Tag: FL-Sen

Ipsos for Miami Herald and St. Petersburg Times (pdf) (8/6-10, registered voters, 7/9-11 in parens):

Alex Sink (D): 30 (31)

Bill McCollum (R): 26 (30)

Bud Chiles (I): 12 (12)

Undecided: 29 (24)

Alex Sink (D): 29 (31)

Rick Scott (R): 30 (34)

Bud Chiles (I): 14 (13)

Undecided: 26 (16)

(MoE: ±4%)

The newest Ipsos poll in Florida finds Alex Sink gaining a little ground over her Republican opponents since last month, as they’ve continued to turn each other even more radioactive in their battle. However, unlike Mason-Dixon‘s gubernatorial poll from this week, they find Rick Scott matching up better with Sink than does McCollum… recall that Mason-Dixon showed a competitive Sink/McCollum race, but Sink demolishing Scott as the Medicare fraud story finally seemed to sink in with voters.

GOP primary numbers, with trendlines from 5/14-18:

Rick Scott (R): 42 (22)

Bill McCollum (R): 32 (46)

Undecided: 23 (25)

(MoE: ±5.9%)

There’s also a big difference here between Ipsos and Mason-Dixon, in the GOP gubernatorial primary. Mason-Dixon found McCollum shooting back into the lead 34-30, but here Ipsos gives Scott a solid lead like nothing has happened. (You’ll note the trendlines make it look like Scott is surging, but those go all the way back to May when Scott was just getting started.)

For what it’s worth, though, there are two new Republican polls out in the last few days that suggest that Mason-Dixon is on the right track. Neither one is for the McCollum camp, although they’re both for McCollum allies. A Tarrance poll for the Florida Medical Association (taken 8/10-12) gives McCollum a 44-40 lead. And a McLaughlin & Associates poll for the Chamber of Commerce (taken 8/11-12) gives McCollum a pretty wide lead, at 45-33.

Ipsos Senate numbers, trendlines from 7/9-11:

Kendrick Meek (D): 17 (17)

Marco Rubio (R): 29 (28)

Charlie Crist (I): 33 (35)

Undecided: (20)

Jeff Greene (D): 19 (18)

Marco Rubio (R): 30 (29)

Charlie Crist (I): 32 (34)

Undecided: 19 (19)

(MoE: ±4%)

Last month’s Ipsos Senate numbers were pretty favorable to Charlie Crist, some of the best numbers he’d put up since his big switcheroo. There’s a little regression to the mean here this time, although he’s still in the lead in both Kendrick Meek and Jeff Greene matchups. Or is there some actual movement toward Marco Rubio going on? (See the Mason-Dixon poll below.)

Dem primary numbers, with trendlines from 5/14-18:

Jeff Greene (D): 35 (9)

Kendrick Meek (D): 31 (33)

Maurice Ferre (D): 4 (10)

Undecided: 30 (41)

(MoE: ±6.4%)

With the Dem primary fast approaching, Ipsos still sees a huge number of undecideds. They give Jeff Greene, of vomit-coated yacht fame, a small lead over Kendrick Meek. So Greene’s on track to win, right? Well, maybe not. (Again, see the Mason-Dixon numbers below.)

Mason-Dixon (pdf) (8/9-11, likely voters, 5/3-5 in parens):

Kendrick Meek (D): 18 (19)

Marco Rubio (R): 38 (32)

Charlie Crist (I): 33 (38)

Undecided: 11 (11)

Jeff Greene (D): 12 (NA)

Marco Rubio (R): 38 (NA)

Charlie Crist (I): 39 (NA)

Undecided: 11 (NA)

(MoE: ±4%)

We’ve already posted about the surprising gubernatorial results from Mason-Dixon, but these are also surprising, because they’re the first non-Rasmussen pollster in a while to give an edge to Marco Rubio (at least in a Kendrick Meek matchup). Of all pollsters, they seem to pick up on the biggest disparity in how Meek and Greene perform: and here, it’s Greene who underperforms dramatically (compared with Meek), enough to throw the election to Crist. Crist clearly understands the dynamics and is further hitching his hopes to the Democratic wagon, as seen with his announcement yesterday that he supports Barack Obama’s support for construction of the mosque near Ground Zero.

Dem primary numbers, with trendlines from 8/2-4:

Kendrick Meek (D): 40 (33)

Jeff Greene (D): 26 (29)

Maurice Ferre (D): 5 (5)

Undecided: 28 (31)

(MoE: ±5%)

As I alluded to above, we have a very different result here in the Dem primary from Mason-Dixon, who show Meek starting to run away with it. So, with the Florida primary only a little more than a week away, we have agreement between Ipsos and Mason-Dixon on… absolutely nothing.

• CO-Sen: On the Democratic side, we have a heart-warming love-in between Michael Bennet and Andrew Romanoff, bitter rivals until about 48 hours ago. Romanoff said supporting Bennet was “an easy call,” while Bennet praised Romanoff for his stances on the issues, especially campaign finance reform. On the Republican side, well, there are no plans for a comparable unity event between Ken Buck and Jane Norton. Buck did raise some eyebrows with news that he went the full-on Paulist last year, though, lauding the gold standard and saying the main thing that would keep us from doing it is because there isn’t enough gold available to do so (well, maybe we could stimulate the economy by hiring hundreds of thousands of grizzled prospectors to go out and find us that gold…).

• DE-Sen: Is this a sign of unprecedented confidence in Delaware, as the GOP is spinning it… or worries that they need to bolster their preferred candidate Mike Castle, over unelectable-in-November Christine O’Donnell in the primary? The national party is sending three full-time staffers to work on the ground game in Delaware, which is three more than they do most cycles.

• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek is out with an internal poll from Diane Feldman, giving him an 8-point lead over Jeff Greene, 38-30, after a week in which Greene’s yacht (and the vomit that it was caked with) seemed to be the main story figuring in the press about the Senate race this week. (Perhaps confirming these numbers: Greene is now engaged in the last refuge of a guy about to lose a race, which is to start threatening libel suits, here against the St. Petersburg Times for its look into his real estate transactions.) Meek’s also bolstered by two new anti-Greene IEs for TV spots, for a total of $260K from “Florida Is Not For Sale.”

• KY-Sen: The GOP seems to have let Rand Paul off his leash a little in the last few weeks, but between his Fancy Farm performance and some new items, they may be rethinking a return to his undisclosed location. Paul just said that eastern Kentucky’s drug problem (where meth runs rampant and marijuana growth is common) is not “a pressing issue,” and he topped that off by ditching local affiliate Fox reporters after taping a national Fox TV appearance in Lexington, in their own studio.

• PA-Sen: If you’ve been wondering where the DSCC was going to launch its first IEs of this year, Pennsylvania seems like it’s a good place to start. They’re spending $452K on running an ad highlighting Pat Toomey’s Wall Street background (good for 300 GRPs in Philly, 400 in Pittsburgh, and more in selected smaller markets). This will let Joe Sestak focus on marshalling his resources, as is his wont, while keeping the pressure on Toomey, who’s been advertising continually.

• SC-Sen: In case you were wondering if South Carolina could get any more farcical, Dem nominee Alvin Greene just finally got indicited on his pending obscenity charges for showing porn to a college student in a computer lab. I have no idea what the trial’s timetable is, but maybe Dems could actually get a new candidate in there if he’s convicted before November?

• CO-Gov: Ruh roh. The Colorado rumor mill has Dan Maes, the guy who swore he wouldn’t drop out, meeting with the state GOP about… dropping out. They’ve already been conspicuous in their silent non-support of Maes, who won Tuesday’s primary. Despite the meeting, though, Colorado Pols still seems to think that the posture from the Maes camp is one of a man who isn’t dropping out, and he’s meeting with them to try and get some additional support. At any rate, something would need to happen by Sep. 3, at which point the November ballot is finalized.

• MD-Gov: Fundraising numbers are out in Maryland. Republican Bob Ehrlich has almost kept pace with Dem incumbent Martin O’Malley over the course of this year, with Ehrlich raising $3.2 million and O’Malley raising $3.3 million in ’10 (and O’Malley couldn’t fundraise until April, because of the legislative session). O’Malley’s been building up funds for a longer time, though; O’Malley’s CoH advantage is 3:1, with $6.7 million banked compared to $2 million for Ehrlich.

• WY-Gov: Hmmm, this should turn the dominant media narrative about next week’s Wyoming GOP gubernatorial primary into “OMG! Palin/Bush proxy battle!” The Bush in question, though is George H.W. (41) Bush, who extended an endorsement today to Colin Simpson, the state House speaker and son of his long-time pal ex-Sen. Alan Simpson.

• MI-01: The final count’s over in MI-01, and it’s Dan Benishek by a whopping 15 votes, over state Sen. Jason Allen. The ball’s in Allen’s court now; he has until Sunday morning to file a written request for a recount that would need to allege mistakes or fraud.

• TX-17: Here’s an interesting stance from Republican challenger Bill Flores, especially considering this is a red enough district that it may be one of the few places in the country where John Boehner has positive ratings. But in response to questions whether he’d support His Orangeness for Speaker if the GOP had a majority in the House, Flores ducked the question, saying he’d cross that bridge if he got elected.

• Rasmussen:

• CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 43%, Dan Maes (R) 31%, Tom Tancredo (I) 18%

• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal (D) 47%, Linda McMahon (R) 40%

• GA-Gov: Roy Barnes (D) 42%, Nathan Deal (R) 51%

• MN-Gov: Mark Dayton (D) 45%, Tom Emmer (R) 36%, Tom Horner (I) 10%

• CT-Sen: This may be the first time we’ve ever linked to Jezebel, but they have a nice deconstruction of the public face of the new image that Linda McMahon has built up for herself, and its complicated relationship to the WWE, the source of the millions that Linda McMahon plans to spend on her Senate bid. (Although I wish they’d focused more on the behind-the-scenes stuff: the steroids, the lack of health care, the union-busting, and so on…)

• KY-Sen: Is this really the kind of headlines that Rand Paul (or any candidate, for any office) would want to be seeing today? “Woman Says Paul Did Not Kidnap Her,” and “Paul Apologizes for Fancy Farm Beer Flub.” The former story isn’t that surprising, in that Paul’s college acquaintance clarifies that the whole let’s-tie-her-up-make-her-smoke-pot-and-pray-to-a-graven-idol thing was more of a consensual hazing than an out-and-out kidnapping (of course, other than the “kidnapping” semantics, all that Bong Hits for Aqua Buddha stuff still seems to stand). The latter story has its roots in Paul’s worries that the audience at the Fancy Farm church picnic (the same ones who got the vapors last year when Jack Conway used the words “son of a bitch”) were going to start throwing beer at him – even though the event was dry. Having realized that you don’t go around dissing politically-legendary church picnics unless you have the political instincts of a brick, Paul later apologized.

• LA-Sen: Southern Media & Opinion Research finds that David Vitter leads Charlie Melancon 46-28, not much changed since their last poll from spring, where Vitter led 49-31. They also take a look at the Republican Senate primary, finding (as did POS a few weeks ago) that Chet Traylor is really turning into something of a paper tiger: Vitter leads Traylor 78-4! They also do a quick look at the jungle-style Lt. Governor special election, giving the lead to current Republican SoS Jay Dardenne at 26.

• OR-Gov: Well, it seems like the John Kitzhaber campaign has finally acknowledged what the blogosphere realized a while ago, that it’s time to shake things up and bring in a more feisty and uptempo approach. That’s hopefully what they’re doing with a new campaign manager, Patricia McCaig. Interestingly, McCaig is a former right-hand woman to ex-Gov. Barbara Roberts, who Kitzhaber shoved over in 1994 and whose relations with Kitz have been rocky since then.

• AZ-03: Will today’s double-whammy be enough to knock Ben Quayle out of his seeming frontrunner position in the GOP primary in the 3rd? Rocked by controversy over having denied and then having gotten outed as having written pseudonymously for sleazy local website DirtyScottsdale.com (a forerunner to today’s TheDirty.com), he’s out with a TV spot that he hopes will take some of the heat off. Unfortunately for him, the ad seems to have gotten an almost universally derisive reaction, based on his odd combination of hyperbolic claims (“Barack Obama is the worst president in history”), slow, droning delivery, and strange robotic motions.

• IA-03: When we moved Leonard Boswell in the 3rd to Tossup a few weeks ago, we weren’t fooling around. A second Republican poll was released today giving his GOP challenger, state Sen. Brad Zaun, a decent-sized lead: Victory Enterprises, on behalf of the Polk County GOP and not the Zaun camp, finds a 45-38 lead for Zaun. (There was also a June poll giving Zaun a 41-32 lead. It was also by Victory Enterprises, and shared the same Republican-friendly party ID composition, but that one was for the Zaun campaign.)

• OR-05: He’s Scott Bruun, and he drives a truck. He also supports privatizing Social Security. Or doesn’t he? Bruun has reversed himself several times on how he frames the issue, depending on who his audience is, but either way, he seems to be relying on the Paul Ryan roadmap for his ideas.

• Passages: Here’s a sad bookend to yesterday’s death of Ted Stevens: today’s death of another legendary, long-time Congressman who was a master at horse-trading and pork-wrangling, this one from the other side of the aisle. Former Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, one of the biggest Democratic names to fall in 1994, died at age 82.

• Rasmussen:

• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek (D) 21%, Marco Rubio (R) 38%, Charlie Crist (I) 33%

• FL-Sen: Jeff Greene (D) 20%, Marco Rubio (R) 36%, Charlie Crist (I) 37%

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 40%, Mark Kirk (R) 40%

• TN-Gov: Mike McWherter (D) 31%, Bill Haslam (R) 56%

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold (D-inc) 46%, Ron Johnson (R) 47%

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold (D-inc) 48%, Dave Westlake (R) 39%

There’s been a whole lot of OMG! today online about a new polling memo from Republican pollster POS on behalf of American Crossroads, the new one-stop-shopping Karl Rove 527 emporium for attack ads, message testing, and the like. Taegan Goddard, in particular, seems to have fallen prey to the way the memo is deviously worded, titling a post “Senate Up For Grabs?” and saying the poll “shows Republican U.S. Senate candidates averaging a high single-digit lead over their Democratic opponents in 13 states with close races — suggesting Democrats might lose control of the chamber in this fall’s elections.”

Um, yeah. Except that’s not 13 Democratic-held seats. The poll is of five GOP-held seats and eight Dem-held seats, but without topline numbers for any seat. It’s a poll of smaller-than-useful samples in a bunch of different competitive races, globbed together into bigger numbers. The numbers still seem outlandish at first, with a 45-37 advantage for the GOP in the GOP-held seats, and a 47-40 advantage for the GOP in Dem-held seats. But then, looking a little deeper, you notice that those Dem-held seats include Arkansas, Delaware, and Indiana, where the GOP currently has large leads, tipping the scales’ balance against the Dems in those other Dem-held seats.

To unpack this, I looked at today’s Pollster.com rolling averages of each of these races, and averaged those out within each category to see what it looks like. For instance, for their five GOP-held seats, you have FL-Sen (using Meek vs. Rubio) at 15-32, KY-Sen at 43-45, MO-Sen at 44-48, NH-Sen (using Hodes vs. Ayotte) at 39-48, and OH-Sen at 41-43. That averages out to a 36-43 deficit for the Dems in those races altogether, not much different from POS’s 37-45 figure. And in the eight Dem-held seats, there’s AR-Sen at 34-57, CO-Sen (using Bennet vs. Buck) at 43-45, DE-Sen at 36-50, IL-Sen at 42-41, IN-Sen at 31-50, NV-Sen at 45-43, PA-Sen at 41-45, and WA-Sen at 49-47. That averages out to a 40-47 GOP advantage… remarkably, the exact same number that POS comes up with.

So my response to all this is: so what? If you go by the Pollster.com averages (and I wouldn’t necessarily, as these are heavily determined by Rasmussen numbers and rely heavily on the large disparity between Rasmussen and other pollsters in OH, PA, and CO), they show Dems poised to lose six seats (throwing in ND-Sen, so far gone that they didn’t bother polling it)… and gain one, assuming Charlie Crist dances with them that brung him and caucuses with the Dems… which would be a Rasmussen-style-worst-case-scenario net loss of five. Which is simply no different from what any other prognosticator, including us, would expect. So Karl Rove’s The Math (TM) looks like it may actually be correct for the moment… but is it telling us anything that we don’t already know?

• 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%

CO-Sen: In yet another example of the perils of Citizens United, Americans United for Life, a non-profit anti-abortion group, is endorsing GOPer Jane Norton. Worry not, circular firing squad enthusiasts, as other pro-life groups endorsing Norton’s more conservative rival Ken Buck are already hitting back promoting Buck as the pro-lifest option.

FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek, seeking to stanch the bleeding of support to Jeff Greene in the Democratic primary, has released an internal poll showing him leading by the slimmest of margins, 36-35, with 8% going to Maurice Ferre and 20% undecided. Meek has three events planned with the Big Dog in the coming weeks – which isn’t surprising given Meek did endorse Hillary Clinton for President in 2008.

KY-Sen: Braun Research (8/2-4, likely voters):

Jack Conway (D): 31

Rand Paul (R): 41

Undecided: 28

(MoE: ±3.46%)

Braun Research is out with another poll in Kentucky, showing a result consistent with other pollsters of a slight lead for mountain-hater Rand Paul.

NV-Sen: Sharron Angle’s Tour de Crazy continues, as she’s now bandying about criticizing gay adoption (which is legal in Nevada) and advocating for the right of religious officials to endorse political candidates – which flies squarely in the face of Section 501(c)(3) of the tax code.

CO-Gov: Former state legislator Tom Wiens – last seen briefly running for the Senate seat currently held by Michael Bennet – may have set his sights on the Governor’s race as a post-primary option given the utter fail of both GOPers on the ballot, Scott “plagiarist” McInnis and Dan “lien collector” Maes. Wiens claims to have already voted for Scott McInnis, but his follow-up statement that “I voted for Scott McInnis and let’s hope things work out” is hardly a ringing endorsement.

MN-Gov: Target’s CEO, Gregg Steinhafel, is apologizing for the company’s recent $150,000 to the shadowy right-wing group Minnesota Forward, which was last seen airing ads in support of the waitstaff-hating, gay-bashing, Christian conservative-cozy GOP nominee, Tom Emmer. The irony in all of this, of course, is that Target is the successor to the Dayton-Hudson Corporation…to which Democratic gube-hopeful Mark Dayton is an heir.

AL-05: With many of their members at risk in November, the Blue Dog Coalition senses an opportunity to add to their ranks here, endorsing Dem nominee Steve Raby. The Blue Dog Coalition goes way back in this northern Alabama district, as Bud Cramer – who held this seat until 2008 – was a co-founder of the coalition.

ID-01: It’s hard to to tell who’s campaign’s been more amusing, Bill Sali’s or Raul Labrador’s. The normally GOP-leaning Idaho Associated General Contractors – who even endorsed Bill Sali in 2008 – are opting for Dem Walt Minnick, even citing Minnick’s opposition to the stimulus as a point of reservation for the group.

TN-08: The dust’s hardly settled from last night’s bloody GOP three-way…primary, which has fortunately allowed Democratic nominee state Sen. Roy Herron to build up a huge financial advantage. Outside groups are stepping in though, with the conservative-leaning 60 Plus Association dropping $240k in ad buys against Herron in the Memphis, Jackson, and Nashville markets.

VA-05: To the disappointment of cat fud lovers everywhere, the teabaggish Jim McKelvey – despite his earlier reluctance – is endorsing the man who beat him in the primary, “moderate” state Sen. Robert Hurt. Fortunately, there’s still the teabagging independent in this race, Jeff Clark.

WA-08: In a major surprise, the Seattle Times has decided not to endorse incumbent GOPer Dave Reichert, criticizing his constant nay-saying. The Times – which has endorsed Reichert in the past – is instead opting for Microsoft exec Suzan DelBene (D) and Expedia senior manager Tim Dillon (R) in Washington’s unusual top two primary.

Polling: Daily Kos, after having fired their pollster Research 2000, is back in the polling game, to the delight of Swingnuts everywhere. While Daily Kos has yet to decide on a national pollster, they’ve settled on the always reliable Public Policy Polling for state-level horserace polling.

Rasmussen:

CA-Gov: Brown (D) 43%, Whitman (R) 41%

MI-Gov: Bernero (D) 37%, Snyder (R) 49%

NC-Sen: Marshall (D) 40%, Burr (R) 49%

Univ. of South Florida Polytechnic for New York Times Newspapers (FL) (7/24-28, likely voters, no trendlines):

Kendrick Meek (D): 12

Marco Rubio (R): 30

Charlie Crist (I): 41

Undecided: 17

Jeff Greene (D): 16

Marco Rubio (R): 29

Charlie Crist (I): 37

Undecided: 18

(MoE: ±4%)

Here’s another few data points to throw on the ever-growing heap in Florida, courtesy of the “Florida Poll” (apparently a joint venture of the New York Times Newspapers of Florida and the Univ. of South Florida). The numbers here pretty clearly match last week’s Quinnipiac poll, if not even more bullish on Charlie Crist’s current chances… and even slightly more bearish on Kendrick Meek, who seems to be dwindling down into Alan Schlesinger territory here (Schlesinger, if you’ve forgotten, was the Republican who became irrelevant and sank into the single digits in the 2006 Connecticut Senate race once Joe Lieberman became an indie/de facto Republican).

Interestingly, their numbers contradict a point that Tom Jensen made a few days ago, that Charlie Crist would seem to benefit more from Jeff Greene as the Dem opponent than Meek. Here, Crist’s 11-point lead over Rubio and Meek drops to an 8-point lead over Rubio and Greene. That may be a temporary artifact thanks to Greene’s heavy ad spending right now and one that would change post-primary, though. They don’t poll the Dem Senate primary here, for some reason, so there’s no basis for further speculation.

There’s also a Republican poll of the race that came out today, a McLaughlin & Associates poll that’s not directly from the Rubio campaign but on behalf of Associated Industries of Florida. They see a much closer race, as you might expect. They see a 38-36-16 race for Crist, Rubio, and Meek, while they see a tie if Greene is the nominee: 37-37 for Crist and Rubio with 16 for Greene.

One other piece of news: I don’t think Charlie Crist was counting on any assistance from his former running mate, Lt. Governor Jeff Kottkamp, who has remained a Republican where Crist has not. Today Kottkamp endorsed Rubio, saying he’d planned to back Rubio for months but waited to act until it would have maximum effect. Kottkamp is running for AG and is in a tight three-way GOP primary, so no way was he going to go off the reservation on this one. Doesn’t sound like he was tempted, though; things sound a little strained between him and his former ticket-mate:

“I gave him the same heads up that he gave me when he left the party, which is none,” Kottkamp said, acknowledging that his relationship with Crist was not likely to improve following the endorsement.

Gubernatorial numbers:

Alex Sink (D): 27

Bill McCollum (R): 26

Bud Chiles (I): 12

Undecided: 35

Alex Sink (D): 28

Rick Scott (R): 30

Bud Chiles (I): 11

Undecided: 31

(MoE: ±4%)

Rick Scott (R): 41

Bill McCollum (R): 25

Undecided: 34

(MoE: ±6%)

Also similar to Quinnipiac, the Florida Poll finds very close races between Alex Sink and the two toxic Republicans, with indie Bud Chiles in the low double-digits. (I wonder if Chiles can somehow outpoll the Democratic Senate nominee?) Rick Scott seems in command of the Republican gubernatorial primary.

Or is he? There’s another Republican poll out today, of the gubernatorial primary. The poll, from Schroth, Eldon & Associates, isn’t a McCollum internal but taken on behalf of “private business clients,” but judging by its content, they must be McCollum allies. It finds Scott leading McCollum only 43-40. Even weirder, it finds McCollum, reduced to smoldering ruins by Scott’s ad campaign according to pretty much every other pollster, in positive territory, at 43/42 (with Scott’s favorables at 41/42).

FL-Sen: Is Marco Rubio off the supply-side reservation? He admitted in a recent campaign stop that “tax cuts don’t pay for themselves,” which seems like high-grade Republican apostasy. I look forward to his undoubtedly forthcoming apology.

Meanwhile, more interestingly, Jeff Greene is getting in some hot water for his maritime adventures. At a debate on Sunday, Greene claimed he had visited Cuba in 2007 – a very touchy subject in South Florida, of course – as part of a Jewish humanitarian mission. Oops, says a campaign spokesbot – “What he meant to say was that in 2007, he went on the boat from Honduras to the Bahamas, and en route the boat had a hydraulic problem” and made a pit-stop in Cuba. Yuh huh – cuz I always mix up yachting hijinks with charity tours with my rabbi. But wait, there’s more! A former Greene deckhand (and there are quite a few who despise their old boss) says the candidate is lying, and that “It was their total intention to go to Cuba. We never went to Honduras, not even close. I figure it was the glamour of wanting to go to a banned country.” Good luck explaining this one away.

CA-Gov: Props to Jonathan Martin at Politico for making sure this one didn’t get flushed down the oubliette: Ins. Co. Steve Poizner still has not endorsed Meg Whitman, who vanquished him in the GOP primary.

NM-Gov: A new front in the New Mexico governor’s race: Dem Diane Denish says she supports a domestic partnership law, which would give same-sex couples many of the same rights as heterosexual married couples. Predictably, Republican Susana Martinez is opposed. Domestic partnership bills have come up regularly in the state legislature but have always foundered. Of course, this issue may or may not get a lot of traction in a year like this.

TN-09: Willie Herenton is claiming that early voting patterns show him well on the way to a 3-to-1 victory over Rep. Steve Cohen. You can supply the laughter.

NY-24: Rep. Mike Arcuri, spurned by both the Independence and Working Families Parties, is still trying to get on a second ballot line – one of his own creation. His campaign is petitioning to create an “NY Moderates” party.

IN-02: Dem Rep. Joe Donnelly is up with a pair of ads attacking “Wacky” Jackie Walorsky for her support of Wall Street and for “free trade” deals with Mexico and China. Of course, NWOTSOTB.

FL-22: This just shows you how stark raving insane Allen West is. While serving in Iraq in 2003, he claims he got wind of a plot… against himself. Rather than recuse himself from the investigation, he ordered his subordinates to beat a detainee, and then threatened the man with summary execution – going so far as to fire a gun over his head. You can find the full story here, but the reason why this is coming up is that West just released an absurdly self-serving video where he portrays himself as some kind of heroic Jack Bauer – but the reality is that West only avoided criminal charges by tendering his resignation to the Army.

PA-07: Look, if I were Pat Meehan, I’d howl about this, too – but the fact is, even if Dem Bryan Lentz’s campaign did help teabagger Jim Schneller qualify for the ballot, that’s just fucking politics. (The Lentz camp isn’t answering any questions, but a lot of Schneller’s petitions were circulated by Lentz supporters.) And what’s more, as Alex Roarty at PoliticsPA points out, Schneller is very likely to stay on the ballot, which will undoubtedly help Lentz – and all the whining in the world won’t change that.

WI-07: A shadowy right-wing 527 (are any of them not shadowy?) with the oddly dystopian name of “the New Prosperity Foundation” has a new TV ad trying to stereotype Dem Julie Lassa as a “big-spending politician.” Of course, NWOTSOTB.

Fundraising: Aaron Blake and the staff at the Fix have truly done heroic work: They’ve compiled gubernatorial fundraising numbers, an epically daunting task given that you need to navigate a million different state SoS websites, with different interfaces, reporting requirements, and reporting periods. Still, somehow, they managed to do so, and they have the most recent fundraising nums for all the major gube races around the nation – just click on the “Governors Races” tab.

Hey, this is Kenneth Quinnell, the New Media Director for the Kendrick Meek campaign.  Wanted to make sure that everyone saw that we released our third TV ad, this one a positive ad introducing voters to Kendrick and his background.  Give us feedback on this and let us know if we’re going in the right direction.

Thanks,

Kenneth

(Transcript and press release below the fold)

Transcript

Kendrick Meek: “I was raised by a single mom.”

Carrie Meek “He always had a lot of hair. I don’t know what happened to it.”

Kendrick: “I was a sky cap, a state trouper, and a legislator.”

John Ladanza “He was one of my best patrol men”

Sky Cap “He always got time to talk, hes always got a few minutes.”

Kendrick: “I fought to protect the everglades and against privatizing social security”

Elmon “Lee” Garner: “He had the concern and the caring to see how wronged we were”

Kendrick: “But in the end, its about your life and not mine.”

***

Press release

MIAMI GARDENS, FLA.- Today, the Kendrick Meek for Florida campaign released the campaign’s third television ad, “My Life,” that focuses on Kendrick’s life and fight for Florida families. You can view the ad here.

The ad features interviews with Captain John Idanza, a retired officer in the Florida Highway Patrol who Kendrick reported to as a young state trooper, Kendrick’s mother Carrie Meek, and two skycaps who Kendrick worked alongside when he hauled bags for tips as a teenager at Miami International Airport.

Chattahoochee City Manager Elmon “Lee” Garner also tells the story of how Kendrick stood up and fought the opening of a sexual predator facility that was almost placed just a few blocks from a local school.

“He had the concern and caring to see just how wronged we were,” explains Garner in the ad.

The ad also shows a photo of Kendrick with the late Senator Ted Kennedy. Vicki Kennedy, Senator Kennedy’s widow, said she was honored to give Kendrick her family’s blessing to use the photo.

The ad also details Kendrick’s efforts to protect the Everglades from development and his fight against President Bush’s efforts to privatize Social Security.

Uniquely, the ad directs viewers to watch the entire film, titled “Across Florida,” which tells the longer story of Kendrick’s life and his fight for the middle class.

“My Life” goes up on air today.

Learn more

Contribute

CO-Sen: Colorado Dems are concerned that if Andrew Romanoff topples Sen. Michael Bennet in the primary, he’ll be badly hamstrung in the general by his refusal to take PAC money. This problem is compounded by the fact he’s been a pretty crappy fundraiser in general. Romanoff also supposedly said he won’t accept the DSCC’s help – though luckily for us, independent expenditure rules mean that he can’t tell the DS what to do. This all reminds of Russ Feingold demanding that outside groups not spend money on his 1998 re-election campaign, which he won by barely 3% in an otherwise very strong Democratic year.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is up with a quarter million dollar ad buy on behalf of Jane Norton, touting an endorsement from Jan Brewer (whose instant celebrity strikes me as something on the level of a reality TV star).

FL-Sen: So it turns out that Kendrick Meek, who was initially left off some notices, will participate in Barack Obama’s August 18th Miami Beach fundraiser. But a Meek staffer tells Politico that he wants nothing less than a “prominent role” at the event and is “expecting the president to strongly reaffirm his endorsement.” If you have to float these kinds of things via blind leaks to the beltway press… well… that doesn’t exactly evince a great deal of confidence, does it?

Meanwhile, Tom Jensen confirms empirically something I’ve felt intuitively for a while (and mentioned on our panel at Netroots Nation): Charlie Crist is better off with Jeff Greene winning the Democratic primary rather than Kendrick Meek. In particular, black voters support Meek 39-33 over Crist, while they support Crist 61-17 over Greene.

IL-Sen: It’s confirmed: A federal judge ruled that the candidates on the special election ballot to fill out the remaining months of Sen. Roland Burris’s term will be the same as those on the regular election ballot – meaning Burris won’t be able to seek “re-election” for those two extra months (something he actually had considered doing). Phew.

KS-Sen: A final SurveyUSA poll of the GOP primary shows Todd Tiahrt, who has trailed badly for the entire race, closing the gap with Jerry Moran. Moran still leads by a sizable 49-39 margin, but two weeks ago, it was 50-36, and Tiahrt has gained 10 points over the last two months. The problem is, time’s up: The primary is tonight.

KY-Sen: The Club for Growth just endorsed Rand Paul, and undoubtedly it’s because of College Libertarian Society bullshit like this which comes out of his mouth:

The Republican running to replace outgoing Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) in the coal-mining hub of Kentucky said recently that Washington has no business formulating mine safety rules.

“The bottom line is: I’m not an expert, so don’t give me the power in Washington to be making rules,” Paul said at a recent campaign stop in response to questions about April’s deadly mining explosion in West Virginia, according to a profile in Details magazine. “You live here, and you have to work in the mines. You’d try to make good rules to protect your people here. If you don’t, I’m thinking that no one will apply for those jobs.”

“I know that doesn’t sound… I want to be compassionate, and I’m sorry for what happened, but I wonder: Was it just an accident?”

CA-Gov: Fellow humans of Earth! I have traveled back through time from the year 3000! And I come to tell you that in our wondrous and awesome future, the spending record for candidate self-funding is still held by Meg Whitman! I cannot tell you how much she spent in total, lest I create a temporal paradox and cause all of you never to have been born, but I can inform you that she has already spent one hundred million of your Earth dollars! Also, everyone in the future eats Dippin’ Dots!

Meanwhile, a more chronologically closer reporter informs us that Jerry Brown has $23 million on hand.

FL-Gov: The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Florida’s public financing law, whereby candidates whose opponents spend more than $25 million (as Rick Scott has) get added matching funds from the state. Apparently this system “chills free speech” (whatever). Bill McCollum is obviously none too happy, and is weighing a possible appeal – or an attack on another part of the law which limits the size of donations he can accept.

GA-Gov: Landmark Communications, a Republican pollster which says it has no ties to either candidate, is out with the first poll of the GOP runoff. They find Karen Handel leading Nathan Deal by a 46-37 margin. Deal, meanwhile, is out with a new ad, and props to the AJC’s Jim Galloway for getting the Deal campaign to cough up that the buy is for 850 gross ratings points in the Atlanta area. One rating point is equal to one percent of a potential audience, but because the same viewer might see the same ad more than once, you need a lot more than 100 GRPs to reach your full target audience. As things go, 850 is a pretty decent-sized buy, especially in an expensive market like Atlanta.

CA-47: This really doesn’t seem wise: Rep. Loretta Sanchez, locked in a competitive race with Assemblyman Van Tran, filed paperwork for state bid in 2014. She really couldn’t have waited until after November? Now-Rep. Tom McClintock (CA-04) did something similar last cycle, and it certainly did not seem to help him (he barely eked out a win in a decidedly red district). Speaking of Tran, by the way, here’s an interesting item from late last week: He secured the backing of the grifters running the Tea Party Express – not exactly a popular gang, I’m sure, in this 60% Obama district.

FL-08: You know how they say that if you wind up in prison, you should act all crazy on your first day so that the other inmates know better than to mess with you? Well, Alan Grayson’s tack seems to have been to act crazy so as to get his opponents to act even crazier and thus blow themselves up in the process. Republican state Rep. Kurt Kelly, reacting to Grayson’s absence during a vote on an Afghanistan war funding bill, spazzed: “He put our soldiers, our men and women in the military, in harm’s way and, in fact, maybe he wants them to die.” Said a Grayson spokesperson in response: “Kurt Kelly thinks the stupider he sounds, the more Republican votes he’ll get.” Heh.

HI-01: GOP Rep. Charles Djou is out with an internal poll from the Tarrance Group showing him up 50-42 over Colleen Hanabusa. Djou has about $380K on hand to Hanabusa’s $220K. I wonder if Hanabusa will release her own internal.

ID-01: I swear, some days it really feels like Bill Sali actually is running again. This time, apprentice fuckup Raul Labrador moved his campaign headquarters outside of the 1st Congressional District – a pretty remarkable feat given that Idaho has only two CDs. If this sounds extremely familiar, that’s because it is: Sali himself did the exact same thing, situating his campaign office in ID-02 as well. Let’s hope history repeats in November, too.

IL-10: Dem Dan Seals has donated $5,000 he received from ethically embattled Rep. Maxine Waters to charity – even though she gave that money to him last cycle. I wonder if other candidates will follow suit, ala Rangel.

NY-10: Even though he’s already spent an absurd $1.1 million and held 2008 challenger Kevin Powell to just 32% in the primary, Rep. Ed Towns is taking no chances in his rematch and is attempting to get Powell kicked off the ballot. However, Powell (who has raised very little and has just $30K on hand) collected 8,000 signatures, far more than the 1,250 he needed. So unless there are massive flaws (or fraud), this is going to be difficult for Towns.

WI-08: Organic farmer, Door County supervisor, and teabagger Marc Savard, who had raised very little, dropped out and endorsed roofing contractor Reid Ribble in the GOP primary. Ribble, who leads the fundraising field (but only has about $180K on hand), still faces former state Rep. Terri McCormick and current state Rep. Roger Roth. (And here’s a rather disturbing item we missed: While we noted retired radiologist Marc Trager’s departure from the race in mid-June, we were previously unaware that he committed suicide just a couple of weeks later.)

DCCC: Obama alert! The POTUS will do a fundraiser for the D-Trip on August 16 at the Los Angeles home of “ER” and “West Wing” executive produce John Wells. Nancy Pelosi and Chris Van Hollen are also expected to attend.