Tag: Steve Driehaus

• AK-Sen: With the book about to close on 2010, so too is the last outstanding race of 2010, the Alaska Senate race. Today the state is planning to certify Lisa Murkowski as winner of the race, including hand-delivering the certification papers to Washington DC so there won’t be any possible obstacles to Murkowski’s swearing-in next week (and ensuing temporary loss of state clout). This, of course, follows a legal one-two punch to Joe Miller’s hopes: last week’s loss at the Alaska Supreme Court, which upheld the trial court’s decision that the write-in votes for Murkowski were properly counted, and then this week’s ruling by a federal district court judge dismissing his related federal suit and lifting the hold on the race’s certification. Miller will not stand in the way of the certification, although he says he is still considering whether to continue litigating the matter (which, if he did, would feature the 9th Circuit as the next stop).

The most ironic part of the whole tale is that the Tea Party Express, in their ill-advised RINO hunt, seem to have only succeeded in making Murkowski into more of a free agent. If you’ve noticed that Murkowski seems to be toeing the GOP line less since winning the election without running under the GOP banner, you’re not alone: she was the only Senate GOPer to vote with the Dems on all four big action items during the lame duck session (the tax compromise, DADT repeal, START, and the DREAM Act).

• DE-Sen: SSP isn’t about re-litigating old elections, but this is indeed relevant because Christine O’Donnell, looking to capitalize on her newfound celebrity, may yet be a fourth-time candidate for the Senate against Tom Carper in the future. That fourth run might be more difficult, though, if she’s in prison… perhaps possible as it seems like the federal government has decided it’s had enough of her once-every-two-years grifting tours and is now criminally investigating her use of campaign funds for personal purposes during her 2010 campaign. Anyway, she put out a truly epic statement today on the matter that ought to have you reaching for your copy of the DSM, so laden with paranoia and delusions of grandeur it is.

• MA-Sen: While everyone seems to be wondering which U.S. Rep. will step into the gap if nobody named Kennedy runs for the Senate, there’s always the outside possibility that someone with a business background and lots of his own money tries to move to the head of the pack in the Bay State. Robert Pozen may fit that bill, and he’s apparently been talking to party insiders about the possibility. The investment banker-turned-Harvard Business professor has some liabilities, though: he served briefly in Mitt Romney’s cabinet, which may help his bipartisan bona fides but could be poison in a primary, and his personality has been described as [John] “Silberesque,” which would just be all-purpose poison.

• MI-Sen: If the NRSC ever had any interest in Tim Leuliette as their Senate candidate in Michigan, that probably evaporated this week. The auto-parts magnate just said that he’s not comfortable with self-funding his campaign and wouldn’t put much of his “large fortune” into a run. Considering that that was the main (if not only) selling point for a candidacy from an otherwise unknown political newcomer, that should pretty much be end-of-story.

• MO-Sen, MO-Gov: A poll from Republican pollster Wilson Research (commissioned by consulting firm Axiom Strategies) has (big surprise) good news for Republicans in it, most notably Jim Talent. The ex-Sen. has a significant lead in a rematch against Claire McCaskill, ahead 51-40. Talent seems to have a big electability edge over Sarah Steelman, who’s tied 44-44 with McCaskill. McCaskill’s approvals are 48/45. They also look at the Governor’s race, finding a more competitive race than PPP did but not the lead that a Peter Kinder internal showed. They find Dem incumbent Jay Nixon leading Kinder 45-42, with Nixon’s approvals at 52%. Worth noting: the poll’s a little stale, taken Dec. 1-2.

• ND-Sen: It’s starting to look like Kent Conrad will face some serious opposition from Republicans this cycle (assuming the 62-year-old runs for re-election), although it’s not clear exactly from whom. Perhaps the heaviest-hitter available, the state’s ex-Gov. and the former Bush administration Agriculture Secretary, Ed Schafer, has just ruled it out. For now, the likeliest-sounding one right now seems to be Brian Kalk, one of the state’s three Public Service Commissioners, a statewide elected position. Kalk says he’s giving it “serious thought,” which contrasts with oft-mentioned AG Wayne Stenehjem’s statement that he doesn’t have “any plans” (although not closing “any doors” either) and with newly-promoted Gov. Jack Dalrymple, for whom it’s the “last thing” on his mind.

• NE-Sen (pdf): In case you weren’t sure whether or not Ben Nelson’s in trouble for 2012, um, yes, he’s in trouble. Republican pollster Magellan is out with a poll finding Nelson with an overall 29/59 re-elect, and trailing GOP AG Jon Bruning 52-38. He’s also trailing state Treasurer Don Stenberg (not yet a candidate, but sounding likely to run as well) 46-40. Hopefully we’ll get a look from PPP at this one soon for confirmation. It seems like the Dems are already treating Bruning as a serious threat, though, with the state party trying to throw obstacles in his path by filing FEC and IRS complaints against Bruning over shoddy campaign-committee setup.

• VA-Sen: So apparently all you have to do is append “Tea Party Activist” to your job description, and all of a sudden you’re magically promoted from Some Dude to Very Serious Candidate Worthy of National Media Attention. Or at least that’s the case with the campaign announcement from Jamie Radtke, head of the Judean People’s Front People’s Front of Judea Virginia Federation of Tea Party Patriots, whose main claim to fame seems to be organizing a gathering of 3,000 ‘baggers in Richmond. At any rate, Radtke is the first actually announced GOP candidate. Meanwhile, Jim Webb seems to be moving closer to making a decision on whether to run for re-election (though no clues on how he feels), saying he’ll sort it out over the holiday break and make an announcement in the first quarter of 2011.

• IN-Gov: This comes as a surprise, since there had been a lot of buzz about her as the nominee, with increasing moves from Rep. Mike Pence toward a presidential run instead. But Becky Skillman, Indiana’s Lt. Governor, recently announced that she wouldn’t run for Governor in 2012, citing “minor health issues.” Does this make likelier a Pence gubernatorial run, now that he’d have an easy stroll to the nomination? And if Pence doesn’t run, that seems to point to a truly wide open field, as no one seems to have contemplated a GOP field that didn’t include Pence or Skillman. Who else might step up? (I hear Mike Sodrel may still be looking for a job…)

• NC-Gov: Rounding out the troika of Republican polls showing Dem incumbents in trouble is one from North Carolina from Civitas, who have coordinated with a variety of pollsters and this time went straight to the big daddy of GOP pollsters, POS. The poll finds GOP former Charlotte mayor Pat McCrory cruising in a rematch against Dem incumbent Bev Perdue, who never really seemed to gain her footing after a narrow 2008 win: he leads her 51-36 (with Perdue getting only 64% among Democrats).

• WA-Gov: Two interesting developments mean this race isn’t as open-and-shut as I’d thought. One is that there’s increasing buzz linking Dow Constantine, just elected in 2009 as King County Executive, to the governor’s race. I’ve regarded Constantine (who’s 47) as a very likely Governor starting in 2020, but with Dems seeming a little edgy that none of their biggest-name candidates (Rep. Jay Inslee, whose WA-01 is centered in suburban Snohomish Co., Snohomish Co. Exec Aaron Reardon, Spokane-based state Sen. majority leader Lisa Brown) are from their stronghold of King County while likely GOP candidate Rob McKenna is, there might be some pressure on Constantine to move up his timetable. (It’s worth noting that Gary Locke became Gov. in 1996 after three years as King Co. Executive.) The other develompent is that Chris Gregoire isn’t categorically ruling out an attempt at a third term, which she’s legally entitled to do but Just Isn’t Done. (Although she might point out that the last time it was tried, 1972, Dan Evans was successfully re-elected… in fact, the last time a Republican was re-elected Governor in Washington.) She registered as a 2012 candidate with the Public Disclosure Commission, in order to “keep her options open.” (UPDATE: Big h/t to meekermariner, who points out in comments that this Gregoire article is nearly two years old, leaving me to wonder why Politico was linking to it with such enthusiasm. At any rate, the Gregoire committee remains open today, although that in itself isn’t much of a suggestion that a third term may be in the offing.)

• WV-Gov: This week was the deadline for filing briefs for the lawsuit that’s attempting to move up the special election to replace Joe Manchin up to 2011. We still don’t have an answer to when it will happen, but at least we know who’s on what side in the case: the state’s major unions (including the AFL-CIO and WVEA) want it sooner, and so does likely candidate and Dem state House speaker Rick Thompson. State Auditor Glen Gainer supports the expedited election too, while SoS Natalie Tennant (another possible Dem candidate) has basically punted on the issue. And if you’re wondering about Joe Manchin’s decision to duck DADT and DREAM Act votes in order to enjoy family holiday festivities, it seems like it wasn’t, first and foremost, a self-protecting profile in cowardice. With Manchin having survived probably his toughest challenge, he’s more interested now in clearing the way for ally and acting Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin, and not interested in provoking a social issues-based civil war within the state Dem party that could undermine Tomblin’s shot at getting elected to a full term.

• OH-01: Guess who’s sounding like he’s gearing up for a rematch? Steve Driehaus, in an interview with the Cincinnati paper, took a variety of potshots at Steve Chabot, calling him a Boehner “follower” and saying he shouldn’t “sit too easy.” Driehaus has previously said he’s “open” to another attempt. (This is Cincinnati-based district is notorious for steep dropoff in African-American voting in off-years, so if any time would be the right time for Driehaus to try again, 2012 would be it.)

• LA-St. House: There was a long period of threatening and flirting, but now it’s official: state Rep. Noble Ellington switched to the Republican Party, formally flipping control of the state’s lower legislative chamber to the GOP for the first time since Reconstruction. Functionally, it may not make much perceptible difference, since there was already a Republican speaker, and many Dems were already quite conservative.

• NY-St. Sen.: Looks like the end of the line in one other outstanding race (which ultimately had the balance of the New York state Senate in play): the state’s Court of Appeals said no thanks to incumbent Dem Craig Johnson’s appeal of a lower court decision that said there didn’t need to be a hand recount of machine votes in New York’s 7th District. GOPer Jack Martins had been declared the winner in the race by several hundred votes, handing the state Senate back to the GOP by a 32-30 margin.

• PA-St. Sen.: Pennsylvania’s state Senate has been even more stubbornly Republican over the years than New York’s, and it looks like the Dems are going to have play a bit more defense there in an upcoming special election. Democratic minority whip Michael O’Pake (the state’s longest-serving legislator) died several days ago at age 70, leaving a vacancy in SD-11 that will need to be filled by special election at some point between March and May (date TBD). On paper, this looks like the kind of district that would be a major test case for whether the Dems are going to continue their run of bad luck in the Keystone State from the 2010 election: while it works out to about D+4 (going 59/40 for Barack Obama and 51/48 for John Kerry), it also gave 55% of the vote to Tom Corbett and 50.6% to Pat Toomey this year. However, this may all boil down to bench strength in a traditionally-Dem district (centered on the blue-collar city of Reading, although made purple by inclusion of its suburbs, too): insiders from both parties are treating Democratic former Berks Co. Commissioner Judy Schwank as “prohibitive favorite.”

• Approvals: PPP does us the favor of consolidating all their year-end Senate approval ratings and gubernatorial approvals in one (or two, really) places. In the Senate, the most popular Senator overall, in addition to most popular one up in 2012, is Amy Klobuchar (59/29); while outgoing Roland Burris is the overall goat, Joe Lieberman is in worst shape of anyone up in 2012 (33/54). Among the few governors facing 2012 re-election, Jack Markell is tops at 50/32 (with Jay Nixon not far behind at 44/30), while Chris Gregoire fares the worst, in case she actually runs (although this might dissuade her sudden interest in a third term); her 40/53 is actually a worse spread than Bev Perdue’s 35/44.

• Redistricting: The Fix has a good piece on redistricting out, that should pretty much serve as the last word on why GOP purely-redistricting-related House seat gains are likely to be limited to the single digits for 2012: thanks to their 2010 overperformance, they’re thoroughly maxed out in the big four prizes where they have total control (Texas, Florida, Ohio, and Pennsylvania). That’s compounded by, in Florida, the new Fair Districts initiative, and in Texas, the need to create at least two more VRA districts while still protecting Blake Farenthold. Also, here’s one other redistricting implication that’s gotten totally overlooked in all the last few weeks’ discussion: although California didn’t lose or gain a seat, there’s been enough population shift within the state (thanks to stagnation in the Bay Area and rapid growth in the Inland Empire) that the net result will be the moving of most of one district from NoCal to SoCal. It’ll be interesting to see whether the new independent commission is able to do that in a way that lightly shifts boundaries southwards and protects the jobs of all 53 incumbents, or if someone from the north actually gets turfed out and an effectively new seat opens up in the south.

• Chicago mayor: A lot has happened in the Chicago mayoral race since we last checked: first, Rahm Emanuel cleared the first hurdle in ascertaining that he is, indeed, a Chicago resident and not a Kenyan (although there will be inevitable courtroom appeals for weeks to come, with opponents willing to go to the state Supreme Court). The Chicago Board of Election Commissioners last week rejected claims that Emanuel had abandoned his Chicago residency when he went to work in the White House. Also, we’ve seen two of Emanuel’s erstwhile opponents drop out of the race, narrowing the number of African-American candidates but still leaving that part of the field split between Danny Davis (last seen publicly urging Bill Clinton against coming to Chicago to campaign for Emanuel) and Carol Mosely Braun. State Sen. James Meeks dropped out, saying he didn’t want to further split the black vote, and Roland Burris also withdrew, via press release, from the race (although it’s unclear whether he ever really was in the race, since he never made any public appearances). Finally, we got another poll of the race from We Ask America, which may be most noteworthy for showing Gerry Chico in position to make the runoff. They find Emanuel at 44, Chico at 12, Braun at 8, Davis at 7, Miguel Del Valle at 6, and Meeks at 4.

• CA-Sen: Despite getting only a small vote share in the GOP Senate primary this year (as conservatives decided to go with the slightly-more-electable Carly Fiorina), Chuck DeVore is talking Senate again, for 2012, when Dianne Feinstein will presumably run for re-election. Or is he? All he’s saying is that he’s likely to run in 2012, but hasn’t decided what office. Senate is the only thing that’s available, though, which makes his statement seem kind of strange (unless he’s talking about trying to rejoin the state Assembly). If Barbara Boxer could still win by 10 points in a terrible year, the more-popular Feinstein in a presidential year is an even more daunting target, meaning that DeVore may be the only prominent GOPer crazy enough to take on the task.

• MA-Sen: Nobody really has any idea whether or not Vicki Kennedy plans to run for Senate — she’d probably have a massive field-clearing effect in the Dem primary if she did — but Joan Vennochi is seeing some signs of the groundwork for a run, looking at Kennedy’s stepped-up routine of public appearances around the state.

• OH-Sen: Rep. Jim Jordan had probably been the GOPer most associated with a potential run against Sherrod Brown this cycle, but now he’s publicly saying that he’s “leaning heavily against” the run. He has a plum job coming up as head of the right-wing caucus (the Republican Study Committee), which is often a leadership springboard, and given his ultra-safe district, that may be a more appealing track than rolling the dice on a Senate run. Auditor and soon-to-be Lt. Governor Mary Taylor (who you may recall got a few weeks of Senate speculation in 2009 when conservatives were casting about for someone more charismatic and less wonky than Rob Portman) may be next in line.

PPP is out with its primary numbers for the GOP side, too, and they find that Jordan was actually in first place among those few people who actually know him. It’s one of those everybody-but-the-kitchen-sink fields where the guy with the name rec winds up winning out: Incoming AG and ex-Sen. Mike DeWine (who’s quite unlikely to run, given his new job) leads at 27, with ex-SoS Ken Blackwell at 17, new SoS Jon Husted at 11, Jordan at 10, Taylor at 7, Rep. Steve LaTourette at 6, new Treasurer Josh Mandel at 5, and state Sen. Kevin Coughlin at 2.

• PA-Sen: Quinnipiac’s new poll of the Pennsylvania Senate turned out to not be that revealing, seeing as how they only testing Bob Casey Jr. against Generic R. (Although they can be forgiven, given the paucity of GOP candidates willing to reveal themselves yet.) At any rate, Casey is in good shape, although the percentage of people with no opinion seems strangely high, maybe reflective of his low-key nature. He beats Generic R 43-35, and has an approval of 39/29 (55/16 among Dems, 28/42 among GOPers, and 36/30 among indies).

• House: Politico has another list of possible rematches among the ranks of defeated Dems. Some of these you’re probably already familiar with (Frank Kratovil, Glenn Nye, Phil Hare, and Alan Mollohan(?!?)), but other names now weighing another bid include Dina Titus, Steve Driehaus, Carol Shea-Porter, and Bobby Bright. Mark Schauer says he’s waiting to see what the GOP-held Michigan legislature does to his district, and Ron Klein is waiting to see how his district responds to Allen West.

• NY-St. Sen.: Craig Johnson lost his case concerning the result in SD-7 (in which the balance of the state Senate hangs) at the Appellate Division level, who found there wasn’t a basis for a full hand recount. Johnson is still planning to appeal to the Court of Appeals. (In New York, for some screwed-up reason, the Supreme Court is the court of general jurisdiction and the Court of Appeals is the highest appellate court. Also, hamburgers eat people.)

• Switchers: Courtesy of the Fix’s Aaron Blake, here’s a list from GOPAC of all the state legislators who’ve switched parties in the last month, if you’re having trouble keeping track. There’s a list of 20, although almost all come from three states (Alabama, Georgia, and Louisiana). Also an interesting note: we’ve actually found someone who just switched from the GOP to the Democrats, although you have to go even further into the weeds: Luzerne County (in Pennsylvania) Commissioner Steve Urban. Before you get too excited, though, the move seems to be mostly driven out of personal pique stemming from Urban’s recent loss in a state Senate race.

• California: It looks like California’s switch to a Washington-style “top two” primary is a done deal. It survived a court challenge, with the state Supreme Court refusing to block a challenge to two of its provisions. (One of the provisions is one way in which it’ll differ from Washington: in California, party affiliation can be listed only if one belongs to a party that’s officially recognized by the state, while in Washington, you can list yourself as belonging to whatever crazy made-up party you want.)

• CfG: The Club for Growth is issuing one of its litmus test warnings, saying that primaries will result for GOPers who defy its will… and it’s over one of the less controversial things on the current docket: the omnibus spending bill (which contains… gasp!… earmarks.)

• Votes: The House, as you’re probably well aware, easily passed repeal of Don’t Ask Don’t Tell yesterday (although its Senate future is hazy; ask again later). The 15 Dem “no” votes are mostly Blue Dogs in socially conservative districts (with nine of them not coming back, either via loss or retirement), with one key exception: Artur Davis, still seeming completely intent on maxing out on his frequent douchebag miles before leaving. The 15 GOP “yes” votes are more interesting, a mix of departing moderates (Castle, Djou, Cao, Ehlers), remaining moderates in well-educated (and presumably low homophobia) districts (Biggert, Reichert, Dent, Platts), GOPers with substantially gay constituencies (Bono Mack, Ros-Lehtinen, Diaz-Balart… and we can double-count Cao), die-hard libertarians (Paul, Flake, Campbell), and in his own category, David Dreier.

• WATN?: Dede Scozzafava, perhaps as a reward for, in her own round-about way, giving us the gift of Bill Owens in NY-23, is in talks to get a job in the incoming Cuomo administration. The exact position hasn’t been defined, but will be something about “streamlining” government.

• Demographics: Here’s an interesting piece in the Democratic Strategist that does some demographic slice-and-dice of the House seats where Dems lost. Some of it isn’t a surprise (losses occurred where race and education overlap, as the white working class particularly turned right), but it adds an important variable to the mix that nobody else seems to have noticed: manufacturing. There’s a definite correlation between losses and how reliant the district is on a manufacturing economy.

• AK-Sen: The story of how his employment with the city of Fairbanks ended is one of the key reasons why Joe Miller suddenly clammed up and said he wouldn’t answer questions about his personal background anymore. Now the city’s former mayor, Jim Whitaker, is offering his version of the story, saying Miller is “not truthful” about it. Whitaker says Miller’s use of borough resources for political purposes (namely, for gaming an online vote for state party chair in a Sarah Palin-orchestrated party coup) was a violation of borough ethics policy and it would have been a cause for termination if they hadn’t been so understaffed. Miller eventually resigned in 2009 anyway, partly because his request to go elk hunting got denied.

• FL-Sen: There are so many Kennedys I really can’t keep track which one is allied with who, but any time one leaves the reservation it’s interesting. Robert Kennedy Jr. announced that he’s backing Charlie Crist for Senate, saying that Kendrick Meek can’t win and the most important thing is blocking Marco Rubio. Meanwhile, with the current race not looking very interesting anymore, PPP has its eye on 2012 (which seems like it could be close, especially if Jeb Bush gets involved). They ran two other hypotheticals, one not very likely: Bill Nelson beats Rush Limbaugh 50-36 (if Limbaugh for whatever reason decided to take the huge pay cut). More plausibly, he also beats Rep. Connie Mack IV by 42-33.

• LA-Sen: Charlie Melancon is out with an internal poll from Anzalone-Liszt. Public pollsters have generally seen this as a double-digit race, but his poll, taken over Oct. 9-12, gives David Vitter a not-overwhelming 49-42 lead. The campaign says that’s a major improvement (no specific numbers, though) over their September poll.

• FL-Gov: The Florida Education Association (obviously a Democratic-leaning organization) polled the gubernatorial race, and found numbers very close to PPP’s results yesterday. The poll from Tom Eldon, taken Oct. 9-12, gives Alex Sink a 47-41 lead over Rick Scott. Scott’s faves are down to 33/50.

• IL-Gov: This is quite the screwup: Green candidate Rich Whitney’s name will appear as “Rich Whitey” on electronic voting machines in nearly two dozen wards in Chicago (half of which are predominantly African-American). And that leads inevitably to the question (to quote the Illinois Nazi Party): “Well, what are you going to do about it, Whitey?” Apparently, he can’t do much, as there isn’t adequate time left to reprogram and test the machines, although he’s looking into various legal options.

• AZ-07: I don’t know if there’s any hard evidence other than a Magellan poll and a McClung internal to prove there’s a real race here, but judging by efforts by some organizations on both sides, something’s going on. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee had members make 21,000 phone calls to the district to shore up Raul Grijalva, while Americans for Tax Reform is going to spend $230K on advertising in the district, hitting Grijalva with an ad for encouraging a boycott of his state in the wake of SB 1070.

• CA-44: Like CA-03, this is one offense opportunity in California that still seems to be alive and kicking. The Bill Hedrick campaign, short on cash but facing an underwhelming opponent that he nearly knocked off last time, is out with a Zata|3 internal poll showing Hedrick trailing GOP incumbent Ken Calvert by only a 48-43 margin (improved a 49-38 showing in September).

• GA-08: He made it implicit with his most recent ad (distancing himself from Nancy Pelosi, even going so far as to show 60s-era San Francisco hippies), but Jim Marshall is now explicitly joining Bobby Bright in the camp of incumbents saying they won’t support Pelosi for Speaker in the next Congress (if they’re there for it).

• IA-03: I didn’t think I’d be saying this a few months ago, but Leonard Boswell is starting to look like he’s in healthy shape for the election, thanks in large part of a variety of damaging details about Brad Zaun that went public. Boswell leads Zaun 47-38 in an internal from his campaign, taken Oct. 3-5 by Anzalone-Liszt.

• IL-10: Bob Dold sure can rake in the fundraising dollars, even if Bob Dold can’t seem to come up with a lead in the polls, in what’s looking like one of the Dems’ few pickups this cycle. Bob Dold raised $843K in the third quarter and is sitting on $979K CoH, enough to start running two broadcast ads this week, while Bob Dold’s opponent Dan Seals has yet to release any numbers. Bob Dold!

• MD-01, VA-02, VA-05: Another testament to the unpredictability of elections: even a few months ago, who’d have thought, that at this point, the DCCC would have cut loose Debbie Halvorson and Steve Kagen, but would be keeping on pumping money into the races of Frank Kratovil and Tom Perriello? Those two, along with Glenn Nye, are among the survivors of the triage process and will receive continued ad buys.

• NH-02: This race is also turning out to be close, and this can’t help Charlie Bass this close to the election: questions are emerging about a stock buy (in New England Wood Pellet, his nephew-in-law’s company) that he made while in Congress the previous time. He then set up a meeting between company officials and Bush administration officials, which is a potential House ethics violation.

• OH-01: Credit Steve Driehaus for having some fire in the belly. After having gotten thrown onto the bring-out-your-dead cart by the DCCC, instead of just shrugging and starting to look for a lobbying job, he’s doubling down on his fundraising efforts, using it as an incentive to ask for more from his supporters. In particular, he’s pissed that the DCCC let him go even while giving money to various Reps. who voted “no” on health care reform.

• OR-04: Well, here’s one more race to add to the watch list. Peter DeFazio hasn’t faced credible opposition in… well, ever. And he’s still not facing credible opposition this year (Art Robinson is kind of a clown; his main action item seems to be the elimination of public schooling, which would kind of help him out considerably, since his day job is selling curriculum supplies for home schoolers). Nevertheless, the mysterious group Concerned Taxpayers (who’ve also made a six-digit ad buy against DeFazio) is out with an internal poll from Oct. 4-5 from Wilson Research showing a single-digit race, with DeFazio leading Robinson 48-42. (MoE is a hefty 5.6%.)

• PA-10: Chris Carney is on the wrong end of a Critical Insights poll of his district (which will be in our Poll Roundup later), but he’s already getting out in front of it with an internal poll. The Oct. 12-13 poll from Momentum Analysis has Carney leading Tom Marino 48-41. With both candidates able to point to leads not just in internal polls but public polls too, this is quite definitely a “Tossup.”

• TN-08: Whew! One last internal. Not much surprise here… GOPer Stephen Fincher has an internal out giving him a double-digit lead in the open seat race against Roy Herron, very similar to yesterday’s 47-37 Penn/Hill poll. The Tarrance Group poll from Oct. 11-12 gives Fincher a 47-36 lead (with 3 to indie Donn James).

• FL-AG: This is one of the higher-profile downballot races around, and it gets a fair amount of polling attention too. This time, it’s Susquehanna’s turn (on behalf of Sunshine State News), and they give a lead to Republican Hillsborough Co. Prosecutor Pam Bondi, who leads state Sen. Dan Gelber 50-42.

• Money: Zata|3 is out with more of their super-helpful charts on the behind-the-scenes money game, which is where the Republicans are really winning this cycle, even more so than the polls. Compared with 2008, spending on Senate races (from both sides) has nearly doubled, and it’s up more than 50% on House races. And Republican groups are leading the way: the top 5, and 8 of the top 10, outside groups, spending-wise are GOP-leaning. That starts with the cash-flush RGA ($12 mil so far), followed by the Chamber of Commerce and American Crossroads.

• Polltopia: You may have already seen the new Pew study on cellphone use, but it’s a real eye-opener, one that should cast some measure of doubt on the accuracy of current polls or even the whole sense that polls can tell us anything. Pew, which in 2008 found a certain amount of pro-Republican bias in polls because of the exclusion of cellphone-only users, is out with a new round of polling showing that bias has only increased. At this point, nearly 25% of adults are “cell-only.” Pew finds a 5-point Republican increase would have occurred in their most recent generic ballot test if they hadn’t polled cellphones.

Also, on the polling front, Daily Kos is taking a page from PPP and asking where readers what gubernatorial and House race they’d like to see polled in the coming weeks.

• SSP TV:

• AK-Sen: This is actually kind of funny: Joe Miller spoofs Old Spice ads in an attempt to get voters to not write in Lisa Murkowski

• CO-Sen: Ken Buck’s out with a base-rallying ad using speech footage of him getting teabaggers fired up about how they got ignored for the last two years and are now out for blood; the NRSC is also on the air, hitting Michael Bennet over his support for the stimulus

• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan’s new TV spot pushes back against various Roy Blunt negative ads, especially on the subject of an extended family member’s wind farm

• PA-Sen: This may be an interesting tea leaf that those Dem internals yesterday may be showing some actual tightening: the NRSC, after letting surrogate orgs do all the work here, is finally having to step in with its own IE ad (a basic HCR/stimulus/cap-and-trade troika)

• WV-Sen: The DSCC goes after John Raese again over the minimum wage

• CA-Gov: What is this, the 80s? Meg Whitman’s new ad hits Jerry Brown for being soft on crime

• TX-Gov: Bill White’s newest ad goes after Rick Perry’s seeming habit of steering state contracts to cronies

• Rasmussen:

• AK-Sen: Scott McAdams (D) 27%, Joe Miller (R) 35%, Lisa Murkowski (WI-inc) 34%

• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 49%, Carly Fiorina (R) 46%

• IL-Gov: Pat Quinn (D-inc) 40%, Bill Brady (R) 46%, Scott Lee Cohen (I) 4%, Rich Whitney (G) 2%

• NC-Sen: Elaine Marshall (D) 38%, Richard Burr (R-inc) 52%

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 39%, Pat Toomey (R) 49%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 42%, Scott Walker (R) 51%

• WI-Sen, WI-Gov: Russ Feingold and Tom Barrett are both out with internal polls today, both from the same pollster (Fairbanks Maslin), both showing tied races. The Senate poll (Oct. 7, and 10-11) shows Russ Feingold and Ron Johnson tied at 48-48. The gubernatorial poll was an entirely separate sample, Oct. 5-7, showing Tom Barrett and Scott Walker are at 47-47.

• GA-Gov: InsiderAdvantage (10/10, likely voters, 9/27 in parens):

Roy Barnes (D): 41 (37)

Nathan Deal (R): 49 (45)

John Monds (L): 3 (5)

Undecided: 7 (13)

(MoE: ±4%)

If you’re wondering about downballot races, IA also has GOPer Casey Cagle leading Carol Porter in the LG race, 50-36, and GOPer Sam Olen leading Ken Hodges in the AG race, 50-40. Also, if you’re wondering how Nathan Deal seemed to regain his footing after a few rocky weeks where the race was seemingly tied, a lot of that seems to have to do with the RGA pouring money into this race ($3.2 million worth), as they’ve tacitly made this race one of their top priorities.

• AZ-05: Although this is an internal poll that has the GOPer leading the incumbent Dem, it’s a little on the lackluster side. David Schweikert responds to the DCCC internal giving Harry Mitchell an 7-point lead with his own poll showing him up by only 2, 45-43. (The poll was taken 10/5-6 by National Research.) An incumbent at 43% is no good, of course, but averaging the two polls out (for whatever that’s worth) gives Mitchell a small edge.

• NY-20, TN-08: What do these two races (one with a Blue Dog incumbent who seems in control of his race, the other an open seat with an aspiring Blue Dog not likely to win) have in common? In both races, the Dem said he wouldn’t support Nancy Pelosi for Speaker. Scott Murphy’s decision (granted, he’s more of a waffle than a flat-out “no”) is much more surprising than Roy Herron‘s; we’ll have to see if this becomes more of a trend in the closing weeks.

• OH-13: Tom Ganley has pulled his broadcast television advertising for the remaining weeks of the campaign, although he will be focusing on less-expensive cable and radio buys instead of going dark completely. He says that’s how he’s going to “cut through the clutter,” but somehow methinks the self-funder (savvy businessman that he is) realized that he shouldn’t throw his own money down the hole in a race that just got considerably more difficult once sex assault accusations started to fly. (H/t LookingOver.)

• PA-13: Here’s an unremarkable internal from a race where we shouldn’t even have to be looking at one: Allyson Schwartz, in the D+7 NE Philly district, leads Dee Adcock 57-32 in a 10/5-6 poll from Cooper & Secrest. Apparently this was released to combat rumors of a Republican internal showing it a single-digit race.

• SD-AL: This was the day’s big fundraising story until Sharron Angle showed up: the reason Kristi “Leadfoot” Noem was driving so fast was because she had to get to so many different donors’ houses. She raised $1.1 million for the quarter, compared to $550K for Stephanie Herseth Sandlin. That actually gives Noem the CoH edge, $770K to $500K.

• TN-03: Here’s one more place I wouldn’t think I’d be seeing an internal, considering that this GOP-held open seat in a dark-red district should be a slam-dunk this year, but I guess Chuck Fleischmann feels like he needs to look busy. The GOP nominee is leading Dem nominee John Wolfe by a 50-20 margin, in a poll (no dates) by Wilson Research.

• DCCC: More news on the triage front, on what’s apparently the last day to cancel ad reservations without taking a big financial hit. Having thrown Steve Driehaus overboard yesterday, the DCCC followed up today with Kathy Dahlkemper in PA-03 and Suzanne Kosmas in FL-24, who won’t get any more ad cover according to the NYT. Aaron Blake also tweets that open seats KS-03, IN-08, and TN-08 got the axe.

• AGs: You probably know Louis Jacobson of Governing magazine for his handicapping of state legislative chambers, but he also works the state AG beat (that’s often short for “Aspiring Governor,” so it’s a key bench-building step), and is out with handicapping for all the Attorney General races up this year. As you might expect, Dems should brace for some losses, especially in open seats.

• Gerrymandering: If there’s any place where people would be psyched to sit down and watch a movie about gerrymandering, it’s here at SSP. The movie’s creator is up with a diary here that lists all the theaters where it’s opening over the next month (including where he’ll be hosting Q&As). Some of them are one-night engagements, starting as early as tonight, so check out the listings ASAP!

• SSP TV:

• CO-Sen: The DSCC hits Ken Buck for his craptastic tenure working for the local US Attorney’s office

• KY-Sen: The DSCC goes back to the $2,000 Medicare deductible issue yet again to hit Rand Paul

• WA-Sen: I’m not sure why Washington Dems always wait until the last minute to remind voters that Dino Rossi is pro-life (that’s what happened in both gube races) — maybe they figure it’s their trump card — but they’re doing it again; meanwhile, the American Action Network hits Patty Murray by whipping up a second version of that weird Fred Davis ad with the tennis shoes walking on people

• WI-Sen: One of Russ Feingold’s myriad problems is that Ron Johnson actually comes up with some effective ads: this one’s a bio spot

• GA-Gov: Nathan Deal’s new ad hits Roy Barnes for having once said that “Mexican workers were good for Georgia”

• SC-Gov: The suddenly resurgent Vince Sheheen’s out with another spot, this one equating Nikki Haley to protégé Mark Sanford

• TX-Gov: Lone Star First (a DGA-backed group) hits Rick Perry on the HPV vaccine and links to Big Pharma

• OH-13: EMILY’s List steers clear of the sex assault allegations of Tom Ganley, going with a humorous spot on outsourcing and his 400 civil lawsuits at his car dealerships

• Rasmussen:

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 44%, Mark Kirk (R) 43%, LeAlan Jones (G) 4%

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 34%, Rob Portman (R) 57%

• TN-Gov: Mike McWherter (D) 31%, Bill Haslam (R) 59%

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold (D-inc) 45%, Ron Johnson (R) 52%

• Rasmussen (as Fox/Pulse):

• CT-Gov: Dan Malloy (D) 45%, Tom Foley (R) 41%

• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal (D) 49%, Linda McMahon (R) 43%

• DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 54%, Christine O’Donnell (R) 38%

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 47%, Sharron Angle (R) 49%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 42%, John Kasich (R) 47%

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 35%, Rob Portman (R) 52%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 46%, Dino Rossi (R) 47%

• Angus-Reid: Another reason to be suspicious of Angus-Reid in addition to their Dem-friendly internet samples: they seem to have neglected to poll the actually interesting Senate race in New York…

• NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo (D) 63%, Carl Paladino (R) 32%

• NY-Sen: Charles Schumer (D) 67%, Jay Townsend (R) 27%

• CO-Sen: This probably doesn’t count as an October Surprise since it made a big media impression five years ago, but it’s suddenly popped back into view, and making things dicier for Ken Buck, already on the wrong end of a sizable gender gap in the polls. Buck refused to prosecute a rape case as Weld Co. DA five years ago (despite the police having recommended charges), and the alleged victim is now back in the news. She has a taped recording of their meeting (transcript available at the link) in which he seems to blame the victim and suggest that the case wouldn’t pass muster with a jury.

• FL-Sen: Mason-Dixon (10/4-6, likely voters, 9/20-22 in parens):

Kendrick Meek (D): 21 (23)

Marco Rubio (R): 42 (40)

Charlie Crist (I): 27 (28)

(MoE: ±4%)

With Marco Rubio way ahead, it looks like a Kendrick Meek dropout (rumored on Friday) and a cobbling-together of some sort of Meek/Crist hybrid cyborg would be the only way for the non-Rubio forces to get an advantage in this race. However, Meek’s definitely not acting like a man who’s dropping out, if getting the president of the United States to cut a radio ad for you is any indication.

• WV-Sen: Remember that “hicky” ad that the NRSC ran, and then promptly got apologetic over, once the casting call instructions got leaked? (I know, that was last week, a lifetime ago in politics…) Now it sounds like it just kept running anyway, through last Friday for several days after the story broke, despite promises to take it down.

• NM-Gov: Yep, this is definitely the most over-polled, or at least over-internal-poll-leaked, race around. Today it’s Diane Denish’s turn to retaliate, and she’s out with another poll from one of her apparently two pollsters, Third Eye Strategies, with a 46-46 tie (a little stale, taken 9/21-23). I think we get the general idea, already: Denish sees a tie, Susana Martinez sees a high-single-digits lead for herself, public pollsters see something in between. (UPDATE: That’s odd… we reported this poll several weeks ago. Not sure why it’s back in the news today.)

• CA-47: This is the kind of unity that Loretta Sanchez (last seen alienating her district’s small but politically active Vietnamese community with an ill-advised remark) probably doesn’t like to see: apparently there was a major rift with the Vietnamese Republican community that just got sealed up, as long-time Van Tran rival Janet Nguyen (an Orange County councilor) gave a late-game endorsement to Tran.

• CT-02, CT-03: Merriman River Group hits the quinella in Connecticut, with polls of the two House races in the Nutmeg State that aren’t interesting. In the 2nd, despite getting some touting when she got in the race, GOPer Janet Peckinpaugh is making little impression against Joe Courtney, trailing 55-41. And in the 3rd, Rosa DeLauro is the state’s safest Dem, leading Jerry Labriola 58-37.

• FL-22: Endorsements from primary challengers, especially at this stage in the game, are interesting only when they go to the guy from the other party. But that’s what’s happening in the 22nd, where the guy who lost to Allen West, David Brady, gave his backing to Democratic incumbent Ron Klein today. (So too did several minor-league local elected GOPers, including Palm Beach mayor Jack McDonald.) Says Brady, apparently from the sane wing of the GOP (to the extent that the Palm Beach Post endorsed him in the primary): “I ran against Allen West. I debated him and I can tell you: Allen West is too extreme for this community.”

• MS-04: Dueling polls in the 4th, where everything still averages out to a Democratic lean but unfortunately this is looking like one more real race. GOP state Rep. Steven Palazzo offered a poll a few weeks ago saying incumbent Gene Taylor led by only 4, and now Taylor says, no, he’s leading by 8 (without giving us any other useful information, like the toplines, let alone the pollster or dates). Hmmm, that’s only a difference of four points, so why show your hand, especially in such haphazard fashion? Somehow I don’t think Taylor would be a very good poker player.

• NY-22, NY-25: Bill Clinton showing up in upstate New York to stump on behalf of Dan Maffei, that’s not a surprise, as this race seems to be competitive. But also Maurice Hinchey in the 22nd? We haven’t gotten any smoke signals out of that district before, but that’s an indication that something may bubbling under here. (It’s a D+6 district, and Hinchey barely won in ’94.)

• OH-01: One more unfortunate though unsurprising triage decision to report: Steve Driehaus seems to have run out of time at the DCCC, who are canceling their remaining ad buy in the Cincinnati market for the next two weeks. The deadline for reservations cancellations is coming up soon, so we’ll soon know who else gets the shortest straw drawn for them.

• PA-10: After seeing a incumbent Chris Carney up by single digits in a recent public poll from Lycoming, GOP challenger Tom Marino rummaged around in his poll drawer and pulled out one from the Tarrance Group giving him a 47-42 lead on Carney. (No word from the Fix on the dates, though.)

• TN-04: One last GOP internal to throw into the mix: a POS survey (from 9/27-28) on behalf of Scott DesJarlais shows him tied with Dem incumbent Lincoln Davis, 42-42. We haven’t seen any public polling of this race (and may not, as the NRCC doesn’t seem to be pushing this one hard, maybe on the off chance that it’s the kind of district that’ll flip in a wave regardless of what they do), but Davis claimed an 11-point lead in a late August internal.

• House: If you’re thinking that it seems like there are a lot more races in the “Tossup” and “Lean” categories this year, you’re not alone. Nate Silver quantifies various ways in which there are way more competitive races this year than in other recent cycles, including number of races where there are polls within single-digits, where there are polls period, and where there are major financial contributions.

• Redistricting: This is an interesting, if counterintuitive, piece from HuffPo on redistricting, which proposes that we’ll be in better shape in 2010 redistricting than 2000 redistricting because (based on projected gubernatorial and state legislative outcomes) we’ll have more control over the process in more important states: oddly he leaves out California, but also including Florida, Illinois, Michigan, and Virginia (all states where there was a GOP trifecta last time), and Minnesota and New York (where we might get the trifecta this time)… while the states where the GOP will improve its position aren’t as large (Alabama, Indiana, Tennessee… with Georgia the most significant one). The article also gets into the nitty-gritty of where the population growth within the fast-growing states has occurred (i.e. among minorities).

• Polltopia: You might have noticed that Political Wire briefly had some Senate polls up today from somebody I’ve never heard of before, called “TCJ Research.” Those polls mysteriously vanished after Nate Silver, vanquisher of bogus pollsters, showed up on the scene with a simple tweet:

A WordPress blog getting ~500 hits a day on posts like “October Giveaway: 32 Gigabyte Apple iPad!” suddenly commissions 5 polls? Not likely.

• SSP TV:

• IL-Sen: Two different ads from the DSCC attacking Mark Kirk, hitting him for his House voting record and also revisiting Kirk’s misrememberment of his military record

• NC-Sen: Elaine Marshall’s finally out with a TV spot, going after Richard Burr for helping to break the economy

• WV-Sen: While John Raese nods to the ‘hick’ ad semi-apologetically before changing the subject back to Washington Dems, Joe Manchin seems to be trying to out-hick the hick ad by touting his pro-gun and anti-environment credentials in one fell swoop by (I kid you not) shooting a copy of the cap-and-trade bill

• IL-Gov: The most famous Illinoisian, Barack Obama, cuts a radio spot on behalf of Pat Quinn

• RI-Gov: The DGA pounds Lincoln Chafee one more time from the right, accusing him of being a tax-hiking hippy

• FL-22: Ron Klein moves past the boring fixation on Allen West’s tax liens and onto the really juicy stuff about 2nd Amendment remedies

• MN-06: Taryl Clark hits Michele Bachmann on Social Security

• PA-03: Kathy Dahlkemper touts her pro-life credentials in her new ad, explaining her siding with the Stupak bloc on health care reform

• VA-02: The DCCC’s IE unit points the “hypocrite” arrow at Scott Rigell, for making hundreds of thousands of dollars off “Cash for Clunkers”

• WI-08: Ditto the DCCC ad in the 8th, where they hit Reid Ribble for making hundreds of thousands of dollars for his roofing business off stimulus projects

• Rasmussen:

• CT-Gov: Dan Malloy (D) 49%, Tom Foley (R) 44%

• FL-Gov: Alex Sink (D) 47%, Rick Scott (R) 50%

• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek (D) 19%, Marco Rubio (R) 50%, Charlie Crist (I) 25%

• GA-Gov: Roy Barnes (D) 41%, Nathan Deal (R) 50%

• GA-Sen: Michael Thurmond (D) 38%, Johnny Isakson (R-inc) 53%

• MN-Gov: Mark Dayton (D) 40%, Tom Emmer (R) 38%, Tom Horner (I) 15%

• NE-Gov: Mike Meister (D) 24%, Dave Heineman (R-inc) 66%

• NH-Sen: Paul Hodes (D) 44%, Kelly Ayotte (R) 51%

• NM-Gov: Diane Denish (D) 43%, Susana Martinez (R) 52%

• NV-Gov: Rory Reid (D) 40%, Brian Sandoval (R) 53%

• OR-Gov: John Kitzhaber (D) 48%, Chris Dudley (R) 46%

• SD-Gov: Scott Heidepriem (D) 33%, Dennis Daugaard (R) 57%

• TX-Gov: Bill White (D) 42%, Rick Perry (R-inc) 53%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 46%, Dino Rossi (R) 49%

• Angus-Reid: Some of you might have gotten excited about the California numbers offered up today by Angus-Reid (a well-established Canadian pollster, but apparently making their first foray into the States). Well, don’t, because they’re using an RV model, and more importantly, it’s an Internet sample. (Now presumably there’s some scientific selection behind it, not just a “click here!” banner ad, but we’re highly skeptical nonetheless, especially since that seemed to produce notably pro-Dem results in California.)

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 53%, Meg Whitman (R) 41%

• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 55%, Carly Fiorina (R) 39%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 46%, John Kasich (R) 48%

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 42%, Rob Portman (R) 53%

SurveyUSA (9/28-29, likely voters, 1/12-14 in parens):

Steve Driehaus (D-inc): 41 (39)

Steve Chabot (R): 53 (56)

Jim Berns (L): 3

Rich Stevenson (G): 1

Undecided: 2 (5)

(MoE: ±4.1%)

Not much movement for Driehaus here since January’s brutal SUSA poll conducted for Firedoglake. The big reason for Driehaus’ predicament? African-American voters just don’t appear to be enthused — SUSA pegs the black vote at just 16% of the electorate, down from 28% in their 2008 polling.

Counter-intuitively, though, SUSA’s sub-sample of voters who say that they’ve already cast their ballots in Ohio’s early voting process (which began on Tuesday) shows Driehaus with a 53-45 lead over Chabot. Of course, it’s a tiny sample (just 6% of the broader sample), but that’s not the result you’d expect given the great weight of evidence that suggests that Democrats are facing a steep enthusiasm gap. Might Driehaus be experiencing more success in getting his supporters out to the polls early?

(Hat-tip: silver spring)

AK-Sen: Man, we are seriously close! Just $195 away from our goal of raising $2,400 for Dem Scott McAdams in the topsy-turvy Alaska senate race. We have 64 contributors right now – I’d love to see us get to 70 before all is said and done. And if we hit our target now, you get to stop seeing nags from me!

DE-Sen: One final (?) independent expenditure report from the Tea Party Express, good for another $20K of media on Christine O’Donnell’s behalf. Damn this one ought to be exciting tonight.

CA-Gov: Gah, this is just unspinnably bad. Meg Whitman releases an ad featuring footage of Bill Clinton attacking Jerry Brown in the 1992 presidential primary, so what does Brown do? He calls Clinton a liar – and manages to make a crack about Monica freakin’ Lewinsky. (Talk about stuck in a time warp.) After a day, Brown finally apologized.

FL-Gov: Alex Sink secured endorsed from two top law enforcement groups: the Fraternal Order of Police and the Police Benevolent Association. Her campaign says it’s the first time in two decades both orgs have endorsed a Dem (the FOP hasn’t does so in 16 years).

KS-Gov: Live by the bailout, die by the bailout. Dem Tom Holland smacked Republican Sam Brownback during a recent debate for supporting a $200 billion bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – leaving Brownback to sputter that he voted against the bailout. Well, yeah, he voted against the infamous TARP. But Holland had him dead-to-rights on a separate vote, from July of 2008, which did in fact provide money to prop up the two government-sponsored mortgage enterprises.

ME-Gov: Watch GOP nominee Paul LePage get seriously testy when reporters ask him about the fact that his wife received homestead tax exemptions for properties in both Maine and Florida in 2009. (More details here.)

FL-02: Hah! This is why it pays to keep good records! Republican Steve Southerland claimed on a radio show that he had never donated money to Allen Boyd – so Boyd’s campaign dug up a $100 check from 1997 (!) that Southerland had made out to Boyd. Nice work!

FL-08: Tea Party candidate Peg Dunmire is out with her first TV ad of the cycle – notable, of course, because you don’t often see third-party candidates on the air (especially two months out from election day), and also because Dunmire has claimed she plans to put $250,000 of her own cash into the race.

IL-14: Idiot: GOPer Randy Hultgren made two separate contributions (totaling $2,000) to his federal campaign committee… from his state campaign committee. That, my friends, is not allowed (and which is why Hultgren is returning the money).

MI-01 (PDF): Republican Dan Benishek is touting an internal poll from TargetPoint Consulting, showing him with a 54-31 lead over Dem Gary McDowell. The polling memo is written in a pretty grossly sycophantic way, and my spidey sense is twigged enough for me to wonder if the ballot test was asked up top, or after some axe-grindy “issue” questions.

TN-04: Republican Scott DesJarlais is touting an internal poll from Public Opinion Strategies, showing him four points behind Dem Rep. Lincoln Davis, 45-41. Note to TargetPoint Consulting: This is how a polling memorandum should look.

DCCC: Reid Wilson has a detailed report on the D-Trip shifting ad money around, but really, it doesn’t sound very good to me. In the waning days of WWII, my dad (in Poland) would tune in to Nazi-censored radio reports about the German troops “consolidating their positions” or “shifting to more strategically advantageous territory,” etc. It was all bullshit-speak code for “we’re retreating.” So you tell me if you think the DCCC is reducing its ad buys in Arizona because vulnerable Dems there “are running stronger than expected campaigns,” or if that, too, is bullshit. Similarly, should we be happy that the Dems are cancelling buys in North Dakota? Of course, those radio broadcasts my dad listened to were in fact good news….

Chicago-Mayor: I don’t know if we’ll be able to keep up with what I’m sure will be an avalanche of candidacy announcements, but former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun says she’s throwing her hat in the ring for the Chicago mayor’s race.

SSP-TV (written by James L.):

AL-02: The DCCC, as part of its huge $1.2 million ad reservation on behalf of Dem Bobby Bright, is hitting Martha Roby for being funded by “special interests working to privatize Medicare.” The ad is no longer publicly available on YouTube, though.

AZ-01: Rogue dentist Paul Gosar hits Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick over spending in irritatingly-produced ad

AZ-05: David Schweikert attacks Harry Mitchell on taxes, bailouts, the stimulus, and (ironically) negative ads

AZ-08: Republican Jesse Kelly dubiously claims that he’s running to protect Social Security (despite last year saying: “I would love to eliminate the program.”)

CT-04: Dan Debicella goes after sophomore Dem Rep. Jim Himes on the usual GOP complaints

FL-22: Allen West hides the crazy in his new ad, instead hitting Dem Rep. Ron Klein on the economy

HI-01: Democrat Colleen Hanabusa reintroduces herself to voters

IA-03: GOPer Brad Zaun calls fans of government shrinkage to join his campaign

IL-10: Bob Dold! points the finger at Cap and Trade and Healthcare Reform for economic malaise

NM-02: Steve Pearce says he’ll create jobs somehow

MI-07: Mark Schauer gets a bunch of angry seniors to berate ex-Rep. Tim Walberg over his scary views on Social Security. I like this one.

MO-03: Republican Ed Martin airs his first ad touting his efforts to save jobs

OH-01: Dem Steve Driehaus says that Steve Chabot won’t stand up to the Tea Party

SC-02: Joe Wilson, via a retired General, hits Democrat Rob Miller on receiving fundraising assistance from MoveOn.org. His second ad touts his job platform. On a related note, Joe Wilson has a startlingly robotic voice – he sounds like something a Macintosh LC 630’s speech synthesizer would be spitting out in 1994.

UT-02: Republican Morgan Philpot urges change in his first spot, and says that he’s gonna “wear this sucker out” in ad #2

WI-08: Roofing contractor Reid Ribble touts his record of teaching high school volleyball

NRCC ads: AL-02, AZ-01, CA-11, FL-02, KY-06, MS-01, TX-17, VA-05, WI-07

FL-Sen: Charlie Crist is still refusing to say whether he’ll caucus with the Dems or the GOP if he wins, a position which looks increasingly untenable as we get down to crunchtime.

LA-Sen: It looks like TPM got tipped to an interesting story: David Vitter’s campaign has been sending letters to Louisiana newspaper editors pressuring them about their coverage of Brent Furer, the former Vitter aide responsible for women’s issues – who also attacked his girlfriend with a knife. TPM’s characterization is that Vitter is “trying to intimidate newspapers into giving Furer what he considers fair coverage.”

MO-Sen: The DSCC, which has reserved $4 million in ad time in Missouri, is out with its first ad of the race, attacking Roy Blunt.

NV-Sen: For a while it looked like Harry Reid might get the NRA’s endorsement, but it turns out that the group won’t be backing him this cycle (though they aren’t getting behind Sharron Angle, either).

CO-Gov: LOL – Tom Tancredo picked a running mate, a former state representative named Pat Miller who served a single term twenty years ago. She sounds just as batshit as he is. I’d love to know why her tenure in the state lege was so illustrious.

CT-Gov: A nice bump for Dan Malloy: He just collected $6 million in public financing for his gubernatorial run, the most anyone’s been awarded in Connecticut history. But Republican Tom Foley is ultra-rich – he’s already given his campaign $3 million, and as the CT Mirror puts it:

Foley, who owns a 100-foot yacht, an airplane and a waterfront Greenwich estate, laughed and stammered when asked how could much he afford to spend.

“Well, I, …,” Foley began, then he paused and said, “Could I afford to match him? Yeah.”

NH-Gov: Dem Gov. John Lynch has reported raising $1.3 million to date (though that includes a half-million dollar personal loan), and has $750K on hand. His Republican opponent, John Stephen, has raised just under a million bucks and has $800K left.

OH-Gov: God, if John Kasich loses, it’ll be for two reasons: First, Ted Strickland has run a good campaign. Second, he has Chronic Acute Goofball Disease, an incurable condition which causes you to do shit like… propose a regulatory overhaul plan that is basically identical to one your opponent already enacted two years ago. Kasich even ganked the name, dubbing his plan “Common Sense Initiative Ohio” (CSI Ohio – does that even make sense?), while Teddy Ballgame’s was “Common Sense Business Regulation Executive Order.”

TX-Gov: Wow, what a horror: Nearly all of Harris County, TX’s voting machines were destroyed in a fire, and the cause is still unknown. Election officials are putting on a brave face, but this is obviously a major nightmare for this fall’s elections. What’s more (and this is why we’re filing it under “TX-Gov”), Harris County is home to Houston, the largest city in Texas and, of course, where Dem nominee Bill White served as mayor for eight years. Not good.

AR-03: I’m not sure whether to laugh or to cry. A Talk Business Research/Hendrix College poll has Republican Steve Womack up 55-31 against Dem David Whitaker in this ultra-red district, the most Republican (by far) in Arkansas. Why am I going schizo? Well, these numbers are very similar to Talk Business’s surveys of AR-01 and AR-02, districts where we’re supposed to have a much better chance this fall (or at least the 1st CD). So either AR-01 is as bad as AR-03, or one of these polls is wrong. I’m not betting on good news for us.

GA-12: Regina Thomas’s secret plan to run as a write-in, despite Georgia law pretty clearly barring that option, has been thwarted. She won’t be eligible this November in any way, shape, or form – and she’s also refusing to endorse the Dem primary winner, Rep. John Barrow.

MO-08: Dem Tommy Sowers is up with his first negative ad of the season, once again touting his “combat bible,” and attacking Rep. Jo Ann Emerson as a bailout supporter. (There’s also a gratuitous shot of him firing a gun at the end.) The campaign says it will spend “at least $100,000 to air the spot on broadcast and cable stations throughout” the district. More interestingly, though, is the fact that Emerson is also out with a negative spot – not something you’d expect would be necessary given the lopsided polling, the super-red nature of the district, and the fact that it’s 2010. NWOTSOTB. You can find links to both ads at the link.

NE-02: Dem Tom White unveiled his first ad, which is “set to air on broadcast and cable channels in the Omaha area” this week. (NWOTSOTB though.)

OH-01: Dem Rep. Steve Driehaus is up with his first ad, a spot which attempts to draw distinctions between his record and that of former Rep. Steve Chabot, who is making a comeback bid. Interestingly (and I think this is a wise move), Driehaus is making the argument that his vote for the stimulus was a vote for tax cuts – which in fact it was. The ad really strikes me as lacking any emotional punch, though. NWOTSOTB, though the ad (which you can view here) is reportedly airing on “Cincinnati’s four local affiliates and cable.”

VA-02: Maybe it sounds like rapprochement to you, but to me, it sounds like “Either your brains or your signature will be on this pledge.” Teabaggers in Virginia’s second CD, long hostile to Republican nominee Scott Rigell, have compelled him to sign a seven-part pledge endorsing several of their favorite platforms – but even so, they aren’t endorsing Rigell in return. Still, one teabag leader seems to finally be playing realpolitik, claiming she wants to isolate indie Kenny Golden, so maybe a right-wing split will be averted here (sadly).

DCCC: Not sure how much Politico (as is their wont) is over-reading Chris Van Hollen’s remarks, but they make it sound like CVH is threatening to cut off under-performing Democratic candidates if they don’t get their acts together. Nothing like some threats of triage to get the troops motivated, huh?

• CO-Sen: Ken Buck twisted himself into a knot that’s unlikely to satisfy anyone. After it came out that, about a year ago, he’d announced his support for the repeal of the 17th Amendment (which allows for direct election of Senators, and should alarm any non-teabagger), on Friday he clarified that, no, he’s changed his mind and supports the 17th now (which should piss off any teabagger). While several House GOP candidates have touted the idea, Buck is the first Senate candidate to discuss why it’s a good idea for people to vote for him so he can go to Washington and take away their right to vote… for him.

• FL-Sen: There’s one more Florida poll to add to the growing pile; it’s only of the Democratic Senate primary, though, and it’s from Republican pollster Susquehanna on behalf of online media outlet Sunshine State News. They join in the chorus seeing Kendrick Meek pulling away from Jeff Greene, 45-30.

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak’s getting some support from an unexpected place: Michael Bloomberg, the loudly post-partisan New York mayor. Bloomberg, who’ll stump on Sestak’s behalf in Pennsylvania tomorrow, seems to like Sestak’s efforts on better lending for small businesses. Another bright spot for Sestak: Green Party candidate Mel Packer is dropping out of the Senate race, not seeming able to withstand the pending court challenge to his petitions from the Sestak camp.

• AL-Gov: With friends like Artur Davis, who needs enemies? The ostensibly Democratic Rep., who seems to have gotten consumed with bile after his surprising yet thorough loss to Ron Sparks in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, published an op-ed in the Montgomery Advertiser yesterday titled “A lack of vision” that said that Sparks is “no champion of real change.” The key quote: “In a break with tradition, I did not attend that [unity] event and will not be campaigning for the Democratic gubernatorial nominee.” But really: read the whole thing, especially if you still had any shreds of respect left for Davis.

• CA-Gov: You know that saying about how if you want to experience the sense of yachting, just go stand in the shower with your clothes on and keep continuously flushing money down the toilet? I wonder if Meg Whitman is starting to get that sense about her own campaign and its nine figures worth of out-of-pocket sunk costs. She just wrote herself another $13 million check, saying that she had to throw down more because of the nerve of those unions and their insistence on using independent expenditures.

• IA-Gov: You might remember the gadflyish Jonathan Narcisse, a former Des Moines school board member and alternative newspaper publisher who’d made some motions about challenging Chet Culver in the Dem primary. Well, now he’s back, and he’s planning to mount an independent bid instead. He claims to have enough signatures to qualify, and despite his ostensibly left-of-center orientation claims to be getting a lot of interest from disgruntled Bob Vander Plaats supporters looking for an option to Terry Branstad.

• LA-Gov: In case there was any doubt, Bobby Jindal confirmed that he’ll be running for re-election for Governor in 2011. That makes a 2012 presidential run seem less likely, given the quick turnaround, but he’s young enough that he needn’t hurry.

• MS-01: Travis Childers is out with his second ad in as many weeks, this one a negative spot against Alan Nunnelee (although self-narrated by Childers, rather than using the usual grainy black-and-white photos and angry-sounding voice of doom like most negative ads). Childers hits Nunnelee for raising various taxes while in the state legislature.

• NH-01: Frank Guinta, the presumed frontrunner in the GOP primary for the right to face Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, has some good news and bad news. The good news: he seems to have discovered an extra bank account in his name that had somewhere between $250K and $500K in it, which hadn’t been on previous disclosure forms because of “an inadvertent oversight.” The bad news: now he has to explain where all that money came from, which isn’t exactly clear, as Guinta has partially self-funded his run but also done a lot of outside fundraising. This looks serious enough that ex-Rep. Jeb Bradley is calling for Guinta to drop out if he can’t provide a credible explanation (although it should be noted that, although Bradley hasn’t officially endorsed, he was already informally backing GOP primary rival Sean Mahoney).

• NY-06, NY-13: The New York AFL-CIO endorsed all but four New York House incumbents over the weekend: the two Republicans, naturally, but also Reps. Mike McMahon and… Greg Meeks? Turns out they’ve had a beef with Meeks (who’s a bit of a mismatch with his dark-blue district) for a while, going back to his CAFTA vote. So this means they did endorse Mike Arcuri in NY-24, despite his HCR vote and subsequent antipathy from the Working Families Party.

• Ohio: We Ask America, an auto-dialing pollster with Republican connections that occasionally pops up with flurries of polls, rolled out three polls of different House races in Ohio last week. They add one more poll to the heap of doom for Rep. Steve Driehaus in OH-01, finding him losing to ex-Rep. Steve Chabot 51-39. They also find Paula Brooks unlikely to prevail in her right-candidate-wrong-year challenge to GOP Rep. Pat Tiberi in OH-12; she trails 51-34. Perhaps most interesting is OH-15, which I believe is the first poll released of this race, which many Dems have mentally written off already. While they have freshman Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy trailing, it’s not that bad, in comeback-able range with a 46-41 lead for GOP rematch candidate Steve Stivers.

• Stumping: Barack Obama is making a three-state road swing over the next few days, appearing on behalf of three vulnerable Democratic Senate incumbents: Russ Feingold in Wisconsin, Barbara Boxer in California, and Patty Murray in Washington. Meanwhile, Bill Clinton is making three appearances around Florida today on behalf of Hillary-endorsing Kendrick Meek in his Senate primary.

• Rasmussen:

• CT-Gov: Dan Malloy (D) 48%, Tom Foley (R) 33%

• GA-Sen: Michael Thurmond (D) 41%, Johnny Isakson (R-inc) 55%

• ME-Gov: Libby Mitchell (D) 30%, Paul LePage (R) 38%, Eliot Cutler (I) 16%

• ND-Sen: Tracy Potter (D) 25%, John Hoeven (R) 69%

• ND-AL: Earl Pomeroy (D-inc) 44%, Rick Berg (R) 53%

• AK-Sen: Wow, now we’ve got Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin working in harmony in at least one place: Huckabee just endorsed Joe Miller, the little-known right-wing challenger to Lisa Murkowski in the GOP Senate primary.

• AZ-Sen: J.D. Hayworth is out with a new ad in a last-ditch effort to make up some ground on John McCain, and he’s relying on time-honored tradition of pulling a few of his opponents’ words out of context. In this case, he swipes the passage “I chose lying” from McCain’s 2002 audiobook, although in the book it was talking about the South Carolina confederate flag controversy, and Hayworth just slaps it down in an ad about immigration. The ad buy is for $365K.

• CA-Sen: This isn’t a surprise in terms of which of the candidates they endorsed, but it might be interesting that the Chamber of Commerce decided there was enough of a shot in this race for them to weigh in. They’re backing Carly Fiorina in the California Senate race, based on, y’know, her long track record of success at Hewlett-Packard.

• FL-Sen: A Mason-Dixon poll released late last week gives some hope to Kendrick Meek, who other polls had shown had fallen behind billionaire weirdo Jeff Greene in the Democratic primary. Their poll (conducted for “Leadership Florida and the Florida Press Association”) gives Meek a 33-29 lead. Greene’s main problem seems to be that the press keeps on doing stories about, well, all those things that Greene has been doing for the last couple decades; yesterday the St. Petersburg Times looked at Greene’s involvement in a California condo deal that belies his claims that he was a high-level investor and not involved in any of the myriad ground-level predatory lending transactions that, when all added together, helped create the real estate asset bubble. Greene’s defense? “I don’t follow what happens after the sale…. All I care about is that I get my money.” Finally, whether Greene or Meek wins the primary, one more problem they’ll have to deal with is the movement of prominent Democratic money to indie Charlie Crist. Pollster Mark Penn hasn’t been anyone’s image of a reliable or useful Democrat lately, but he is at least a prominent Democrat; he’s now raising for Crist.

• KY-Sen: Will “I worship you, Aqua Buddha” become the newest political catchphrase that sweeps the nation? GQ has a hilarious (if somewhat disturbing) look back at Rand Paul’s hellraising days at an undergrad at Baylor (a school from which, by the way, he doesn’t have a bachelor’s degree). It’ll be interesting to see if this actually creates any blowback for Paul.

• WA-Sen: Interesting: another endorsement for the once-moderate Dino Rossi from another celebrity on the right in the Senate. Unlike Jim DeMint (whose backing he got last week), who has something of a fundraising network that comes with his endorsement, Tom Coburn (who just announced his support) just has cachet with right-wing fanboys. More evidence that Rossi, while publicly pretending to be focused only on the general, is scrambling to shore up his right flank before the Top 2 primary where he faces competition from various teabaggers, most significantly Sarah Palin-backed Clint Didier.

• FL-Gov: That Mason-Dixon poll had a Republican gubernatorial portion as well, and they do provide some confirmation for the sense that Bill McCollum is worming his way back into this thing, with not much time left on the clock. Rick Scott leads McCollum only 37-31. Worth noting: it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with people taking notice of Scott’s legacy of Medicare fraud at Columbia/HCA, but rather, McCollum consolidating the Republican Hispanic vote (where he leads 3-1), probably thanks to Scott’s demagoguery on the immigration issue and McCollum’s more even-handed stance. Meanwhile, not that Bud Chiles was gaining much momentum, but explaining this could be a big distraction: his former leadership of innocuous-sounding charity HOPE Worldwide, which it turns out is an arm of the cultish International Churches of Christ.

• IA-Gov: Social conservative activist Bob Vander Plaats ran a surprisingly close race against Terry Branstad in the GOP gubernatorial primary and then threatened an independent run when he didn’t receive the proper amount of fealty post-primary. However, he announced last Friday that he won’t attempt a third-party bid (which would probably give the advantage in the race back to Chet Culver). He’ll focus his energies on defeating members of the Iowa Supreme Court, in retaliation for its gay marriage ruling.

• MN-Gov: If there’s one campaign out there in need of a shakeup, it’s Tom Emmer’s, as polls have made clear that the GOP gubernatorial nominee’s trajectory post-nomination has been aimed almost straight down. Old campaign manager Tom Mason departed for a farm upstate, replaced by former ’08 Norm Coleman CM Cullen Sheehan.

• PA-Gov: Remember Sam Rohrer, the socially conservative state Rep. who persisted in the GOP primary against AG Tom Corbett (and lost big)? His supporters still haven’t given up hope, and, although Pennsylvania law prohibits him from a ballot line in November, are now launching an independent write-in campaign for Rohrer. (Rohrer hasn’t endorsed the idea, but isn’t dissuading them either.) The write-in campaign is a particularly difficult beast, though, meaning that it’s likely that Rohrer wouldn’t pick up more than a couple percent, and the race would have to get closer than it currently is for that to harm Corbett’s odds against Dem Dan Onorato.

• RI-Gov: Brown University is out with a poll on the Rhode Island gubernatorial race, and one thing is clear: no current Republican is going to win the race. Democratic state Treasurer Frank Caprio leads independent ex-Republican ex-Sen. Lincoln Chafee, by a bare 28-27 margin. For some reason, they seemed to poll the two Republicans jungle-style, but it really doesn’t matter as both are non-factors: former Don Carcieri communications director John Robitaille is at 7 and ex-state Rep. Victor Moffitt is at 2.

• FL-08: Jeb! backs Web! Ex-gov. Jeb Bush cut an ad in support of ex-state Sen. Daniel Webster, who, with his dithering, managed to blow his early shot at consolidating GOP establishment support in the primary. Instead, he’s one of many guys stuffed in the clown car, fighting for the right to oppose Rep. Alan Grayson.

• ID-01: The omission of Raul Labrador from the NRCC’s Young Guns, which seems to admit any Republican who has enough opposable digits to successfully operate a telephone and call donors, seemed like it was becoming too embarrassing for even the NRCC’s skilled writers to spin away. Labrador says he “changed his mind” and is now willing to join the entourage. Labrador, who has $69K, is only entering at the “On the Radar” level, though, the bottom of the pyramid.

• IL-14: State Sen. Randy Hultgren thought he struck some electoral gold when he found a contribution to Rep. Bill Foster from fellow Dem Maxine Waters for $1,000, which then demanded Foster give back. Unfortunately, there’s something to be said for basic reading skills: the contribution wasn’t to Bill Foster, but rather to former music industry exec Gary Foster, who’s now head of a charitable org called Upliftment Jamaica. Naturally, the Hultgren camp blamed the FEC for forcing them to screw up.

• LA-02: Sen. Mary Landrieu announced her backing for state Rep. Cedric Richmond in the Dem primary in the 2nd, more evidence that the Dem establishment is trying to unite behind Richmond and put the squeeze on primary rival state Rep. Juan LaFonta.

• MI-09: As part of the transition from primary to general election, one item that’s high on GOP nominee Rocky Raczkowski’s to-do list is to walk back his previous birtherism. After telling Politico in a post-primary interview that he’d “love” to see Obama’s birth certificate, he’s now out with a statement that Politico took his out of context… without, of course, explaining what context such a comment should be taken in.

• OH-18: Stop the presses! (And hide the women!) Bill Clinton adviser turned Fox News talking head Dick Morris has announced he’ll be making appearances on behalf of at least 40 Republican candidates this year. That includes a fundraiser for Rep. Zack Space’s opponent, state Sen. Bob Gibbs, later this month.

• RI-01, RI-02: That Brown gubernatorial poll also looked at the Democratic primaries in the 1st and 2nd, although the margin of error is terribly high (7.4% in RI-01). In the 1st, Providence mayor David Cicilline is in command of the Dem field, leading former state party chair William Lynch 32-11 15, with 11 for businessman Anthony Gemma and 5 for state Rep. David Segal (who just got the local SEIU‘s backing, by the way). In the 2nd, Rep. Jim Langevin looks likely to weather his primary challenge with ease; he leads state Rep. Elizabeth Dennigan 55-12.

• SBA List: Anti-abortion group the Susan B. Anthony List has come out with polls of one open Senate race and three House races featuring Dem incumbents (where the common thread seems that all the Dems are anti-abortion), courtesy of that Republican pollster with the oh-so-creative name, The Polling Company. They find Dan Coats leading Brad Ellsworth 50-35 in the Indiana Senate race. The House races are an interesting mix of the good, the bad, and the so-so. For the good, Rep. Joe Donnelly seems to start on solid ground in IN-02, where he leads state Rep. Jackie Walorski 52-35. For the bad, Rep. Steve Driehaus may just be the most DOA of any House Democrat, as this is one more poll giving him a double-digit deficit against ex-Rep. Steve Chabot (51-41). And for the so-so, Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper (last seen losing in a too-good-to-be-true internal from GOP opponent Mike Kelly) is leading Kelly by a pretty plausible 46-42.

• Blue Dogs: The Blue Dogs handed out a load of endorsements to Dem candidates, looking to replenish their soon-to-be-depleted ranks (thanks to a number of retirements, as well as many of their members being in many of the nation’s most competitive races). Endorsees are Steve Raby in AL-05, Chad Causey in AR-01, Roy Herron in TN-08, Trent van Haaften in IN-08, and Stephene Moore in KS-03.

• Rasmussen:

• DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 37%, Mike Castle (R) 49%

• DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 46%, Christine O’Donnell (R) 36%

• IA-Gov: Chet Culver (D-inc) 36%, Terry Branstad (R) 52%

• KS-Gov: Tom Holland (D) 34%, Sam Brownback (R) 57%

• NH-Sen: Paul Hodes (D) 38%, Kelly Ayotte (R) 51%

• NH-Sen: Paul Hodes (D) 40%, Bill Binnie (R) 46%

• SD-Gov: Scott Heidepriem (D) 27%, Dennis Daugaard (R) 59%

• SD-AL: Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-inc) 42%, Kristi Noem (R) 51%