Month: August 2008

A sampling of some of the latest campaign ads cluttering the airwaves:

Rasmussen (8/12, likely voters incl. leaners, 7/17 in parens):

Tom Allen (D): 40 (43)

Susan Collins (R-inc): 55 (53)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Sure, we would all prefer to see closer numbers here, but bigger gaps have been bridged in the past after Labor Day.

Is it time to stop worrying and love the bomb?

Public Opinion Strategies for Robin Hayes and the NRCC (8/4-5, likely voters):

Larry Kissell (D): 40

Robin Hayes (R-inc): 50

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Kissell released his own internal poll of this race back in June, and in that survey (by Anzalone Liszt), Hayes trailed Kissell by two points.

Hayes’ spread isn’t far off from the most recent poll we’ve seen of this race, by Public Policy Polling last month. That poll showed Hayes leading by seven points and resting well under the 50% mark (43-36).

SSPers have already pointed out that Kissell’s name recognition seems artificially low in this poll — his favorability is at 14-11. While it is generally true that running and losing a House campaign doesn’t buy you as much name recognition as some might expect (which I think may be especially true for a low-money, under-the-radar type of candidate in Larry Kissell), I do agree that these numbers seem a bit too low, especially when you consider that Hayes launched a round of unanswered attack ads earlier this summer against Kissell. (Indeed, PPP’s July poll showed Kissell with 52% name recognition.) If we are to take Hayes’ poll at face value, his ads had little effect in driving up Kissell’s negatives. Can you say “waste of money”?

Another important data point to note is the date range of the poll. The poll ended on August 5th, the same day that Kissell began his first ad buy of the campaign. (That ad is available for viewing here.)

SSP currently rates this race as Lean Republican.

(H/T: JeremiahTheMessiah)

Ivan Moore Research (8/9-12, likely voters, 7/18-22 in parens):

Ethan Berkowitz (D): 51 (52)

Don Young (R-inc.): 41 (37)

Don Wright (I): 4 (7)

Ethan Berkowitz (D): 42 (40)

Sean Parnell (R): 46 (43)

Don Wright (I): 3 (5)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Just minor noise since July. Let’s check in with the primaries:

Ethan Berkowitz (D): 58 (54)

Diane Benson (D): 24 (25)

Don Wright (D?): 3 (5)

(MoE: ?)

Don Young (R-inc.): 46 (46)

Sean Parnell (R): 40 (38)

Gabrielle LeDoux (R): 7 (6)

(MoE: ?)

Young continues to hang on by his fingernails, but will this GOP roach be able to survive the Club For Growth’s moneynuke? Let’s hope so, but it could be a tall order. On the bright side for Team Blue, Alaskans are continuing to wake up to headlines and stories like this one calling Gov. Sarah Palin’s ethics (and therefore Lt. Gov. Parnell’s raison d’être) into question.

On the Senate side of the equation, Begich posts another solid lead (7/30-31 in parens):

Mark Begich (D): 56 (56)

Ted Stevens (R-inc): 39 (35)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Stevens continues to pummel his D-grade primary challengers by a 63-20-7 margin (Stevens-Cuddy-Vickers).

http://www.politico.com/blogs/…

Ivan Moore Research – 501 Registered voters

8/9-12  MoE 4.4% – 7/22 in Parenthesis

Republican Primary (AK-AL)

Young – 46% (46)

Parnell – 40% (38)

LeDoux – 7% (6)

Democratic Primary (AK-AL)

Berkowitz – 58% (54)

Benson – 24% (25)

Wright – 3% (5)

—-

General Election for AK-AL

Berkowitz – 51% (52)

Young – 41% (37)

—-

Parnell – 46% (43)

Berkowitz – 42% (40)

AK-Sen Primary (7/31 in parenthesis)

Stevens – 63% (59)

Cuddy – 20% (19)

Vickers – 7% (-)

Other – 3%

AK-Sen General

Begich – 56% (56)

Stevens – 39% (35)

With congressional primaries in Alaska and Florida on August 26th, tonight was the deadline for candidates to file their pre-primary fundraising reports with the FEC. I’ve rounded up the numbers of interest, covering the period of July 1st through August 6th, in the chart below. All figures are in thousands.

Christine Jennings has yet to file her report, but once she does, it will be available here.

Democrat David Robinson (not that David Robinson), running against GOP Rep. Pat Tiberi in Ohio’s 12th CD, has a bit of fun with his name in this introductory web ad, which is a send up of this Air Jordan commercial.

I thought it was pretty clever.

Rasmussen (8/13, likely voters incl. leaners, 7/22 in parens):

Al Franken (D): 46 (49)

Norm Coleman (R-inc): 49 (46)

(MoE: ±4%)

Franken and Coleman trade the lead, but the spread remains tight; without including leaners (although, again, I don’t see why this method is preferable), the race is tied at 45% apiece.

Franken’s favorables are still weak (48-48, compared to Coleman’s 53-44), and it’s worth pointing out that Rasmussen is the only pollster to show this race close or tied in the last several months.

SSP currently rates this race as Lean Republican.

Stop me if you’ve heard this one before. Rasmussen (8/13, likely voters incl. leaners, 7/21 in parens):

Mark Udall (D): 50 (49)

Bob Schaffer (R): 42 (46)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

This race has more or less fallen into a holding pattern of a high single digits lead for Mark Udall for the past several months, as illustrated nicely by Pollster.com’s chart.

Udall is also up with a new ad that includes support for additional domestic drilling as one of many measures to combat the current energy crisis. I’d expect to see many more ads like this from downballot Democrats this fall as they attempt to neutralize the one issue where the GOP is rediscovering its swagger. Sure, it’s a total canard, but I don’t think Democrats want to end up on the wrong side of this debate in the court of public opinion. That’s the downside of populism for you.

SSP currently rates this race as Lean Democratic.

UPDATE: A new CBS4/Rocky Mountain News poll (8/11-13, likely voters) also shows Udall up — this time by 44 to 38.

That’s right. Yesterday at a debate between Rep. Virgil Goode of Virgina’s 5th district and his Democratic challenger Tom Perriello Goode said this

“And they want me out of Congress, the liberal Democrats want me out. And they want me out because I’m a conservative voice, if we can silence that person that’s exactly what we want, we want more mushers up here  in Congress that won’t speak out and stand out. They want a Obamajority in this country, Tom is on the Obamajority list for the US House of Representatives, they want to get him in there because they know he is going to be voting with them. They want to control the White House, 60 votes in the US Senate and a strong majority in the US House of Representatives.”

Goode is famous for using bogeymen to scare people, he attacked Rep. Keith Ellison for being a Muslim and repeated tall tales about China that even Dick Cheney said where false.

Now he’s found a new bogeymen. He’s attacking the Obamajority, an ActBlue page started by a 14 year old blogger–me.

That’s right, back in March I started an ActBlue page, “The New Obamajority”. After asking for suggestions I added Tom Perriello to the page. Apparently the 587 dollars we raised from 12 donors over the internet terrified Goode so much that he decided to attack a internet fundraising page in his closing remarks at a key debate in his race.

That internet fundraising page is even more terrifying to Goode because it was started by me, a 14 year old blogger with close to no political experience before two years ago. I’m trembling in my boots!

Personally I don’t think 587 bucks is anything to be scared about. If I were Goode I would be more worried about the fact that he’s getting outraised by Perriello. But I say we give him something to really be scared about.

I’m setting a goal of getting to 50 donors for Perriello on the Obamajority page to send Goode packing.

Donate to Tom Perriello

Goode doesn’t seem to like “mushers” which is odd because it is the name of people who race dogs similar to dogsled racing, I guess Goode has a problem with mushing, maybe if we retire him he’ll have enough free time to try out mushing and maybe he’ll learn to love it.

Goode for Musher! Donate now.

It’s also a good excuse to donate to a terrific progressive candidate who will help build a Obamajority and will fight for our values. He helped develop the Responsible Plan to End the War in Iraq, helped found the people powered group Avaaz.org and is a strong believer in conviction politics.  

Donate for People-Powered Conviction Politics

Also, Goode came close to breaking a secret I’ve been keeping. Tom will not be voting with “them” as Goode said, he will be personally calling me up before each vote and asking me how to vote. In fact, he got me a slick new phone for that purpose.

Let me assure you of this, Tom will march lock step with the powerful Teenage Blogger Caucus!  

Donate to Tom

We’ve got a goal, we’ve got a teenage blogger attacking congressmen, we’ve got a terrific candidate to replace him.

Now time for action! It’s time to make a difference and let’s do it. Let’s use the super-powerful Obamajority internet fundraising page to elect Tom Perriello and say “Goodbye” to Virgil Goode. We can use the series of tubes to make a difference!

Send a donation through the series of tubes!

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