SSP Daily Digest: 10/22 (Afternoon Edition)

• KY-Sen: The Beltway chattering class seems to have either moved on from “Aqua Buddha,” or taken it as a given that it just backfired on Jack Conway. Josh Green at the Atlantic does some actual, y’know, reporting on what’s happening on the ground, though, and finds that the ad (and its rebuttal), and their aftermath, are still completely driving the conversation in Kentucky. Local GOP pols still seem to think that Rand Paul will squeak by in the end, but it’s thrown him deeply off message and the refusal to debate again doesn’t look good on him. (UPDATE: Actually, Greg Sargent just reported that the Conway camp is taking down the Aqua Buddha ad. To clarify “taking down,” though, this was a planned move, as it reached the end of its original run, to be replaced by this sales tax ad.)

• PA-Sen: Barack Obama will be making a four-state swing through the east coast and midwest over the weekend prior to the election; one of the stopping spots will be Philadelphia, where he’ll be doing a canvassing event. He’ll also be doing rallies in Chicago, Cleveland, and Bridgeport, Connecticut (indicating they’re still leaving nothing to chance with Richard Blumenthal).

• CA-Gov: Meg Whitman breaking self-funding records has become something of a dog-bites-man story around here, but one more for old times sake: she spent $23 million in the first half of October, bringing her all-cycle total to $163 million. Jerry Brown, by contrast, spent $14.6 million in that period, bringing his all-cycle spending to $25 million.

• CO-Gov: I doubt this is much of a game-changer, but it may help flip a few more Colorado Springs area votes in Tom Tancredo’s direction (if there were any Dan Maes supporters left there). Rep. Doug Lamborn became perhaps the most prominent elected Republican in Colorado to publicly come out in support of Tancredo, rather than Maes.

• MN-Gov: The RGA must be seeing something the polls aren’t telling them, because they’re still fighting till the end in Minnesota. (Of course, if one committee has money to throw at unlikely races and see what sticks, it’s the RGA.) They just gave $1 million to third party group Minnesota Future to run more anti-Mark Dayton (and probably anti-Tom Horner) ads. (You may remember Minnesota Future from the whole Target contribution controversy. Interestingly, Hubbard Broadcasting, owner of local TV station KSTP, also was just identified as having given $25K to Minnesota Future. Y’know, because they’re part of that liberal lamestream media.)

• FL-24: And here I’d thought we’d dodged something of a bullet when Karen Diebel got sent packing to spent more time guarding her swimming pool. Sandy Adams, who seems likely to be the next Representative for the Space Coast, has come out in favor of the “biblical teachings” rather than the theory of evolution. I look forward to hearing her proposals for a faith-based space program next.

• ID-01: The Tea Party Express finally endorsed Raul Labrador in the 1st. However, that comes only after they tried to endorse Democratic incumbent Walt Minnick as their token Dem fig-leaf and he rejected the endorsement (over racist statements by one of their, at the time, key members).

• Early voting: Ohio Democrats are pointing to an edge in early voting, where they’re leading 44 percent to 34 percent for Republicans in votes cast so far. The Republicans are claiming the edge after three days of early voting in Florida, with a 148,000 vote edge, although Dems pointed out that was about where the numbers were in the 2006 election.

• Redistricting: Here’s a good counterpoint to several articles that have shrugged off the possible large Republican advantage on the redistricting front coming out of this election, one that actually looks at the actual number of House seats that are likely to be influenced. Extrapolating likely control of state governorships and legislatures, the GOP will have “untrammeled” control over 125 House seats while Dems will control only 62, a worse outcome than 1990 or 2000. (43 are in commission-based states or at-large states, with 205 drawn by divided governments.)

• Chamber of Commerce: This article was been making the rounds, but it’s a must-read if you haven’t already done so and you’re interested in the “dark money” that’s swamping the transparent money, this cycle more than ever. The NYT digs into what corporations are using the national Chamber of Commerce as a pass-through for their contributions, including Prudential, Dow Chemical, and Dutch insurer Aegon.

• SSP TV:

• AZ-Sen: This looks like John McCain’s last ad, as it’s a soft-focus closing argument type of spot

• CO-Sen: The League of Conservation Voters hits Ken Buck on environmental issues

• DE-Sen: Here’s the first Chris Coons ad to take on Christine O’Donnell directly, saying she lives in the “Twilight Zone”

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid rolls out endorsements from various local business leaders in his newest ad

• WA-Sen: Waiting until the end to go after Dino Rossi for his anti-abortion stance seems to be tradition now, in order to swing any last-minute moderate women who haven’t decided, and the DSCC piles on

• HI-Gov: Barack Obama, fresh off his Colleen Hanabusa spot, also cuts an ad touting Neil Abercrombie

• RI-Gov: The DGA keeps pounding on Lincoln Chafee over the tax hikes he’d like (I’ve also heard the RGA is buying an ad here on behalf of John Robitaille, though I haven’t seen a link)

• WV-03: Ewwww… Spike Maynard plays the terrorist card against Arab-American Rep. Nick Rahall

• MoveOn: MoveOn seems to have saved their powder for one huge blast at the end, running ads in eight Senate races and 20 House races (here’s their WI-08 ad), helping only Dems who voted in favor of HCR

• Sierra Club: The Sierra Club is out with ads boosting Democratic incumbents in FL-22, MI-07, and AZ-08

• 60+ Assoc.: The AARP’s evil doppelganger is running two spots, a two-fer in Arizona hitting both Raul Grijalva and Gabby Giffords, and… here’s a new one… Solomon Ortiz in TX-27

• Rasmussen:

• MN-Gov: Mark Dayton (D) 44%, Tom Emmer (R) 41%, Tom Horner (I) 10%

• NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo (D) 51%, Carl Paladino (R) 37%

• NY-Sen: Charles Schumer (D-inc) 59%, Jay Townsend (R) 31%

• SD-AL: Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-inc) 44%, Kristi Noem (R) 49%

121 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 10/22 (Afternoon Edition)”

  1. Early voting is going pretty well for us in NV and IA as well.

    I thought Paul was going to announce today that he would debate on Monday.

    PPP is tweeting a bunch of bad news today.

    CO-Gov race is looking pretty competitive; Ky thinks Aqua Buddha ad was over the line; CA prop 19 polling looking bad.

    It is looking like next week may be a bad polling week for Dems with that news.  

  2. with her batshit craziness this time around she will go down in 12 barring any major changes to the district.

  3. ….because the Independence Party candidate is consolidating an endless deluge of rave reviews from everybody with a bully pulpit which makes it seem unlikely he’ll be stuck at 10% in the polls on election day as Scott Rasmussen suggests he is today.  If would-be Dayton voters do what Minnesotans have done in the last three Minnesota gubernatorial elections and defected from the DFL candidate en masse in the last 10 days of the campaign, in this case losing votes to Horner, Emmer could still slip in with 35% of the vote.  

  6. I think I heard this here at SSP, but I think KY-6 is going to have a poll out today. While I expect any poll to show either a tied race or Dem Ben Chandler slightly ahead, KY-6 is still one of my early yardsticks for Election Night.

    I fully expect Chandler to win, but I still would like to see that poll if it is indeed going to be out today.

    I would also like to see polls in IN-9, GA-8, and SC-5, but heck, that’s not going to happen, I don’t think.

  8. “In Wisconsin, for instance, a new poll from St. Norbert College shows Russ Feingold just 2 points behind Ron Johnson – his best figure in a nonpartisan survey in some time. But this islv the first time that St. Norbert has gone into the field: we have no idea whether they’re in fact capturing tightening (could be), or their poll just happens to be a bit goofy (could also be). None of the several pollsters who had Mr. Johnson ahead by about 7 points before have yet weighed in with news of a materially tighter race.”

    http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.n…

    Silly Silver, “no idea” whether there is tightening? I would consider that Oct. 12-14 Penn poll of WI-8 (the one showing a 1 point difference between Dem Kagan and Repub Ribble to be an “idea” of tightening, even in WI-Sen.

    This election analysis stuff isn’t hard. Heck, I could do what Silver, Cook, and the gang do.

  9. And not just because of the minor party issue.

    According to CNN exit polls, Obama won the Latino vote in CO only 61-38, which I think is understating it but is still far less than the 3-1 margins among Latinos in California and Nevada.

    However, Tancredo is pretty well-known as being incredibly anti-Latino. My parents, who are among the few conservative Hispanic Republicans in California, loathe Tancredo. Having him win the governorship might be the equivalent of Prop 187 in CA or the recent immigration fight in AZ, the big event that tips Latinos to the Democrats once and for all. We’ve already seen GOP support plummet among AZ Hispanics, and CO might be next.

  11. I’m not sure if these can be qualified as “good”, but it seems that in CA-44 the GOP has returned 21% of ballots issued, while dems have returned 19% of ballots issued.

    It’s about the same in CA-48 where the GOP has returned 22% of mail in ballots issued, and dems have returned 20% of ballots issued.

    Only problem with this somewhat equal showing is the VAST difference in actual ballots issued and returned.  In CA-44, only 7691 mail in ballots have been requested, whereas the GOP has requested 20020 mail in ballots.

    CA-48 has dems requesting 52687 Mail in ballots, and the GOP has 91230 requesting mail in ballots.

    The amount of dems requesting in CA-44 is quite disheartening, and my only thought is that CA-44 is going to have overall lower turnout than say CA-48, which contains Irvine and UCI, because CA-44 has no major population centers.

    What do you guys think?  I know for a fact all the ballots that have been mailed back haven’t been counted (Sent mine back to CA-44 on Monday, and it hasn’t been processed yet according to the OC vote website).  I have high hopes for Hedrick, but with return numbers like that, it isn’t making me any more hopefull…

  14. Rasmussen’s NY numbers are all anout 10 points more Republican the the poll averages.  He has Crazy Carl Palladino in a semi competitive race, down only 14 points.  The Real Clear Politics average today shows Carl trailing by 23.8 points.  The Schumer number is closer to the RCP average.

    Frankly, Cuomo had been leading by 30 and I think that’s a better read on the race tahn even the 24 point bulge.

  15. If your opponent is a spaz named Tancredo and a buffoon named Maes and you are not blowing them away in the polls in a state Obama carried by 8.5% fucking points, you are a GADDAMN IDIOT!!!!

    I mean, I thought he was the luckiest Dem in the whole country after McInnis lost and Maes got the nomination (now Coons has that title and he is proving himself pretty well), but now he is tied with a racist in a purple state like CO??? I mean WTF is this shit? Who is advising his campaign? more importantly, how is it that he was seen as more electable than Bennet (assuming he appointed to replace Salazar) and now Bennet is running the smarter campaign. What a ditz!

    I swear even if he wins, I DO NOT want to see Hickenlooper’s name anywhere near a list of potential Dem Prez nominees in 2016. If his 2010 campaign is anything like what he’d run in 2016, we’re royally fucked!!

  16. Jon Runyan leads incumbent John Adler 40-37 in the latest Zobgy/Stockton poll (Zogby telephone NOT internet).  In the previous poll Adler led 38-30.  Apparent Tea party planted candidate Pete Destefano picks up 5% of the vote compared to 8% in the last poll in September.  600 likely voters surveyed, MOE 4.1%.

    http://www.politickernj.com/42…

  17. I hope this isn’t too burried in the comments but Obama is doing a rally in Minneapolis tomorrow for Mark Dayton. It’s on the U of M campus. I’m so excited!!!

  20. At least, I expect to, assuming my parents are willing.

    Blumenthal himself will be in town, but it seems the canvassing is a multi-level canvassing effort, involving the Blumenthal, Malloy, Larson, and other campaigns.

    Including the state rep race–who will probably himself be among the canvassers.

  22. According to that article, Democrats will only control redistricting in California(53) and Massachussetts(9), while Republicans will control it in Pennslyvania(18), Ohio(16), Utah(5), Indiana(9), Florida(27), Georgia(14),  and Texas(36).  

    This would be the worst redistricting position for Democrats probably since the 1921 census.

    Republicans will now have the keys to lock Democrats out of the House for a decade.  

  23. The Democrats kept up pace this week with Republicans in requesting ballots.  At their low point statewide they had a 22,000 ballot advantage on Republicans, now they’re up over 27,000.

    The county numbers for the week are out, and I did up the totals for IA-03 and IA-02.

    IA-03: 33,123 Dem., 25,030 Rep., 11,206 Ind.

    So in IA-03, the Democratic ballot request advantage is 8,093.  Their early/abentee ballot advantage in 2006 was 9,449.  Given that there is more of an effort to turn out Republican votes early this year, I would say that Democrats remain in good relative position.

    IA-02: 35,797 Dem., 21,400 Rep., 14,406 Ind.

    In IA-02, the Democratic ballot request advantage is 14,397.  Their early/abentee ballot advantage in 2006 was 17,044.  Things look generally similar to next door: in IA-03, the Dem advantage is 85.7% of what they had in 2006, in IA-02, the Dem advantage is 84.5% of what they had in 2006.

    Of note, IA-02 has Johnson County, where there has been a spike in turn out of Independents: 2,000 more have requested early ballots compared to the final totals in the county in 2006.  It is likely that many are college students, lacking partisan identification, spurred to vote by the 21+ in bars initiative.  This may give a slight advantage to Loebsack that he might not otherwise have.

    I’m not really worried about these seats going Republican, personally.

  24. at the Florida Democratic Party office yesterday, just thought I’d share some of what I saw.

    about one out of every 7 registered Dem (a few Indies that voted for Obama) answered the phone, and almost all of them said they were strongly in favor of Sink, with only a few undecided, and non for Scott that I saw.

    For Senate, there was a HUGE division between Meek and Crist, with maybe 55% for Crist and 45% for Meek (I think only one for Rubio that I saw.)

    And most of the registered Dems said they were voting for the entire ticket (CFO, AG, Agr Commissioner).

    In the digest from Friday, FL Dems are being outpaced pretty significantly in early voting compared to 2006 and 2008. What people are failing to recognize is the huge number of Dems and  Dem-leaning indies who are undecided/torn on Meek/Crist or waiting to see if one of them will drop out (like Imeand my roomates are doing.) This Crist/Meek division seems to be what is causing the bad early voting numbers IMHO.

    This coming week, expect better Dem turnout numbers in early voting (Wed, Thurs, Fri) as it becomes clear Meek and Crist won’t budge. On election day, I expect Dem turnout will be significantly higher than Republican turnout, since a large number of GOPers have already voted and knew who they wanted, while the Democrats wait and break last minute for Crist/Meek. Just hope its enough to drag Alex Sink across the line.

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