Author: DavidNYC

Democracy Corps (D) (10/6-7, likely voters, 9/22-23 in parens):

Jon Corzine (D-inc): 41 (39)

Chris Christie (R): 38 (40)

Chris Daggett (I): 14 (11)

Undecided: 7 (9)

(MoE: ±4%)

That’s the second poll this week which has shown Jon Corzine with the slimmest of leads. And, as happened on Tuesday, there’s also another poll alongside this one showing Corzine just behind.

SurveyUSA (10/5-7, likely voters, no trendlines):

Jon Corzine (D-inc): 40

Chris Christie (R): 43

Chris Daggett (I): 14

Undecided: 2

(MoE: ±4%)

Unfortunately, this is SUSA’s first poll of NJ-Gov, so we have no trendlines here. But they’re seeing the same thing as everyone else – a very close race:

Back when we last changed our rating on this race, we were at the point on the Pollster chart where the distance between the red and blue lines had been getting wider and wider, and was in fact at the widest it had ever been – “peak Christie,” you might call it. At the time, we felt that this race exhibited a number of signs that set it apart from the usual “unloved Jersey Dem comes back in the end” storyline. Yet we did conclude with this remark:

This doesn’t mean we think Corzine can’t stage a comeback, or that Christie has this one in the bag. It simply means that he has the edge right now, something which seems hard to deny at this point. But if that changes, our rating will, too.

Well, things have changed. True, Corzine’s popularity still sucks, and so does the economy. But it turns out Chris Christie wound up being a whole lot suckier. His non-stop parade of ethical lapses and his utter failure to articulate any kind of vision for the Garden State have proven that as a candidate – dare I say it? – he’s a lightweight. Even the conservative Wall Street Journal has hammered him for his “empty” campaign. In retrospect, though, I suppose we shouldn’t have expected much more than this from a handpicked Karl Rove-brand US Attorney.

The other factor, of course, is the emergence of independent Chris Daggett, who has almost certainly been siphoning off a good helping of anti-incumbent discontent. SUSA, interestingly, shows that similar proportions of folks who voted for Corzine in 2005 and his Republican opponent, Doug Forrester, are defecting to Daggett. But both my intuition and Daggett’s overall trendlines make me think that if he weren’t in the race, plenty of Democrats would still be defecting but fewer Republicans would be. In other words, Daggett offers an escape valve for some anti-Corzine votes that would otherwise go to Christie.

Add in Corzine’s considerable money advantage and it’s enough for us to conclude that this race is anybody’s game. So we’re moving NJ-Gov back to “Tossup.” Election night should be a wild ride.

Much to discuss re the NY-23 special election.

• In what I think is the biggest piece of recent news, the Working Families Party is endorsing Democrat Bill Owens. This means that Owens will get their ballot line, of course, but it hopefully also signals that the WFP plans to deploy its well-honed ground resources on Owens’ behalf. Last year, in a state Senate special election in a very red district in the same part of New York, the WFP sent 25 canvassers full-time and got huge praise all around for helping Dem Darrel Aubertine pull off a major upset.
• Competing for the top slot is word that Barack Obama will hold a fundraiser for Owens in New York City on Oct. 20th. Obama, as you know, has shown a frustrating reluctance to personally involve himself in downballot races (for the NY-20 special, the best he could muster was a Biden radio ad). So I take his engagement as a sign that his political team likes Owens’ chances, and thinks a win here would be a key score. Of note: Bill Clinton and Kirsten Gillibrand have both sent out fundraising emails for Owens – someone with a lot of juice is making this stuff happen.
• Dede Scozzafava scored the NRA’s endorsement. Conservative Party candidate Doug Hoffman had recently gone on the air with an ad touting his NRA membership – so much for that, I suppose.
• Had your hopes about Scozzafava’s ideology? Think she might wind up as a Susan Collins-type, or even the GOP’s version of Joe Lieberman? Wonder no more! NRCC chair Pete Sessions explains it all:
  

  Sessions assured Members that despite Scozzafava’s moderate leanings… she will be voting with the Republican Conference 95 percent or more of the time.

• The party committees drop a bunch more scrilla on the North Country. The DCCC is in for a cool hundred grand on TV ads, while the NRCC plunks down about 65 large, also, it seems, for airtime. Here’s a look at the DCCC’s newest spot on the left, as well as a new web video on the right:

With the 2010 election season starting to heat up a bit in the House, we thought we’d take a look back at all the incumbents who didn’t seek re-election to the 111th Congress, along with the date they officially announced they weren’t running again (and their reasons).

Note: Mark Udall planned to run for Senate long before the 2008 cycle began, so we’ve just slotted him in at the top. And if you’d like to take a look back at Republican retirements in the 2006 cycle, click here.

As you can see, things unfolded rather differently over the last two Congresses, especially compared to what we’ve seen so far this year. Last cycle, there were already a number of outright retirements at this point (including several shockers, like Deborah Pryce and Chip Pickering), while only three reps had announced campaigns for higher office. There were also many more retirements to come, especially on the GOP side; the most fertile months for announcements turned out to be October-November and January.

This time, we have zero retirements and a whopping eighteen members of Congress who are running for a different job. It’s easy to see why we have no retirements yet – Dems are in power, and the GOP is feeling better about its chances these days. I’m personally hoping that the combination of a real healthcare bill passing, plus some Dem victories in the three key races on Nov. 3 (NJ-Gov, VA-Gov & NY-23), will help re-demoralize the Republican Party and encourage some geezers to head for the exits. At the very least, barring some kind of crazy collapse on our side, we are extremely unlikely to see a repeat of 1994, when thirty Dems announced their retirements, and the GOP picked up twenty-two open seats. So far, there are just seven blue open seats this cycle, and only three are potentially competitive.

The Swing State Project announced changes to eight race ratings recently. Since then, we’ve added one more race to the list (VA-Gov), and we’re changing the rating once more on another (AR-Sen). Our writeups for all of these are below. You can find our complete ratings here: Sen | Gov.

Senate races:

AR-Sen (Lincoln): Safe D to Lean D

When we were debating our ratings changes a few weeks ago, we decided to push the Arkansas Senate contest to Likely D. But that was then. We’re now moving the race to Lean D, and even that is probably pretty generous. All the recent polling on this race has shown Blanche Lincoln to be in pretty dire shape – R2K, PPP, and Rasmussen all have her mired in the 40s. The latter two both have her losing to the most recent & credible entrant into the race, non-crazy state Sen. Gilbert Baker.

Arkansas is a rough state which really hates Obama. While it had for a long time been much friendlier to Dems than most of its Southern neighbors, it now seems to be playing catch-up with a vengeance. In a word, Lincoln is in trouble. Probably the only thing keeping this race out of the Tossup column at this point is that Gilbert is still something of an unknown quantity. We’ll be watching him, and especially his upcoming fundraising reports, very closely. (D)

CA-Sen (Boxer): Safe D to RTW

You might recall this race started out as a Race to Watch, then vanished once it was clear that Arnold Schwarzenegger was not going to run against Barbara Boxer. We’re giving it a second look, though, because the NRSC has found another lesser celebrity, former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina. Fiorina (assuming she runs – she’s still in exploratory mode) has a few things going for her: She’s moderate enough to get some traction in the general (assuming she gets by conservative Assemblyman Chuck DeVore in the primary), the NRSC clearly will go all out to help her out, and, most of all, she has gobs of money she can spend on herself. On the downside, she was very publicly and unceremoniously dumped from HP after presiding over its downfall, and she doesn’t have much political discipline yet, as seen by her getting muzzled after a brief stint as a McCain surrogate. Polls have ranged from single-digit to 20-point gaps in favor of Boxer, so the race bears further watching. (C)

NV-Sen: Likely D to Tossup

Harry Reid may have more coin the in the bank than the Bible’s got psalms, but that can’t cover up for the fact that Nevadans have downright frosty feelings for him. Despite avoiding a challenge from any top-shelf GOPers, poll after poll after poll after poll after poll has shown that Reid’s B-grade opponents are all clobbering him in the court of public opinion. (It also looks like Reid might have even mustered a B+ challenger, in the form of state Sen. Mark Amodei.)

Making matters worse for the embattled Majority Leader is the fact that son Rory Reid has a clear, uncontested path to the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. Rory seems to be one of the weakest candidates the Democrats could muster for this race, and pappy is apparently unhappy that the Reid name will be so over-exposed on the Nevada ballot next year. Like a major collision that can’t be prevented, the trajectory of this race is both catastrophically ugly and mesmerizing at once. (J)

NY-Sen-B (Gillibrand): Safe D to RTW

The New York State Republican Party is in a shambles, and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand looks strong, with lots of money in the bank, endorsements galore, and powerful friends behind her. The only possible wrinkle here is named George Pataki. The former governor has been floated as a potential challenger for some time, but he doesn’t seem to have actually indicated any interest. Still, out of an abundance of caution, we’re going to slot this in as a Race to Watch, in case Pataki does get in. (D)

Gubernatorial races:

CO-Gov (Ritter): Lean D to Tossup

Bill Ritter is being squeezed from all sides. Not only is there new evidence that Democrats are beginning to lag in Colorado after several cycles of strong growth, Ritter has succeeded in making enemies out of friends by vetoing every major labor-friendly bill that the Democratic legislature has churned out over his first term. Polls have shown Ritter in trouble against his Republican opponents, and it wouldn’t be surprising if many rank-and-file Democrats don’t feel compelled to bail Ritter’s ass out at on Election Day next year. (J)

IA-Gov (Culver): RTW to Likely D

Freshman Gov. Chet Culver’s approval ratings have been hard to pin down – as low as 36% in August according to SUSA before rebounding to 41% this month, but 50% according to a recent Selzer survey, down from 55% in April. Luckily, though, Culver hasn’t drawn much in the way of opposition – yet. But in this toxic political environment, few incumbents are truly safe, and regardless of which pollster you believe, it would be hard to describe Culver’s approval ratings as “good.”

Even more worrisome, former Gov. Terry Branstad is supposedly considering the race, and his favorables are quite strong. The good news, though, is that Branstad hasn’t been in office for a decade, and his numbers now are a lot better than they were at the end of his tenure. That will change once he faces a real campaign. Plus, Branstad’s entrance might trigger a civil war between his “moderate” faction and the conservative base. Still, Branstad would be a very formidable opponent and if he does face off against Culver, we will very likely revise our rating once more. (D)

MA-Gov: Lean D to Tossup

With the long-rumored but now-official entry of Treasurer Tim Cahill into the race, we’ve got a serious shot at seeing Massachusetts elect its first-ever Independent Governor. Cahill, who recently dropped his Democratic affiliation in order to challenge the unpopular incumbent Democratic Governor Deval Patrick without the hassle of a primary, seems to have as good a shot as anyone at winning this race. Polls of the race that have just focused on a head-to-head between Patrick and Republican challengers (convenience store czar Christy Mihos, health care magnate Charlie Baker) have given narrow edges to the GOP, while three-way polls have generally shown Cahill either leading or tied with Patrick, as Cahill seems to eat up the protest votes of a lot of Democrats who’ve lost patience with Patrick. Massachusetts has a bad habit of electing moderate non-Democrats as Governor to counteract its Democratic supermajorities in the legislature, so this race is truly anybody’s ball game now. (C)

VA-Gov (Open): Tossup to Lean R

We’re a little late on this one, but we had wanted to give Creigh Deeds the benefit of the doubt. At this stage, though, it’s hard to see how Bob McDonnell doesn’t have the edge. While the race has tightened somewhat lately, Deeds has not led in a single poll since a very brief post-primary bounce back in June. In 2005, this race also tightened up very late, so we’re not ruling out a move back to Tossup status before the end. But Tim Kaine’s move began in September, and now it’s already October. Time’s running out. (D)

WI-Gov (Open): Lean D to Tossup

Democratic Gov. Jim Doyle’s decision to retire rather than to seek a third term may actually prove helpful to Democrats in the long run, as “incumbent fatigue” will not be an issue in retaining this office next year. Still, it’s a wide open race in the near-term, and the GOP has a pair of credible candidates in Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker and ex-Rep. Mark Neumann. Democratic Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton is in the race, but she may have to campaign against popular Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett for the nomination. (J)

Apart from the biggies (NJ-Gov, VA-Gov, NY-23, NYC-Mayor, and the Maine gay marriage ballot measure), what other races are coming up on November 3rd?

P.S. You should follow SSP on Twitter.

Monmouth University (PDF) (9/24-29, likely voters, 9/8-10 in parens):

Jon Corzine (D-inc): 40 (39)

Chris Christie (R): 43 (47)

Chris Daggett (I): 8 (5)

Undecided: 8 (7)

(MoE: ±4.3%)

As we’ve seen from some other polling firms, Corzine’s numbers haven’t really improved, but Christie’s keep dropping – take a look at the Pollster chart. Monmouth also shows the race tied among registered voters, 40-40.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (9/28-9/30, likely voters, 8/3-5 in parens):

Jon Corzine (D-inc): 42 (40)

Chris Christie (R): 46 (48)

Chris Daggett (I): 7 (-)

Undecided: 5 (9)

(MoE: ±4%)

R2K didn’t ask about Daggett last time (which was a couple of months ago), but he seems to be drawing from Christie and the undecided column, rather than Corzine, which is good. Incidentally, “even the conservative” Wall Street Journal has a new editorial out tomorrow, hammering Christie for running an “empty” campaign. They hit him hardest for his failure to articulate any plans for dealing with Jersey’s high property taxes (this is the WSJ, after all) – hopefully this attack will resonate with the anti-tax GOP base and keep them home or spur them to vote Daggett. The WSJ finishes with this:

Even if Mr. Christie ekes out a win because Mr. Corzine is so unpopular, the Republican will arrive in Trenton with a mandate to do what he campaigned on – nothing.

Ouch! With friends like these….

Every community, it goes without saying, is built on trust – and nowhere is this more true than online. In the digital realm, where you can’t see and seldom know the people you’re interacting with, being able to trust the folks on the other end of the line is of the utmost importance. We need to know, as best we are able, that people are who they say they are, that they mean what they say, and that they have the community’s best interests at heart.

Conversely, pretense, hidden agendas, and fabrications can do great damage to a place like this. Without a basic level of trust, an online community loses its credibility, its cohesiveness, and its influence. Both the administrators and the users of this site understand this well, and it’s why we all spend as much time as we do trying hard to preserve the trust we’ve built here.

Because of this fundamental need to maintain trust, in the political blogosphere, we hold campaigns to the highest of standards. Candidates come here seeking our support, our volunteer hours, and our money. These are serious things to ask for, and if you’re going to ask for them, we expect nothing but total scrupulousness.

When a campaign violates this trust, it’s an abuse of our entire community and cannot be allowed to stand. Because of the higher standard we hold campaign officials to, it is our policy to make such violations public when we discover them. And unfortunately, we have discovered another such transgression.

Andrew Eldredge-Martin is the campaign manager for Doug Pike, a Democrat running in Pennsylvania’s Sixth Congressional District. Drew, who has posted here as DrewEM, used sockpuppet accounts to post disparaging remarks about another Democrat running in the PA-06 primary. As it turns out, Drew also used a sockpuppet account at Daily Kos (where I am also an administrator) over the years to comment on two other races he managed, Bob Lord’s campaign against John Shadegg in AZ-03 in 2008, and Chris Carney’s campaign against Don Sherwood in PA-10 in 2006.

Needless to say, this kind of behavior is completely unacceptable. If campaign officials have something to say about the very race they’re working on, then it is mandatory that they speak out in their own voice. Pretending to be a disinterested observer, especially for the purposes of spreading negative information about opponents, is a complete violation of our trust. For the most senior official, a campaign manager, to do so is especially unacceptable.

I offered Drew the chance to apologize, and told him I would include any apology in this post. Not only did I never hear back, but it appears Drew used the opportunity to edit the bio and signature line of his sockpuppet account at Daily Kos, in a belated attempt at transparency. This information was not present in the sockpuppet account when we first discovered Drew’s malfeasance.

Because it is our policy to ban those who create sockpuppet accounts, we have done so here. But this should also be a lesson to anyone – and to any campaign – contemplating something similar. We will remain eternally vigilant in policing this site. We will not tolerate this kind of behavior. And we will do everything in our power to ensure that the trust which animates this site remains unbroken.

Dolla dolla bill, y’all. Here are the August fundraising numbers for the six major party committees (July numbers are here):

For the second month the NRSC has outraised the DSCC, putting them just a million bucks behind for the year. By way of comparison, we were $3 mil ahead in 2005 and a whopping $16 mil ahead in 2007. But perhaps most disappointing to me is the DNC’s continual lag behind the RNC. This long-standing state of affairs was supposed to change with a Democratic president in the White House, but the GOP’s national committee has outraised ours, $60 mil to $53 mil year-to-date. Again by way of comparison, at this point in 2005, when a Republican lived at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, the GOP was destroying us $76 mil to $38 mil.

Gonzales Research & Marketing Strategies (9/8-17, registered voters, no trendlines):

Martin O’Malley (D-inc): 49

Bob Ehrlich (R): 38

Undecided: 13

Martin O’Malley (D-inc): 52

Michael Steele (R): 37

Undecided: 11

(MoE: ±3.5%)

This looks to be the first poll of the Maryland gubernatorial race, and as you can see, Gov. Martin O’Malley is doing alright. (I’m not familiar with the pollster, Gonzales Research, but they do appear to survey the state of Maryland somewhat regularly.) The thing is, neither former Gov. Bob Ehrlich (the man O’Malley beat in 2006) nor current RNC chair, ’06 Senate loser and former Lt. Gov. Michael Steele are actually running. Right now, the GOP only has a bunch of nobodies on their dance card.

Ehrlich, who has publicly remained mum, will supposedly announce a decision by the end of the year. I’d also be pretty shocked if the embarrassing goofball Steele would make a run for it (though if he gets shitcanned from his present job, who knows what boredom might lead him to do). Meanwhile, there’ve been some vague hints that O’Malley could face a primary challenge from Prince George’s Co. Exec. Wayne Curry. Curry starts off with 60% not recognizing him (and 12/1 favorables), according to this poll.

For his part, O’Malley manages a 47/28 rating, which is pretty darn good for a sitting governor these days. Ehrlich is at 42/26 and Steele is at 40/34, but the MD GOP’s fortunes have really taken a turn for the worse in recent years. A fundraising report from January showed the state Republican party with barely $1,200 in the bank (the Dems had over $865,000). And the Dem voter registration edge has grown about four points since the last gubernatorial race. This race would become a lot more competitive if Ehrlich got in, but Maryland is still a very blue state.

SSP currently rates this race Likely D.

RaceTracker Wiki: MD-Gov

This is pretty remarkable:

President Obama and his political team is worried that Mr. Paterson cannot recover from his dismal political standing, and have signaled to him he should not run, two senior administration officials and a New York Democratic operative with direct knowledge of the situation said Saturday.

The move represents an extraordinary intervention into a state political race by the president, and is a delicate one, given that Mr. Paterson is one of only two African-American governors in the nation.

The decision to ask Mr. Paterson to step aside was proposed by political advisers to Mr. Obama, but approved by the president himself, one of the administration officials said.Top Democrats have grown increasingly worried that the governor’s unpopularity could drag down Democratic members of Congress in New York, as well as the Democratic-controlled Legislature, in next fall’s election.

But Paterson isn’t backing down in the face of what has to be unimaginable pressure:

“I have said time and time again that I am running for governor next year,” he said at the 40th annual African-American Day Parade.

This is now the second statewide race in New York this cycle where Obama’s tried to urge someone to drop out – remember, he personally phoned up Steve Israel and told him to back off a primary challenge to Kirsten Gillibrand. Yet even though I’m completely done with Paterson, this latest move makes me uncomfortable. For a sitting president to try to push an incumbent governor out of running for re-election seems like a bridge too far. So far as I know, even Dick Cheney didn’t try this (or at least, didn’t try this publicly) with loser GOP govs like Frank Murkowski (AK) and Ernie Feltcher (KY).

And where does it end? A lot of Democratic governors have crappy approval ratings these days, such as Deval Patrick, Jon Corzine and Bill Ritter. Obviously each race is different, but is everyone supposed to be on notice now? Is this what the 3 am phone call is going to turn out to be?

Don’t get me wrong – I’m firmly in the “Paterson should not run again” camp. I’m also not the kind of person to shed a tear about candidates who decide to drop out because they can’t hack it and then blame “the establishment.” But when the president gets involved, that just seems over-the-top to me, and in these particular circumstances, it seems completely unnecessary, too. If Andy Cuomo were to run, he’d obliterate Paterson, and, if need be, Rudy Giuliani as well. And our congressional candidates would have a very popular attorney general running for governor at the top of the ticket. So really, what’s going on here?