Tag: Dino Rossi

• IN-Sen: The Dan Coats rollout is turning into more of a field day for Democratic opposition researchers than the strike-fear-in-the-hearts-of-Democrats moment that Republicans may have hoped for. I’m not even sure what to lead off with… that Coats dissed his own state, saying that North Carolina, where he intended to retire, was a “better place” than Indiana (although Coats’ spokesperson is now saying that Coats intends to “do his part” and sell his $1.8 million waterfront house in Wilmington, NC)… or that Coats has been active in lobbying on behalf of foreign powers, representing India himself, while his firm was lobbying on behalf of extremist hotbed Yemen. I’m starting to wonder if the GOP would actually be better off sticking with the somewhat nuttier and flakier John Hostettler, who isn’t stepping aside for Coats. While Hostettler won’t have Coats’ Beltway money, he at least has the profile to keep the various right-wing weirdo elements (teabaggers, Paulists, the religious right) at fever pitch.

• NV-Sen: I’m not sure which is more of an overstuffed clown car: the Republican Senate field in Arkansas, or Nevada. It looks like one more GOPer may join the fun in Nevada: retired Navy commander Kirk Lippold, whose main claim to fame is commanding the USS Cole when it was attacked (in Yemen).

• NY-Sen: TV talking head and economic conservative Larry Kudlow is “80 or 90%” likely to run against Charles Schumer, according to Kudlow ally John Lakian. Even if he runs, though, it sounds like Kudlow is in no hurry to decide (he wants to keep his TV show as long as possible, which he’d have to give up if he became a candidate). This isn’t the first time Kudlow, a veteran of the Reagan White House, has been the subject of Senate speculation; he was considered a Senate contender way back in the early 90s, before getting derailed by drug and alcohol problems.

• NY-Sen-B: Kirsten Gillibrand is taking aim at Harold Ford Jr.’s associations with Merrill Lynch and the Bank of America. Ford’s camp has had little to say after Gillibrand called for Ford to disclose details of his Merrill Lynch bonuses. Ford, in the meantime, is busy comparing himself to Robert F. Kennedy. How? Well, the liberal establishment opposed him too… or at least Eleanor Roosevelt did… or at least she would have, if she hadn’t in fact died several years before he ran for Senate.

• PA-Sen: Arlen Specter got the endorsement of the statewide Democratic party committee over the weekend, winning a solid majority of the votes, underscoring his establishment support. (Of course, one of his biggest establishment supporters, Ed Rendell, lost the state party’s 2002 endorsement in the gubernatorial race to Bob Casey and went on to win the primary anyway.) Part of the proceedings was a feisty debate between Specter and Joe Sestak, with Specter going hard after Sestak’s number of missed votes in the House recently.

• WA-Sen: Republicans got at least something of an upgrade in the Senate race against Patty Murray: long-time state Sen. Don Benton decided to get into the race. (The best they had so far was ex-NFL player and current teabagger Clint Didier.) Benton has represented the Vancouver suburbs for many years; in fact, his biggest claim to fame is narrowly losing the WA-03 open seat race to Brian Baird way back in 1998. In fact, I’m a little surprised he isn’t looking to the again-open 3rd if he’s going for an upgrade, where he would have a good chance at shoving aside the other less-known GOPers in the field, whereas he faces long odds against Murray unless things go completely kerflooey for the Democrats. Unfortunately, the race is a freebie for Benton; he isn’t up for re-election in 2010, so Dems won’t get a shot at his swingy Senate seat in LD 17. It remains to be seen whether Benton got an official behind-the-scenes green light after nobody better (Dino Rossi, Dave Reichert) was interested in the race, or just that Benton decided to roll the dice regardless.

• RI-Gov: A poll by Fleming & Associates on behalf of WPRI finds that a race between independent ex-Sen. Lincoln Chafee and Democratic state treasurer Frank Caprio is a dead heat: Chafee pulls in 31 and Caprio is at 30, with Republican candidate John Robitaille flailing at 13. AG Patrick Lynch, the other possible Dem nominee, doesn’t fare as well; he loses to Chafee 34-23, with Robitaille at 18.

• HI-01: Hawaii Democrats have avoided a potential problem with the decision of state Sen. Will Espero not to get involved in the still-not-scheduled special election in the 1st. Under Hawaii law, the special election is an all-party, winner-take-all affair, so the worries have been that with two prominent Dems already in the race, a fractured field could allow Republican Charles Djou to sneak through (although the one poll of the race seems to disabuse us of that notion). Neil Abercrombie’s resignation is now scheduled for Feb. 28.

• KS-03: Democrats are pretty much at square one in trying to find a nominee to replace retiring Rep. Dennis Moore. Joe Reardon had been pretty much everyone’s top pick, but Reardon, whose official title is “Mayor/CEO of the Unified Government of Wyandotte County/Kansas City, Kansas,” won’t run. With his mayoral predecessor, Carol Marinovich, also taking a pass, this R+3 seat seems on track to be one of the Dems’ likeliest losses – although Reardon’s demurral may open the door to a candidate from suburban Johnson County instead, which may still work out better since that’s where most of the district’s votes are.

• LA-03: “Entrepreneur” Chris Leopold filed to get into the GOP field in the open seat race in the 3rd, but what may be most noteworthy here is who all hasn’t filed. Attorney Ravi Sangisetty is the only Dem, and while Leopold’s entry brings the GOP field up to 4, the only elected official is state Rep. Nickie Monica. The GOP establishment still seems to be waiting on Hunt Downer, the former state House speaker and current assistant adjutant general of the state’s National Guard. The problem is that few people seem interested in a two-year stint in the House, only to see the 3rd get vaporized due to Louisiana losing a seat for 2012.

• MS-01: Here’s a strange development, considering how much effort the NRCC spent to clear the path for state Sen. Alan Nunnelee: Fox News commentator Angela McGlowan will be running in the GOP primary too. McGlowan kicked off her bid with an appearance at Teabag-o-rama in Nashville this weekend. It looks like the Republican establishment will be trying to prevent McGlowan from getting any traction, as they privately point to her various negatives: having lobbied for Steve Wynn’s gambling empire (not a popular issue in this heavily evangelical area), and claiming an opposition research treasure trove from her past interviews. There’s also a geographical problem: her base (not that a base really matters, as she’s spent little time in the state in years) is the college town of Oxford, which puts her in neither bloc in terms of the Memphis suburbs/Tupelo split in the district.

• NH-01: Former NRC committee member Sean Mahoney, who had earlier thought about and then ruled out a run in the GOP field, is starting to sound interested again. Mahoney (who lost the NH-01 GOP primary in 2002 to Jeb Bradley) dropped out when the NRCC seemed content with Manchester mayor Frank Guinta, but with Guinta’s star fading the wake of mediocre fundraising, he may sense an opening. Compounding that is the recent entry into the primary by businessman Rich Ashooh; Guinta and Ashooh are both from Manchester, so the Portsmouth-based Mahoney may think he can ride the geographical split to victory.

• PA-03: Democratic freshman Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper keeps attracting random money bags challengers, even as none of the district’s elected Republicans seem interested in a promotion. Today it’s yet another one of those freakin’ ophthalmologists: Tom Trevorrow, who kicked off his campaign with $150K out of his own pocket and hired some expensive-sounding consultants.

• SC-01: A swap in races in South Carolina means that there’s the plausible possibility of the Republicans having their first African-American House member since J.C. Watts retired. State Rep. Tim Scott dropped his bid to become the next Lt. Governor, and instead switched over to the open seat race in the 1st, where he’ll face the scions of two prominent political families: Paul Thurmond, and Carroll “Tumpy” Campbell III.

• Minnesota: Minnesota lawmakers are moving up the primary date this fall, in order to better comply with federal law that requires overseas voters get at least 45 days to return their absentee ballots. They’re planning to move the election from September, up to Aug. 10. (This is probably good, in terms of giving the winner of the DFL gubernatorial primary more time to recover from what’s likely to be a giant clusterf@ck.)

• NRCC: The NRCC will unveil more changes to its “Young Guns” program this week, with 14 new entrants to its lowest tier (“On the Radar”) and some promotions to higher tiers as well. They aren’t releasing the full list yet, but some leaked names moving onto the list include state Rep. Scott Bruun in OR-05, former state Rep. David McKinley in WV-01, and ex-Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick in PA-08. We’ll discuss this in more detail once the full list is available.

• CA-Sen (pdf): The Public Policy Institute of California takes a look at the California Senate race, and find it a fairly close-looking race if ex-Rep. Tom Campbell survives the primary against wealthy Carly Fiorina and teabagger-powered Chuck DeVore. Unfortunately, it looks like he’s poised to that, leading Fiorina and DeVore 27-16-8. Barbara Boxer leads Campbell 45-41 in the general, while she leads Fiorina by a more comfortable 48-40 and DeVore 47-39. (By comparison, Boxer leads Campbell by 10 in the most recent sample by the widely-respected Field Poll, who found Campbell leading Fiorina 35-25-6.) Another bit of bad news for Fiorina: apparently people at her former company doesn’t think that much of her. Boxer has received the maximum $10K from Hewlett-Packard’s PAC, while Fiorina has gotten nothing.

• IL-Sen: I don’t know if anyone was banking on Jacob Meister and the 1% of voters he was pulling in, but the wealthy attorney running a quixotic bid folded his hand and threw his backing behind Alexi Giannoulias with only a day to go before the primary. He cited David Hoffman’s negative ads and that Hoffman is “more conservative” than he lets on. PPP’s Tom Jensen also has some thoughts on the Republican primary, wondering why Patrick Hughes fizzled while other tea party-fueled insurgent candidates (Rand Paul) have caught a spark; basically, it has to do with money, and not just one’s own money (with Hughes has lots of) but institutional money (from folks like the Club for Growth) instead.

• KY-Sen: Speaking of Rand Paul, he got a top-drawer endorsement today, from Sarah Palin, as the common cause between teabaggers and Paulists now seems fully stitched-together. (Of course, whether that endorsement translates into dollars is another question, especially with today’s revelation that SarahPAC spent more money buying copies of “Going Rogue” to push it up the best-seller lists than on contributions to actual candidates.)

• NV-Sen: While he hasn’t taken any official steps, Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki is souding more and more like a Republican candidate for the Senate, publicly saying “I can beat Senator Reid.” (And, the implication probably is, that the second-tier odds and ends currently cluttering the race can’t, once the gloves come off.) With Krolicki being courted by the John Cornyn at the NRSC, that’s just arousing the wrath of the anti-establishment set, though, and even some local bigwigs, like ex-Gov. (and current RNC committee member) Bob List, who’s telling Cornyn to back off.

• NY-Sen, NY-Sen-B (pdf): No particular surprises in Marist’s new poll of the Senate landscape in New York, finding that a hypothetical George Pataki challenge, rather than Harold Ford Jr., is the biggest threat to Kirsten Gillibrand. She wins the primary against Ford and Jonathan Tasini 44-27-4. Gillibrand loses to Pataki 49-43, while easily beating the only announced Republican, Port Authority commissioner Bruce Blakeman, 52-30. Ford also loses the general to Pataki, 52-35, while getting past Blakeman 39-35. They even test out the other Senate race, the one no one has been thinking about but that talk show host Larry Kudlow has made some noises about joining. Charles Schumer mops the floor with Kudlow, 67-25.

• WA-Sen: I don’t know if this is going to strike much fear in the heart of Patty Murray, who has flattened three prominent Republican U.S. Representatives over the course of her career, but a poll from Moore Insight (a Republican polling firm in Oregon) clearly designed to lure 2004 and 2008 gubernatorial loser Dino Rossi into the race finds Rossi leading, 45-43. Rossi says “I never say never,” but also says he has “no plans to run for any office at this point.”

• CA-Gov: That same PPIC poll has gubernatorial numbers as well, finding that Jerry Brown shouldn’t take his race for granted either. Former eBay CEO Meg Whitman has moved into commanding position in the GOP primary, between her outrageous spending and the disappearance of Tom Campbell from the race; she leads Insurance Comm. Steve Poizner 41-11 (an improvement from 32-8 in December). Brown leads Whitman by five, 41-36 (he led by 6 in December), while he leads Poizner 44-29. Calitics has some advice on how Brown should engage the race if and when he emerges from his Fortress of Solitude, and also some details on how Poizner isn’t going down without a fight, calling for federal investigation into Whitman’s efforts to push him out of the race.

• MD-Gov: Ex-Gov. Bob Ehrlich seems to be moving closer to a rematch with the man who defeated him in 2006, Democrat Martin O’Malley. He’s been lining up fundraisers and a statewide “listening tour,” although he says he wants to hear what people actually say on said tour before making a decision one way or the other on the race. Another indicator that Ehrlich is likely to run: the only Republican in the race right now, Larry Hogan, a close Ehrlich friend who said he’s get out of the way for Ehrlich and was in the race as something of a placeholder, has ended his campaign, saying that he’s convinced Ehrlich is getting in.

• MI-Gov: Lt. Gov. John Cherry’s withdrawal from the gubernatorial race is certainly different from what we saw Connecticut and Colorado: instead of leading to an instant upgrade, we’re just seeing a lot of confusion, with none of the options seeming that much better. The newest EPIC-MRA poll of the race finds pizza magnate Denise Ilitch in the best position in the scrambled Dem primary, leading state House speaker Andy Dillon and Lansing mayor Virg Bernero 23-8-5, with a majority undecided. AG Mike Cox leads the Republican field, beating Rep. Peter Hoekstra and Oakland Co. Sheriff Mike Bouchard 32-25-16. Specific head-to-head numbers aren’t reported, but Ilitch reportedly trails Cox by 18 and Hoekstra by 7, with Dillon and Bernero faring even worse. (UPDATE: Thanks to RCP, those toplines are: Cox 48, Ilitch 30; Cox 47, Dillon 30; Cox 50, Bernero 28; Hoekstra 42, Ilitch 35; Hoekstra 40, Dillon 32; Hoekstra 45, Bernero 27.)

• PA-Gov: With rich guy Tom Knox suddenly out of the governor’s race, another Philadelphian is looking to fill his void in a Democratic primary dominated by western Pennsylvania figures. State Sen. Anthony Williams has been sounding out the race; he’d be the only African-American in the field.

• AR-03: We’ve already dissected the possible fields in Arkansas’ 1st and 2nd districts, but now that it looks like the 3rd will be vacant too, let’s see who might step up. One top name is John Arthur Hammerschmidt, the son of the guy who held the seat for more than 20 years (and who notably beat a young Bill Clinton many years ago). A possible return engagement by ex-Rep. and ex-DEA head Asa Hutchinson is also mentioned. Other names for the GOP include former US Attorney Bob Balfe, state Rep. Jonathan Barnett, former state Sen. Dave Bisbee, state Sen. Cecile Bledsoe, former state Sen. John Brown, state Rep. Rick Green, city councilor Kurt Maddox, former state Rep. Doug Matoyo, former state Rep. Daryl Pace, current Senate candidate Buddy Rogers, retired general Bernard Skoch, and Rogers mayor Steve Womack. Fayetteville city attorney David Whitaker seems to be the lone Democrat interested in this dark-red district.

• CA-12: Nothing sets off a stampede like an open U.S. House seat in California, where term limits keep people cycling in and out of the state legislature. With Rep. Jackie Speier sounding likely to run for state AG, state sen. Leland Yee, state Assemblyman Jerry Hill, and Assemblywoman Fiona Ma also have said they’re revving up for a run in the Democratic primary in this safely-blue seat.

• LA-02: Rep. Joe Cao seems to have gotten sucked into the downward spiral of direct mail marketing. He raised a pretty good $248K during the last quarter, but somehow managed to spend $283K, meaning he burned $35K and is sitting on only $316K CoH anymore.

• MN-03: Bad news in the 3rd: state Sen. Terri Bonoff, who probably should have been our candidate there in 2008, isn’t going to run there in 2010, instead going for another term in the state Senate. Maureen Hackett and Jim Meffert are facing off for the Democratic nod, but neither of them has Bonoff’s stature in the swingy suburban district.

• NY-15: The Memphis newspaper has an interesting profile of one of the candidates seeking to knock off increasingly-sketchy Rep. Charlie Rangel in the Democratic primary, Harlem community banker Vincent Morgan. What’s the Memphis angle on all this? Morgan is really a Ford; he’s the estranged son of currently imprisoned former state Sen. John Ford, and the cousin of former TN-09 Rep. and current possible NY-Sen candidate Harold Ford Jr. Morgan isn’t close with the family, and prefers to downplay the link.

• PA-08: The minor GOP candidates in the 8th seem to be bailing out, in the wake of the entry of a relative heavyweight, in the form of ex-Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, back to reclaim his seat. Attorney and Iraq vet Dean Malik, who seemed to be as close to a frontrunner as the GOP had pre-Fitzpatrick, dropped out last week and endorsed Fitzpatrick. The self-proclaimed teabagger in the race, Rob Mitchell, also pulled out and threw his support to Fitzpatrick.

• TN-04: Rep. Lincoln Davis had previously made it clear that he was running again, but it’s official today: he filed his paperwork for another run. That’s gotta be a relief for the DCCC, already trying to plug two holes in TN-06 and TN-08.

• TX-23: Former Bexar Co. Commissioner Lyle Larson, who torpedoed the GOP’s preferred candidate (Quico Canseco) in the 2008 primary and then went on to get swamped by Rep. Ciro Rodriguez in the general, won’t be running again this year. Instead, he’s getting into an open seat race for a Texas state House seat instead, giving Canseco a clearer shot this time.

• WV-01: A last-minute primary challenge to Rep. Alan Mollohan sneaked in, and it’s a rather serious one, from long-time state Sen. Mike Oliverio. Oliverio is giving up his Senate seat this year, maybe in hopes that Mollohan would retire; when Mollohan filed for re-election anyway, he may have figured he had nothing to lose by running anyway (although with Mollohan’s ethical cloud having been recently lifted, I’m not sure what Oliverio’s angle would be anymore). Also worth noting: state Sen. Clark Barnes, considering a leading GOP challenger, didn’t even file to run, apparently thinking better of it after the party started touting former state Rep. (and more importantly, potential self-financer) David McKinley instead. (You can check out all the Kentucky and West Virginia filings action in benawu‘s new diary.)

• Facebook: Which political website are you? If you answered “Swing State Project,” you can become a fan of us on Facebook and get regular updates in a largely quiz-free environment.

SurveyUSA (10/30-11/2, likely voters, 10/26-27 in parentheses):

Chris Gregoire (D-inc): 52 (50)

Dino Rossi (R): 46 (48)

(MoE: ±3.9%)

Right after Strategic Vision joined in the party of everyone calling the Washington governor’s race a 50-48 race, along comes SurveyUSA throwing a pretty big curveball, one that shows a lot of last-minute movement to Gregoire.

As with the previous SUSA poll, Gregoire has a sizable edge with early voters, and in this poll, 72% of likely voters have in fact voted… and Gregoire leads by 8 among early voters. Rossi is tied among those who plan to vote at the polls, but that’s no path to victory.

Oddly enough, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer just had a story about how early voting seems to favor Rossi, as the heaviest rates of submissions of mail-in ballots are in red counties. However, their analysis has no way of knowing what’s actually on the ballots (there’s no party registration or Voting Rights Act recordkeeping in Washington)… and this poll, assuming it’s correct, would suggest that the red counties are going more for Gregoire than they did last time. That’s especially because the state’s two biggest blue counties, King and Pierce, are the only counties left that still use polling locations.

SurveyUSA also polled some downballot issues:

Attorney General: McKenna (R-inc) 59, Ladenburg 36

Superintendent of Public Instruction: Dorn (NP) 45, Bergeson (NP-inc) 37

Commissioner of Public Lands: Sutherland (R-inc) 48, Goldmark (D) 42

Initiative 985 (some Tim Eyman-sponsored crap about traffic): Yes (bad) 33, No (good) 45

Initiative 1000 (physician-assisted suicide): Yes 55, No 40

Univ. of Washington (10/27-30, registered voters, 10/18-26 in parens):

Chris Gregoire (D-inc): 50 (51)

Dino Rossi (R): 48 (45)

(MoE: ±5%)

This, my friends, is change you can xerox. University of Washington gets the last word in polling the Washington governor’s race, and rather than make a bold statement like the 6-point lead they saw several weeks ago, they’ve settled on the exact same 50-48 result that SurveyUSA and Rasmussen reported last week. (Strategic Vision, always the unpredictable rogues, went with 49-47 instead.) Unsurprisingly, the final Pollster composite for this race is 50-48.

Ordinarily, a 2-point lead going into election day would be ominous, but given how flat the trendlines have been all year and how dug-in voters’ heels seem to be, Gregoire can probably start breathing a little easier. As a bonus, Obama leads McCain 51-39 in the same sample.  

SurveyUSA (10/26-27, likely voters, 10/12-13 in parentheses):

Chris Gregoire (D-inc): 50 (48)

Dino Rossi (Prefers GOP Party): 48 (47)

(MoE: ±4%)

Yesterday I commented, in relation to the UW poll that gave Chris Gregoire a 6-point edge, that national pollsters insist on seeing this as a 1-2 point game, but local pollsters see a wider spread. Well, like clockwork, SurveyUSA rolled in today with a 50-48 spread (in fact, the third time they’ve come up with a 50-48 tally).

This poll is interesting for one reason, though: SurveyUSA this time asked the ‘already voted’ question. 54% of the respondents have already voted, and of them, they’re going for Gregoire at a 53-46 ratio (with 1% undecided!). The remaining likely voters are breaking for Rossi 50-47, but as you can see from the topline, there just aren’t enough of them to win it for him. One other crosstab that I found nice to see: self-described moderates go for Gregoire 57-42, meaning they aren’t buying Rossi’s innocuous sales patter. (Obama is destroying McCan’t upticket, 56-39.)

Univ. of Washington (10/18-26, likely voters, 10/22-28/2007 in parentheses):

Chris Gregoire (D-inc): 51 (47)

Dino Rossi (Prefers GOP Party): 45 (42)

(MoE: ±4%)

Here’s another Washington governor’s race poll, this time from the University of Washington, from whom we haven’t heard anything in a year. (Obama’s up in the same sample, 55-34.) Note how consistent the trendlines are, though; more fuel for my argument that people made their minds up about this race 4 years ago. So, to recap, we have this conundrum: the national pollsters (SurveyUSA and Rasmussen) keep seeing this as a 1-2 point race, while the locals (Elway and UW) keep giving Gregoire a comfortable margin.

UPDATE: Promising tidbit: Dino Rossi must undergo deposition before Election Day, regarding the lawsuit attacking the coordinated spending between the state party and the Building Industry Association of Washington.

Rasmussen (10/22, likely voters, 10/2 in parens):

Chris Gregoire (D-inc): 50 (48)

Dino Rossi (Prefers GOP Party): 48 (48)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Ordinarily, there would be no reason to pay much attention to a 2-point shift in a close race, other than as statistical noise. This race, though, has been a game of inches throughout, and has seen very little fluctuation, as most voters seem to have just locked in their preferences following the super-close 2004 election.

This may represent Gregoire being able to finally grab hold of Obama’s coattails for a last-minute boost, small as it may be. (The most recent Elway Poll may confirm this; while the overall spread there seems way too optimistic, it certainly measured movement in her direction.) It may be that Gregoire (or NARAL, on her behalf) finally found an advertising groove that works, hitting Rossi on being pro-life (a fact previously unknown to a surprisingly large number of moderate suburban women voters). Or, as always, it may just be float within the MoE.

Elway (10/16-19, registered voters, 9/8-10):

Chris Gregoire (D-inc): 51 (48)

Dino Rossi (Prefers GOP Party): 39 (44)

(MoE: ±5%)

This comes as a bit of a surprise: after month upon month of ties and minuscule Gregoire leads in Rasmussen and SurveyUSA polling (with a brief boomlet for Rossi during the peak of Palinmania), local pollster Elway shows up with a poll with Gregoire blowing off the doors with a 12-point lead.

Interestingly, Gregoire seems to be picking up a bit of Republican support. Gregoire is supported by 85% of Democrats (which is consistent with other polls I’ve seen, and pointed to her main problem: holding down the number of Obama/Rossi ticket-splitters), but Rossi may have lost a bit of his headlock on the state’s Republicans, as this poll reports his support among GOP Partiers as only 87%.

I can’t tell from the writeup whether this poll identified Rossi as “Republican” or “prefers GOP Party,” as he appears on the ballot (last time around, Elway tested it both ways and found that Rossi performed significantly better when identified as “GOP” rather than “Republican”); if Elway used only “Republican” this time, that may be what’s making the difference here. Although Elway has an excellent reputation in Washington political circles, their numbers have tended to be quite different from the robo-pollers; we’ll have to wait till Election Day to see who has the better model.

SurveyUSA (9/21-22, likely voters, 9/21-22 in parentheses):

Chris Gregoire (D-inc): 48 (50)

Dino Rossi (R): 47 (48)

(MoE: ±4.3%)

Nothing ever seems to budge the numbers in this race: the financial crisis, the implosion of Team McCain (the same sample finds Obama is up 56-40 in Washington, so Obama’s adding to his lead without extending coattails), allegations of illegal campaign coordination between Rossi and the builders’ lobby, nothing. Gregoire maintains her tiny edge from the previous SUSA poll, as the numbers bounce around within the margin of error.

Part of this, as both Matt Stoller and I discussed in our ruminations on what’s the matter with WA-08, is that Washington seems less affected by the economic downturn than most other places, leaving people less eager to dissociate with the Republicans as has happened at a national level. But also, as I’ve said repeatedly, people’s minds were already made up about this year’s race four years ago during the protracted recount, and the long-term hardened attitudes explain why undecideds are always so low in this race.

UPDATE: The GOP just money-bombed this race; the numbers are huge. The BIAW (Building Industry Association of Washington) just pumped in $4 million, and the Republican Governor’s Association put in another $3.5 million. That brings Rossi’s cash haul to date, including all independent expenditures, up to $22 million (compare with Gregoire’s $16 million). The ads are already at a complete saturation point, so I don’t know how much more effective that will be in swaying that last 2-3% of undecideds, but damned if they aren’t going to go all in, trying to do it.

Rasmussen (10/2, likely voters, 9/10 in parentheses):

Chris Gregoire (D-inc): 48 (46)

Dino Rossi (GOP Party): 48 (52)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Last month’s Rasmussen poll showing Republican challenger Dino Rossi suddenly shooting up to a 6-point lead (from the within-a-point-or-two stasis that had reigned almost all year) probably resulted in a lot of pants-soiling among Washington Dems. Well, I have no idea if that poll was a fleeting snapshot of Palinmania at its most fervent, or just one of Rasmussen’s occasional weird gyrations, but everything seems to have returned back to normal in the Washington gubernatorial race. (FWIW, the last Rasmussen presidential poll had Obama up by only 2, while today’s sample has him up 53-43.)

This poll was taken shortly after Builder-gate broke into the public consciousness, so it appears that Builder-gate has yet had little if any impact on the race, despite hopes that it might give Rossi a black eye… not that I would expect it to, as it turns on arcane aspects of state campaign finance law rather than anything sexy (or easily comprehensible). And while it does serve to make Rossi look a little sleazier, there are (as the latest poll shows) very few undecideds left to be swayed by a little more sleaze.

However, as of a few hours ago, Washington’s Republican Attorney General, Rob McKenna, just filed suit against Washington’s Republican Party for its involvement in the matter. So this will linger around on local newspapers’ front pages for a little while longer…

Here’s a relatively short introduction to Builder-Gate, courtesy of Goldy at Horse’s Ass, who, as he often does, beat the Seattle Times and Seattle Post-Intelligencer in breaking the story:

Rossi was an active participant in the [Building Industry Association of Washington]’s illegal fundraising scheme… a scheme for which the [Public Disclosure Commission] found the BIAW guilty of multiple “egregious” violations of Washington’s campaign finance and disclosure laws, and which is now being prosecuted by the Attorney General’s office.

But it is important to note that even if the BIAW had scrupulously conducted its campaign within the letter of the law (and it didn’t), Rossi would still be guilty of a major violation of our campaign statutes, for it is absolutely positively 100% illegal (not to mention grossly unethical) for a candidate to coordinate activities with an independent expenditure campaign.