anonymous racism from the newsletter that his snarky secret society put out. The prize-winning quote, though, deals with the Tea Partiers don’t seem terribly phased by any of this:

(“Well, I used to use that cologne myself,” was the response of one Tea Partier to a question I posed about “Aqua Buddha”)

• MO-Sen: American Crossroads has declared victory in Missouri, and is pulling out of advertising there, where Roy Blunt has a consistent but single-digit lead. (As for the actual party committees… well, it’s probably not relevant, seeing as how Crossroads and its ilk have made them basically irrelevant this year.)

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid racked up a couple endorsements from the big-in-Nevada gaming industry, including PokerPAC. He also got the endorsement of the former chair of the RNC, Frank Fahrenkopf, who warned of the threat Sharron Angle (with her ties to anti-gambling Gary Bauer) might pose to the state’s gaming industry.

• PA-Sen: Ah, sweet Schadenfreude. The Club for Growth is having to plug $1 million into the Pennsylvania Senate race in order to bail out their former boss, Pat Toomey.

• WI-Sen: Yet another story with Ron Johnson with his hand in the trough he so regularly decries: he says he’s not quite sure how five of his employees (and 10 dependents) at his plastics firm Pacur wound up on BadgerCare, the state’s health insurance program for the poor. That would seem to contradict previous statements from the Johnson camp that all Pacur full-time employees are covered by the company’s plan.

• AZ-07, AZ-08: I know John McCain has refudiated all his old mavericky ways, but did he actually have to go so far as to violate his signature piece of mavericky legislation, the McCain-Feingold Act? He recently cut spots for GOP candidates in the 7th and 8th, in which he and Jon Kyl appeared, and paid for them out of Friends of John McCain (his campaign committee). Dems have filed FEC complaints against McCain, saying that if he coordinated with the Ruth McClung and Jesse Kelly campaigns, he would’ve been limited to $4,800 contributions to each (they’d be legal independent expenditures if there was truly no coordination).

• CO-03, CO-04: The gang-that-couldn’t-shoot-straight strikes twice, in two different neighboring Old West districts. In the 3rd, an anti-abortion group has been hitting the airwaves attacking Ken Salazar. That’s fine, but Ken Salazar is the Secretary of Interior. His brother (the one with the mustache) is John Salazar, the Rep. from the 3rd. OK, understandable, since they’re brothers… but how do you explain the confusion in the 4th, where not just some outside group but the Cory Gardner campaign mixed up Betsy Markey with Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey? They accused her of voting for the Obama budget, which she didn’t; that was the other Markey.

• FL-25: I don’t know how far this will get, but give local Dems in south Florida credit for audaciousness. A Joe Garcia backer filed a lawsuit trying to get David Rivera removed from the ballot. The suit alleges that Rivera should be removed because of state election finance disclosure irregularities, concerning Rivera’s mysterious claims of being a contractor to USAID despite USAID saying he wasn’t. While they cite a comparable case where a state senate candidate was recently stricken from the ballot from similar problems, I’m wondering if it may be too late to do anything about that even if it succeeds on the merits (although if it only serves to move the USAID deception into the spotlight, that’s good too).

• MO-04: More triage news… on the Republican side? Despite news of a Vicky Hartzler internal poll yesterday that showed a tied race, the NRCC is packing up, at least from the Kansas City market. I wonder if that has more to do with feeling neighboring KS-03 is locked down, as there are other smaller media markets in the 4th where they might still spend, but I think this has to count as at least a partial pullout.

• SD-AL: This is an interesting counterpoint to the anti-Pelosi (or at least Pelosi-skeptical) tide that seems to be rising among threatened Blue Dogs, including Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (who’s in the skeptic camp): GOP challenger Kristi Noem is saying that if she wins her race, she’s not sold yet on John Boehner as Republican leader, but would like to see who else might run. Recall that Noem previously politely told Sarah Palin to stay far away from her race, so this isn’t the first time she’s pantomimed independence.

• Early voting: There’s been some buzz today about a CBS News story that says that Dems are doing better than expected in early voting, although it’s kind of shy on actual numbers. It mentions that Dems have outpaced GOPers in early voting in Iowa, Maryland, North Carolina, and Clark Co., Nevada, while there’s a Republican edge in Florida and Colorado. Jon Ralston, of course, has more data on Nevada, while Politico has some Iowa tidbits, involving early ballot requests in IA-03 (where 50% of requests are from Dems, but where Dems are 36% of the electorate) and IA-02 (51% of the requests, 38% of the electorate).

• SSP TV:

• CO-Sen: Women’s Voices Women Vote Action Fund is out with a “high six-figure” buy in Colorado, with the first TV ad to take on Ken Buck’s failure to prosecute that 2005 rape case (the “buyer’s remorse” incident)

• KY-Sen: The DSCC hits Rand Paul on his support for the 23% sales (aka “fair”) tax

• NV-Sen: Sharron Angle wonders how Harry Reid made all that money in her new ad (helpful fact from Jon Ralston: he was a millionaire even before he was in the House)

• WV-Sen: Outsourcing seems to be the hot button issue coming out of focus groups that works for the Dems these days, as the DSCC keeps hitting John Raese on it with their new spot

• AZ-03: Jon Hulburd has another TV ad against Ben Quayle, poking at his values and overall maturity

• HI-01: Colleen Hanabusa’s new ad has a special guest star in the form of Barack Obama

• IN-09: The SEIU goes after Todd Young on Social Security privatization

• NH-01: Carol Shea-Porter, in her own ad, also works the SSP angle against Frank Guinta

• VA-05: Is the DCCC trying to drive up indie teabagger Jeffrey Clark’s numbers? They’re out with a spot hitting Robert Hurt for all the tax-raising he did in the state legislature

• Rasmussen:

• IL-Gov: Pat Quinn (D-inc) 37%, Bill Brady (R) 45%, Rich Whit(n)ey (G) 2%, Scott Lee Cohen (I) 6%

• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan (D) 43%, Roy Blunt (R) 52%

• ND-AL: Earl Pomeroy (D-inc) 42%, Rick Berg (R) 52%

• NY-Sen-B: Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc) 54%, Joe DioGuardi (R) 33%

• SC-Gov: Vincent Sheheen (D) 38%, Nikki Haley (R) 47%

247 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 10/21 (Afternoon Edition)”

  1. Ron Johnson seems determined to get Russ Feingold re-elected. Am I right that all of his most recent bonehead remarks came after the most recent polling that put Feingold in a dead heat? If so, I wouldn’t be surprised to see Feingold pull ahead further in the next few days.

  4. I’ve noticed political journalists struggle badly to correctly interpret statistics, whether polling data or voting data or whatever else.

    In this case, they don’t always think to consider that you have to compare midterm-to-midterm, and compare early turnout to actual election results, and even go further down into the weeds to see what kind of advantage one party typically has at the start of early voting versus toward the end of early voting.

    The truth regarding Iowa is that statewide the Dem advantage is the weakest it’s been, far worse than 2006.  Perhaps IA-02 and IA-03 are doing much better than, statewide, and it’s plausible there’s no uniform swing in turnout and some areas friendlier to Democrats will have better Democratic turnout than more competitive purple areas or red areas.

    And the North Carolina numbers have been poor compared to 2006, from what I’ve read.

    Nevada is holding its own compared to 2006 from what Ralston keeps saying everyday.

    But some of these stories just look at how many Dems and GOPers have voted and do a half-assed “analysis” that is completely wrong.

  5. I mean seriously, who’s the likely voter here? Someone who thinks Quinn and Brady have enough potential for illegal shenanigans to live up to Illinois’ proud tradition of crooked governors? I can sort of understand someone frustrated with the poor choices both parties have put on the ballot and voting for Whitney, but this guy?!?

  9. I never really considered the Iowa Democrats to be that endangered at any time. I still don’t know how Rep. Leonard Boswell made it onto so many pundits’ “tossup” list. I never considered IA-3 to be anything less than Lean Democratic.

  10. looks pretty good this year, based on these numbers provided by dKos diarist. I can’t confirm them, but diarist says they come from the office of the SoS.

    http://www.dailykos.com/story/…

    In that period in 2006, about 60,000 African Americans voted.  And even though in total African Americans made up 24% of all ballots cast in Georgia, in the early voting period they accounted for less than 17% of voters.  Enough background, what is happening this year?

    Well, with the final week of early voting not even upon us, African American voters have already cast more than 68,000 ballots.  That’s more than the 2006 total and we still have 7 days of early voting to go plus election day.  By comparison, white voters cast 284,000 votes in the early period of 2006 and have cast just over 202,000 this year.

    In the comments, diarist says:

    As an aside, at the end of last week African Americans made up only 22.4% of early voters, but this week it has been steadily rising, to 23.4, 23.8 and today 24.2%.  I am hoping by Monday (when Friday’s numbers will come out) that we will be at 25% and rising!

  11. Former Governor Al Quie (Republican) is throwing his support behind Horner (Independence).

    “Horner has been peeling away support from Emmer’s Republican base. Several former legislators and at least one Republican mayor say they’re backing Horner because they consider Emmer’s budget plan “too extreme.” ”

    http://minnesota.publicradio.o…

  18. ME-GOV: LePage leads Mitchell and Cutler 32-20-19. ME-1: Pingree +5 only, ME-2: Michaud +19, big MoE for House races. Mitchell must be HATED very much in Maine, only explanation

  20. Saw WPRI report today that the RGA is going up with late ads in RI, I think that it’s quite smart and there’s a possibility of a GOP victory a la HI-1, they seems to see that Caprio and Chafee are splitting the left of center and center votes, propping up Robitaille (R) to get 38% is “possible”, Chafee can lose remaining GOP support a la Crist.

  21. It was a robopoll, no leading questions, but they did have all the republican candidates as press one but i doubt that makes much of a difference.

    Also i went to a debate between Sean Duffy and Julie Lassa last night.

  25. This is the one that was reported earlier today. It was conducted by Voter Survey Service for the (apparently conservative) Sunshine State News.

    Oct. 17-19. 3.46% MoE. It showed…

    Allen West (R) 47%

    Ron Klein (D) 44%

    Undecided 9%

    The partisan make-up of the sample is 44% Republicans, 39% Democrats.

    http://www.sunshinestatenews.c…

    I couldn’t find an accurate partisan breakdown of FL-22, but I did find the Sept. 20-22 Harstad poll which claims to have an “accurate” party composition of FL-22 in its poll.

    The make-up of the Harstad poll was 40% Republicans, 38% Democrats.

    http://miamiherald.typepad.com…

    A 5 percentage point advantage for Repubs in FL-22 vs. a 2 percentage point advantage?

  26. U.S. Rep. Raúl Grijalva’s congressional office is closed this afternoon as police respond to a suspicious piece of mail.

    An envelope arrived with swastikas drawn on the outside and a white powdery substance on the inside, said Adam Sarvana, Grijalva’s spokesman.

    The office is on lockdown as police investigate. Those outside the office are not allowed in, and the workers and constituents inside are not allowed to leave until police clear the scene, Sarvana said.

    Preliminary health checks show those in the office are OK, but further testing is needed because the substance has not been identified, Sarvana said.

    http://azstarnet.com/news/blog…

  30. Right now Wisconsin, Minnesota, and Texas are winning.

    Arizona’s a waste of time, (Goddard is not going to win), and Iowa is going to be polled by Sezler next week.  

  33. Metaphorically, of course. But actually, I disagree with Crisitunity.

    I think the best part of the piece is his summary of Paul, delivered with Taibbi’s trademark vampire-squid directness:

    There are a lot of things to criticize about Rand Paul, and a lot of liberal critics have focused on his far-out views on the Civil Rights Act and pegged him as a closet racist, but to me that’s not the key with this guy. Far more important is that he just seems like an overgrown adolescent and a dick.

    One reporter I talked to in Kentucky put it this way: “He’s just the prototypical spoiled college douchebag,” the reporter said. “He’s every rich kid you knew in college who read The Fountainhead once and loved the idea that sharing is immoral.”

  34. My wife was involved in a horse accident on Monday, fracturing her left tibia, along with a hairline fracture of her skull.  I’ve been running around with my head cut off…my 9 year old daughter was with her alone when it happened.

    I’m hoping that we will fool the experts and kick some GOP ass this year.  Having spent the last 3 days at the Duke hospital has recharged my jets on why we need to keep the Democrats in power.

  36. I’d been saying it all along, but the race in heavily Republican MI-03 is actually looking as if it can be competitive in these last weeks.

    According to an EPIC-MRA poll conducted October 18 & 19:

    Justin Amash (R): 46%

    Pat Miles (D): 37%

    Undecided: 9%

    Other: 8%

    Miles is actually leading Amash with independents 46% to 27%, with the problem being that there aren’t that many independents in this red district.

    Anyone who knows this district knows that these are some pretty shocking numbers.  Again, I don’t predict a Miles win, but it’ll be very interesting to see how close this gets, and regardless it shows that this is a district in play for Dems in the future.

  37. BTW, a nail in the coffin of the silly poll a few weeks back showing John Dingell in trouble in Michigan’s 15th:



    Free Press-WXYZ TV (EPIC/MRA):

    John Dingell (D): 53%

    Rob Steele (R): 36%

    Other: 6%

    Undecided: 5%

    http://www.freep.com/article/2…

    Sure, Dingell is slipping a little bit in this Republican year, but he’s not in any danger.

  38. election day:

    The president will attend “Get out the vote” rallies in Philadelphia, Pa., Bridgeport, Conn., and Chicago, Ill. on Sat., Oct. 30, and cap off his swing with another speech in Cleveland, Ohio on Sun., Oct. 31.

  43. The final Culver-Branstad debate was today. I thought Culver did very well. Branstad didn’t make any game-changing mistakes, but I think Culver probably made the sale with some Ds and Is who used to like him but weren’t sold on a second term.

    If he cuts Branstad’s margin it will greatly improve Dem chances of holding the Iowa House and minimizing losses in the Iowa Senate.  

  45. PA-Sen:

    Joe Sestak (D) 43%

    Pat Toomey (R) 43%

    PA-Gov

    Tom Corbett (R) 49%

    Dan Onorato (D) 40%

    At least according to Morning Call’s website graphic.

  47. He sees a 52/48 Senate but has 8 Democratic seats more likely to flip than not. West Virginia is barely below the line, he sees the race as a tie and makes Manchin the 51:49 favorite.

    Nate also still has Toomey as an 84% favorite, which I don’t get. He equates the Sestak surge to the Fiorina surge, and says that despite their improvements in the polls they are still down. The difference, at least for me, is that Fiorina lives in a big early-voting state, while Sestak has the full 11 (God, is that all that’s left ?!?) days to make his case.

  48. or should I wait for an open thread? I know there are two of them; the first is on term limits, but the second one, I hear, is long and covers something like 7 different points. I did a web search for “New York ballot initiatives 2010” and didn’t actually find the text of the 2nd initiative.

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