Month: August 2010

AK-Sen: Just an FYI: The Tea Party Express has now spent $550K on behalf of Joe Miller – quite a sum in a super-cheap state like Alaska. (That means they’ve poured in about $200K in just the last week.) Remember, the TPX is the organization that helped power Sharron Angle to victory. Knocking off an incumbent senator is a much bigger task than beating Chicken Lady, of course, but the teabaggers are determined to keep this one interesting. (Also, any day I get to write about Chicken Lady is a good day.)

KY-Sen: Rand Paul, subjecting himself to a rare press conference, announced his preferred way of combating drug abuse in Eastern Kentucky. Instead of using federal dollars, he prefers church-based options: “I like the fact that faith is involved, that religion – Christianity – is involved, and I’m not embarrassed to say so. You have to have innovative local solutions to problems.” Paul still called for the end of earmarks to fund Operation UNITE, an anti-drug program, which caused some awkwardness for his host, Hopkins County Attorney Todd P’Pool, who has made use of UNITE himself. (And yes, that awesome name is NOT a typo.)

NH-Sen: Paul Hodes has a new ad up, featuring music he wrote himself, which continues a theme we’ve seen elsewhere – namely, referring to Congress as some kind of daycare center for overgrown children. I’m not really sure how effective this characterization really is, given that it’s been incumbents who keep deploying it. Anyhow, NWOTSOTB, though the Hodes campaign tells us it’s “a significant buy in both the Manchester and Boston media markets” that’s going up on both broadcast and cable today.

OR-Gov: Good news for Dem John Kitzhaber: The Oregon Progressive Party declined to nominate a candidate for governor, meaning that there won’t be anyone on the ballot running to Kitz’s left. Jerry Wilson, creator of the Soloflex, had been hoping for the Prog nod, and says he may run a write-in campaign instead.

AZ-03: Just a day before the primary, Dan Quayle emerged from his undisclosed potatoe to pen an email on behalf of his embattled, pathetic spawn, Ben. At this point, though, nothing can undo the Shame of the Super-Son.

CA-52: Democrat Ray Lutz has ended his 11-day hunger strike, which he launched in an attempt to get Rep. Duncan Hunter to meet him for a series of debates. Hunter actually did say he’d meet for an Oct. 15th debate, though he claims he was planning to accept that date even before Lutz went on his strike. Lutz, of course, is claiming victory – and if this tactic really did have its intended effect, I wonder if we’ll ever see anyone else try it again.

IA-03: Rep. Leonard Boswell’s been hitting Republican Brad Zaun on his flip-floppery over agricultural subsidies, and it seems like he’s landed a solid blow. In Iowa, anything less than maximal statism in support of the ethanol industry is usually a political sin, but Zaun couldn’t help himself at a teabagger debate earlier this spring. Zaun related a conversation with a farmer, who asked him “What are you going to do for me and the biofuels industry?” Zaun’s description of his own response: “Nothing.” Boswell’s put out his first radio ad of the cycle (NWOTSOTB) featuring this very quote.

IL-11: Debbie Halvorson is getting a new campaign manager. Julie Merz, who has previously worked for Dennis Moore and Jim Matheson, is taking over for Travis Worl. It’s always hard to say whether moves like this reflect campaign turmoil, a sign that the team is upgrading, or just natural turnover. The only tea leaf we have here is that Worl’s departure was announced before Merz’s hiring was.

LA-02: A good get for Cedric Richmond: New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu just gave the state legislator his endorsement yesterday. Richmond faces fellow state Rep. Juan LaFonta in the primary, which is this Saturday (note the unusual date).

NV-03: Republican media buying company Smart Media Group says that AFSCME has put down $240K for ads against GOPer Denny Joe Heck. The union hasn’t filed an independent expenditure report yet, though.

NY-01: Republican George Demos is up with his first TV ad, attempting to out-conservative opponents Randy Altschuler and Ed Cox – and doing his best to make himself unelectable in the general election by painting himself as “pro-life.” NWOTSOTB. Meanwhile, Altschuler succeeded in knocking Cox out of the Conservative Party primary, though Cox has vowed to appeal the judge’s ruling.

NY-25: Republican (and Mama Grizzly) Ann Marie Buerkle says she won’t rule out SSP – the bad kind of SSP, of course:

“There’s so many options when it comes to privatization. I would have to look at each plan that’s being proposed… but I would certainly consider looking at it.”

I spent the better part of the last 10 days diligently working on an exhaustive map of California (curse you, microscopic precincts of Contra Costa County!) using a method I don’t believe anyone on here has tried yet. And wouldn’t you know it, when I was just finishing up San Diego this morning, Safari decided it was going to quit and my entire map died with it. Too upset to go all the way back to CA-01 and start again, I decided I was going to post a diary today anyway, Safari-be-damned. So here are two maps of Ohio, one a Republican gerrymander and the other a Democratic gerrymander, that I drew a while ago but never got around to posting. Enjoy, let me know what you think, and I promise you I’ll get that California one up eventually!

Note before I begin: I’ve never been to Ohio, so I’m a bit of a rookie when it comes to the political niceties of the state. If I’m missing anything obvious, please let me know.

Ohio Republican Map: The “Four-Steve Plan”

Southwest Ohio and Cincinnati

OH-01 (Blue): Steve Driehaus (D) vs. Steve Chabot (R)

This district is drawn to help Chabot regain and hold his old seat in Congress. It’s still Cincy-based but gains a good portion of deep-red exurban Butler County from the current OH-08, and loses some of its inner-city portions. This configuration is probably R+1 or 2. Driehaus trails in the polls as it is, and this plan has a nasty surprise for him, as 15,000 of the black voters who swept him into office are now constituents of….

OH-02 (Green): Jean Schmidt (R)

This district, which only gave 40% of the vote to Obama, was hoarding Republican votes as it was but I didn’t want to hurt the notoriously weak Schmidt too much. Still, she’s capable of taking on the aforementioned 15,000 black votes, and also adds a little bit more of rural Southern Ohio.

OH-03 (Purple): Mike Turner (R)

Turner and Steve Austria inconveniently chose to live about 20 miles from each other, forcing the former’s district to stretch quite a bit and eat up some of Zack Space’s territory (his district is a casualty of this map.) Montgomery County (Dayton) voted for Obama and is the population center of this district, but OH-08 gets all the black precincts. Thus, Turner’s R+5 district is now R+9, with McCain getting 55%.

Columbus Area

OH-04 (Red): Jim Jordan (R)

Franklin County, home of Columbus, is fast-growing and trending more Democratic by the day. It gave 60% of its votes to Obama, but luckily for Republicans is an island of an ocean of conservative Ohio goodness. Thus, part of the city is sliced off and is attached Texas-style to the 60% McCain counties that border Indiana. No idea what the PVI is because I don’t know the precinct-level data for Franklin, but Jordan’s safe.

OH-07 (Grey): Steve Austria (R)

Austria takes in the sparsely populated and more moderate south of Franklin County, and holds onto most of his old district.  This is the swingiest of the four Columbus-area seats, but PVI-wise its probably not too different from Austria’s current 54% McCain seat.

OH-08 (Indigo?): John Boehner (R)

The Minority Leader currently has the most Republican seat in Ohio, and I doubt GOP map-drawers would disturb his seat too much. He gets 75% McCain Mercer County tacked onto the the northern end of his district in exchange for adding some more of downtown Dayton to help Turner.

OH-12 (Pale Blue): Pat Tibieri (R)

Tibieri is rewarded for holding down his Obama district against the 2006 and 2008 waves with a large swatch of conservative territory to the northeast of Columbus. His district contains less of Franklin than it used to, but now has most of the majority-minority precincts. The portion of the district outside of Franklin, which makes up about 3/5 of its population, voted 61% for McCain.

OH-15 (Orange): Steve Stivers (R)

This district is designed with Stivers in mind and is very similar to the neighboring 12th: a quarter of Franklin County attached seven exurban and rural counties that voted 3:2 for McCain. If Stivers came within a few hundered votes of winning a fairly strong Obama district in ’08, this one should be easy for him.

Note: I don’t know which of my districts Mary Jo Kilroy lives in, but she’d face an uphill fight in any of them. Also, while it is still possible to gerrymander Franklin County into 4 GOP seats, by 2020 it may be wiser to consolidate central Columbus into one safely Democratic district.

OH-06 (Teal): Charlie Wilson (D) vs. Zack Space (D) vs. Generic R

The new 6th, in the southeast of the state, is made up of the most conservative parts of the current 6th and 18th. Thus, Charlie Wilson and Zack Space are heading for a primary fight on a rather level playing field. The winner of this hard-fought contest will emerge to take on a Republican in a 56% McCain district with a lot of  territory unfamiliar to him. Not an impossible hold, but a tough one for Democrats in a region sliding away from them.

Northeast Ohio

OH-05 (Yellow): Bob Latta (R)

Latta’s district shifts westward and loses a point or two (down to  51-52% McCain.) He scoops up the rural, conservative leftovers of counties the voted for Obama but have given their liberal sections to Democratic districts. Also, the population center of this district is now in exurban Cleveland, which means Latta may face a primary from that area. I’ve never cared for him anyway.

OH-09 (Sky Blue): Marcy Kaptur (D)

Nothing new here, folks. The dean of the Ohio delegation keeps her base in Toledo and hugs Lake Erie like Lois Capps hugs the Pacific. Obama won 62%.

OH-10 (Pink): Dennis Kucinich (D)

High 50’s for Obama in western Cleveland and its suburbs. I decided to save Kucinich rather than pit him against one of the other northeastern Democrats because his “nay” votes from the left are nonetheless helpful for Republicans.

OH-11 (Lime): Marcia Fudge (D)

There are just enough African-Americans in Cleveland to keep a VRA majority-black seat in Ohio. Fudge’s percentages on the east side of the city are 51% black, 85% Obama.

OH-13 (Tan): Betty Sutton (D)

Sutton’s district is now dominated by her home county of Summit (Akron) but also takes in the college town of Kent and the west side of Canton. Obama scored in the high 50’s, much like in Sutton’s current district.

OH-14 (Taupe?): Steve LaTourette (R)

LaTourette is stuck in a tough place for a Republican. To the west is Cleveland, to the south Youngstown, and to the north Lake Erie. There is some conservative territory to the east, but it’s in Pennsylvania so that’s a no-go. He does have to expand somewhere, though, so I chose rural Trumbull and Portage counties, which are hopefully more conservative than the counties are as a whole, and the surprisingly Republican south and east of Cuyahoga County. This should be enough to nudge McCain over 50, a slight improvement over the current 14th.

OH-16 (Bright Green): Tim Ryan (D) vs. John Boccieri (D)

This is the Youngstown district, and Ryan should have no problem dispatching of Boccieri in the primary and whoever the GOP puts up in the general. East Canton as well as the liberal parts of Wilson’s district are thrown in for good measure. Boccieri could move and try to run against Latta, but it would be an uphill fight for him.

Summary: 3 Lean R (1, 6, 14), 3 Likely R (5, 7, 15), 5 Safe R, 5 Safe D

Ohio Democratic Map (the “Two-Steve Plan”)

Southwest Ohio

OH-01 (Blue): Steve Driehaus

Driehaus sheds the Butler County portion of his district and now has all of Cincinnati and its inner ring of suburbs. The black percentage ticks up to 25 and Obama probably was in the mid-to-high 50’s. Chabot might still have a chance this year, but Driehaus’ odds are far improved down the road.

OH-02 (Green): John Boehner (R) vs. Jean Schmidt (R)

It’s pretty easy for Democrats to eliminate the arch-conservative Schmidt by tossing her in with Boehner. This very red (McCain 60% +) district is made up of Cincinnati’s and Dayton’s exurbs and should be no trouble at all for the Minority Leader or any Republican who succeeds him.

OH-03 (Purple): Mike Turner (R)

The area between Toledo, Cincinnati, and Columbus is sort of a Bermuda triangle for Democrats, as you’ll be hard pressed to find anyplace that Obama broke 45%. The new 3rd combines the only county in this area that Obama won, Montgomery (Dayton) with marginal Clark County to create a 52/48 Obama district. Nevertheless, the PVI is R+1 and Turner will be favored. This seat becomes a tossup when he retires or runs for higher office.

OH-04 (Red): Jim Jordan (R)

This slice of rural Ohio goodness is about as clean-looking a Republican vote sink as you’ll ever see. McCain was in the 60’s here; a stronger Republican would flirt with 70% of the presidential vote. This might be the safest seat for the GOP in the Midwest.

OH-07 (Grey): Steve Austria (R)

Austria is one of the few Republicans who would prefer this map to my GOP gerrymander. He picks up most of Schmidt’s old district along the Kentucky border and retains his base southwest of Columbus.  With McCain in the high 50’s, Austria has this seat as long as he wants it.

OH-06 (Teal): Charlie Wilson (D)

Wilson’s district pushes ever so slightly north into the Democratic vote warehouse of Youngstown, taking about a quarter of the city. The rest of the district is made up of a selection of the least Republican counties of Southeast Ohio (a lot of 50/50 areas.) It’s not much, but the improvement does flip this slight McCain district into a slight Obama one. Wilson’s safe, but this is trouble for Democrats down the road.

Columbus Area

OH-08 (Indigo?): Zack Space (D)

Mr. Space, welcome to East Columbus! As the only endangered Democrat for hundreds of miles in any direction, Space is rewarded for his two wins in tough territory with a large chunk of Franklin County, attached by a thin strip to his home county of Tuscarawas. Who says ugly can’t be beautiful?

OH-12 (Pale Blue): Pat Tibieri (R)

Tibieri is a winner in both my maps, as once again he trades his part of Columbus for exurban and rural counties. This time, he gets almost all the red counties in Central Ohio, and is sitting comfortably in a 60% McCain district.

OH-15 (Orange): Mary Jo Kilroy (D)

Kilroy needs all the help she can get, so I gave her even more of Columbus than she has now. Then, I traded dark-red Madison and Union Counties for the more moderate Pickaway and Ross Counties to the south of the city. This move pushes Obama into the upper 50’s and should be enough for Kilroy to fend off the pesky Steve Stivers.

Northern Ohio

OH-05 (Yellow): OPEN

This new seat in north-central Ohio is designed with Democrats in mind, as Obama carried it with 54% of the vote. However, it’s not out of the reach of Republicans, especially not this year. Still, since this essentially replaces Latta’s district and we don’t want to spread the votes too thin in Northern Ohio, it’s acceptable. Latta could try his luck here but most of this territory is new to him.

OH-09 (Sky Blue): Marcy Kaptur (D) vs. Bob Latta (R)

Sorry Bob, this one’s not gonna happen. Dominated by Lucas County (Toledo), the dean of the delegation should have no problem retaining her seat. Even with the Republican-voting northwest, the new 9th still gave 61% of the vote to Obama. Kaptur’s small sacrifice frees up the lake counties to the west for the new 5th.

OH-10 (Pink): Dennis Kucinich (D)

This district takes Wayne and Medina Counties, which voted for John McCain by a combined 15,000 votes, and neutralizes them with a large slice of western Cuyahoga County (Cleveland). Kucinich could theoretically be in trouble here, but the most likely scenario is that he runs into a strong suburban primary challenger who goes on to easily hold this one for the Democrats.

OH-11 (Lime): Marica Fudge (D)

Exactly the same in both gerrymanders. 51% black. Ho hum.

OH-13 (Tan): Betty Sutton (D)

Sutton has it about the same on both maps as well. Once again, she claims all of Summit County (Akron) and has enough Democratic votes there to allow her to swallow Republican precincts in southern Cuyahoga and Steve LaTourette’s home precint (more on him later.) 57% for Obama this time.

OH-14 (Taupe?): Tim Ryan (D)

Ryan keeps all of his home county, Trumbull, as well as the majority of the city of Youngstown. Those alone are enough to keep him safe, which allow him to grab Ashtabula and Lake Counties as well as parts of Geauga and Cuyahoga from LaTourette’s old district. Mix it all together and you get a 59% Obama seat.

OH-16 (Bright Green): John Boccieri (D)

The most junior Democrat in the region, fittingly, gets the leftovers district. Those leftovers consist of Stark (Canton) and Portage (Kent) Counties, which Obama carried, as well as Carroll and part of Geauga, which McCain carried. Throw in the rest of Cuyahoga and Mahoning, and you get a 53% Obama district, which although no sure thing is better than Boccieri’s old district.

Steve LaTourette, of course, is the odd man out. Where would he run? He lives in Sutton’s district, but the geography and the partisan numbers favor Betty Sue there. Most of his old district is in Ryan’s, but that configuration voted for Obama almost 3:2. Boccieri’s district is the most Republican-friendly, but he only represented about 8% of this area previously. Whatever option he chooses, it’s an uphill fight.

The Bottom Line: 4 Safe R, 1 Lean R (3), 3 Lean D (5, 6, 16), 2 Likely D (1, 15), 6 Safe D  

My internship with the Dubie campaign is over.  Here is a profile of one of the candidates for governor, Doug Racine.

Racine has been a state senator from 1983-1992, including three years as senate president pro Tempore. From 1997-2003 he was the Lieutenant governor of Vermont under Howard Dean. He ran for governor in 2002 against Jim Douglas and lost 45-42-13. In 2006 he was elected senator from Chittenden County, the most populated County in the state.

Advantages: Leadership, experience, location and name recognition. As president pro Tempore, he was in charge of the democratic caucus, and helped draft and pass tough budgets in the recession of 91. On Racine’s site he boasts his 25 years experience in government. Six years as lieutenant governor, 12 combined years as a senator, 3 as leadership, people know who he is. Since he’s from Chittenden county, he has home field advantage in an area which could have anywhere from ¼ to ½ of the democratic primary electorate.  Further, no other candidate is from North Western Vermont, meaning his support won’t be diluted through regional means. He has already announced his issue (to be discusses later) as healthcare calling for a single payer system in Vermont.  He has the backing of three major unions, which could help with GOTV. Plus Racine has already faced and defeated his republican opponent, Brian Dubie, before, back in 2000.

Disadvantages: It’s been how long since he was relevant? Racine has long since been yesterday’s news, he just can’t seem to handle that. His primary senatorial experience was in the eighties, his leadership in the last year of the eighties and first year of the nineties, and lieutenant governor experience in the mid nineties. Further, he’s already had his chance to become governor in 2002 and lost a race that should have been his. He is essentially the AL Gore of the race (Circa 2002). His main experience was decades ago, his 2nd in command experience was years ago, he lacked the charisma of his counter part (Howard Dean) and he only re-entered politics in 2006 to set himself up to try again to be governor. He was the first to announce his intent, only to get attention as the only candidate in the race. Also in regards to healthcare, one, Shumlin Co-opted that issue earlier this year and two look at how well that issue worked for Obama and national democrats. His fundraising has been subpar, he’s raised less than anyone but Susan Bartlett putting him fourth of the five candidates, despite being in the race the longest.  His only ad is somewhat boring and claims “our way of life is under attack,” without saying what is attacking our way of life.  He seemed fear mongering, but doing it very opaquely. His time has passed.

http://www.7dvt.com/2009past-p…

http://dougracine.com/about/ac…

http://www.timesargus.com/arti…

• KY-Sen: The online “moneybomb” technique seemed to help Rand Paul get a lot of traction in the early months of the Republican primary, but his latest few scheduled moneybombs have been fizzles. Yesterday’s was a case in point: $258K is still a lot of dough for two days, but it was far short of the planned $400K. (And every penny counts: Paul reported only $319K CoH at the end of June.) Are Paulists feeling tapped out these days, or are his early-adopting libertarian-minded nationwide fans chafing that he’s increasingly parting ways with his dad and becoming more of an NRSC sock puppet? (As seen just today with their divergence over Cordoba House.)

• PA-Sen: Two pieces of good news in Pennsylvania: first, Joe Sestak is rolling out an endorsement from Chuck Hagel, the former GOP Senator from Nebraska who was on the short list for an Obama cabinet position. Not that Hagel is probably a household name in the Keystone State, but it certainly burnishes Sestak’s bipartisan (and military) cred. Also, the DSCC is planning to spend even more on this race, letting Sestak, presumably, keep marshaling his resources for a big late push (the kind that helped him shoot past Arlen Specter in the closing weeks in the primary). They’re spending $546K on broadcast media this week, on top of $494K last week; the DSCC’s total spending and reservations so far in this race amount to $4.4 million.

• WI-Sen: Hmmm, maybe all that sunspot and Greenland stuff actually started to stick. Republican wingnut candidate Ron Johnson is trying to undo the crazy on his various climate change comments, offering the usual last refuge of the pathetic walkback, that his remarks were “taken out context.” Johnson is also trying to walk back his previous support for elimination of the home mortgage interest deduction, about as popular a provision of the tax code as there is. If you wanted to simultaneously set back both the entire real estate business and the middle class by several decades, eliminating the home mortgage interest deduction would be a good way to do it.  

• IL-Gov: The exodus from the field of broken dreams that is the Pat Quinn camp just continues. Today, the departee is CoS Jerry Stermer, and while it isn’t a rancorous departure (as was the case with Quinn breaking it off with David Axelrod’s media firm last week), he is resigning to avoid being a distraction with an ethics investigation (over whether he sent political e-mails from his government account) hanging overhead. With Quinn seemingly circling the drain, that ain’t gonna help.

• AZ-05: In the “ooops, spoke too soon” department, presumed Republican primary frontrunner David Schweikert opted for a last-minute ad buy for $14K on cable, apparently worried that he was losing momentum going into tomorrow’s primary. Last week, his camp had said he was so far ahead they were just going to go dark and start saving money for the general. Meanwhile, next door in AZ-03, Steve Moak, the only candidate who rivals Ben Quayle on the money front, is out with a new ad hitting Quayle over his pseudonymous tenure writing for the website that was the precursor to TheDirty.com.

• FL-24: Wow, Craig Miller actually went there: he sent out a last-minute mailer going after the widely-known, but not yet broached in the campaign context, issue of GOP primary opponent Karen Diebel’s mental stability. Maybe he’d been planning to do a last-minute boom-lowering all along, but it seems kind of strange, as Miller’s millions have seemed to have the race locked down, not requiring him to get his hands dirty. Was there a last minute Diebel surge (she’s been attacking him on being too soft on immigration)?

• TX-23: Republican challenger Quico Canseco is out with an internal poll, via OnMessage, giving him a small lead over incumbent Dem Rep. Ciro Rodriguez. The poll gives Canseco a 43-37 lead, a turnaround from Rodriguez’s lead of 48-45 in a Canseco poll from June.

• Ads: Bobby Bright’s out with his first ad, in AL-02. SSP southern correspondent Trent Thompson’s description of the ad says it all, so I’ll just quote him: “”Bobby” voted against everything Obama. Also, he kisses a baby.” Ben Chandler is also out with an ad in KY-06, touting his saving the local VA Hospital. Finally, Rick Boucher’s GOP opponent, Morgan Griffith, is also out with a new TV spot, reminding you that he’s a conservative. (As an interesting ethno-linguistic observation, one clear indicator that VA-09 is an Appalachian district, not a Southern district, is that Griffith cites “Warshington” as being the source of all our problems.) NWOTSOTB, in all three cases.

• We Ask America: The quirky little Republican-linked pollster that could, We Ask America, is out with an array of polls in Illinois (the state where they’re based). They find Mark Kirk leading Alexi Giannoulias 39-33, but they also look at three House races. In fact, they looked at these races back in March, so we now have trendlines. In IL-11, they find Adam Kinzinger leading Debbie Halvorson 52-32 (down from an already bad 42-30); in IL-14, they have Randy Hultgren leading Bill Foster 44-37 (also down, from 38-36). The good news: they have Dan Seals leading Bob Dold! in IL-10, 43-40 (Seals led 40-37 in March, so he’s holding his own). We’ve also discovered a few recent WAA odds and ends that we didn’t cover earlier: they also see Roy Blunt leading Robin Carnahan 47-43 in MO-Sen, and see Sean Duffy leading 42-33 over Julie Lassa in WI-07.

• Rasmussen:

• AL-Sen: William Barnes (D) 28%, Richard Shelby (R-inc) 60%

• AR-Gov: Mike Beebe (D-inc) 53%, Jim Keet (R) 33%

• MD-Sen: Barbara Mikulski (D-inc) 55%, Eric Wargotz (R) 39%

• TX-Gov: Bill White (D) 41%, Rick Perry (R-inc) 49%

Talk Business Research/Hendrix College for Talk Business (8/17, likely voters, no trend lines):

Chad Causey (D): 32

Rick Crawford (R): 48

Ken Adler (G): 4

Undecided: 16

(MoE: ±3.9%)

Ouch; what a brutal starting position for Chad Causey. Crawford, the beneficiary of a slam-dunk primary win, has an eye-popping 43-13 favorable rating, a much higher mark than the battle-scarred Causey’s 29-26. Each man is unknown to nearly half of the electorate, so there is still quite a bit of room for this race to evolve, but shifting it back away from the GOP will be a tough task. For his part, Causey will have to hope that Crawford’s past bankruptcy troubles become a bigger deal than that issue is today.

Note that this sample has a sample composition of 33% Republican and 31% Democratic — probably a more GOP-friendly sample than we’d be used to seeing from this ancestrally Democratic district, but maybe indicative of the folks who will actually be showing up to the polls this November.

UPDATE: The Causey campaign has responded by releasing their own internal poll (available below the fold) by Garin Hart Yang (8/16-18) showing the race at a much closer margin of 41-40 for Crawford. Details below.

Public Policy Polling (8/21-22, likely voters, 7/16-18 in parens):

Rick Scott (R): 47 (43)

Bill McCollum (R): 40 (29)

Undecided: 13 (28)

(MoE: ±5.6%)

Kendrick Meek (D): 51 (28)

Jeff Greene (D): 27 (25)

Glenn Burkett (D): 5 (6)

Maurice Ferre (D): 4 (4)

Undecided: 13 (37)

(MoE: ±5.4%)

With the Sunshine State’s primaries tomorrow, three major pollsters have rolled out last-minute predictions today. For the Democratic Senate race, everyone’s in agreement, except for maybe the magnitude of the victory. However, for the Republican gubernatorial primary, there are some divergent results, and PPP seems to be the odd man out this time. Contrary to the general trend of this race lately (I don’t know if there’s ever been a clearer illustration of “peaking too early” than this graph of Pollster trendlines), they give Rick Scott a 7-point lead over Bill McCollum. It’s still an improvement for McCollum over their July numbers, where he trailed by 14.

PPP’s GOP sample gives McCollum favorables of 38/45, while Scott’s actually above water at 46/33. Did they manage to find a group of voters who somehow have avoided the last few months’ worth of attack ads about Scott’s gigantic Medicare fraud?

Quinnipiac (8/21-22, likely voters, 8/11-16 in parens):

Bill McCollum (R): 39 (44)

Rick Scott (R): 35 (35)

Undecided: 22 (19)

(MoE: ±3.5%)

Kendrick Meek (D): 39 (35)

Jeff Greene (D): 29 (28)

Maurice Ferre (D): 3 (6)

Undecided: 28 (29)

(MoE: ±3.6%)

Quinnipiac finds a small lead for McCollum (smaller than they did a week earlier, showing that McCollum’s late surge seems to have maxed out); their pool of GOP voters gives 39/37 faves to McCollum and 31/40 to Scott. Interestingly, they also find a much smaller lead for Meek than did PPP, and freakishly high undecideds (28%) for an election that’s, y’know, tomorrow, indicating how little motivation the Dem primary seems to have generated.

Mason-Dixon for Miami Herald (pdf) (8/17-19, likely voters, 8/9-11 in parens):

Bill McCollum(R): 45 (34)

Rick Scott (R): 36 (30)

Mike McAlister (R): 4 (3)

Undecided: 15 (33)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Kendrick Meek (D): 42 (40)

Jeff Greene (D): 30 (26)

Maurice Ferre (D): 4 (5)

Glenn Burkett (D): 1 (NA)

Undecided: 23 (28)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Mason-Dixon’s numbers are a few days older than PPP’s and Quinnipiac’s; they’re pretty closely in line with Quinnipiac, although they see the biggest lead of all three for McCollum over Scott (and more momentum, compared with last week). They give McCollum 43/32 favorables, compared with 33/40 for Scott. Could this truly be the end of the line for shameless bald supervillain Scott? (The Lex Luthor comparisons have written themselves this cycle — but to me Scott’s always been the Bizarro World version of Peter Garrett, the very liberal, very earnest, very tall, very bald Australian Labor Environment Minister… who those of you who were listening to music in the 80s probably remember better as the singer for Midnight Oil.)

UPDATE: Was it worth it? Pre-primary campaign finance reports came out, and between Scott and McCollum, $70 million was spent on the GOP gubernatorial primary: $49.9 million from Scott, $21 million for McCollum (although the majority of the money spent on McCollum’s behalf was from allied outside groups). No worries: even after that spending, Scott still has a net worth of $218 million.

MO-Sen: AFSCME just threw down another hefty hunk of cash, pouring $700K into radio ads attacking Roy Blunt for voting against minimum wage hikes. According to The Hill, the union says that the ad is airing “statewide on over 200 radio stations outside the St. Louis and Kansas City media markets.”

NH-Sen: Despite leading in the polls, AG Kelly Ayotte is joining third-party groups and launching a TV ad of her own attacking rival Bill Binnie as a “liberal.” This comes in response to Binnie’s new ad attacking Ayotte for her handling of the FRM scandal. NWOTSOTB, though Binnie’s latest purchase is reportedly for some $430K.

WI-Sen: It’s hard to keep up with Rand Paul and Sharron Angle, but really, the lamestream media is being unfair to Ron Johnson, who definitely deserves a starting spot on the Wingnut 9. Watch him bash this stand-up double into deep right field:

There’s a reason Greenland was called Greenland. It was actually green at one point in time. And it’s been, since, it’s a whole lot whiter now.

FL-22: Absolute fucking maniac – and absolute fucking whiner – Allen West has been decrying the “Gestapo-like intimidation tactics” he fantasizes have been deployed by Ron Klein, Nancy Pelosi, and Barack Obama. What are his dark Orwellian warnings about? The fact that the Klein campaign has been sending a video tracker to West’s events. Yep, exactly like the Holocaust. Good comparison to be making in Palm Beach.

IA-01: The American Future Fund, a conservative 501(c)4, claims it’s preparing to spend “six figures” against Rep. Bruce Braley (D), not a guy generally considered to be vulnerable. Part of that is because Braley leads his opponent, lawyer and former congressional staffer Ben Lange, $630K to $110K in cash-on-hand. Let’s see if they actually follow through, though.

MO-04: For the first time since the mid-90s, the Missouri Farm Bureau’s political arm, FARM-PAC, is not endorsing Ike Skelton – and in fact, they’re supporting Republican Vicky Hartzler. FARM-PAC cited Skelton’s vote in favor of cap-and-trade as the main reason for their change of heart. The Skelton campaign did, however, announce they received the backing from another agricultural group, the Missouri Corn Growers Association.

ND-AL: Rep. Earl Pomeroy is out with a new ad attacking Republican Rick Berg for his long (28-year) tenure in the North Dakota state lege, as well as his support for privatizing Social Security. NWOTSOTB.

NM-02: Defenders of Wildlife has re-upped its ad buy against Steve Pearce, who is attempting a comeback bid against Rep. Harry Teague, throwing down another $125K. It’s not clear whether this is the same ad from a couple of weeks ago, which one station refused to air.

NJ-03: Props to Jane Roh of the Courier-Post, a paper which serves southern New Jersey. She exposes Republican Jon Runyan’s first television ad for the video press release that it is, reporting that it’s a mere $8,400 (on FOX News and CNN), but notes – do I detect a touch of mockery here? – that it’s “expected to swell to $12,500 this week.” This is pretty much a joke buy anywhere, but in the NYC media market, this doesn’t even rate with late-night infomercials.

NY-13: Rudy Giuliani’s lent all kinds of support to Mike Grimm in his primary against Michael Allegretti, and now he’s cut an ad for him as well, touting Grimm’s experience with terrorism as a “9/11 first responder.” I wonder if that’s the tie that binds these two men, or if Rudy is making some long-term play against the entrenched GOP interests on Staten Island which, for whatever reason, have been backing Allegretti. Anyhow, NWOTSOTB, and incidentally, the FBI (and the Marines) have expressed displeasure with similar Grimm ads in the past.

NY-29: Teabagger Janice Volk failed to collect the necessary signatures to appear on the ballot as an independent… but now says she’ll run as a write-in. Whatever. Anyhow, has anyone heard anything – anything at all – about Dem Matthew Zeller?

OH-18: The Ohio Elections Commission ruled late last week that Rep. Zack Space made false statements about Republican opponent Bob Gibbs in an attack ad, but is issuing no penalty – not even a letter of reprimand. Sort of makes you wonder why this commission exists in the first place. I also find it weird that Ohio even has some body that tries to act as a referee for political campaigns. Isn’t that what voting is for?

Redistricting: Redistricting geeks, rejoice! Thanks to some key volunteer help, Dave’s Redistricting App now has partisan data for North Carolina and New Mexico. But more help is needed to get the remaining states online. Check out Dave’s diary to see how you can help.

Someday I’ll have me a penthouse, stacks and stacks of folding green… Here are the July fundraising numbers for the six major party committees (June numbers are here):