Month: October 2008

Whoa, this is big news:

The national Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has purchased a large bloc of advertising time in the South Bend and Fort Wayne television markets for the final three weeks leading to Election Day. […]

Sources tell FWOb that $487,000 has been committed to television advertising by the DCCC in the Third District.  That represents an approximately 1900 point buy which means even the most casual television viewer is likely to be exposed to the advertising numerous times.

The first ad is to begin running this morning. Advertising purchased by the congressional campaign committees tends to be more oriented to driving up the negatives of the incumbent than providing a positive message supporting the nominee.

That’s a significant amount of scrilla for this race. This is an R+16 district, but GOP incumbent Mark Souder has displayed some significant weakness as of late, and only beat back his 2006 opponent by a 54-46 margin — and that was after the NRCC spend several hundred grand to swamp out his Democratic opponent.

This time, Democrat Mike Montagano is running a well-funded race, and has been surging in his own internal polls since April. When polls close on election night, this race will be one of the first to post returns — and if things look good for Montagano here, you know this is going to be a huge night.

(Hat-tip: Blue Indiana)

UPDATE: The DCCC’s first ad of this race is available here:

The DCCC has unveiled an unprecedented sixth wave of their Red to Blue program, adding eight new candidates to the list:

AL-03: Josh Segall

CA-50: Nick Leibham

IA-04: Becky Greenwald

LA-01: Jim Harlan

MN-06: Elwyn Tinklenberg

NJ-05: Dennis Shulman

SC-01: Linda Ketner

TX-10: Larry Joe Doherty

The committee also upgraded a number of candidates to their slate of “Emerging Races”: Bill Durston (CA-03), Rob Hubler (IA-05), Bill Mitchell (FL-09), and Georgianna Oliver (OK-01).

We saw in 2006 that the later a candidate gets added to the program, the less meaningful that endorsement is. Although keep in mind that the DCCC added a fourth wave to Red to Blue on October 27, 2006 — far too late to have any meaningful impact, and five of those candidates are serving in Congress today.

Research 2000 (10/6-8, likely voters):

Paul Kanjorski (D-inc): 39

Lou Barletta (R): 43

(MoE: ±5%)

Woof. Barletta has been posting lead after lead in his own internal polling, and a recent Franklin & Marshall College poll also agrees. With R2K now in Barletta’s corner (although by a much closer margin), the only favorable numbers for Kanjorski have been Grove Insight internal polls for the DCCC. Not promising.

Democrats had an enormously one-sided victory in 2006, losing no seats in Congress. It seems likely that Dems will make sizable gains again this year, but it won’t be entirely blood-less on our side. This race is in danger of becoming one of the few Dem losses.

SSP currently rates this race as a Tossup.

The DCCC has released a pair of polls of New Jersey’s tight open seat races. Let’s take a look.

NJ-03: Grove Insight for the DCCC (10/2-3, likely voters):

John Adler (D): 38

Chris Myers (R): 34

Undecided: 29

(MoE: ±4.9%)

The polls so far haven’t been very kind to Adler in this D+3 (but ancestrally Republican) South Jersey district. All of the publicly-released polls of this race have given Myers a lead between two and four points, with a large share of the vote undecided. In my gut, I still think that Adler should pull this one out, but it doesn’t look like it’ll be a walk in the park by any means.

NJ-07: Benenson Strategy Group for the DCCC (10/8-9, likely voters):

Linda Stender (D): 40

Leonard Lance (R): 31

Michael Hsing (I): 8

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Hsing is a Republican councilman from Bridgewater running as an Independent, and it seems like his impact on this race won’t be negligible. The polls from this race have been a bit more mixed than the 3rd: Monmouth recently gave Lance a 43-39 edge, while Anzalone Liszt found Stender up by 36-33 (with 9% for Hsing) in August.

SSP currently rates both of these races as Tossups.

If Stuart Rothenberg is right, House Democrats are in for another big year like 2006. He now estimates a Democratic gain of 25-30 seats. Here are his newest ratings:

Here are our latest House ratings. Our latest estimate is a Democratic gain of 25-30 seats.

Any seats not listed are currently considered to be at limited risk for the incumbent party. For our race-by-race analysis, you must subscribe to the print edition of the Report.

# = Moved benefiting Democrats

* = Moved benefiting Republicans

^ = Newly added

PURE TOSS-UP (7 R, 5 D)

AL 5 (Open; Cramer, D)

CT 4 (Shays, R) #

FL 16 (Mahoney, D) *

FL 21 (L. Diaz-Balart, R)

LA 6 (Cazayoux, D) #

MI 7 (Walberg, R) #

NH 1 (Shea-Porter, D)

NM 2 (Open; Pearce, R) #

NJ 7 (Open; Ferguson, R)

OH 1 (Chabot, R) #

OH 15 (Open; Pryce, R)

PA 11 (Kanjorski, D) *

TOSS-UP/TILT REPUBLICAN (10 R, 0 D)

AL 2 (Open; Everett, R) #

FL 25 (M. Diaz-Balart, R) #

IL 10 (Kirk, R) #

KY 2 (Open; Lewis, R) #

LA 4 (Open; McCrery, R)

MD 1 (Open; Gilchrest, R) #

MO 9 (Open; Hulshof, R) #

NY 26 (Open; Reynolds, R)

VA 2 (Drake, R) #

WA 8 (Reichert, R)

TOSS-UP/TILT DEMOCRATIC (10 R, 4 D)

CA 11 (McNerney, D)

CO 4 (Musgrave, R)

FL 8 (Keller, R) #

GA 8 (Marshall, D)

IL 11 (Open; Weller, R)

KS 2 (Boyda, D)

MI 9 (Knollenberg, R) #

MN 3 (Open; Ramstad, R) #

NJ 3 (Open; Saxton, R)

NM1 (Open; Wilson, R) #

NY 29 (Kuhl, R) #

NC 8 (Hayes, R) #

PA 3 (English, R) #

PA 10 (Carney, D) #

LEAN REPUBLICAN (4 R, 1 D)

CA 4 (Open; Doolittle, R) #

ID 1 (Sali, R) #

MO 6 (Graves, R)

OH 2 (Schmidt, R)

TX 22 (Lampson, D)

LEAN DEMOCRATIC (5 R, 2 D)

AZ 1 (Open; Renzi, R) #

FL 24 (Feeney, R) #

NV 3 (Porter, R) #

OH 16 (Open; Regula, R) #

PA 4 (Altmire, D)

VA 11 (Open; Davis, R)

WI 8 (Kagen, D) #

REPUBLICAN FAVORED (9 R, 0 D)

AZ 3 (Shadegg, R) ^

CA 46 (Rohrabacher, R) ^

FL 13 (Buchanan, R)

IL 6 (Roskam, R)

MN 6 (Bachmann, R)

NE 2 (Terry, R) ^

PA 6 (Gerlach, R)

WV 2 (Capito, R)

WY A-L (Open; Cubin, R) ^

DEMOCRAT FAVORED (3 R, 6 D)

AK A-L (Young, R)

AZ 5 (Mitchell, D) #

AZ 8 (Giffords, D) #

IN 9 (Hill, D)

KY 3 (Yarmuth, D) #

MS 1 (Childers, D)

NY 13 (Open; Fossella, R)

NY 25 (Open; Walsh, R)

OR 5 (Open; Hooley, D) #

Dropped :

IL 14 (Foster, D) #,

KS 3 (Moore, D) #,

NY 20 (Gillibrand, D) #

To me, the biggest news is the shifting of MI-09 to “Tilt Democratic” and the  OH-01 to “Pure Toss-up”. I would love to see the internals for that Ohio race. I am surprised that he was so reserved whe he shifted FL-16. I think Mahoney is a goner. Oh well.

Bennett Petts & Normington for the DCCC (10/8-9, likely voters):

Darcy Burner (D): 49

Dave Reichert (R): 44

(MoE: ±4.9%)

This one comes hot on the heels of two recent polls by Research 2000 and Lake Research, both of which showed Reichert ahead by 8 and 3 points, respectively. Given that this is the first poll we’ve seen that has Burner leading, I’m a bit more inclined to believe that this race leans more in the direction of R2K and Lake’s findings. Hopefully KING5-TV will commission another SurveyUSA poll of this race soon, so that we can get a better picture of where this one stands.

Quinnipiac just released two sets of Senate polls from two states, taken before and after the most recent Presidential debate. Let’s take a look.

Quinnipiac (10/8-12, likely voters, 10/3-7 in parens):

Mark Udall (D): 54 (48)

Bob Schaffer (R): 40 (43)

Undecided: 6 (9)

(MoE: ±3%)

It’s hard for me to believe that Udall had that big of a bounce after Obama’s debate, but I’ll take it.

Quinnipiac (10/8-12, likely voters, 10/3-7 in parens):

Al Franken (D): 38 (39)

Norm Coleman (R-inc): 36 (37)

Dean Barkley (IP): 18 (17)

(MoE: ±3.1%)

Well, this is a pretty big deal, as Franken has never posted a lead in a Q-poll before now. It also happens to be the first time that Quinnipiac has included Barkley as an option, and it appears that his presence on the ballot has thrown this race wide open.

Bonus findings: Obama leads McCain by 52-43 in Colorado (through both polls), and 51-40 in Minnesota (51-43 pre-debate).

Public Policy Polling (10/11-12, likely voters, 10/4-5 in parens):

Kay Hagan (D): 46 (49)

Elizabeth Dole (R-inc): 44 (40)

Christopher Cole (L): 5 (5)

(MoE: ±2.8%)

Dole has managed to chip away a few soft Democrats from Hagan’s flank (going from 12% last week to 16% this week among Democrats), but Tom Jensen finds some silver lining in the results:

The good news for Hagan? Voters who are undecided for Senate overwhelmingly support Barack Obama for President, 50-27. She just needs to make sure they vote the rest of their ballot when they come out to vote Democratic for the top office, and she’ll probably win.

In the presidential race, Obama holds a 49-46 lead in the state.

(H/T: bear83)

http://www.publicpolicypolling…

Hagan lead narrows to 46-44

Obama leads in NC, 49-46

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