Franklin & Marshall College (9/30-10/5, registered voters incl. leaners):
Chris Carney (D-inc): 48
Chris Hackett (R): 33
Undecided: 18
(MoE: ±3.6%)
Carney is not out of the woods yet, but this is still a good showing for a freshman Dem in an R+8 district. It’s also similar to other recent polls we’ve seen of this race: Momentum Analysis had Carney up by 50-36, and Lycoming College pegged the race at 46-36.
SSP currently rates this race as Lean Democratic.
Siena College (9/30-10/5, likely voters):
SD-37
Suzi Oppenheimer (D-inc): 61
Liz Feld (R): 24
(MoE: ±4.9%)
SD-55
David Nachbar (D): 21
James Alesi (R-inc): 62
(MoE: ±4.8%)
SD-58
William Stachowski (D-inc): 36
Dennis Delano (R): 49
(MoE: ±4.6%)
SD-59
Kathy Konst (D): 33
Dale Volker (R-inc): 50
(MoE: ±4.9%)
Siena has released a second batch of polls of contested New York Senate races. The first batch was a few weeks ago, and pointed to a likely Democratic pickup and another tied race, enough to flip control of the Senate to the Democrats (who are currently down 31-29 with 2 vacancies).
Unfortunately, this round of polling shows a fly in the ointment that wasn’t apparent before: incumbent Democrat William Stachowski from 55th District in Buffalo’s blue-collar suburbs (another long-term presence, in office since 1981) is trailing Dennis Delano, and by a substantial margin. (Delano, a Buffalo police detective, is apparently a local law enforcement celebrity.) If this seat goes down, the possibility of a tied Senate looms large.
Other polls in this race include two GOP-held upstate seats where the Democratic candidates (the highly-touted David Nachbar, and Kathy Konst, who bailed out of the NY-26 primary to run for state senate instead) have uphill climbs, and a seat in Westchester County where the Democratic incumbent looks to hang on easily. Several other closely contested races that are promising for the Dems (Padavan/Gennaro in SD-11 and Barber/Seward in SD-51) remain unpolled, so the quest to flip the New York state senate remains in limbo.
Grove Insight for the DCCC (10/5-6, likely voters, 9/14-15 in parens):
Paul Kanjorski (D-inc): 47 (48)
Lou Barletta (R): 39 (39)
Undecided: 13 (14)
(MoE: ±4.9%)
This poll comes on the heels of a recent Barletta internal poll showing Kanjorski trailing by 39-47. Neither result is particularly great for Kanjorski, especially considering that he’s hovering below 50% in the DCCC’s own polling.
I understand that Daily Kos will be releasing a Research 2000 poll of this race soon. I’m looking forward to seeing which side of these dueling polls they agree with.
SSP currently rates this race as a Tossup.
Kiley & Company for Dan Maffei (10/2-3, likely voters, mid-August in parens):
Dan Maffei (D): 49 (38)
Dale Sweetland (R): 31 (26)
Howie Hawkins (G): 6
(MoE: ±4%)
Maffei takes solid leads among Democrats (74-10), Independents (51-21), and even takes 28% of the Republican vote. I don’t see how Sweetland can claw his way up in this D+3.4 open seat race — especially not with the kind of money that he’s been raising.
SSP currently rates this race as Likely Democratic.
Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for Gary Peters (10/6-7, likely voters):
Gary Peters (D): 43
Joe Knollenberg (R-inc): 40
Jack Kevorkian (I): 5
Other: 5
Undecided: 8
(MoE: ±4.9%)
There’s a lot of good news for Gary Peters in this poll. Not only is he leading Knollenberg, the incumbent is sitting at only 40% — a perilous level. What’s more, Peters still has some room to grow — his name recognition is still only 48% in the district (compared to Knollenberg’s 80%, which is actually an unremarkable number for a long-time incumbent). it’s no wonder that Knollenberg has been begging pathetically for Sarah Palin to join him on the campaign trail after McCain pulled his operation from the state.
The full polling memo is available below the fold.
SSP currently rates this race as a Tossup.
In this edition of my irregular series on Oregon political news, I discuss another set of interesting stories that have popped up. These include Sen. Wyden’s (D-OR) new ad for Merkley as well as the Bill Sizemore’s admission that he was using private foundation funds for his own purposes.
Cross-Posted from Loaded Orygun: http://www.loadedorygun.net/sh…
Story List:
1. Wyden says we need Merkley in the Senate.
2. Sizemore admits to personal use of funds.
3. The Oregon Citizen’s Alliance and John McCain.
4. Debate Night in Oregon: Smith vs. Merkley tonight!
Wyden says we need Merkley in the Senate:
In a new ad released this morning, Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR), who has never before done an ad for any one of Smith’s challengers, talks about why he needs Jeff Merkley to help deliver the change Oregon wants and needs. The popular Senator is a true progressive, having stated his career as the Rep. for Oregon’s 3rd CD (currently represented by Rep. Blumenauer).
Video:
Sizemore admits to personal use of funds:
Story here: Oregon anti-tax activist Bill Sizemore admits personal use of funds
Anti-tax activist Bill Sizemore is known for many things, such as running a series of insane ballot measures every two years. However, one thing he would prefer not to be remembered for is his mis-use of funds donated to nonprofit organizations under his control, which partially led to a judgment against him several years back for racketeering. Under the terms of an injunction resulting from that lawsuit, such usage of funds was not allowed. Despite this, it was revealed that Sizemore “wrote checks from the foundation account for $660,326, almost all of it for his own benefit. Sizemore also charged another $88,176 to a foundation debit card at Wells Fargo.” Included in his purchases was a car for his wife, braces for his daughter, a time-share in Mexico and my personal favorite, 15 1-ounce gold pieces. It seems that perhaps the real reason Sizemore doesn’t like paying taxes is that the pesky government insists he follow the law.
The Oregon Citizen’s Alliance and John McCain:
Story, as picked up by Raw Story: McCain connections coming back to haunt him
In a report during last night’s Countdown with Keith Olbermann, Keith reported that John McCain had attended a 1993 fund-raising dinner for the Oregon Citizens Alliance (OCA), a virulently homophobic group that was behind several ballot measures in the 1990s which would have effectively mandated discrimination against the GLBT community. However, the fun doesn’t stop there as apparently, during the dinner, one of the speakers praised those who had shot abortion doctors. This was no surprise to either of Oregon’s senators, both Republicans, who themselves refused to attend the dinner. In fact, Senator Mark Hatfield, a liberal Republican (and I mean that, he would most certainly be a Democrat if he ran today) strongly urged McCain not to attend but McCain did anyways.
Debate Night in Oregon: Smith vs. Merkley tonight!
Finally, just a quick note that Gordon Smith will debate Jeff Merkley tonight from 7-8 PM Pacific (10-11 PM Eastern) on KGW (Channel 8 in Portland). The debate is also sponsored by the Oregonian and streaming video will be available at: http://www.oregonlive.com/politics/. There you can also submit questions for the debate.
Let me know what you think.
Strategic Vision (R) (10/5-7, likely voters, 9/7-9 in parens):
Jim Martin (D): 44 (36)
Saxby Chambliss (R-inc): 47 (54)
Allen Buckley (L): 4 (4)
(MoE: ±3%)
Here’s yet more confirmation that we have a real race on our hands in Georgia: even Republican pollster Strategic Vision has the race within three, tightening from an 18-point spread one month ago (before the stock market collapse, Chambliss’s bailout vote, and, as an extra treat for Georgians, gas lines). The same sample shows a surprisingly close presidential race in Georgia as well, with McCain up only 50-43.
This poll might stick out like a sore thumb, if it didn’t mirror every other poll taken in the last few weeks; in fact, this race just slipped in to yellow toss-up territory at Pollster.com. Winning here (and the other Pollster tossups) would not only take us to the ‘magic number’ of 60, but give us the immense satisfaction of taking out Chambliss, who owes his Senate seat to one of the most disgusting smear jobs in American history. His opponent, Jim Martin, was just yesterday added to O2B over at Kos (hint hint).
Ivan Moore is back with a new batch of Alaska polls. Let’s see how the Killer B’s are doing.
Ivan Moore Research (10/3-6, likely voters, 9/20-22 in parens):
Mark Begich (D): 49 (48)
Ted Stevens (R-inc): 45 (46)
(MoE: ±4.4%)
And here’s the House race:
Ethan Berkowitz (D): 51 (49)
Don Young (R-inc): 42 (44)
So the Senate race remains pretty close (a recent Rasmussen poll had Stevens ahead by a point), and Stevens’ favorable rating has actually improved over recent weeks: from 48-44 to 51-41 today. That’s despite being under trial (albeit one that looks to be something of a gong show on the prosecution’s part).
Interestingly, Moore also finds that the kids are much bigger Stevens fans than their elders: Stevens leads Begich by 52-36 among 18-34 year-olds, while Begich flips those numbers and takes a 55-38 lead among voters aged 65 and up. A bit confounding, but there you go.
In the House race, Ivan has better news for Democrats:
At last, the Berk moves. He started with an ad on TV last Monday which was much more along the lines of what he needed, showing strength and his willingness to stand up and do the right thing. All of sudden, with just a week of that spot airing, his positive is up to a high of 53 percent and his negative has ticked back down. The race is now a 9-point Berkowitz lead.
Meanwhile, Don is nowhere to be seen. No TV, no radio, no campaign really. Just in the last few days, he’s gotten a TV buy in that starts mid-next week, on or around the 15th. If that’s when he comes up, he’ll be giving Ethan a 2-plus week headstart with unopposed media-a death sentence this close to the election.
Now, Moore goes on to say that he never counts Young out (and we shouldn’t either), as evidenced by a massive $700K media buy against him by the DCCC — serious money for a committee that wants to take no chances here.
Rasmussen (10/9, likely voters, 9/18 in parens):
Al Franken (D): 43 (47)
Norm Coleman (R-inc): 37 (48)
Dean Barkley (IP): 17 (3)
(MoE: ±4.5%)
Talk about a big shift: in the three weeks since the last Rasmussen poll of the Minnesota senate race, Norm Coleman has dropped 11 points. (Some of that is related to the GOP’s rapidly declining fortunes at the Senate level, but Coleman’s constant drip drip of ethical woes can’t be helping.) Al Franken has also dropped, though by a much smaller amount, leaving him with the biggest lead he’s seen all year in Rasmussen.
The real news here is Dean Barkley’s surge, which right now seems to be coming disproportionately out of Coleman’s slice of the pie. However, in the poll’s fine print, only 3% of all voters are “absolutely certain” they will vote for Barkley, so his actual number may be much lower than 17%. The good news is: when uncommitted Barkley voters and other leaners are pushed to choose Franken or Coleman, Franken still leads, 50-46.
However, there’s one other possibility that we at least need to start considering: that Barkley continues to gain, and in fact wins Jesse Ventura-style by elbowing aside two unpopular candidates. Given the very high unfavorables for both Coleman (55% somewhat or very unfavorable) and Franken (53%), it can’t be ruled out.
(h/t TPM)
Unbelievable. Politico is reporting key evidence against Stevens has been thrown out. The chances he’ll get off just increased significantly.
Judge Emmet Sullivan threw out two big pieces of evidence in the Justice Department’s prosecution of Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) after it was disclosed that prosecutors failed to provide defense attorneys with all the information they needed to put on their case.
Stevens’ attorneys are also expected to offer a motion for acquittal on Thursday, once the government finishes putting on its case for conviction. Stevens’ defense team has repeatedly sought to have the case dismissed or a mistrial declared due to alleged prosecutorial misconduct.
TPM readers are speculating if this wasn’t maybe planned all along by Mukasey and the Bush DOJ to have “prosecutorial misconduct” in order to get the case tossed out of court. By this time, do any of us trust Mukasey or the Bush U.S. attorneys that weren’t fired?
I mean, look at the “mistakes” that were made. How could a prosecutor be so incompetent?
But prosecutors never presented testimony from Williams, who was suppose to be the foreman on the home project, and instead shepherded him out of Washington right before the trial started, all without informing Stevens’ attorneys.
And Anderson told the grand jury that he was in Portland, Ore., not Alaska, in late 2000, when Veco’s records have him as working on Stevens’ home. Prosecutors knew that Anderson had told the grand jury that and did not tell the defense team.
….
Judge Sullivan will also exclude all evidence from a 1999 car swap between Allen and Stevens in which Stevens got a new Land Rover from Allen in return for a beat-up 1964 Mustang and some cash.
Prosecutors failed to turn over to Stevens’ defense team a copy of the check which Allen used to pay for the Land Rover. Defense counsel alleged that they their case had been hurt when they cross-examined Allen over the transaction, which they only did because — they asserted — they didn’t have Allen’s original check.
Just freaking unbelievable.