Month: October 2008

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (10/14-16, likely voters, 9/22-24):

Gary Trauner (D): 44 (42)

Cynthia Lummis (R): 43 (42)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Gary Trauner keeps making a real race of this in the deep red state of Wyoming. Moving from a tie to a one-point lead shouldn’t be taken as anything but statistical noise, but it’s pretty clear this race survived Palinmania intact and is going to go down to the wire.

There’s one note of caution when viewing this poll, though: if you look deep in the crosstabs, you’ll see that 22% of Republicans are still undecided (compared with only 2% of Democrats and 9% of Independents). If the majority of those undecided Republicans break at the last minute for Lummis, she wins. (However, in a year as weird as this, with the Republican brand a smoldering radioactive heap of wreckage, I suppose that’s not a done deal.)

The rest of the poll reflects Wyoming’s Republican lean: McCain leads Obama 58-35, while in the two Senate races (one special, one regular, both with GOP incumbents) Mike Enzi leads Chris Rothfuss 61-34 and John Barasso leads Nick Carter 57-36.

First they’re in, then they’re out, and now… they’re back in:

The National Republican Senatorial Committee has reversed an earlier decision to cancel its last two weeks of advertising in Louisiana. Instead, it has purchased TV time next week and will wait to decide whether to buy the final week before Election Day. The decision comes on the heels of GOP polling showing that Sen. Mary Landrieu (D) has only a mid-single digit lead over challenger John Kennedy (R). Democrats dispute those numbers, arguing that Landrieu holds a substantial lead.

If the NRSC wishes to waste their money on Kennedy instead of Chambliss or McConnell, well, that’s fine by me.

UPDATE: Roll Call says the committee is placing a $500K buy for the next week, with no commitment yet for a second and final week of ads.

LATER UPDATE: Aside from the initial bad press that the NRSC gave Kennedy by pulling out in the first place, a late play like this one reminds me of the boneheaded move by the NRSC in 2006 to spend a million bucks against Debbie Stabenow in a last-minute ad buy when that money could have been funneled into Montana or Virginia instead.

Ladies and gentleman we have another Congressional District now breaking wide open. Accordig to Capitol Weekly, Republicans are sounding alarms that Dana Rohrabacher is in the fight of his life against our own Debbie Cook.

The third contest is in the 46th Congressional District in Orange County, where incumbent Republican Dana Rohrabacher faces Huntington Beach Mayor Debbie Cook.

According to GOP sources, internal polling shows the difference between Rohrabacher and Cook, the mayor of Huntington Beach, to be within the margin of error, although Rohrabacher has heavily outspent Cook. Hoffenblum believes Rohrabacher faces “possibly the strongest Democrat to run against him since the current district lines were drawn in 2001.”

I am not aware of any DCCC efforts to help her out and don’t expect the California Democratic Party to get off its ass anytime soon. Debbie Cook is our girl. She is a progressive mayor of Huntington Beach and an environmental attorney (on our side) by trade. I don’t need to remind of what Rohrabacher is. I know we are all nearly tapped out, I dread adding up all the money I gave for this cycle. But she is so close to knocking him off, so close. And wouldn’t it be the sweetest cherry on top to see him go? If you want to know a little more about her, go to her web site and, if you can drop just $5, $10, $25, please do so. It IS an expensive district, but every door hanger and every piece of literature counts. Just imagine how it would feel on November 5 to see Dana gone.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (10/14-15, likely voters, 5/5-7 in parens):

Rick Noriega (D): 44 (44)

John Cornyn (R-inc): 50 (48)

Yvonne Adams (L): 2 (n/a)

(MoE: ±4%)

The Texas Senate race just keeps hanging around the cusp of viability, with Rick Noriega staying in striking distance of Big John Cornyn. This race started to slip away from Noriega over the summer, but this result is in line with the most recent Rasmussen poll (50-43 two weeks ago) showing a somewhat tighter race. (In the same sample, McCain leads Obama in Texas by a rather encouraging 52-40.)

As Markos points out in his write-up of this poll, the big obstacle in making a big end-of-the-game push in this race is the astronomical cost of playing in Texas. The cost of blanketing Texas is in the same ballpark as blanketing Mississippi, Georgia and Kentucky together, any of which also has the possibility of being Senate Seat #60. Economic realities, unfortunately, may dictate this race taking a back seat to those other three.

Boom:

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, seeing an irresistible opportunity to make big gains on Election Day, has secured a $15 million loan that it will use to splurge on tight races during the last three weeks of the campaign season.

The $15 million loan is nearly twice the $8 million that the National Republican Congressional Committee was able to borrow recently and adds to the huge financial advantage that Democrats already hold over the GOP.

When combined with the cash-on-hand advantage that the DCCC has over the National Republican Congressional Committee – $54 million to $14.4 million as of Aug. 31 – the loan leaves House Democratic leaders with $47 million more than their GOP counterparts to pour into contested districts.

In 2006, the DCCC took out an $11.5 million loan in the home stretch to help pay for the IE operations. At $15 million, this cash injection is nearly twice the size of the cash-strapped NRCC’s $8 million loan, ensuring that the NRCC won’t be able to outspend the DCCC anywhere.

That sound you hear is Tom Cole weeping into his Appletini.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (10/14-15, likely voters, 9/8-10 in parens):

Ronnie Musgrove (D): 46 (43)

Roger Wicker (R-inc): 47 (48)

(MoE: ±4%)

Well, the tightening of this race (also evident in the most recent Rasmussen poll of Mississippi) is great news, but Musgrove has also inched up to 24% of the white vote — that could well be very close to what he needs in order to squeak out a win here, assuming he can take 90% or more of the black vote (he currently beats Wicker among African-Americans by 83-5, with 12% undecided).

Bonus finding: McCain leads Obama by 50-40 in the same poll.

After days of rumors, Ambinder confirms it — the NRSC is retreating from Colorado:

Republican sources in Colorado and Washington say that the National Republican Senatorial Committee plans to pull out of the state by next week, an acknowledgment that its independent expenditure resources would be better spent on defense elsewhere. […]

The NRSC is still helping Roger Wicker in Mississippi and incumbents Norm Coleman in Minnesota, John Sununu in New Hampshire.

AN NRSC spokesperson said that advertising decisions are made on a week-to-week basis and declined to comment further.

How do you like them apples, Dick Wadhams?

This decision comes on the heels of the party’s move to cut the cord on dud candidate John Kennedy in Louisiana in order to play more defense. Will it be too little, too late to prevent catastrophic damage?

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for the DCCC (10/14-15, likely voters):

Suzanne Kosmas (D): 58

Tom Feeney (R-inc): 35

(MoE: ±4.9%)

You got that? These numbers are almost too good to be true. Feeney’s personal favorable rating is nearly at Tim Mahoney-like levels: 28-51. Kosmas is still far less well-known, with only a 37-11 rating.

If this poll is anywhere close to accurate, Feeney is screwed. The ball is now in his court (and the NRCC’s) to give us numbers that say otherwise.

The Tarrance Group for the NRCC (10/15-16, likely voters, 10/9 in parens):

Tim Mahoney (D-inc): 29 (56)

Tom Rooney (R): 55 (31)

(MoE: ±5.8%)

With numbers that bad, no wonder you’re hearing rumors about Mahoney dropping out of the race. And I don’t think would be a bad call for him — this guy has some serious personal problems that he has to deal with.

Bonus finding: Mahoney’s personal favorable rating has nosedived to 28-53.

What’s especially interesting is that Rooney was getting completely pasted even in the NRCC’s own numbers, pre-scandal. This wasn’t much of a pickup opportunity until Mahoney self-destructed.