Tag: Senate

{Originally posted at my blog Senate Guru.}

New polling by Research 2000 finds that Republican Chuck Grassley is far more vulnerable than the conventional wisdom gives him (dis)credit for.

When asked if Grassley should be re-elected, only 42% said re-elect, while 31% said it was time for someone new, and 27% were not sure.  (Remember, being unsure about an incumbent of twenty-nine years bodes poorly for the incumbent.)  Among independents, only 39% said re-elect.  Not too hot.

The money question of the poll was:

When Senator Chuck Grassley says President Obama and Democrats would QUOTE “pull the plug on grandma” UNQUOTE do you think that does Iowa proud in Congress or embarrasses Iowa?

By more than a 2-to-1 margin (53% to 26%), Iowans responded that Grassley’s comments embarrassed them rather than made them proud.  Among independents, the embarrass-proud ratio was an overwhelming 61-21.  Research 2000 broke down the responses by Congressional district.  Outside of right-wing radical Steve King’s 5th Congressional district (which saw a 30-51 embarrass-proud ratio), every other district was overwhelmingly embarrassed by Grassley’s remarks.  The other four Congressional districts ranged from 53-64% embarrassed while only 19-24% proud.

Very interestingly, while only 35% of respondents favored the Senate version of the health care reform bill, while 56% opposed it, 62% of respondents favored a public option (a 2-to-1 margin over the 31% of respondents that opposed a public option); and, moreover, by more than a 3-to-1 margin, Iowans want Democratic Senator Tom Harkin to fight harder for a public option and would respect him more if he did.

The message from these numbers is clear: Iowans are open to voting for an alternative to Republican Chuck Grassley, would support a public option (and many who opposed health care reform in Iowa simply feel that it didn’t go far enough), and were embarrassed by Grassley’s dishonest kowtowing to the teabaggers with his “pull the plug on grandma” routine.

The Iowa Independent reminds us:

The “pull the plug on grandma” statement, which was part of the death panel meme Pulitzer Prize winning Web site PolitiFact named its “Lie of the Year,” dogged Grassley throughout the last few months of 2009 and was cited by at least one of the three Democrats vying to unseat him as the reason for entering the race.

Grassley’s own numbers must be telling him that his lies could constitute a politically fatal flub given how freaked out he got over the discussion of his comments and how he tripped over himself backpedaling:

By the end of the year, though, Grassley was blaming media reports for his association with the death panels meme. In a letter to a constituent forwarded to The Iowa Independent, Grassley said some “commentators” took his comments and twisted them as saying that health care reform would establish death panels.

“I said no such thing,” Grassley said. “As I said then, putting end-of-life consultations alongside cost containment and government-run health care causes legitimate concern.”

Who was that Democrat who cited Grassley’s comments as a reason for entering the race?  Attorney and Democratic former gubernatorial nominee Roxanne Conlin.  She got into the race in late 2009, so this past quarter’s fundraising report will be the first test of her campaign’s financial viability.  Word is, she’s a fairly prodigious fundraiser.

On top of that, Grassley has handed her the issue and according message frames on which to run.  Notably to me, Conlin has five grandchildren.  In other words, she is a grandma.  I think it would be powerfully resonant for Conlin to put out an ad highlighting Grassley’s “pull the plug on grandma” comments that embarrassed a majority of Iowans and to close the ad (while talking to the camera, surrounded by her five grandchildren) with the line, “I’m Roxanne Conlin, and I approved this message because I’m a grandma and I’m embarrassed that Chuck Grassley is talking about pulling the plug on me.”

Keep a close eye on IA-Sen; I’m expecting a competitive race that will surprise the traditional media.

This hasn’t been posted anywhere, for some reason, so I decided to make it the subject of my first diary. R2K polled the Delaware Senate Race and the results were pretty ugly for team blue:

Mike Castle (R) 53 (51)

Chris Coons (D) 35 (39)

Note the really bad news here for Coons (which is ignored by Daily Kos commentator Adam B. – don’t know why he wrote about this instead of Steve Singiser, the usual polling guru): Coons is actually down and Castle is up from the last time they did this poll.

Adam B. tries to spin this as not being all bad news for Coons, but his reasoning seems a bit specious to me. Mainly, he suggests that this is like the Carper-Roth race in 2000 in that you have two popular incumbents, one of whom is much younger than the other and is running as the representative of the more popular party in the state. For those of you who don’t know that race, Carper, then the Delaware Governor and a Democrat, ousted the Republican Senator Bill Roth, although both were popular at the time, by a substantial margin.

Here’s why I don’t buy it: 2000 was a presidential year, which drove Dem turnout in Delaware that year, and it was a Democratic year over all (I think five Republican Senators lost that year). This year won’t be either. Also, I think Roth had some pretty severe health issues which I don’t believe Castle has (I know he’s had a stroke in the past, but he seems to have recovered from that pretty well). Also, Carper had been elected to some pretty heavy statewide offices – I know Coons represents two-thirds of the state as an executive, but that’s still not the whole state and still not governor.

Feel free to tell me I’m wrong about this. The Dem lean of the state means I wouldn’t write off Coons chances completely, but this poll does not give me a lot of hope.  

Republican pollster Scott Rasmussen released a new poll of the Iowa governor and U.S. Senate races today. Rasmussen surveyed 500 “likely Iowa voters” on February 18.

Given Rasmussen’s usual “house effect” favoring Republican candidates, I expected the numbers to be worse for Democrats than other recent Iowa polling. Instead, they were comparable to last week’s Research 2000 Iowa poll for KCCI-TV and the Selzer and Co. poll for the Des Moines Register, which was conducted three weeks ago.

Like the other pollsters, Rasmussen found Governor Chet Culver well behind Republican front-runner Terry Branstad. Like Research 2000, Rasmussen found Senator Chuck Grassley above 50 percent against Democratic challengers, but well below Grassley’s usual re-election numbers and even below the numbers Rasmussen found for Grassley in late January.

More details are after the jump.

Here are Rasmussen’s topline numbers for the governor’s race. Culver was at 41 percent strongly or somewhat approve and 57 percent strongly or somewhat disapprove. As we’ve seen in several polls, Culver’s approval numbers are a bit below President Barack Obama’s in Iowa. Among Rasmussen’s Iowa respondents, Obama was at 45 percent strongly or somewhat approve and 54 percent strongly or somewhat disapprove.

In Rasmussen’s head to head match-ups, Branstad led Culver 53 percent to 37 percent, very close to the 54-38 margin Research 2000 found and a bit better than the 53-33 lead Branstad had in the latest Selzer poll.

I’m confused about Rasmussen’s numbers for Culver against Bob Vander Plaats. The chart shows Vander Plaats leading 46-40, but Rasmussen’s summary of the results says “Culver trails by just four points” against Vander Plaats. I will update this post when I get some clarification about the correct numbers. Research 2000 had Culver leading Vander Plaats 41-38, while Selzer had Vander Plaats ahead 43-40.

Moving to the Senate race, Rasmussen’s latest poll found Grassley above 50 percent against each of his three Democratic challengers. He leads Roxanne Conlin 53 percent to 36 percent, Bob Krause 55 percent to 33 percent and Tom Fiegen 56 percent to 28 percent.

Rasmusssen’s new numbers are in line with last week’s Research 2000 poll showing Grassley ahead of Conlin by 56 percent to 35 percent. (Research 2000 did not ask about the other Democratic contenders.) Selzer’s latest survey for the Des Moines Register did not poll Grassley against the Democrats but found Grassley’s approval rating at 54 percent, an all-time low for him in that poll.

It’s worth noting that Rasmussen found larger leads for Grassley in the one-day Iowa poll conducted on January 26, 2010. In that survey, Grassley led Conlin 59-31, Krause 59-26 and Fiegen 61-25. Perhaps Grassley has slipped a bit since then, or maybe the Republican’s numbers in late January were a bit inflated because of the media coverage surrounding Scott Brown’s victory in the Massachusetts special election. Or, maybe this is just statistical noise.

Either way, there’s a good chance that the Democratic nominee will make it much closer than any of Grassley’s previous re-election contests. Grassley has never been re-elected with less than 66 percent of the vote.

Share any thoughts about the gubernatorial or U.S. Senate races in this thread. Also, feel free to predict when we’ll see some public poll of the Republican primary for governor. Branstad has been in the race quite a while now, and I’d like to see how he lines up against his Republican rivals.

There’s one silver lining for party committees when it comes to retirements: Departing incumbents typically have a bundle of scrilla saved up that they can, if they’re so inclined, donate in bulk to their party’s House and Senate campaign arms. (They can also make normal, FEC-limited donations to other campaigns, or give the money to charity.) With all the retirements on both sides, there’s a lot of money floating out there, so let’s take a look at who’s got the bucks.

First up, the House. We’ve compiled cash-on-hand figures for all members who are not running for re-election or have resigned this cycle, with one exception (more on that below):

We haven’t listed members running for Senate because they can (and generally do) transfer all of their House money over to their Senate campaigns. However, depending on state law, members running for other office (such as governor) may or may not be able to port over their House warchests. Two Dems fall into that category. As you can surmise from the CoH totals, Alabama law permitted Artur Davis to switch his federal money over to his state account.

Neil Abercrombie wasn’t so lucky. He had hoped to do the same, but a state committee barred him from doing so back in August. Abercrombie has managed to whittle his account down by half since then (he has refunded many of his donors’ contributions), but if he’s looking to do his colleagues in the House a solid, he can give the balance to the DCCC.

A special comment must be made here about ex-Rep. Robert Wexler, who announced back in October that he was stepping down from Congress in order to pursue other opportunities. At the end of September, Wexler had nearly a million dollars in the bank. Since then, he went on a $310,000 spending spree, rewarding consultants, pollsters, fundraisers, and other campaign associates with some very generous payments. Wexler did give a handful of donations to some of his former colleagues, but he failed to give a dime to the DCCC. Robert Wexler is shamefully letting his party down by not putting his ample campaign account to productive use at his party’s greatest hour of need. If he doesn’t want this to become a permanent black mark on his record, this attitude needs to change.

That said, let’s not let Rahm Emanuel off the hook, either – he’s hoarding over a million bucks in his dormant House account, no doubt waiting to use that nest egg for an eventual return to elected office. But if Rahm is serious about serving his President’s agenda, he might want to consider cutting a generous check to DCCC. In a year like this, we can’t afford to have guys like Rahm holding back. Does Rahm Emanuel even care about retaining control of the House of Representatives?

House Republicans:

Republicans have slimmer pickings, but that still adds up to nearly $3 million that the NRCC would love to poach out of these idle accounts. Let’s hope these members take after Rahm!

Senate Dems:

Yep – $25.6 million (including Clinton’s presidential account), with the biggest chunk of that coming from Evan Bayh. You’d think that Bayh, after putting his party in a bind with his surprise retirement decision, might feel compelled to share some of his resources to the DSCC, but the man is a notorious miser. Perhaps this time, though, he can be shamed into making a meaningful contribution to the Democratic cause.

Senate Republicans:

While the Republicans have less to work with there, $3.7 million isn’t exactly chump change. The bottom line, though, is that Democrats are facing an incredibly tough election environment, and departing House & Senate Dems are sitting on an enormous $33 million stockpile. They need to help their party now.

Research 2000 conducted an Iowa poll of 600 “likely voters who vote regularly in state elections” for KCCI-TV, the CBS affiliate in Des Moines. The poll was in the field from February 15 to 17, and KCCI published the results on its website yesterday.

It’s not a good poll for Governor Chet Culver, but it’s less bad than the Des Moines Register’s latest Iowa poll. Chuck Grassley has a comfortable lead in the Senate race, but not the kind of margin he has enjoyed against previous Democratic opponents.  

First, a few words about the sample for the Research 2000 poll, which contained 33 percent Democrats, 29 percent Republicans, and 38 percent independents. That seems like a reasonable reflection of the current Iowa universe of registered voters.

However, the actual Iowa electorate for the 2006 general election (pdf file available here) contained about 37 percent Democrats, 37 percent Republicans, and 26 percent independents. Of course there’s no guarantee that the 2010 electorate will look the same as the 2006 electorate, but I doubt no-party voters will outnumber partisans in an off-year election. The poll could be off by more than the 4 percent margin of error if the sample is skewed.

Research 2000 found just 42 percent of respondents approved of Chet Culver’s performance as governor, while 51 percent disapproved. It’s never good to be “upside down” on job approval. Culver’s favorability numbers were a little better: 44 percent favorable, 43 percent unfavorable.

Terry Branstad led Culver 54 percent to 38 percent, with only 8 percent of respondents undecided. That’s not good, but it’s not as bad as the 20-point lead Branstad had in the Des Moines Register poll. Branstad led Culver 89 percent to 5 percent among Republicans and 60 percent to 32 percent among independents. Culver led 74 percent to 17 percent among Democrats.

If this poll assumed too high a proportion of independents in the general electorate, then Branstad’s lead over Culver may be smaller than this poll would indicate. But Culver needs to bring up his numbers and bring down Branstad’s favorability. Research 2000 found that 61 percent of respondents had a favorable impression of Branstad and just 24 percent unfavorable. The Republican primary campaign may bring Branstad down to earth a little, but Iowa Democrats have their work cut out for them. Branstad even led Culver among women in this survey.

Culver led all other Republicans in the Research 2000 poll but didn’t break 50 percent against any of them. He led Bob Vander Plaats by 41 to 38. In that matchup, independents were evenly divided, but I think Culver would end up doing better among independents if Vander Plaats pulled off an upset in the primary. Culver led State Representative Rod Roberts by 48 percent to 26 percent, and State Representative Chris Rants (who quit the race yesterday) by 44 percent to 33 percent.

Unfortunately, this poll didn’t test the Republican primary. What’s it gonna take to get us a public poll on Branstad against Vander Plaats? Maybe the Des Moines Register will publish numbers on that this weekend.

Now on to the U.S. Senate race. The Research 2000 poll for KCCI only tested Roxanne Conlin against five-term incumbent Grassley. (I think they should have run the numbers for all the Democratic candidates, especially since they polled Rants and Roberts in the governor’s race.)

Grassley’s favorable/unfavorable numbers were 59/35, and Conlin’s were 41/36, with 23 percent having no opinion of her. Unfortunately, they didn’t ask about Grassley’s job approval numbers. For Culver and President Barack Obama, favorability numbers were better than job approval. (Obama was at 52 favorable/41 unfavorable in this poll, but his job approval/disapproval numbers were 49/46.) For many years Grassley had approval ratings in the high 60s and low 70s, but if his favorability is only 59 percent now, his approval is probably a bit lower than that.

Research 2000 found Grassley leading Conlin by 56 to 35 percent. He had a much larger lead among men (62-30) than among women (50-40). Right now Grassley appears to be outside the danger zone, but I doubt he will be re-elected with anything like the 66 percent to 70 percent numbers he’s had in the past. If the Democratic nominee can hold him below 60 percent, or better yet below 55 percent, that would help our down-ticket Democratic candidates.

Share any thoughts about the Iowa gubernatorial or Senate races in this thread.

When we began the cycle, SSP rated just four Dem-held Senate seats as potentially competitive, and none worse than “Lean D.” (And when Arlen Specter switched parties, his race started over at Likely D.) Now, we have ten blue seats up on the big board, with at least eight in serious jeopardy and only one (CT) trending our way.

The GOP has done a tremendous job expanding the playing field, though of course they’ve also benefitted from some retirements which they can’t exactly take responsibility for – though if they want credit for Evan Bayh being a total d-bag, I’m happy to give it to them. But my real question is, can they expand the playing field even further? Sadly, I think it’s possible. Let’s take a look at the races which SSP currently has slotted in our “Races to Watch” category:

• Hawaii: This seat has been on the small chance that outgoing Republican Gov. Linda Lingle could challenge octogenarian Dan Inouye. She hasn’t taken any steps toward making the race, but she hasn’t ruled it out, either. Like most incumbent governors, though, Lingle is not as popular these days as she once was – a recent Mason-Dixon poll pegged her with 38-31 favorables. (An R2K survey from June had her at 51-43, down slightly from 53-41 in Dec. 2008.) Still, Lingle would make a strong challenger to Inouye, and could even inspire him to step down. Lingle is only 56, though, and may be waiting until 2012, when Hawaii’s other 85-year-old senator, Dan Akaka, may retire. But native son Barack Obama will be on the ballot that year, and the wind is at the GOP’s back now.
• New York (B): Kirsten Gillibrand had been on the list because of the (now very unlikely) possibility that former Gov. George Pataki could challenge her. Pataki seems to prefer deluding himself into a presidential run, but even if the great Hungarian-American hope won’t make a go of it for the GOP, I’m feeling pretty mistrustful these days. Gillibrand is the opposite of Martha Coakley – she works her ass off. But could a potentially damaging primary against Harold Ford give some zillionaire Republican opening? With New York’s extremely late primary date, I wouldn’t want to rule it out. Still, unless Pataki has a change of heart, the GOP doesn’t even have a second-tier candidate here.
• Washington: Patty Murray has been blessed by the lack of a strong challenger so far, though the GOP did recently get an upgrade here in the form of state Sen. Don Benton. As we noted in our recent rating change on this race, however, two much heavier-weight contenders may be reconsidering their earlier decisions not to get involved: Rep. Dave Reichert and two-time gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi. Neither seem likely to make a move, but if either jumps in, it’s showtime.
• Wisconsin: Former Gov. Tommy Thompson has been playing footsie here for some time now, but that’s not the only reason this seat is on our watch list. The quirky Russ Feingold has the potential to make this race a lot more interesting than we’d like. Though he won by twelve points in 2004, in 1998 (while observing some self-inflicted spending limits), Feingold eked out just a two-point win in what was otherwise a good Dem year. Wisconsin is a lot less blue than New York, and even a fairly anonymous GOPer could cause trouble here. It’s hard to get a read on Feingold’s favorables these days, since polling is scarce – they’re ugh if you want to believe Rasmussen, and pretty good if you don’t. Still, this race makes me nervous, especially since the state went for John Kerry by just four tenths of a percentage point – and Al Gore by just two tenths.

Fortunately, the rest of the list looks a lot better. Unfortunately, it’s really short:

• Maryland: Thankfully, the recent rumors that Barbara Mikulski might retire turned out to bogus. And just as thankfully, the GOP has no one to tap here (which is why they are pinning their hopes on retread Bob Ehrlich in the gubernatorial race). Dems will have lots of strong candidates ready to go whenever Mikulski decides to call it quits.
• New York (A): If Chuck Schumer winds up in anything remotely resembling a competitive race, just start drinking now.
• Oregon: The Republicans mercifully have no bench here. Rep. Greg Walden, the state lone GOP House member, already said no to a race for the open governor’s mansion. I can’t imagine John Cornyn could get him into a race against Ron Wyden, and I don’t want to.
• Vermont: Outgoing GOP Gov. Jim Douglas could theoretically force something of a contest with Pat Leahy. But a guy who doesn’t want to run for re-election as governor probably isn’t any more interested in taking on an incumbent in an otherwise very blue state – we hope.

Just to be sure, I’m not saying I think it’s likely the GOP can really expand the playing field – just that it’s possible. Already, though, the Republicans have done something pretty impressive: They’ve put themselves in a position where it’s even possible to imagine they could retake control of the Senate this fall. Given that Democrats held 60 seats for most of 2009 and still hold 59 today (as well as having the Vice Presidential buffer), that’s a chilling thought.

So this is as good a time as any to ask: How many Senate seats do you think the GOP will pick up in November?

So says the Indianapolis Star:

Sen. Evan Bayh will not run for re-election, a decision that will shock Democrats and Republicans alike in Indiana.

In prepared remarks, Bayh, 54, cited excessive partisanship that makes progress on public policy difficult to achieve as the motivation for his decision.

“After all these years, my passion for service to my fellow citizens is undiminished, but my desire to do so in Congress has waned,” he said.

“My decision was not motivated by political concern,” he added. “Even in the current challenging environment, I am confident in my prospects for re-election.”

Among other things, Bayh cited the recent Senate vote against a bipartisan commission to deal with the deficit (which would likely have recommended big cuts in entitlements).

Do we have any bench in Indiana? I assume not.

Cross posted at Daily Kos

Ohio Daily Blog and the Cleveland Plain Dealer are reporting that Lt. Governor Lee Fisher has fired his campaign manager, Geri Prado, and replaced her with Jay Howser, who had worked on the campaigns of Chris Dodd (D-CT) and Mary Landrieu (D?-LA).  

The reason for the Fisher fizzle is no mystery.  Despite raising massive amounts of money and endorsements, Fisher has not caught fire with the electorate, especially the Democratic primary electorate.  With more than one poll showing Secretary of State Jennifer Brunner, despite being at an enormous fundraising disadvantage, polling better in the general election against former Bush official Rob Portman, Fisher has seen his poll numbers slide slowly over time as people nationally began to realize that Jennifer Brunner’s grassroots campaign might prevail in the primary.

Fisher has also received numerous critical stories in the Washington Post over what it called a less than impressive campaign and his tapping dry his donor base has lead to a leveling off of his fundraising, the Fisher campaign is struggling to project the inevitable frontrunner status it declared in the fall.

Send a message to the DSCC, who threatened Brunner over her campaign, by donating to elect an authentic and genuine progressive to the cause.  Send a message that a Mary Landrieu-type candidate isn’t what’s needed in Ohio or the U.S. Senate.  Sign up to help Brunner with her grassroots phonebank!

Together we can win this race!

Roxanne Conlin’s campaign for U.S. Senate released partial fundraising numbers yesterday, and they are impressive:

Total cash raised (Nov. 2 – Dec. 31):

$603,575.44

Cash on hand:

$502,832.84

Total individual donors:  1,649 (1,395 Iowans/85% Iowans)

Online supporters signed up:  Over 31,000

Donations $100 and under: 1,332

Donations $250 and under: 1,433

All of Conlin’s campaign contributions came from individual supporters, because she has pledged not to accept contributions from federal lobbyists or PACs. (I wouldn’t have advised her to take that stance, because there are PACs and lobbyists fighting for good things as well as those working against the public interest.) In any event, she has shown that she can raise enough money to staff and run a statewide campaign. Conlin is about a third of the way through a 99-county tour she began earlier this month.

I haven’t seen year-end fundraising numbers from Senator Chuck Grassley yet. At the end of the third quarter of 2009, he had more than $4.4 million cash on hand, so clearly he will still be way ahead in the money race. During the third quarter, when Grassley played a high-profile role in health care reform negotiations, he raised $864,622 total, of which $364,295 came from political action committees.

In other words, Conlin raised more from individual donors in two months than Grassley raised from individuals during the third quarter. That’s a strong pace, and it suggests a lot of Iowans are motivated to take the fight to Grassley. Conlin has already raised nearly five times as much as Democrat Art Small spent during his entire 2004 campaign against Iowa’s senior senator.

I don’t have new fundraising numbers from the other Democrats running against Grassley. Bob Krause raised $7,430 during the third quarter, ending with $3,493 on hand. Tom Fiegen raised $3,781 during the third quarter, ending with $519 on hand. I like many of the statements I’ve heard from Krause and Fiegen, but they have yet to show that they will be able to run a statewide campaign, and therefore appear to be extreme underdogs leading up to the Democratic primary in June. Neither Krause nor Fiegen seems likely to drop out of this race, however. On the contrary, Fiegen called on Conlin to quit the race last month, saying Republican attacks on her would divert attention from Grassley and the “needs of working families.” Yesterday Krause criticized one of Conlin’s tax credit proposals.

Grassley will be very tough to beat. His approval rating has fallen but is still above 50 percent, and he has set a goal of raising $9 million for this race. Even if Democrats don’t manage to defeat Grassley, giving him a spirited challenge is well worth the effort. Driving up turnout among Democrats whom Grassley has alienated can only help our candidates down-ticket.

UPDATE: Rasmussen conducted a one-day poll of this race on January 26. Grassley leads Conlin 59 to 31, Krause 59 to 26 and Fiegen 61 to 25 (margin of error 4.5 percent).

YouGovPolimetrix just released a metric ton of senate polls. Be very, very warned, though: YouGov polls on the Internet. We’ve generally derided this methodology in the past (take a look at Zogby’s absurd “Interactive” polls), so consider this strictly for fun.

Arkansas

Lincoln (D-inc) 37%, Baker (R) 37%

Lincoln (D-inc) 39%, Hendren (R) 37%

Lincoln (D-inc) 38%, Coleman (R) 34%

Lincoln (D-inc) 37%, Cox (R) 36%

Colorado

Bennet (D-inc) 35%, Norton (R) 38%

Romanoff (D) 33%, Norton (R) 39%

Connecticut

Blumenthal (D) 47%, McMahon (R) 35%

Blumenthal (D) 47%, Simmons (R) 34%

Delaware

Biden (D) 37%, Castle (R) 49%

Florida

Meek (D) 34%, Crist (R) 36%

Meek (D) 33%, Rubio (R) 40%

Louisiana

Melancon (D) 32%, Vitter (R) 52%

Missouri

Carnahan (D) 43%, Blunt (R) 39%

Carnahan (D) 40%, Purgason (R) 34%

Nevada

41% Reid (D-inc), 42% Lowden (R)

43% Reid (D-inc), 41% Tarkanian (R)

North Dakota

29% Pomeroy (D), 56% Hoeven (R)

30% Heitkamp (D), 58% Hoeven (R)

Ohio

31% Fisher (D), 37% Portman (R)

31% Brunner (D), 39% Portman (R)

Pennsylvania

39% Specter (D-inc), 40% Toomey (R)

33% Sestak (D), 37% Toomey (R)