Bonus: UT also tested a wide range of down-ballot races.
Margins & Errors: The DSCC supposedly has some internal with Alexi Giannoulias up 2 in IL-Sen, but this is some NRCC-style crap with no details other than the toplines… Some MI-Gov poll shows that the race still sucks… Frank Guinta is touting an internal in NH-01 that supposedly has him up 53-37, but there isn’t even word of the pollster’s name
Rather unusually, Suffolk included Blumenthal & Malloy twice in their head-to-head questions: once as the Dem candidate, and once as the Working Families Party candidate. Each got about 3-4% as the WFP candidate. I’ve never seen a pollster do this in New York, where the practice of fusion voting is best known.
Note: Among the 10% who have already voted, Schrader leads 47-46. This continues a pattern we’ve seen in other SUSA polls (and also some, but not all, of the early voting numbers by party registration).
What better way to celebrate SSP’s seventh birthday than to give you another firehose blast of polls?
AL-02: Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (D) for the DCCC (10/9-12, likely voters, 9/26-28 in parens):
Bobby Bright (D-inc): 51 (52)
Martha Roby (R): 39 (43)
(MoE: ±4.9%)
AR-01: Anzalone Liszt for the DCCC (10/11-13, likely voters, 9/13-16 in parens):
Chad Causey (D): 44 (46)
Rick Crawford (R): 42 (44)
(MoE: ±4.9%)
AR-01: Talk Business Research and Hendrix College (PDF) (10/14, likely voters, 8/17 in parens):
Chad Causey (D): 34 (32)
Rick Crawford (R): 42 (48)
Ken Adler (G): 4 (4)
Undecided: 20 (20)
(MoE: ±4.7%)
AR-02: Talk Business Research and Hendrix College (PDF) (10/14, likely voters, 8/17 in parens):
Joyce Elliott (D): 38 (35)
Tim Griffin (R): 50 (52)
Lance Levi (I): 3 (3)
Lewis Kennedy (G): 3 (1)
Undecided: 7 (9)
(MoE: ±4.6%)
AR-03: Talk Business Research and Hendrix College (PDF) (10/14, likely voters, 8/25 in parens):
David Whitaker (D): 21 (31)
Steve Womack (R): 59 (55)
Undecided: 20 (14)
(MoE: ±4.2%)
AR-04: Talk Business Research and Hendrix College (PDF) (10/14, likely voters, 8/25-26 in parens):
Mike Ross (D-inc): 52 (49)
Beth Anne Rankin (R): 34 (31)
Joshua Drake (G): 3 (4)
Undecided: 11 (16)
(MoE: ±4.2%)
CA-47: Public Opinion Strategies (R) for Van Tran (10/13-14, likely voters, no trendlines):
Loretta Sanchez (D-inc): 39
Van Tran (R): 39
Ceci Iglesias (I): 5
Undecided: 17
(MoE: ±5.7%)
FL-Sen: Suffolk (10/14-17, likely voters, no trendlines):
Kendrick Meek (D): 22
Marco Rubio (R): 39
Charlie Crist (I): 31
Undecided: 6
(MoE: ±4.4%)
FL-Gov: Suffolk (10/14-17, likely voters, no trendlines):
Alex Sink (D): 45
Rick Scott (R): 38
Undecided: 13
(MoE: ±4.4%)
Misc.: In the AG race, Pam Bondi (R) leads Dan Gelber (D), 38-30. Also, a poll by Voter Survey Service (aka Susquehanna) for the right-wing Sunshine State News site has Adam Putnam (R) leading Scott Maddox (D) in the Ag Comm’r race, 40-35. Tea Party candidate Ira Chester takes 14%.
MA-Gov: Public Opinion Strategies (R) for Charlie Baker (10/11-13, likely voters, no trendlines):
Deval Patrick (D-inc): 35
Charlie Baker (R): 42
Tim Cahill (I): 10
(MoE: ±3.5%)
MA-10: MassINC Polling Group for WGBH (10/13-15, likely voters incl. leaners, no trendlines):
William Keating (D): 46
Jeffrey Perry (R): 43
Other: 5
Undecided: 4
(MoE: ±4.9%)
MI-Gov: Foster McCollum White and Baydoun Consulting (D) (PDF) (10/7, likely voters, no trendlines):
Virg Bernero (D): 37
Rick Snyder: 50
Undecided: 13
(MoE: ±2.1%)
MO-Sen: Public Policy Polling (D) (PDF) for Robin Carnahan (10/17-18, likely voters, 8/14-15 in parens):
Robin Carnahan (D): 41 (38)
Roy Blunt (R): 46 (45)
Jerry Beck (C): 3 (5)
Jonathan Dine (L): 3 (3)
Undecided: 7 (9)
(MoE: ±3.9%)
NM-Gov: SurveyUSA for KOB-TV (10/12-14, likely voters, 5/23-25 in parens)
Diane Denish (D): 42 (43)
Susana Martinez (R): 54 (49)
Undecided: 4 (8)
(MoE: ±3.9%)
Note: Among the 13% of respondents who say they have already voted, Martinez has a 60-36 lead.
NY-25: Siena (10/10-12, likely voters, no trendlines):
Dan Maffei (D-inc): 51
Ann Marie Buerkle (R): 39
Undecided: 10
(MoE: ±3.9%)
Note: Maggie Haberman tweets that Karl Rove’s American Crossroads plans to get involved here.
NY-Gov: New York Times (PDF) (10/10-15, likely voters, no trendlines):
Andrew Cuomo (D): 59
Carl Paladino (R): 24
Undecided: 12
(MoE: ±3%)
OR-04: Grove Insight (D) for Peter DeFazio (10/11-12, likely voters, no trendlines):
Peter DeFazio (D-inc): 53
Art Robinson (R): 39
(MoE: ±4.9%)
OR-05: Moore Information (R) for Scott Bruun (10/13-14, likely voters, no trendlines):
Kurt Schrader (D-inc): 40
Scott Bruun: 44
(MoE: ±5.7%)
PA-15: Muhlenberg (PDF) (10/5-13, likely voters, 9/11-16 in parens):
John Callahan (D): 32 (38)
Charlie Dent (R-inc): 49 (49)
Jake Towne (I): 5 (3)
Undecided: 13 (10)
(MoE: ±5%)
UT-Gov: Dan Jones & Associates for the Deseret News/KSL-TV (10/11-14, “active voters,” 10/7-13 in parens):
Peter Corroon (D): 33 (31)
Gary Herbert (R-inc): 58 (52)
Undecided: 6 (13)
(MoE: ±4%)
Note: The Deseret News says that Dan Jones has also done polling for Herbert. Should we be regarding them as an (R) pollster?
UT-Gov: UtahPolicy.com/Western Wats (9/30-10/3, likely voters, no trendlines):
Peter Corroon (D): 27
Gary Herbert (R-inc): 58
Undecided: 12
(MoE: ±4%)
Note: Dan Jones also has UT-Sen numbers. UtahPolicy.com also has UT-Sen, UT-01, and UT-03 numbers.
VA-05: Roanoke College (10/5-14, likely voters, no trendlines):
Tom Perriello (D-inc): 40
Rob Hurt (R): 46
Jeffrey Clark (I): 1
Undecided: 13
(MoE: ±4.1%)
WI-Gov: St. Norbert College (PDF) for Wisconsin Public Radio (10/12-15, likely voters, 3/23-31 in parens):
Tom Barrett (D): 41 (28)
Scott Walker (R): 50 (44)
Undecided: 6 (17)
(MoE: ±5%)
Margins & Errors: The Fix publishes an alleged WA-Sen poll without either field dates or sample size… Bill Kristol (yeah, that Bill Kristol) claims he has his hands on an OH-10 poll – he has the n, but won’t say the pollster’s name, who paid for the poll, or when it was taken… Pollster.com has a PDF from ccAdvertising with numbers for WV-Sen, WV-01, and WV-03 – but not only does ccA report to hundredths of a percent, they get taken to the woodshed by Mark Blumenthal for refusing to divulge the poll’s sponsor
Fundraising:
Independent Expenditures:
SSP TV:
• AK-Sen: Joe Miller finally fessed up to what we told you about last week (concerning farmland he owned in Alaska): he’s a hypocrite on the farm subsidy issue, having gladly accepted them while railing against them. This time, it’s about a different parcel of farmland in Kansas that he owned before moving to Alaska, receiving $7K in GOVERNMENT HANDOUTS FOR LAZY UNPRODUCTIVE PEOPLE WHO’VE MADE BAD LIFESTYLE CHOICES!!!1! between the years 1990 and 1997. And check out the excuse he offers: “This was back in the ’90s, the situation the country was in was far different than now.” (Uh huh… when some guy named Bill Clinton was running a surplus.)
• DE-Sen: Whoops. Prior to getting their establishment asses handed them to them on the end of a mob-wielded pitchfork, the Delaware state GOP filed a FEC complaint against Christine O’Donnell for illegal campaign coordination with and excessive contributions from the Tea Party Express. Now that they’re saddled with her as the nominee, the FEC is telling them no-backsies, and that they can’t withdraw the complaint… the complaint against their own nominee.
• NC-Sen: And now it’s Richard Burr’s turn in the hypocrisy dunk tank. An announcement of 240 new jobs and a $130 million expansion at Cree Inc. in Durham is drawing four major Democrats and Richard Burr to celebrate. Burr, unlike the Democrats, though, did not support the stimulus package that, y’know, was behind that expansion.
• NV-Sen: John Ensign may not even survive till the general election in 2012, if Jon Ralston’s tweet is to be believed. John Chachas, the little-known self-funder who barely made a ripple in the overcrowded 2010 GOP Senate field but who seems likely to do better in a one-on-one, is saying he may run against Ensign in two years.
• GA-Gov, GA-Sen: Mason-Dixon for Georgia Newspaper Partnership:
Roy Barnes (D): 41
Nathan Deal (R): 45Michael Thurmond (D): 33
Johnny Isakson (R-inc): 52
(MoE: ±4%)
While this isn’t as nice as the InsiderAdvantage poll showing the race tied in the wake of disclosures about Nathan Deal’s financial disarray, Mason-Dixon does show a close race. This appears to be their first poll of the Barnes/Deal matchup, so there’s no sense of whether things have tightened.
• RI-Gov: Faced with the choice between a labor-friendly indie candidate and a Democrat whom they endorsed for state Treasurer four years ago, the AFL-CIO finally decided to punt, and endorse neither Lincoln Chafee nor Frank Caprio, remaining neutral. Recall that Chafee got SEIU and nurses’ union backing yesterday.
• AZ-05: There’s a new internal out in the rematch in Arizona’s 5th that founds its way across someone’s desk at the Hill. It’s from Democratic pollster Harstad Strategic Research and is apparently on behalf of the Harry Mitchell campaign, giving Mitchell a narrow lead over David Schweikert, 45-44 with 6 to the Libertarian candidate. That’s kind of pushing the limits on when it’s a good idea to release an internal, but with Schweikert having claimed an 8-point lead in his own internal and the DCCC’s ambiguous pull-out announcement about this district triggering some alarms, Mitchell seemed to need to show he’s still right in the thick of things.
UPDATE: The Mitchell campaign writes in to clarify that this isn’t their internal poll (which the Hill had originally reported, then apparently deleted), but rather is on behalf of Project New West. Mitchell’s up 51-29 among independents, which helps him prevail even in a sample that’s slightly GOP-skewed (46% GOP, 30% Dem) You can see the polling memo here.
• LA-02: Anzalone-Liszt for Cedric Richmond (9/12-15, likely voters, no trendlines):
Cedric Richmond (D): 45
Joe Cao (R): 35
(MoE: ±4.4%)
Here’s the antidote to that bizarre Joe Cao internal from a few months back, that gave him a 25-point lead over Cedric Richmond. Even this Richmond internal, which has him up by 10, indicates that this isn’t going to be a total cakewalk for the Dems, though; with only 35%, Cao is still way overperforming the GOP baseline in this district that went for Barack Obama with 75% of the vote in 2008.
• MN-01: Tim Walz picked up an endorsement from an unexpected corner yesterday. He got the backing of former Republican Senator David Durenberger, who support Walz’s stance on “uniting people” but also his support for health care reform. (Durenberger is also supporting IP candidate Tom Horner in the governor’s race.)
• PA-15: Muhlenberg College for the Allentown Morning Call (9-11/16, likely voters, 4/19-27 in parentheses):
John Callahan (D): 38 (33)
Charlie Dent (R-inc): 49 (45)
Jake Towne (I): 3 (?)
Undecided: 10 (22)
(MoE: ±5%)
John Callahan’s one of the best Dem challengers to a GOP incumbent this cycle, but he’s got a lot of work ahead of him to make up that last 12 points against Charlie Dent.
• NRSC: Here’s an interesting Roll Call dispatch from the front lines in the war between the NRSC and the Army of One known as Jim DeMint. DeMint is apparently dissatisfied with current NRSC allocations, and is moving money from his own personal stash to bolster Sharron Angle in Nevada ($156K) and Ken Buck in Colorado ($250K). The NRSC has reserved $3.2 million for Buck in TV time, more than any other candidate, so his concerns about Colorado may be misplaced.
• SSP TV:
• IL-Sen: The DSCC hits Mark Kirk for voting against unemployment extensions and minimum wage raises
• MO-Sen: Roy Blunt disappears down the meta rabbithole, with an attack ad about Robin Carnahan’s attack ads
• NV-Sen: Can we just have Harry Reid handle the advertising for all our candidates? He turns up the heat even higher on Sharron Angle, saying she wants to privatize the VA and “end our promise to our veterans”
• IA-Gov: Two separate ads for Chet Culver, one featuring endorsements from his immediate family members, the other making the case that “hey, Iowa’s not that bad off compared to all those other states”
• NM-Gov: Susana Martinez’s ad is a positive bio spot recounting her early prosecuting days
• SC-Gov: Vince Sheheen’s TV ad features a litany of reasons to be suspicious of Nikki Haley, recited by various average folks
• OH-16: The DCCC’s newest spot is a tax-time two-fer, hitting Jim Renacci on supporting the 23% “fair tax” and on his own pile of back taxes owed
• OR-05: Kurt Schrader’s newest is a testimonial from a thankful veteran
• TN-08: Roy Herron’s newest ad hits Stephen Fincher mostly on his various campaign finance discrepancies of misfilings and mysterious loans
• WI-07: Julie Lassa’s newest ad features criticism from a Sean Duffy underling from the DA’s office in Ashland County, focusing on his neglect of that stepping-stone job
• Rasmussen:
• AK-Sen: Scott McAdams (D) 25%, Joe Miller (R) 42%, Lisa Murkowski (W-I-inc) 27%
• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 47%, Carly Fiorina (R) 43%
• NY-Sen-B: Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc) 49%, Joe DioGuardi (R) 39%
• RI-Gov: Frank Caprio (D) 30%, John Robitaille (R) 23%, Lincoln Chafee (I) 33%
• Rasmussen (appearing as Fox/Pulse):
• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 45%, Meg Whitman (R) 45%
• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 47%, Carly Fiorina (R) 46%
• DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 54%, Christine O’Donnell (R) 39%
• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 45%, Sharron Angle (R) 46%
• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 41%, John Kasich (R) 47%
• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 36%, Rob Portman (R) 49%
• PA-Gov: Dan Onorato (D) 39%, Tom Corbett (R) 49%
• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 40%, Pat Toomey (R) 48%
The D-trip is out with four new internal polls showing Democratic incumbents in the lead.
KY-06: Grove Insight for the DCCC (9/7-9, likely voters):
Ben Chandler (D-inc): 52
Andy Barr (R): 38
(MoE: ±4.9%)
NM-02: Anzalone Liszt for the DCCC (9/7-9, likely voters):
Harry Teague (D-inc): 51
Steve Pearce (R): 44
(MoE: ±4.9%)
OR-05: Grove Insight for the DCCC (9/7-9, likely voters):
Kurt Schrader (D-inc): 42
Scott Bruun (R): 29
(MoE: ±4.9%)
PA-12: Grove Insight for the DCCC (9/7-9, likely voters):
Mark Critz (D-inc): 48
Tim Burns (R): 41
(MoE: ±4.9%)
• AZ-Sen: Bad news! For John McCain! J.D. Hayworth still hasn’t conceded. He’s still waiting for those late-breaking absentee ballots to help him make up that oh-so-narrow 56-32 margin, apparently.
• CT-Sen: This doesn’t seem like it’ll end well for Linda McMahon, whose stance on WWE has been that it’s harmless soap opera. Harley McNaught, the father of recently-deceased pro wrestler Lance Cade (who died of heart failure at age 29 in the wake of painkiller addiction), is going on the offense against McMahon in response to her comments that she “might have met him once.” McNaught said that he’d been to several functions with his son where they’d met McMahon and she’d known him by name, and also ripped the company’s “Wellness Program,” which he says was more about PR than about helping employees.
• DE-Sen: There’s no third-party fallback option for teabagger Christine O’Donnell, challenging Mike Castle for the GOP Senate nomination. The Constitution Party had nominated O’Donnell for its ballot line, but didn’t even receive a ballot line after its membership dwindled to 287(!) members. (That’s less than something called the “Blue Enigma Party,” which still qualified for the ballot.) O’Donnell still can mount a write-in campaign after losing the primary to Castle (which she already did in the 2006 race after losing the primary to Jan Ting).
• KY-Sen: Our James L. summed this up pithily: “Douche Day Afternoon.” Losing Dem Senate candidate Dan Mongiardo’s latest statement of semi-support for Jack Conway was that Conway was “not the best” but that “he’s a heck of a lot better” than Rand Paul, whose “scare[s him].”
• PA-Sen, PA-Gov (pdf): The newest Franklin & Marshall poll is another one of their choose-your-own-adventure specials, which shows the dimensions of the enthusiasm gap the Dems are facing, especially in the Keystone State. In the Senate race, Pat Toomey leads Joe Sestak 40-31 among likely voters, but only 31-28 among registered voters, which isn’t much different from where we left off with their last general election poll in May. And in the gubernatorial race, it’s similar, with Tom Corbett leading Dan Onorato 38-27 among LVs, but only 29-28 (probably the best showing I’ve seen in a head-to-head in this race) among RVs.
• FL-Gov: With Hayworth and Murkowski already mentioned today, it’s just turning out to be the big day of GOP disunity and sour grapes all around. While figures like Jeb Bush and state party chair John Thrasher have gotten behind Rick Scott without any major hedging, Bill McCollum is continuing his sulk, flat-out not endorsing Scott.
• KY-Gov: The aptly-named Republican Agriculture Commissioner, Richie Farmer (I guess “Rich Farmer” was a little too overly descriptive), is still mulling over a run for Governor in next year’s off-year election against Dem incumbent Steve Beshear, where early polling has shown he’d be competitive. He’s also been linked to a possible Lt. Gov. bid, as running mate to state Senate president David Williams.
• SC-Gov: In another sign that a chunk of the local political establishment prefers Dem Vincent Sheheen to GOPer Nikki Haley, Sheheen just got the endorsement of 30 mayors around South Carolina. Most of these mayors are in nonpartisan elected positions, although one, Greer mayor Rick Danner, said he was a two-time voter for Mark Sanford.
• VT-Gov: Faced with the unenviable task of certifying her own gubernatorial primary loss, SoS Deb Markowitz says that the final certification of the super-close race in Vermont will be done on next Tuesday. All five candidates appeared amicably at a unity rally yesterday, but only shortly after Doug Racine’s campaign manager called Peter Shumlin’s declaration of victory premature, saying to wait until Tuesday. Shumlin currently leads Racine by 192 votes.
• AL-02: Rep. Bobby Bright caused some hyperventilating today when it came out that, in meeting with constituents, had punted on the issue of whether or not he’d be voting for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker next session. He did so by listing a number of reasons why that might not be an issue, including the decidedly morbid “heck, she might even get sick and die.”
• CA-18: I don’t know who looks worse in this situation, Mike Berryhill (the Republican launching an uphill, but generally credible, challenge to Rep. Dennis Cardoza), or his former campaign consultant John Villareal. Apparently they parted ways in unpleasant fashion, as Villareal blasted Berryhill’s campaign as a lost cause… but did it in the form of a somewhat unhinged-sounding, 25-minute long rant posted to YouTube.
• OH-17: Jim Traficant may still yet be able to beam himself back into Congress. He just got an extension from Jennifer Brunner, giving him more time to prove that he did collect enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot as an independent. He previously got bounced for the ballot for not having enough valid signatures.
• OR-05: Hot on the heels of a too-good-to-be-true internal from Scott Bruun giving him a small lead a few days ago, Rep. Kurt Schrader hauled out his own internal from Lake Research giving him a pretty comfortable lead: 46-35. The poll’s from late July, though, so one wonders if there’s a more recent one that he’s not sharing.
• PA-08: The ubiquitous POS is out with an internal poll on behalf of ex-Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, giving him a 7-point lead (48-41) over Democratic sophomore Rep. Patrick Murphy. Murphy hasn’t been one of the Dems’ top worries in Pennsylvania, but as we’ve seen in recent weeks, the Dem brand in Pennsylvania seems to be waning particularly quickly.
• VA-05: Tom Perriello, in an interesting bit of distancing from national Dems that’s ambiguous enough that it works from both right and left, called for the replacement of Treasury Sec. Timothy Geithner, at a local town hall. He didn’t say who his preferred replacement would be (Robert Reich, anyone?).
• Ads: Lead-off ad of the day is from Alan Grayson in FL-08; the Hotline actually says it makes Grayson look “angelic” and they refer to it as the most positive ad they’ve seen so far from anyone. That Grayson… always zigging when everyone else is zagging. Other Dems out with their first TV ads for themselves today include Kathy Dahlkemper in PA-03, Julie Lassa in WI-07, and Tom Hayhurst in IN-03.
All the GOP ads today are anti-Dem ads being run by third party groups: America’s Future Fund running against Bruce Braley in IA-01, the Heritage Foundation’s lobbying arm against Mike McIntyre in NC-07, and Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity running against Gabrielle Giffords in AZ-08 and a weird two-fer (aimed at the Phoenix market, I guess) attacking both Anne Kirkpatrick and Harry Mitchell in AZ-01 and AZ-05. NWOTSOTB, on any of the ads.
• Rasmussen:
• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 40%, Meg Whitman (R) 48%
• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek (D) 21%, Marco Rubio (R) 40%, Charlie Crist (I) 30%
• UT-Gov: Peter Corroon (D) 29%, Gary Herbert (R-inc) 60%
• UT-Sen: Sam Granato (D) 29%, Mike Lee (R) 54%
• CO-Sen, CO-Gov: ColoradoPols has an interesting question up at their site: who’s crazier, the Republicans’ candidate in the Senate race or the Governor’s race? (In fact, that’s a good question for the comments here… not just Colorado, but for a whole number of other states too.) The DSCC would like the answer to be “Ken Buck,” the whole Dan Maes UN-bicycle-plot thing notwithstanding: they’re out with a new ad working the Paul/Angle-style “too extreme” angle, here focusing on Buck’s support for eliminating the 17th amendment.
• PA-Sen: This is going to be a hard one for Pat Toomey to explain without some high-impact semantic gymnastics. At the Pennsylvania Press Club yesterday, Toomey said “I’ve never said I favor privatizing Social Security.” The DSCC promptly rolled out 36 different newspaper articles in which Toomey favored privatizing Social Security. We Ask America did offer some sustenance for Toomey, though: they find him leading Joe Sestak 48-35.
• FL-Gov: Here’s a bad sign for the Republican Party of Florida (aka RPOF, pronounced “rip-off”), who poured a lot of money into carrying Bill McCollum across the finish line in the primary and will have to keep propping him up for November. They’re down to $54K in their federal campaign finance account (after plowing much of their holdings into outside committees backing McCollum). Maybe they’d been counting on a reimbursement check from disgraced former state party chair Jim Greer to help fill their coffers a bit, but here’s the ultimate ignominy: Greer’s $7K check to reimburse the party for overcharges bounced.
• LA-03: Politico has a preview of the Republican primary in the open seat 3rd (which will be decided this Saturday, don’t forget). Former state House speaker Hunt Downer is pretty universally considered frontrunner, but he faces a double-teabagging from attorney Jeff Landry and engineer Kristian Magar, who are pointing to his decades as a Democrat, and his snubbing of Tea Party events. Downer’s fate could rest on whether he clears the 50% mark and avoids a runoff, as he could face more trouble against just one opponent.
• MI-01, MI-07: It looks like the Tea Party won’t be getting a ballot line in Michigan, after a 2-2 decision by the state’s Board of Canvassers. (The tie means they’re kept off the ballot.) Republicans brought the challenge pointing to possible Democratic involvement in getting the Tea Party on the ballot (to the extent that a member of the Oakland County Dem leadership helped them). This probably has the greatest impact in the competitive races in the 1st and 7th, where the Tea Party had had candidates ready to go (Lonnie Lee Snyder and Danny Davis, respectively), presumably who would eat into the GOP’s vote share.
• NJ-06: Who knew that when Facebook was created that it’d become a preferred venue for leaking internal polls? Anna Little, the surprise victor in the NJ-06 GOP primary, is now touting a poll from National Research showing her trailing Rep. Frank Pallone 40-34.
• OR-05: One other GOP internal poll kicking around today: state Rep. Scott Bruun, is out with a poll via local Republican pollster Bob Moore giving him a 41-38 lead over freshman Rep. Kurt Schrader.
• Ads: The big ad of the day may be Harry Reid’s newest attack on Sharron Angle in NV-Sen, using her own words to seize on her claims that the state aid package was “money laundering.” Ted Strickland in OH-Gov is also out with a new ad, hitting John Kasich again on his ties to Lehman Brothers. Two House members facing credible challenges this year are also out with their first ads of the season: Republican Lee Terry in NE-02, focusing on his hatred of pork, and Democrat Martin Heinrich in NM-01, focusing on his constituent services.
• Outside Money: The Washington Post has a fantastic new little tool, in the form of a sortable chart that keeps track of outside expenditures by unions, Republican front groups, assorted weirdos, and all other manner of interest groups outside the two parties. Fun fact: did you know that Robert Kirkland (who spent $2.1 million) is #5 overall in total IEs for 2010 (on behalf of his brother Ron’s losing GOP primary run in TN-08), more than the Club for Growth, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, or even the DSCC?
• Rasmussen:
• IL-Gov: Pat Quinn (D-inc) 37%, Bill Brady (R) 46%
• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan (D) 40%, Roy Blunt (R) 51%
• OR-Gov: John Kitzhaber (D) 44%, Chris Dudley (R) 45%
• WA-Sen: I’m not sure how this will work, practically speaking, but the two Tea Partiers in the race, rancher Clint Didier and fastener mogul Paul Akers, are “joining forces.” They’ll be doing joint ads and joint online forums for the remaining few weeks. They can’t, of course, be jointly voted-for, so I don’t know what the endgame is, but it probably doesn’t matter, as both have been polling in the single digits in polls of the jungle primary. Apparently, it does give them a better venue for airing their grievances with the GOP establishment’s selection of Dino Rossi as standard-bearer; maybe this way, Akers can distract the ref while Didier puts Rossi in a sleeper hold.
Also on the weird timing front, Washington’s Republican SoS, Sam Reed, is just out with a new book on the 2004 gubernatorial election and the protracted recount and court challenges he oversaw. Relations between Reed and the rest of the state Republicans were severely tested during the recount, seeing as how the scrupulous Reed wanted to, y’know, follow the rules. While the book doesn’t seem to paint Rossi in a terribly unfavorable light, it can’t help but remind everyone of his “perennial candidate” status.
• AZ-Gov: You might recall that NRA board member Owen Buz Mills recently ended his GOP primary campaign against the once-endangered, now-all-powerful Jan Brewer several weeks ago. Well, he’s not quite done, his spokesperson is now saying: he’s going to enter a Rob Simmons-style state of electoral limbo. Mills won’t be spending any more money on the race, but he will leave his name on the ballot. (Other dropouts Dean Martin and John Munger have filed papers of formal withdrawal from the race.)
• OR-Gov, OR-05: Now that Oregon has opted to join New York in the weird world of fusion voting, now it even has its own Independent Party trying to quirkily play it down the middle. Based on its online straw poll of members (with a vote total of a whopping 2,290), the IP gave its backing to Democrat John Kitzhaber in the gubernatorial race, but to Republican state Rep. Scott Bruun in OR-05 (instead of incumbent Dem Kurt Schrader).
• TX-Gov: A number of prominent Dallas business leaders have signed on to a letter announcing their support for Bill White in the gubernatorial race. About half of the signatories, a mix of moderate Republicans and independents, are, in fact, former Kay Bailey Hutchison supporters.
• WY-Gov: I think this trumps her earlier Wilford Brimley endorsement. State auditor Rita Meyer (the only woman in the four-way GOP primary field) got added to Sarah Palin’s stable of Mama Grizzlies late last week.
• AL-02, AL-05: The “generally conservative” Alabama Farmer’s Federation handed out helpful endorsements to two Dems today: not just to Rep. Bobby Bright (who seems to fit their profile well) but also to Steve Raby, running in the 5th. Raby seems well connected with the agriculture world through his former work for ex-Sen. Howell Heflin.
• MI-02, MI-03: A poll for the Grand Rapids Press, taken by Practical Political Consulting, looks at the GOP primaries in the two western Michigan open seats. In the 2nd (Peter Hoekstra’s seat), former NFL player and Family Research Council executive Jay Riemersma has a small lead at 22, followed by former state Rep. Bill Huizenga and teabagging businessman Bill Cooper, both at 15, and state Sen. Wayne Kuipers at 13. In the 3rd (Vern Ehlers’ seat), state Rep. Justin Amash (anointed as chosen one by the DeVos family) leads at 28, followed by African-American state Sen. Bill Hardiman at 23 and ex-Kent Co. Commissioner Steve Heacock (the moderate in the field, and Ehlers’ endorsee) at 17.
• FL-12: We keep mentally writing this race off due to Lori Edwards’ paltry fundraising, and then polling evidence to the contrary shows up. For the second time, the Edwards camp has released an internal poll giving them a lead in this R+6 open seat. Edwards leads GOP ex-state Rep. Dennis Ross 35-32 in a poll taken by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner. The catch here is one of the most legitimate Tea Party candidates anywhere is here: Randy Wilkinson, a Polk Co. Commissioner who briefly sought the GOP nomination before deciding to go the third-party route. Wilkinson polls at 20%, although we’ll have to see if the near-broke Wilkinson can keep those numbers up through November.
• TN-03: Newt Gingrich handed out a last-minute seal of approval in the GOP primary in the 3rd. He’s backing the more-or-less establishment candidate, former state GOP chair Robin Smith. Smith’s main opponent is Chuck Fleischmann, a partly-self-funding attorney who seems tighter with the Mike Huckabee crowd than the teabaggers.
• WA-03: The Beltway media seems to take it as an article of faith that GOP state Rep. Jaime Herrera is going to be Denny Heck’s opponent in November, but David Castillo shouldn’t be counted out. Not being on the ground, they wouldn’t pick up on the general sense of underwhelmingness that seems to surround Herrera, but it seems like they would, at some point, have noticed that nearly all the endorsements of consequence in the district have gone to Castillo. He got endorsements from the newspapers in Vancouver, Longview, and Centralia, as well as the out-of-district Seattle Times. AG Rob McKenna, probably the state’s best-liked Republican, had endorsed Castillo before Rep. Brian Baird’s retirement and Herrera’s entry, but he’s been pointedly sticking by his endorsement, hosting a Castillo fundraiser last week.
• House: Nate Silver’s out with a new toy that SSPers will certainly be interested in: having found that Democratic House candidates tend to overperform vis-à-vis presidential numbers in districts with lower median household income, he’s created a new index that’s a mashup of prez numbers and income, called the Partisan Propensity Index. (He looked at only results in open seat races, which eliminates the main problem with trying to fit House numbers on top of prez numbers, which is the overwhelming staying power of incumbents.) At the end of the day, it’s still not too different from PVI, inasmuch as Chet Edwards has the worst district of any Dem and Joe Cao has the worst district of any GOPer, but it does reflect the reality that suburban Sun Belt districts that are truly swingy at the presidential level are a harder nut for Dems to crack at the House level than rural Appalachian districts that are red at the presidential level.
• Rasmussen:
• NV-Gov: Rory Reid (D) 40%, Brian Sandoval (R) 50%
• OK-Gov: Jari Askins (D) 36%, Mary Fallin (R) 57%
• PA-Gov: Dan Onorato (D) 39%, Tom Corbett (R) 50%
• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 39%, Pat Toomey (R) 45%
• SC-Gov: Vincent Sheheen (D) 35%, Nikki Haley (R) 49%
• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 49%, Dino Rossi (R) 47%
• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 48%, Clint Didier (R) 45%
• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 48%, Paul Akers (R) 42%
• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 45%, Mark Neumann (R) 44%
• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 43%, Scott Walker (R) 50%
• KY-Sen: AG Jack Conway has a new ad up in the Democratic primary, hitting Lt. Gov. Dan Mongiardo for $57K in luxury travel on the taxpayer dime. That might get some attention, but a potentially more interesting story is about decidedly non-luxurious accommodations: Mongiardo has been staying with his in-laws while he’s on the job in Frankfort. The problem with that? He’s still taking his $30K/yr. housing stipend despite not needing to spend it.
• AZ-Gov: Maricopa Sheriff Joe Arpaio is getting kind of like the boy who cried wolf, in terms of his constant expressions of interest in running for Governor that never pan out (the 77-year-old Arpaio been doing so for more than a decade). He’s back in the news today saying he’s looking into the costs of a petition drive, just in case he decides he wants to run this year.
• IL-Gov: If your fellow Republican is publicly criticizing you for being too extreme, you’re probably doing it wrong. Moderate ex-Gov. Jim Edgar (the last Illinois governor to finish his term without the law hot on his heels, and a Kirk Dillard backer in this year’s primary) smacked down state Sen. Bill Brady, saying instead that raising taxes (as Pat Quinn plans to do) is the only way out of the state’s budget mess.
• MN-Gov: State House speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher got a key union endorsement today, from hotel union UNITE HERE. She’s lining up the institutional pieces for the DFL endorsement, which will happen later this month.
• PA-Gov: Ex-Rep. Joe Hoeffel got the endorsement of Planned Parenthood in the Democratic primary in Pennsylvania. (With Hoeffel and state Sen. Anthony Williams the only pro-choice candidates in the field, it probably wasn’t a very tough decision.)
• HI-01: The DCCC has been hitting Charles Djou for signing the Grover Norquist/Americans for Tax Reform no-tax pledge, although they’re doing so in a roundabout way: they’re saying Djou signed a pledge “that protects tax breaks for companies that send jobs overseas” (as the pledge requires opposing the end of any deductions or credits). If the message gets some traction in this testing ground, expect to see more of it in November.
• MN-06: Aubrey Immelman is back. The college professor who ran against Michele Bachmann in the GOP primary in 2008 will try again in 2010, saying “I am a single-issue candidate. That is to defeat Michele Bachmann.” He hasn’t said whether he’ll run in the GOP primary again, though, or as an indie in the general (where he’d bump up against IP candidate Bob Anderson).
• ND-AL: In the wake of strong numbers from Republican opponent state Rep. Rick Berg, Earl Pomeroy released his own numbers today, and they’re good too. Pomeroy raised $407K (to Berg’s $483K), but Pomeroy’s big advantage is in cash on hand; he’s sitting on $1.6 million.
• NY-20: Scott Murphy also posted good fundraising numbers today, as he gears up to face Republican Chris Gibson, who’s only beginning his campaign. Murphy raised $475K last quarter, and has $1.1 million CoH.
• OR-05: Here’s a race where I didn’t even know cat fud was a-flyin’. But if his own poll is to believed, it looks like teabagger Fred Thompson (no, not the former presidential candidate) could steal the nomination from prized NRCC recruit state Rep. Scott Bruun (who’s from the moderate suburban wing of the GOP that used to actually be able to win elections in Oregon). Thompson has a poll from GOP pollster John Feliz showing him leading Bruun by 2% (although specific numbers don’t seem forthcoming). Either one would have an uphill fight against Rep. Kurt Schrader in the general.
• VA-09: One other fundraising highlight from today sees Rep. Rick Boucher girding for a likely battle against GOP state House majority leader Morgan Griffith. Boucher raised $317K for the quarter, not phenomenal although fine for a cheap media district and better than Griffith’s $104K (though Griffith’s fundraising was condensed into the last few weeks of the cycle, after his announcement). After years of facing nobodies or outright nobody, though, Boucher has built up a huge surplus, and is now sitting on just shy of $2 million CoH.
• Vermont: The Green Mountain State is moving up its primary date, in order to comply with national laws intended to make sure that military personnel have time to return their ballots. Gov. Jim Douglas says he won’t veto the new law, passed by the legislature, moving the primary from mid-September to August 24.
• Teabaggers: A Univ. of Washington study of teabaggers in battleground states has some interesting demographic information, and also some data about underlying attitudes that confirm what some of us have been suspecting: it’s largely about racial resentment. People who believe the government “has done too much to support blacks” are 36% more likely to back the teabaggers than those who don’t. And of those who approve of the Tea Party movement, only a minority said that they believe blacks to be “hardworking” (35%), “intelligent” (45%), or “trustworthy” (41%). Here’s the money quote from the study’s author:
“While it’s clear that the tea party in one sense is about limited government, it’s also clear from the data that people who want limited government don’t want certain services for certain kinds of people. Those services include health care,”Parker said.
• Polltopia: While some people (like Markos) have been feeling more optimistic as the enthusiasm gap between the parties narrows, PPP’s Tom Jensen sees the problem persisting even if it’s improving. PPP finds that if the electorate were composed the same as in 2008, they’d have found the Dems in the lead in their recent polls of OH-Sen, PA-Sen, IL-Sen, and WI-Gov. Instead, though, the LV samples pull in a disproportionate number of McCain voters than Obama voters.