Tag: OR-Sen

The Feldman Group for the DSCC (5/12-16, likely voters):

Jeff Merkley (D): 42

Gordon Smith (R-inc): 45

Undecided: 14

(MoE: ±3.5%)

The poll also shows Gordon Smith with a remarkably high negative job approval rating: 29% positive, 55% negative.

Looks like this one is shaping up to be a real race.

Results will begin to be reported from Oregon in a few minutes.  We’ll use this thread to track the returns from OR-Sen and OR-05.

RESULTS: OR-Sen | OR-05

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11:20PM ET: Merkley is up by 4 points so far.  He’s losing Portland, but has a big lead in Lane County (Eugene).  Interesting.

11:57PM ET (David): Merkley’s lead has been holding steady at 4% much of the night. About 61% of the vote has been counted so far.

12:17AM ET (David): My back-of-the-envelope says that it’s unlikely that Novick could squeeze more than another 4-5K out of Multnomah County (margin-wise). Outside of Multnomah, he’s got almost nothing. I’m not sure I can see how he can overtake Merkley’s lead.

12:40AM ET (James): Mike “I Don’t Know What Cocaine Looks Like” Erickson won his primary, amazingly enough.

1:03AM ET (David): Blue Oregon says that Novick has called Merkley to concede.

1:06AM ET (James): The Oregonian has just called this race for Jeff Merkley!

Polls close in Oregon at 8pm Pacific/11pm Eastern.  We’ll put up a results thread closer to that hour.  

In the meantime, feel free to post your predictions for the Democratic Senate primary and the Republican primary for OR-05.

Hey there folks, TJ from Loaded Orygun here–Oregon’s progressive community and a member of the 50-State Blog Network.

All eyes are obviously turned towards Oregon later tonight, but without any results until at least 11pm eastern–and no exits to pore over–some folks might get a little edgy from all the “Obama can’t hack the working class” nonsense on cable and need a distraction to get ready for the GOOD news.

The first thing to check out is the nuts and bolts election info provided by one of our members, skywaker9. Ballot dropoffs, other websites to visit, where to get results, how vote by mail works here–lots of great stuff.

We’ve been mostly covering the Senate race between Steve Novick and Jeff Merkley, and I’m sure what most folks would like to know is, who’s gonna win? And the answer is…no one knows for sure. But there have been four polls in the last 8 days on the race, and taken together they definitely give us some clues.

Want something a little peppier, visual and shorter to read through? What’s easier than videos? Check out the candidates responding to the most recent SUSA, Novick’s ad on Hardball last night, and what some pundits have called “the best 90 seconds of the primary.”  

Finally, a look at some of the many non-Oregon publications that have featured Novick or addressed the Senate race. Prominent among recent articles is the AP piece essentially pitting Novick against Chuck Schumer, but there’s also a top-notch bio piece by the Oregonian if you need to find out more about the man, a great interview in slashdot–plus links to all of the 12 state newspapers that endorsed Novick.

Enjoy your virtual visit to Oregon, and I hope your candidate wins!

Will this one go down to the wire?

SurveyUSA (5/16-18, likely and actual voters, 5/9-11 in parens):

Jeff Merkley (D): 34 (31)

Steve Novick (D): 37 (27)

Candy Neville (D): 7 (11)

Other/Undecided: 23 (30)

(MoE: ±4%)

Novick leads Merkley among those who have already voted by 6 points.  The two candidates are tied at 32 apiece among voters who have yet to return their ballots.

Public Policy Polling also released a poll on this race today (5/17-18, likely voters, no trendlines):

Jeff Merkley: 33

Steve Novick: 38

Candy Neville: 6

Other: 3

Undecided: 19

(MoE: ±2.7%)

SurveyUSA (5/9-11, likely and actual voters, 4/28-30 in parens):

Jeff Merkley (D): 31 (28)

Steve Novick (D): 27 (30)

Candy Neville (D): 11 (8)

David Loera (D): 2 (2)

Roger Obrist (D): 2 (4)

Pavel Goberman (D): 2 (2)

Other/Undecided: 24 (26)

(MoE: ±4%)

It’s still within the margin of error, but this is the first time that Merkley has lead Novick in any of SUSA’s polls of this race.  The full tracking history is available here.

Primary: 5/20.

Rasmussen (5/7, likely voters, 3/25 in parens):

Jeff Merkley (D): 42 (34)

Gordon Smith (R-inc): 45 (47)

Steve Novick (D): 41 (35)

Gordon Smith (R-inc): 47 (46)

(MoE: ±4%)

Smith is surprisingly weak, even against a pair of challengers who would not be called A-list.  It’s no wonder that Smith would hit the airwaves early saying that he’s the “change that Oregon needs”.

[crossposted in part at Loaded Orygun, Oregon’s progressive community…]

Not having a second home or Chuck Schumer to rely on, yesterday Steve Novick made one more personal appeal to supporters in the primary, giving the whip to Seabiscuit as it were: help me close strong.

It sure is working; the Novick campaign today announced a quadfecta of eye-raising numbers for the supposed underdog:

• Over $1 million now raised for the cycle
• Just under $139,000 in April, a monthly pace 21% higher than for the three months of Q1 (which itself was 57% higher than Q4 last year)
• A whopping $30,000 raised just since MONDAY.
• Over $500,000 raised so far via ActBlue

From the campaign:

Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Steve Novick's campaign announced today that it raised $138,983.98 in April 2008, passing the $1 million mark to raise $1,028,435.94 the election cycle.

"Our fundraising continued to accelerate in April with the vast majority of our support coming from right here in the state of Oregon," said Jake Weigler, Novick campaign manager. "We've proven that a grassroots campaign can attract the other green stuff too."

Novick's contributions continued to come overwhelmingly from Oregon, with $107,819.68 (77.5 percent) coming from within the state. Overall, 963 contributors gave to the campaign in April, 817 from Oregon. Previously, in the first quarter of 2008, Novick outraised primary opponent Jeff Merkley by 42 percent in itemized contributions from Oregon ($187,722.92 to $131,734.16).  

Novick also continues to receive substantial online support from netroots donors. The campaign has raised over $30,000 online since Monday, bringing the total raised through the online Democratic clearinghouse ActBlue to over $500,000. Novick is currently the third highest U.S. Senate candidate in the nation on ActBlue, behind only Mark Warner of Virginia and Rick Noriega of Texas.

"When you look at how far Steve and the campaign have come, it is a rather remarkable journey," said Weigler. "He entered this race as an underdog placeholder. Today he's raised over $1 million and continues to lead in every public poll in the race.  People across Oregon are ready for a principled progressive who isn't afraid to tell the truth about what it will take to turn our country around."

[emph mine]

With fewer than two weeks until ballots are counted, money for advertising and GOTV is crucial. Also valuable as information, is the fundraising appeal power of the candidates with an eye towards the general election. Looks like there’s a late kick going on at the Novick camp.

SurveyUSA (4/28-30, likely voters, 4/4-6 in parens):

Jeff Merkley (D): 28 (11)

Steve Novick (D): 30 (23)

Candy Neville (D): 8 (12)

David Loera (D): 2 (6)

Roger Obrist (D): 4 (5)

Pavel Goberman (D): 2 (3)

Other/Undecided: 26 (40)

(MoE: ±3.9%)

That’s quite a big jump for Merkley, who began his statewide advertising campaign this month.  However, I don’t doubt that the ultimate outcome will be very close.

May is going to be an exciting month for political junkies.  We’ve got a cornucopia of races to watch this month: two special elections, and a number of competitive House, Senate and Gubernatorial primaries.

Let’s take a look at the month ahead:

May 3: This Saturday, Louisiana voters will head to the polls in two congressional special elections:  

• LA-06: Democratic state Rep. Don Cazayoux will square off with “newspaper editor” Woody Jenkins to fill the open seat of ex-Rep. Richard Baker.  In this hotly contested race, Democrats have been blessed with the better candidate, stellar fundraising, and favorable polls.  However, the NRCC and their allies have dumped hundreds of thousands of dollars on ads painting Cazayoux as a serial tax raiser and a Barack Obama disciple.

  We’ll find out on Saturday night if any of these attacks have made an impact.  The most recent poll, though, shows Cazayoux with a nine point lead.  SSP will be liveblogging the results, so be sure to check with us then.  There will also be a special election to replace Bobby Jindal in LA-01, but this one should be a solid lock for the GOP.

May 6: While the eyes of the nation will be fixed on the Indiana and North Carolina presidential primaries, voters in these states will also be deciding a number of other hotly-contested primaries:

• IN-Gov (D): Indianapolis architect Jim Schellinger will square off with former U.S. Rep. Jill Long Thompson for the Democratic nod against Mitch Daniels.  Schellinger’s had a big fundraising edge, but the polls here have generally been tight, with an edge for Thompson.  This one could be close.
• IN-07 (D): Despite winning a March special election to fill the vacant seat created by his grandmother’s passing, Rep. Andre Carson faces a competitive primary for the Democratic slot on the November ballot.  His strongest rival is former state Health Commissioner Woody Myers, who has lent his campaign a substantial amount of money.  State Reps. David Orentlicher and Carolene Mays will also be on the ballot.
• NC-Gov: Democrats will decide a contentious primary between Lt. Gov. Beverly Perdue and State Treasurer Richard Moore for the gubernatorial nomination.  Perdue has had the advantage in nearly all of SurveyUSA’s tracking polls here.

  Republicans will also decide a primary for this office between Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory and state Sen. Fred Smith (plus two also-rans).  In the most recent SUSA poll, Smith was only four points behind the front-runner McCrory.

• NC-Sen (D): State Senator Kay Hagan and businessman Jim Neal will face off for the Democratic nomination to challenge GOP Sen. Elizabeth Dole.  While this contest was effectively tied for a while, Hagan’s large fundraising edge on Neal has been enough to buy her a 20-point lead in the latest poll.
• NC-03 (R): For a while, it looked like this primary might have been as heated as Andy Harris’ successful overthrow of anti-war moderate GOP Rep. Wayne Gilchrest in Maryland.  But Onslow County Commissioner Joe McLaughlin’s campaign against Rep. Walter Jones hasn’t gotten a lot of fundraising traction.  It will still be worth watching to see just how tolerant GOP primary voters will be of Jones’ anti-war stance.
• NC-10 (R): While I don’t expect Air Force vet Lance Sigmon to topple the odious Patrick McHenry in the GOP primary, his campaign drew a fair bit of attention for his aggressive attacks on McHenry’s antics in Iraq (calling a security worker a “two-bit security guard”, and compromising troop safety by posting a video of an attack in the Green Zone).  Democrats have a strong candidate against McHenry for the November election — veteran and hero Daniel Johnson — so Sigmon’s showing might give us a good reading on how damaging McHenry’s behavior has been to his re-election chances in this R+15 district.

May 13: Another huge day for political watchers, with hot races in Mississippi and Nebraska.

• MS-01: The big event.  Democratic Prentiss County Chancery Clerk Travis Childers has waged a startlingly strong campaign for the open seat left behind earlier this year when Roger Wicker was appointed to the Senate.  Despite running in an R+10 district and being at a financial disadvantage, Childers edged GOP candidate and Southaven Mayor Greg Davis by a 49%-46% margin in the April 22 special primary election.  Davis and the NRCC have fought back hard, trying to tie Childers to Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama.  But the DCCC is playing to win, and they’ve invested a whopping $1.1 million in this race.  This one should be close.
• NE-Sen (D): Here’s something rare — a Democratic primary for a statewide office in Nebraska.  Businessman and former Republican Tony Raimondo will compete with former congressional candidate Scott Kleeb for the Democratic nod against the Republican front-runner, Mike Johanns.
• NE-02 (D): GOP Rep. Lee Terry had a surprisingly close re-election campaign in 2006, winning his district by less than 10 points against political neophyte Jim Esch.  Now, Esch is back for a rematch, but will first meet with Iraq War vet Richard Carter for the Democratic nomination.  Between Esch’s name recognition and Carter’s weak fundraising, Esch is in a good position to win here.

May 20: There are four primaries in Kentucky and Oregon worth keeping an eye on.

• KY-Sen (D): Former gubernatorial candidate and businessman Bruce Lunsford and businessman Greg Fischer will face off against a slew of also-rans for the Democratic nomination against GOP obstructionist-in-chief Mitch McConnell.  Lunsford has never been able to win a Democratic primary, but this might be his chance.  Polls have shown him with a large lead against Fischer, whose campaign has yet to catch fire.
• KY-02 (D): Democrats will go to the polls to decide between state Sen. David Boswell and Daviess County Judge-Executive Reid Haire for the Democratic nomination to contest this open seat left behind by the retiring Rep. Ron Lewis.  Boswell was seen as the early front-runner, but his fundraising has been extremely sluggish ($30K to Haire’s $200K in the first quarter).  Still, Boswell might have a chance based on name recognition alone.
• OR-Sen (D): Another big event, with state House Speaker Jeff Merkley and activist Steve Novick competing for the Democratic nomination against Gordon Smith.  Novick has kept this a competitive race, airing quirky ads and winning several key newspaper endorsements.
• OR-05: With the retirement of Rep. Darlene Hooley (D), there are tight primary contests on both sides to succeed her.  Democrats will pick between former Gov. Kitzhaber aide Steve Marks and state Sen. Kurt Schrader.  Marks has picked up the larger share of endorsements so far, while Schrader appears to be the DCCC’s preferred candidate. (Update: As Kari notes in the comments, my statement about endorsements here is a bit off the mark.  Schrader’s been no slouch in this department at all.  My mistake!)

  On the GOP side, voters will choose between ’06 nominee and businessman Mike Erickson and former Gov. candidate Kevin Mannix.

There you have it.  May will be a month chock full of races worth watching.  SSP will aim to liveblog as many of these races as we can when the results come in.