Month: August 2008

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In a terse statement stained with his own personal disgust, NRSC Chair John Ensign lambasted his GOP Senate colleagues today for failing to financially support his committee:

“I recently challenged my colleagues to step up to the plate and help me provide the resources our candidates need to compete in races across the country – to match the [Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee] expenditures in targeted races,” Ensign said in a statement. “It has become clear that my call has gone largely unanswered. I have no control over the timing or content of IE ads, but I have had no choice but to decrease the total budget of our IE Unit. It is still my hope that my Republican colleagues will engage in this election and help match what the Democrats are doing. If they do, I will adjust our budget accordingly.”

CQ Politics notes that Republican Senators have only contributed $1.1 million to the committee through June, while Democrats have forked over a much more generous $5 million.

Ensign’s failures as NRSC chair are already having immediate consequences. From the Politico:

The NRSC reserved about $6 million in ad buys in North Carolina, according to sources from both parties, which was meant to show that the GOP was ready to play hard in what has become a dead heat race between Dole and Democratic challenger Kay Hagan.

But on Wednesday the NRSC yanked the money because, it turns out, the dough was never available in the first place. One GOP Senate source said it was a “head fake” that pulled the rug out from under Dole. But Dole told Politico in a phone interview Thursday that she realizes in this tough national climate for Republicans that she’s on her own in the race and will have to raise all her own money without relying on the NRSC.

As the polls show, Dole could really use a boost right about now. Too bad for her, the NRSC is hamstrung due to the stinginess of her GOP colleagues. This is what I like to call schadenfreude at its most delicious.

Enjoy the pain, Republicans. You bastards deserve it.

Research 2000 (8/18-20, likely voters):

Jill Derby (D): 42

Dean Heller (R-inc): 47

(MoE: ±5.0%)

That’s a very nice starting position for Jilly Derby, but she’ll have her work cut out for her in order to swing that extra 8% in this R+8.2 district. On the bright side, Democrats have seen a voter registration surge in the district, and she recently received fundraising support from the DCCC and EMILY’s List.

It’ll be tough, but this race certainly merits watching.

The University of Minnesota/Humphrey Institute for Minnesota Public Radio (8/7-17, likely voters, 1/20-27 in parens):

Al Franken (D): 41 (43)

Norm Coleman (R-inc): 40 (40)

Dean Barkley (I): 8 (-)

(MoE: ±3.6%)

The “trend line” presented here is stretched over such a long period, that it’s almost not worth including. Lest you think that the Humphrey Institute’s methodology is giving Franken a boost, keep in mind that Franken was running very close in other surveys from SurveyUSA, Rasmussen, and even the GOP firm McLaughlin & Associates in the early part of the year.

Is Franken pulling this one out of the fire?

SSP currently rates this race as Lean Republican.

The conventional wisdom is that Franken is struggling in the MN Senate race – as evidenced by a series of polls showing Norm Coleman opening up a lead

So what to make of the poll released yesterday by the Minnesota Public Radio/ University of Minnesota showing Franken ahead of Coleman by 1%?

http://minnesota.publicradio.o…

The full poll results are here:

http://minnesota.publicradio.o…

The poll says that among “likely voters” Franken holds a 41-40 lead over the incumbent Republican, with Dean Barkley (Independence Party) polling 8 % and 11% undecided. (Margin of error is cited as 3.6%)

An incumbent Senator polling just 40% (even in a 2 1/2 way race) at this point seems remarkable. His approval/disapproval is a very close 46/42 (although elsewhere on the MPR website it says 42/40… but the 46/42 number comes directly from the poll internals, so I’ll assume it is accurate).

The poll also reports a 51-40-10 DFL – Republican – Independent party split overall, with Coleman holding 81% of Republicans, Franken 71% of DFL. Independents are listed as breaking 36% Coleman, 30% Franken, 11% Barkley, 23% undecided.

Among the 11% of likely voters the survey considered to be “swing voters” (with no definition of how they arrived at that definition), shows an even more undefined race, with Coleman leading at 35%, Franken at 26%, Barkley at 12%, and fully 27% undecided.

Assuming this is a very close race the 27% undecided among swing voters are obviously crucial if they break one way or another. Similarly, the nearly 30% of DFLers not currently supporting Franken (8% for Coleman, 8% for Barkley, and 13% undecided) are crucial…. if Franken can bring the bulk of these voters home, the current party breakdown in MN gives him a built in advantage.

One potentially big obstacle for Franken is that Coleman appears to be perceived as closer to the political centre than Franken. Fully 46% of those polled said Franken was “too liberal”, with 33% rating him “about right” and 4% “too conservative.” (Presumably the remaining 17% had no opinion.)  By contrast, Coleman was considered “too conservative” by 36%, “about right” by 42%, and “too liberal” by 10%, and 12% unaccounted for. (Would be a great opening for a right wing independent/3rd party candidate to siphon off some votes from disaffected conservatives, wouldn’t it?)

—

I’m not sure what the UMN record on polling is, but while the results are tremendously encouraging, a number of key questions jump out.

The first is that the poll was conducted over an extremely long period of 11 days (Aug 7-17). This period of time is far longer than usually seen in more reliable polls. (Although the sample size of 763 is pretty good for a statewide poll.) An 11 day poll conduced in the middle of summer vacation season (when many of Minnesotans are off at the cabin…) has some inherent weaknesses.

The methodology of defining “likely voters” is briefly described in the poll report, and it makes reference to weighting by demographics and region – but little detail is provided to be able to assess how the “likely voter” screen may have impacted the results. (They don’t provide totals for all respondents to let us know if there is a “likely voter” bias toward one candidate or the other – although in a relatively high turnout state like Minnesota, that may be less important than in some other states.)

Similarly, no demographic information is provided about poll respondents — assumptions about turnout by urban, suburban and rural residence, and by age, sex, race/ethnicity, income, education etc could have a huge impact in interpreting this race — without information about these details, it is harder to make sense of this poll.

Finally, the Barkley support at 8% seems to be a critical. Will it hold up as high as 8% (or even grow) or will it collapse?

While Barkley briefly served in the Senate (he was appointed by Jesse Ventura to fill the remaining months of Paul Wellstone’s term), his record of running for office is not impressive – winning 7% for Senate in 1996, and 5% in 1994, and more impressive 16% in 1992 running for the newly redistricted 6th district seat.

Third party candidates have demonstrated greater appeal in Minnesota than in many other states, and Barkley appears to be tapping into some of the same types of voters who in the past have voted for Ventura, Perot, Tim Penney, Jim Gibson, and Peter Hutchinson – while only Venture won, the others showed a willingness to vote for independent candidates by a chunk of the Minnesota electorate.

At the moment, Barkley appears to be serving as a parking place for voters highly dissatisfied with Bush and Coleman but not ready to vote for Franken. Can Franken ultimately win over enough of these voters with an anti-Republican, anti-incumbent message?

As the analysis of the poll makes clear, Barkley is hurting Franken at the moment:

“The environment could be hurting Coleman more if Barkley were not in the contest. He is competing with Franken for the angry voter who disapproves of Bush and sees the country as off on the wrong track. Franken is only winning 51% of Minnesotans who are concerned that the country is off-track and Barkley is a major reason that the Democrat is not getting even more disaffected Minnesotans — he is drawing 9% of these voters. A similar story is evident with regard to Minnesotans who disapprove of Coleman and Bush: Barkley is diverting 9% of these critics — voters that might otherwise support Franken.”

Lots of variables remain in the race — will Obama run away with Minnesota or will it be as close as in last couple of elections? If Pawlenty ends up on the Republican ticket would it help Coleman? What will the impact of the RNC in St. Paul be on Minnesota public opinion — positive attention to the state, or an unwelcome collection of right wing nuts messing up traffic and hanging out in the airport men’s room?

Some folks have been saying this race is lost — if this poll is on target, it is clear that attitude is premature. This shows all signs of being a close one.

Civitas (8/14-17, likely voters, 7/14-17 in parens):

Kay Hagan (D): 41 (38)

Elizabeth Dole (R-inc): 44 (47)

Chris Cole (L): 4 (2)

(MoE: ±4.2%)

First we had SUSA, and then Insider Advantage, and now Civitas all showing a rapidly tightening race, probably in no small part due to the pummeling that the DSCC and Dem allies are giving Dole on the airwaves over the issues of her effectiveness and her ties to “big oil”. This is all fantastic news.

The folks over at Public Policy Polling have their own poll in the field, and their early results show Hagan beating Dole. It’s enough for PPP’s Tom Jensen to ask: Is “Dole falling apart“?

I would think one of the cardinal rules of politics is not to remind people of your flaws. That’s why I’m amazed to see that Elizabeth Dole’s new ad responding to the DSCC’s ads about her #93 effectiveness ranking devotes its first four seconds to repeating that unfortunate little fact about herself! Don’t spend your own money to remind people about an ad that’s doing you a lot of damage. […]

I’ll admit up until a couple weeks ago I didn’t really think Kay Hagan had any chance at this. But the DSCC’s campaign on her behalf has been brilliant, and I’m frankly amazed at the numbers we’ve seen the first two days of our tracking poll- we’ll probably release the North Carolina Senate numbers Tuesday.

SSP currently rates this race as Lean Republican, but we’re loving this trend.

With congressional primaries on September 2nd in Arizona, the deadline for candidates to file their pre-primary reports with the FEC was tonight. SSP rounds up the numbers once again, so you don’t have to:

Note: All figures are in thousands, and cover the period from July 1st through August 13th. Sandra Livingstone has yet to file her report, but if and when she does, you’ll be able to find it here. (Update: Her report has now been filed.)

Some impressive numbers from Ann Kirkpatrick and Gabrielle Giffords, in particular. Despite the hype surrounding Tim Bee, I really like Giffords’ re-election chances.

Pennsylvania-11

Lean Democrat –> Toss Up  

Pennsylvania-7

Solid Democrat <– Likely Democrat

New York-19

Solid Democrat <– Likely Democrat

Indiana-8

Solid Democrat <– Likely Democrat

Florida-25

Likely Republican –> Lean Republican

California-11

Lean Democrat <– Toss Up

Oklahoma-Senate

Solid Republican –> Likely Republican  

Nothing too surprising here.  Barletta has been pushing hard, I don’t think PA-07, NY-19, or IN-08 are on anyones radars.  

Nice to see Rice and Garcia making progress, while Cook is also seeing Andal’s laughable campaign in CA-11 fall apart.  

http://cookpolitical.com/ratin…

Date Set for Fourth Boccieri-Schuring Debate

Schuring, Canton Chamber of Commerce Reject Additional Forums

Both 16th District congressional candidates have agreed to a fourth debate before the November election. This discussion will take place live on the WHBC radio show “Points to Ponder” on October 15.

Unfortunately, Sen. Kirk Schuring has refused a debate proposed by the AARP that was to take place at Stark State College of Technology. Sen. John Boccieri had agreed to this debate, but the AARP has canceled the event after Schuring rejected their offer.

Senator Major John Boccieri(D-Alliance) responded to the news as follows:

“It’s unfortunate that Senator Schuring refused to participate in an open discussion about the issues facing our seniors in this election. Social Security, pension protections, and the cost of health care and prescription drugs are vital concerns that the next Congress will have to address, and it’s disheartening that Senator Schuring is unwilling to do so.”

Don Singer, a representative of the Boccieri campaign, also responded to the Canton Chamber of Commerce’s cancellation of a debate that both candidates were willing to participate in:

“After much progress, I’m disappointed that the Chamber of Commerce suddenly closed the door on negotiations despite Senator Boccieri’s willingness to debate the candidate they had just endorsed.”

What gives? The Canton Chamber of Commerce endorses Schuring, plans a debate, but as soon as John Boccieri accepts they pull the plug? I might be wrong, but this just doesn’t pass “the smell test”. As for the AARP debate, I think we covered that here.

Here’s the damage:

The NRCC had a great July, but they’re still facing a huge disparity with the DCCC. Even at this clip, they’re never going to come close to running even with the D-trip.

On the Senate side, the DSCC is flexing its money advantage early, spending a generous $8.5 million in July. We’ll likely see similar (or perhaps even bigger) expenditures in August, with the DSCC going all-out in Oregon, Mississippi, North Carolina, and Colorado.