SSP Daily Digest: 7/16 (Afternoon Edition)

CT-Sen: Quinnipiac (7/8, registered voters, likely Republican primary voters, 6/2-8 in parentheses):

Richard Blumenthal (D): 54 (55)

Linda McMahon (R): 37 (35)

Undecided: 7 (8)

Richard Blumenthal (D): 55 (54)

Rob Simmons (R): 35 (33)

Undecided: 9 (10)

Richard Blumenthal (D): 58 (56)

Peter Schiff (R): 31 (29)

Undecided: 9 (12)

(MoE: ±2.7%)

Linda McMahon (R): 52

Rob Simmons (R): 25

Peter Schiff (R) : 13

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±3.4%)

Not much change in the Nutmeg State. And it looks like Rob Simmons might have some pretty serious disincentive to not get back into the Senate primary again, as he briefly threatened.

FL-Sen: Marco Rubio’s $4.4 million haul blew a lot of people away, but what’s equally impressive (and didn’t get any coverage at the time) is his burn rate. It turns out that, even though he no longer has a primary to worry about, he spent almost all ($4 million) of what he made.

NY-Sen-B: You might remember that there was some uncertainty as to whether Joe DioGuardi, who has the Conservative line for November, would even make it into the Republican primary thanks to his poor finish at the GOP state convention. Well, after gathering enough signatures, he has now successfully petitioned his way onto the primary ballot. He has consistently led polls of the GOP primary, although generally in the low 20s. (H/t andyroo312.)

WI-Sen, WI-Gov (pdf): Apparently, voters in Wisconsin are dimly aware that something called an “election” may be transpiring at some point in the future, as more than half of all those surveyed not having decided yet on a Senate pick, at least according to Univ. of Wisconsin’s Badger Poll. The likely voters in Wisconsin are currently going for Russ Feingold at 33 and Ron Johnson 28. RVs are Feingold 27, Johnson 21, and Wisconsin residents are Feingold 25, Johnson 19. In a remarkable contrast with Rasmussen (who’d have thunk?), nobody knows who Johnson is: he has 12/8 favorables among likely voters. They also look at the even-more-disinteresting gubernatorial race, finding Tom Barrett losing to both Scott Walker and Mark Neumann by the same margin of 32-15 (!). (UPDATE (DavidNYC): Here’s another good reason to mistrust this poll: It was in the field for a month. What the…?)

WV-Sen: The West Virginia legislature is still busy tinkering with their state’s election laws today as part of the preparations for the special election to succeed Robert Byrd. Perhaps most significantly, it sounds like they are planning special primaries (tentatively set for fast-approaching Aug. 28), rather than a jungle-style election in November. They threw out a Joe Manchin proposal, however, that would scrap the special primaries if only one candidate from each party decided to run.

AZ-Gov: We reported yesterday on the Rocky Mountain Poll (by the ominously-named Behavior Research Council), and it looks like they also have general election numbers. GOP incumbent Jan Brewer leads Democratic AG Terry Goddard 45-25, a surprisingly large margin since most non-Rasmussen pollsters have seen a close race (although that was mostly before SB 1070-mania hit).

CO-Gov: SurveyUSA, on behalf of the Denver Post, is out with a snap poll on the subject of Scott McInnis, post-plagiarism-scandal. It turns out that this scandal does have a lot of resonance — there’s a lot less semantic ambiguity here than with Richard Blumenthal or even Mark Kirk… either you wrote it or you didn’t (and then tried to pass the blame on an octogenarian ally). 20% of Republicans now say they’ll vote for someone else, but 39% say they’ll still vote for him. Looking ahead to a replacement, the poll also asked who “the strongest Republican” would be, and the number one pick was… you guessed it… Tom Tancredo, at 29. McInnis followed at 19, with primary opponent Dan Maes at 13. Jane Norton (a possible switchover, given her dwindling Senate campaign) was at 11, former candidate and state Sen. Josh Penry was at 7, and Univ. of Colorado Bruce Benson was at 3. (In other polling news, note that even Rasmussen can’t find a way to polish this turd, as seen in a poll (see below) taken last night.)

If you’re wondering who Benson is, he’s now the subject of perhaps the most speculation as the GOP’s preferred fill-in. Another name getting tossed around is long-ago former Sen. Hank Brown, who more recently served as president of Univ. of Northern Colorado. The Post also was apparently set to do its regularly-scheduled endorsement for the primary this week, and they said that prior to this week, they would have endorsed McInnis; now they can’t endorse anyone at all (which is quite the slap at Maes).

GA-Gov: Not that he seems to need a lot of help at this point, but Roy Barnes is getting the endorsement of Atlanta’s new mayor, Kasim Reed. Turnabout’s fair play, as Barnes gave Reed a late endorsement in last year’s election.

NY-Gov: Well, this race is effectively over: Andrew Cuomo reported raising $9.2 million in the last six months for a total of $23.6 million CoH. (You think he could redirect a little of that to the DGA? Of the nation’s 10 most populous states, 9 have gubernatorial races, and of those 9, New York is the lone one that isn’t highly competitive.) Rick Lazio, by comparison, raised $1.4 million in that period, and has $689K CoH, which might make him competitive in an upstate House race. GOP primary rival Carl Paladino reported raising $1.7 million during the same period… but $1.6 million of that came out of his own pocket.

TN-Gov: We normally don’t report on Mitt Romney’s many endorsements, as he seems to hand out low-four-figures sums of money to any Republican with a pulse who survived a primary. Here’s one that’s a big race though and where the decisive primary hasn’t happened yet. Romney backed Bill Haslam, the establishment and most moderate of the three GOPers in the primary.

TX-Gov: With full information available from Rick Perry, we know now that Bill White won each fundraising category. White outraised Perry $7.4 million to $7.1 million in the post-primary period, and White leads in CoH by a $9 million to $5.8 million margin. And here’s an interesting tidbit: the White campaign says it’s raised more than $1 million from former Kay Bailey Hutchison contributors.

CO-04: EMILY’s List is weighing into the 4th with a big independent expenditure. They’ll be spending $300K on TV advertising on behalf of Betsy Markey over the next three weeks; the ad’s a negative spot hitting Corey Gardner, including on health care issues.

FL-17: The Miami Herald has some helpful background on the largely-forgotten Democratic primary in the open seat 17th, which is where all the action will be in this dark-blue district. (This seat, long held by the Meek family, hasn’t had a competitive primary in decades.) They look at state Sen. Frederica Wilson as frontrunner, and they cite an AFL-CIO poll from March (the first I’ve seen of it) that had Wilson at 34, with 12 for Miami Gardens mayor Shirley Gibson and 10 for North Miami city councilor Scott Galvin. The race’s rapidly emerging wild card, though, seems to be physician Rudolph Moise, by virtue of having over $900K CoH, at least six times what anyone else has. Some of that is self-funded, but he seems to have raised the most from other donors too, and he plans to start an advertising blitz soon.

GA-12: Rep. John Barrow’s been burning cash fast lately: he raised $204K last quarter but spent $374K in that period, leaving him with $655 CoH. But that’s probably because his big challenge this year is in the Democratic primary (next week), not in the general, where his possible GOP opponents are all pretty weak. Of course, Regina Thomas doesn’t present that much challenge to him, either, if her financials are any indication: she raised $2,400 last quarter and had $6,600 CoH. But hey, at least she managed to file her FEC report on time this year.

ID-01: Here’s another way that Raul Labrador is an unconventional candidate: he thinks that following that unspoken rule that you release your internal polls only when they have good news for you is for pussies. He’s out with an internal, by Moore Insight, that gives Rep. Walt Minnick — in theory one of the most vulnerable freshmen by virtue of his district and narrow win last time — a 37-27 lead. Minnick’s re-elect is only 38/40, though, which I guess is worth something. Reid Wilson also has more detail on Labrador today, slamming Kevin McCarthy’s efforts to reach out to citizens for help on creating a new Contract with America-type-thing. (The democracy-hating Labrador, no fan of the 17th Amendment either, thinks House leadership should impose the agenda top-down.) Also, were you wondering why Labrador didn’t loudly tout his fundraising haul from last quarter? Well, that’s because he raised $101K in the post-primary period of May and June, and is sitting on all of $69K CoH with $30K debt.

MI-01: Is this the smallest sample size ever? Another Inside Michigan Politics poll of a House primary is out, this time in the Republican field in the open seat race to replace Bart Stupak, and it’s got a whopping n of 140. State Sen. Jason Allen and physician Dan Benishek (who was the lone GOPer before Stupak’s retirement announcement) are tied at the top with 20 each. There’s also a handful of no-names polling in the low single digits, one of whom, Linda Goldthorpe, just dropped out yesterday. (H/t TheGradyDem.)

Caucuses: Well, it was only a matter of time before this happened. Michele Bachmann is taking out the paperwork to create a whole new caucus in the House: the Tea Party Caucus. Hmmm… I thought that already existed, and it was called the RSC.

NY-St. Sen.: Here’s an interesting piece on the fundraising and infrastructure collapse behind the scenes for the GOP in the New York State Senate (who may, via GOP-held open seats, actually manage to lose further seats in November despite the nature of the year). Case in point: the race to replace retiring Senator Vincent Leibell in the Hudson Valley, where there’s cat fud a-flyin’ between establishment pick Mary Beth Murphy and teabaggish Greg Ball (who you may recall from briefly making a splashy entry in the NY-19 field).

Rasmussen:

CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 45%, Scott McInnis (R) 43%

DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 36%, Mike Castle (R) 47%

DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 39%, Christine O’Donnell (R) 41%

GA-Gov (D): Roy Barnes (D) 59%, Thurbert Baker (D) 16%, Dubose Porter 5%, David Poythress 5%

PA-Gov: Dan Onorato (D) 38%, Tom Corbett (R) 48%

WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D) 45%, Dino Rossi (R) 48%

WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D) 45%, Clint Didier (R) 48%

WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D) 46%, Paul Akers (R) 41%

SSP Daily Digest: 7/16 (Morning Edition)

  • FL-Sen: Charlie Crist raised $1.8 million last quarter – better than Kendrick Meek, but quite a bit behind Marco Rubio’s stellar pace. Still, considering there was a chance that Crist’s fundraising could take a major hit after his party switch, this strikes me as a pretty decent haul.
  • NV-Sen: Sharron Angle teabagged up quite a haul in the second quarter, taking in $2.6 million (with $2.3 million of that coming in the last six weeks or so, according to Aaron Blake). Even though she outraised Harry Reid, Jon Ralston points out that the Majority Leader has quite a bit more cash on hand than the Crazy Lady of Clown Town: $9 mil to $1.8 mil.
  • CO-Gov: The WSJ has a good piece gaming out the options for the GOP in terms of getting Scott McInnis out of the race, none of them particularly good. They can try to get both McInnis and rival Dan Maes to drop out and offer up a replacement candidate; they can hope McInnis wins the Aug. 10 primary and then push him to drop out; or they can put forward a write-in candidate in the primary. Maes is going nowhere, so option #1 is out, and a write-in at this late stage seems almost impossible. So perhaps their best bet is to ride McInnis for a few more weeks and then kick him to the curb. Good luck with that! Meanwhile, the RGA slammed earlier reports that it was abandoning McInnis, but as Mike Memoli points out, they didn’t mention McInnis’s name once in their press release.
  • NH-01: Former Manchester mayor Frank Guinta has been trying to paint himself as a peerless opponent of the stimulus, but it turns out that last year, he was complaining about the slow pace at which the state was collecting stimulus funds from the federal government. This problematic stance is getting some renewed attention now because of emails released by the state AG’s office, which include a note from – of all people – GOP senate candidate Kelly Ayotte calling Guinta a “grandstander.” Heh.
  • NH-02: I guess you’d have to say that Katrina Swett is objectively in favor of repealing gay marriage in the state of New Hampshire. A piece in the Nashua Telegraph is casting a renewed spotlight on the fact that Swett says she only supports civil unions, not marriage equality. That’s a pretty strange position to take in a Democratic primary, especially considering that same-sex marriage is already the law of the land in the Granite State. Fortunately, she’s not running for the state legislature – and hopefully this will help sink her Liebermanesque candidacy.
  • SC-05: Biden alert! The VPOTUS with the mostest is coming to Columbia on July 23rd to dedicate the Ernest Hollings Library at the University of South Carolina (named after the retired senator, a Biden pal). He’ll also squeeze in a fundraiser with Rep. John Spratt.
  • TN-09: Willie Herenton, will you please go home now? Harold Ford, Sr., who used to hold this seat, has cut a radio ad for Rep. Steve Cohen, whom he’s been backing over ex-Memphis mayor Willie Herenton. With Ford and President Obama in Cohen’s corner, you’ve got to wonder who exactly Herenton is hoping will power him to victory.
  • SSP Daily Digest: 7/15 (Afternoon Edition)

    CT-Sen: Rob Simmons may not be as revved up about jumping back into the GOP Senate primary as was reported last night (i.e. “I’m thinking about it.”). His former campaign manager told The Fix today that there’s no secret comeback bid and that “he has no plans to re-engage.” It’s probably wiser for Simmons to take that approach, to lay low and wait for the off chance that Linda McMahon implodes pre-primary, rather than drain himself in an uphill fight against her.

    KS-Sen: I don’t know what spooked Jerry Moran into coughing up another internal poll (I can’t imagine it was the backstabbing by Tom Tancredo, but who knows?), but at any rate, he released a new internal from POS giving him a 56-24 lead over Todd Tiahrt in the GOP Senate primary. Moran also continues to win the fundraising race, raising $538K last quarter with $2.3 million CoH. Tiahrt raised $451K last quarter and has $1.3 million CoH, although he has a big fundraising dinner scheduled soon hosted by former Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weis.

    NV-Sen: This news has to be, on the balance, good news for Harry Reid. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, while certainly not considering endorsing Reid, is moving toward sitting out the Nevada Senate race. It may be tempting to pin this down with increasing Chamber discontent with the teabagger wing of the party (as seen with their moves in SC-Gov and ID-01), but a lot of it may be that they’re less unhappy with Reid as Majority Leader than the alternatives (Chuck Schumer or Dick Durbin). Reid‘s also reporting, unsurprisingly, tons of money: he raised $2.4 million, although, after spending a lot on ads, he’s at $9 million CoH.

    NY-Sen, NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov (pdf): Siena released polls everyone and everything in the Empire State today, although there’s little suspense in any of these races anymore. In the gubernatorial race, Andrew Cuomo beats Rick Lazio 60-28, beats Carl Paladino 64-23, and beats Lazio and Paladino (with Paladino on a 3rd party line) 54-23-10. Lazio beats Paladino in the GOP primary 40-20. In the Senate special election, Kirsten Gillibrand leads Bruce Blakeman 51-28, beats Joe DioGuardi 51-29, and beats David Malpass 50-27. DioGuardi leads the GOP primary at 24, with 7 for Blakeman and 5 for Malpass. And in the other Senate race, Chuck Schumer beats both Gary Berntsen and Jay Townsend by an identical 63-26. Townsend tops Berntsen in the GOP primary 24-13. They even throw in the Comptroller’s race, where Dem incumbent Tom DiNapoli beats self-funded GOPer Harry Wilson 48-24.

    SC-Sen: The Charleston minor league baseball team has answered Alvin Greene’s call for economic stimulus in the form of Alvin Greene action figures: they’ll be giving out Greene figurines as a promotion at their Saturday game. (Although it sounds a little half-assed, as they’re just sticking Alvin Greene heads on unused Statues of Liberty.) Also, with the primary out of the way, local and Beltway Democrats alike are uniting behind Greene, filling his coffers with… um… $1,000? (At least that puts him ahead of Roland Burris.) That number was apparently volunteered by Greene; he won’t have to file with the FEC until he hits the $5,000 mark.

    WV-Sen: Plans are already afoot in Washington to swear in West Virginia’s new Senator by Tuesday so that the unemployment benefits extension can be voted on that same day. Who, though, is still an open question. Other Senator Jay Rockefeller says there’s some White House pressure and he thinks he knows who it’ll be, but he isn’t saying who. Ex-Gov. and current College Board President Gaston Caperton has suddenly reversed course and is now saying that he is interested, which certainly seems like a tea leaf to me. There are also reports that Bob Wise and Larry Puccio have removed themselves from consideration, and Nick Casey (awaiting a federal judgeship) is very unlikely.

    The NRSC is already running anti-Joe Manchin ads (in print media only), but that may not provide that much encouragement to Shelly Moore Capito (the only Republican who can make this competitive) to get in: one little-noted fact is that one item that rather pointedly got left off the agenda for today’s legislative special session is whether or not an officeholder could run for two seats at the same time in the special election and the regularly-scheduled election (like in, oh let’s just say, WV-Sen and WV-02).  

    CO-Gov: Scott McInnis may be the last to know to know that he’s dropping out of the gubernatorial race. Tom Tancredo has been telling people that McInnis is going to drop out, although the McInnis camp is denying that, saying “we’re moving forward.” Tancredo is also the first state GOPer to publicly call for McInnis to get out, although I wonder if Tancredo is hoping he may get the chance to take his place (remember Tancredo had flirted with the race early last year). Tancredo doesn’t seem to be on the list of replacements that’s being bandied about by the local press, though: they include Josh Penry (whom Tancredo had backed, and who ran for a while before dropping out), former state Sen. Mark Hillman, and… get this… ex-Rep. Bob Schaffer, who badly lost the 2008 Senate race.

    There’s also some speculation about the legalities of replacing McInnis: it doesn’t seem like the GOP could insert a hand-picked filler before the primary, unless both McInnis and Dan Maes dropped out (not out of the question, I suppose, considering that Maes’ campaign is currently belly-up). This may help McInnis’s decision along: the RGA is now saying that they’re abandoning him, pulling out of fundraisers they’d previously scheduled.

    GA-Gov: Mason-Dixon takes a look at the Georgia gubernatorial primaries. On the Republican side, they find John Oxendine at 31, Karen Handel at 23, Nathan Deal at 18, and Eric Johnson at 6. Compare that with Rasmussen (see below) and Magellan’s recent polls, which see possible Handel/Deal runoffs. Ed Kilgore also takes a look at the proxy war being fought in Georgia by Sarah Palin (backing Handel) and Newt Gingrich (backing Deal), which may be boosting those two’s fortunes at Oxendine’s expense. Mason-Dixon’s look at the Dem primary has comparatively less drama: Roy Barnes is out of runoff territory at 54, with Thurbert Baker at 20, David Poythress at 7, and Dubose Porter at 3.

    AZ-08: The Fix seems to be the leaking place of choice for the GOP for its internal polls, and they have word of another one with a GOPer with a (slight) lead. It’s in the 8th, where a Tarrance Group poll gives Jonathan Paton a 45-44 lead over Gabrielle Giffords. Paton, of course, still has to survive a primary against the more tea-flavored Jesse Kelly.

    KS-04: SurveyUSA’s new poll of the KS-04 primaries shows some interesting movement on the GOP side: both Mike Pompeo and Wink Hartman have declined by similar amounts (they’re currently at 32 and 31, respectively), with state Sen. Jean Schodorf making a late move up to 16, based on strength among women and moderates. Jim Anderson’s also at 9. There’s also a surprise on the Dem side: the DCCC-touted Raj Goyle is actually in danger of losing his primary to Some Dude, Robert Tillman. Tillman now leads, 40-36. Looks like we may have been right about Goyle’s reasons behind launching a TV buy now.

    House: We don’t usually like to link to this sort of meta about the state of the House, but it’s interesting to see the various blind men who are veterans of the DCCC and the NRCC in relatively close agreement about the size and shape of the elephant this year.

    Fundraising: AR-Sen | CA-Sen| CA-Sen | CT-Sen | DE-Sen | FL-Sen | IL-Sen | IN-Sen | MO-Sen | NH-Sen | OR-Sen | WI-Sen | IL-Gov | TX-Gov | CT-04 | DE-AL | FL-08 | GA-02 | NH-01 | OH-13 | PA-03 | PA-10 | RI-01 | WA-03

    Rasmussen:

    CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 46%, Meg Whitman (R) 47%

    GA-Gov (R): Nathan Deal (R) 25%, Karen Handel (R) 25%, John Oxendine (R) 20%, Eric Johnson (R) 13%

    TX-Gov: Bill White (D) 41%, Rick Perry (R-inc) 50%

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

    WI-Sen: Russ Feingold (D-inc) 51%, Dave Westlake (R) 37%

    SSP Daily Digest: 7/14 (Evening Edition)

    Election Results: No big surprises last night in the Alabama runoffs. Robert Bentley, who’d had the edge in the one public poll shortly before the runoff, beat Bradley Byrne in the gubernatorial GOP runoff, 56-44; he and Ron Sparks are now promising each other a positive, issues-oriented race. (Assorted wonks are trying to figure out today if Bentley, friendly – or at least friendlier – with the AEA, was helped along by Democratic crossover votes… and the answer appears to be no, not really.) In the GOP runoff in AL-02, Mike Barber is sending his gathered armies back home after losing by a 60-40 margin to Martha Roby. In the Dem runoff in AL-07, Terri Sewell beat Shelia Smoot 55-45, and is almost certain to succeed Artur Davis. Finally, the closest race of the night was the GOP Agriculture Commissioner runoff, where Dale Peterson-powered John McMillan sent Dorman Grace back to his chicken farm, 52-48.

    AZ-Sen, AZ-Gov (pdf): A new Rocky Mountain poll from the Behavior Research Center finds [insert usual “good news” joke here]. John McCain leads J.D. Hayworth (seeming DOA after the free-grant-money thing) in the GOP primary 64-19, with 5 for someone named Jim Deakin. They also polled the now-irrelevant gubernatorial primary, finding Jan Brewer at 57, with 12 for Owen Buz Mills and 9 for Dean Martin (both of whom have dropped out since the poll’s completion). Matthew Jatte remains in the primary, but he polled at “less than 1%.”

    FL-Sen: Here’s some good news for Kendrick Meek, who seems to be counting on a last minute Democratic surge: Bill Clinton will be appearing on his behalf in August, to stump for him in August. Dem primary rival Jeff Greene has some less good news: he just lost his campaign manager Josh Morrow. (It’s unclear whether he fled, or was pushed.) The St. Petersburg Times has an interesting profile of Greene today, too, that delves below the headline-grabbing superficial weirdnesses.

    KS-Sen: Tancredo sez: get a brain, Moran! (No, I’m never going to get tired of that joke.) The loudmouthed ex-Rep., last seen torpedoing ally Ken Buck, today barged back into the Kansas GOP Senate primary and admitted he had gotten it all wrong. He withdrew his earlier backing for Rep. Jerry Moran and switched over to Rep. Todd Tiahrt instead, saying that Moran had “deceived him” on his apparently inadequate hatred for teh brown people. In other news, did you know there was actually a third guy running in the primary, and he wasn’t just Some Dude® but a former state Attorney General? Of course, he was AG from the years 1965 to 1969 Anno Domini, so you could be forgiven for not remembering Robert Londerholm. At any rate, Londerholm dropped out of the race today.

    LA-Sen: Bobby Jindal had previously hedged on his support for David Vitter, showing up at some fundraising events but never actually going so far as to say that he endorsed him. That’s going to be more of an issue now that Vitter has some serious primary opposition from Chet Traylor, and Jindal is doubling down on his neutrality, saying he’s not focused on the race. At least Vitter continues to have the NRSC in his corner.

    NC-Sen: SurveyUSA is out with another poll in NC-Sen, on behalf of WRAL. Richard Burr continues to have a lead over Elaine Marshall, currently at 46-36, with 6 to Libertarian Mike Beitler. Burr’s favorables are 28/27 (with 23 neutral and 22 no opinion), while Marshall is at 25/12 (with 28 neutral and 35 no opinion), so usual caveats at Marshall’s room to grow apply. Interestingly, SurveyUSA followed their WA-Sen lead and added a cellphone oversample, which in various permutations had little effect on the toplines.

    NV-Sen: No polling memo to link to, at least not yet, but Jon Ralston calls our attention to a new poll from Dem pollster Fairbanks Maslin on behalf of the Patriot Majority. If it’s a quasi-internal, you can probably guess where we’re going with this… it actually has Harry Reid in the lead, over Sharron Angle 44-40. Both Reid (45/52) and Angle (40/41) have net-negative favorables, though.

    FL-Gov: Rick Scott lost a court battle (though the war over the Millionaire’s Amendment is no doubt not over, though). A federal district court judge denied Scott’s request for an injunction against Florida’s campaign finance law, which would give a truckload of money to the near-broke Bill McCollum because of Scott’s aggressive self-funding.

    MI-Gov: There are two separate polls of the Michigan GOP gubernatorial primary floating around today. One is a public poll from Mitchell Research & Communications; it sees a flat-out three-way tie between Mike Cox, Peter Hoekstra, and Rick Snyder, each of them at 18, with Mike Bouchard at 9 and Tom George at 2. Not quite content with that, Bouchard rolled out an internal poll (from McLaughlin & Associates) which, in marked contrast with, well, every other poll, had Bouchard tied for the lead. His poll has him and Hoekstra at 19, with Cox at 16, Snyder at 12, and George at 3. Mitchell also has numbers from the Dem primary, where they find Andy Dillon leading Virg Bernero 35-15.

    RI-Gov: This seems out of the blue, although he had been lagging in fundraising and underperforming in the polls: Democratic AG Patrick Lynch will be dropping out of the gubernatorial primary, effective tomorrow. That leaves state Treasurer Frank Caprio as de facto Dem nominee, sparing him a primary battle with the more liberal Lynch. It’s the day before nominating papers are due, so maybe he’ll re-up for more AGing. The main question now seems to be positioning for the general election… maybe most notably whether independent ex-GOP ex-Sen. Lincoln Chafee finds himself running to the left of the generally moderate Caprio.

    WA-08: Via press release, we have fundraising numbers from Suzan DelBene, who’s raising strongly despite little netroots interest so far. She raised $378K last quarter, and is sitting on $1.04 million CoH. She’s raised $1.65 million over the cycle.

    Rasmussen:

    CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 49%, Carly Fiorina (R) 42%

    MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan (D) 45%, Roy Blunt (R) 47%

    NH-Sen: Paul Hodes (D) 37%, Kelly Ayotte (R) 49%

    NH-Sen: Paul Hodes (D) 40%, Ovide Lamontagne (R) 43%

    NH-Sen: Paul Hodes (D) 38%, Bill Binnie (R) 49%

    NH-Sen: Paul Hodes (D) 39%, Jim Bender (R) 43%

    NV-Gov: Rory Reid (D) 36%, Brian Sandoval (R) 57%

    FL-Sen, FL-Gov: Crist Has Lead, Sink Looks Better

    Ipsos for Reuters (7/9-11, registered voters, 5/14-18 in parens):

    Kendrick Meek (D): 17 (15)

    Marco Rubio (R): 28 (27)

    Charlie Crist (I): 35 (30)

    Undecided: 20 (23)

    Jeff Greene (D): 18 (NA)

    Marco Rubio (R): 29 (NA)

    Charlie Crist (I): 34 (NA)

    Undecided: 19 (NA)

    (MoE: ±4%)

    It seems like Charlie Crist successfully threaded the needle with his abandonment of the GOP primary and his move to an independent candidacy; Ipsos finds that he’s leading Marco Rubio and in fact gaining a little ground since their last poll in May. (Worth noting: no pollster other than Rasmussen has given a lead to Rubio since Crist pulled the trigger on his switch.) Democrats Jeff Greene and Kendrick Meek perform at about the same level of futility; either way, it looks like Crist is successfully vacuuming up a big share of center-left votes.

    Alex Sink (D): 31 (32)

    Bill McCollum (R): 30 (34)

    Bud Chiles (I): 12 (NA)

    Undecided: 27 (26)

    Alex Sink (D): 31 (NA)

    Rick Scott (R): 34 (NA)

    Bud Chiles (I): 12 (NA)

    Undecided: 23 (NA)

    (MoE: ±4%)

    It’s a dramatically different gubernatorial race since the last time Ipsos polled, with Rick Scott having appeared on the scene and spent one-time frontrunner Bill McCollum into near obscurity, and with independent Bud Chiles having launched an inexplicable centrist bid. Here’s an indication of how far McCollum has fallen: now he’s actually trailing Democrat Alex Sink. (The movement is all within the margin of error, though, and Rick Scott has a small lead over Sink instead, probably by virtue of his saturation advertising — although his latest round of advertising, allegedly about his pro-life credentials, may be backfiring, given that the St. Petersburg Times is now calling him “deceitful” and “heartless.”) Interestingly, since the entry of Chiles, this is the second poll to show that Chiles hardly budges the needle at all (rather than taking all his votes out of Sink’s column, as many had feared); he seems to draw evenly from both sides, probably finding most of his support among conservative Dixiecrats.

    The Real Democrat (FL-Sen)

    If you haven’t seen it yet, the campaign released a new web video this morning, asking the question, “How do you find the real Democrat in the Florida U.S. Senate race”?  Take a look and tell me what you think.  Video and transcript after the jump…

    Narrator: How do you find the real Democrat in the Florida U.S. Senate race?

    Narrator: Uh, not Marco Rubio, no.

    Narrator: Jeff Greene says he’s a Democrat, but he was a Republican, and was not a Democrat until 2008.

    Chorus: He’s not a real Democrat.

    Narrator: He’s just confused.

    Narrator: Jeff thinks he can use the bazillion dollars he made when middle class families lost their homes to buy the Florida Senate seat. [Chorus: Boos]

    Chorus: That’s Just Charlie Crist

    Narrator: Even Charlie Crist said: “I’m a Jeb Bush Republican,” “It’s hard to be more conservative than I am on the issues.”

    Chorus: Charlie Crist is no Democrat

    Narrator: So, which candidate in the race is pro-choice, has always voted against offshore drilling, and stood up for the middle class?

    Chorus: That’s Kendrick Meek

    Chorus: Democrat [Photo of President Bill Clinton]

    Chorus: Democrat [Photo of President Barack Obama]

    Chorus: Democrat [Photo of Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz]

    Chorus: Democrat [Photo of Sen. Al Franken]

    Chorus: Democrat [Photo of Rep. Nydia Velazquez]

    Chorus: Democrat [Photo of Rep. Ted Deutch]

    Chorus: Democrat [Photo of Rep. Alcee Hastings]

    Narrator: That’s why these Dems are supporting Kendrick Meek.

    Narrator: Don’t miss the elephant in the room. There’s only one real Democrat in the race — Kendrick Meek for U.S. Senate.

    Paid for by Kendrick Meek for Florida.

    Learn more

    Contribute

    SSP Daily Digest: 7/12 (Afternoon Edition)

    CO-Sen: Isn’t this the second time this has happened in about a month? Tom Tancredo says something ridiculous, Republican candidate with an eye on the general repudiates the statement, then walks back the repudiation once he realizes that the teabaggers’ widdle feewings might get hurt. This time it was Ken Buck (on whose behalf Tancredo called Barack Obama the “greatest threat to the United States today” last week); he might have been helped along in his flip-flopping after Jane Norton, who’s losing the primary because Buck outflanked her on the right, started going on about how she agreed with Tancredo,.

    FL-Sen: Marco Rubio’s having a good day so far: he rolled out a ridiculously big fundraising number for the second quarter: $4.5 million raised. No mention of his CoH, though. (All eyes turn to Charlie Crist, though, for his first report after switching to an indie bid, to see whether that shrank or expanded his pool of donors.) Rubio’s second bit of good news is an endorsement from Crist’s former right-hand-man, temporary Sen. George LeMieux. (Since LeMieux reportedly has designs on Bill Nelson’s seat, and he seems to prefer running as a Republican and not on the Crist For Florida line, what else is he going to do, though?)

    NH-Sen: I know, I know, straw poll, terrible gauge of broad public support, take with salt, bla bla bla. Still, here’s a barometer of where the hardcore Live Free or Die crowd currently stands: Ovide Lamontagne dominated the straw poll at the Taxpayer Reunion Picnic, an annual gathering of those who were teabagging long before it was cool. He won 109 to 74 over Jim Bender, a rich guy who’s going the crazy viral ad route. Establishment candidate Kelly Ayotte and moderate outsider Bill Binnie were at 23 and 10.

    WA-Sen: Clint Didier, apparently aware of the stink lines of rank hypocrisy radiating off him, said that he’s swearing off farm subsidies in the future. (Seeing as how it made him look like the worst possible caricature of the teabaggers’ mantra of “I hate the gub’ment! Except when it’s giving me money for doing nothing!”) Apparently that was enough absolution for Rep. Ron Paul‘s satisfaction, as he threw his backing behind Didier this weekend.

    WV-Sen: Rep. Shelly Capito Moore is at least honest about being scared about running for Senate (almost certainly against highly popular Gov. Joe Manchin), although she isn’t couching it in terms of being afraid of Manchin per se, instead saying “I’m afraid to lose momentum that I think I provide for the state.” At any rate, she says she’ll make her (seeming unlikely) decision whether to run in the next few days, probably coinciding with the clarification on the election’s when and how, to be decided in a July 15 legislative special session.

    AZ-Gov: Ain’t that a kick in the head? State Treasurer Dean Martin, who was regarded as something of a frontrunner when he jumped into the GOP primary earlier this year, is suspending his campaign, ostensibly because he didn’t want to be a distraction to Gov. Jan Brewer as she fights lawsuits over SB 1070. In reality, Martin never really caught fire, first when rich self-funder Owen Buz Mills grabbed the not-Brewer mantle and then, mostly, when Brewer suddenly became belle of the right-wing ball when she signed SB 1070.

    FL-Gov: Bill McCollum apparently didn’t want to be touting his fundraising numbers, but they’re out anyway, thanks to a court filing pertaining to Rick Scott’s challenge to the state public financing system. At any rate, McCollum’s sitting on a paltry $800K in cash, a mere blip compared to what Scott can pull out of his own wallet. Of course, Scott could still pull defeat out of the jaws of victory, by antagonizing pretty much the entire RPOF by trying to hang ex-state party chair Jim Greer around McCollum’s neck… and by staking his pro-life credentials on a family who are loudly preferring that he shut up about them.

    GA-Gov: InsiderAdvantage, which offered its poll of the GOP primary last week, has a matching Dem poll today. The question for Dems isn’t whether Roy Barnes gets the most votes but whether he avoids a runoff, and they seem to err on the side of “no runoff:” Barnes is at 59, with Thurbert Baker at 15, and Dubose Porter and David Poythress both at 2, behind someone by the name of Bill Bolton (at 3). Meanwhile, on the GOP side, it seemed like something of an oversight that this endorsement hadn’t happened before, but Sarah Palin finally added Karen Handel to the ever-growing list of Mama Grizzlies. UPDATE: Thurbert Baker just got a top-tier endorsement, from Bill Clinton. It may be too late for that to matter much, though, because at this point Baker needs to not only win all the undecideds but peel away a significant number of Barnes voters. (H/t TheUnknown285.)

    MI-Gov: Motor City endorsements aplenty in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Michigan: Andy Dillon got the backing of former Detroit mayor Dennis Archer, who many observers thought would have made the strongest candidate had he run. Virg Bernero got endorsements from Detroit’s two House members, John Conyers and Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick.

    MN-Gov: Republican nominee Tom Emmer seems to have dug a large hole for himself with his proposal to start including tips toward restaurant servers’ minimum wage requirement (which has the effect of slashing their hourly base pay); he’s planning on doing a “listening tour” with servers as atonement. Also adding to Emmer’s worries is blowback from his Sarah Palin endorsement, which helped him upset Marty Seifert at the GOP convention but is now already being used as a cudgel in general election advertising (courtesy of Matt Entenza). Meanwhile, Entenza’s Democratic rival Margaret Anderson Kelliher is running her first TV spot; the total buy is for only about $50K, though.

    NE-Gov: Democrats in Nebraska seem to be actively considering just punting the ball, rather than trying to find a replacement candidate for nominee Mark Lakers. On the plus side, that would free up local Democratic money for other ventures (like the race in NE-02), in what was destined to be a thorough loss even with Lakers in the race. On the other hand, Tom White’s challenge to Lee Terry would probably benefit from having, well, something at the top of the ballot.

    PA-Gov: If Tom Corbett is trying to position himself as a moderate for the general election, well, this isn’t the way. He’s publicly using the Sharron Angle line of argumentation that unemployment benefits cause more unemployment, because, naturally, people would rather live on their meager checks than go out and get one of those many abundant jobs that are out there. The ads write themselves… presuming the Democrats ever get around to actually writing them.

    TN-Gov: A mysterious 527 (is there any other kind?) has emerged to pour money into the Tennessee GOP primary. There’s no word on who’s the power behind the throne for Tennesseans for a Better Tomorrow, but they’ll be advertising on behalf of Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, who’s back in third in the polls and needs a surrogate to do the dirty work of negative advertising against Bill Haslam.

    AZ-03: Jon Hulburd’s fundraising (and self-funding ability) is the main thing keeping this red-district open seat race at least somewhat on the map for the Dems; he’s announcing $250K raised last quarter. (No word on CoH.)

    CO-04: Freshman Rep. Betsy Markey had a strong quarter, raising $530K and sitting on $1.5 million CoH. In this Republican-leaning district, she’ll need every penny of it to get through this year.

    KS-04: Democratic State Rep. Raj Goyle, whose fundraising skills have put this dark-red open seat onto the map, is out with an introductory TV spot. Seems a little earlier for that, doesn’t it? We’d guess that he’s concerned about the primary (remember that there was a SurveyUSA poll a few weeks back that showed him not that far ahead of Some Dude with, well, a more ‘Merican sounding name) and not wanting to go the route of historical footnote Vic Rawl.

    MO-08: Tommy Sowers, if nothing else, is showing a lot of hustle in his long-shot bid against GOP Rep. Jo Ann Emerson in this dark-red rural district. He says he’s passed the $1 million mark for funds raised over the total cycle (nothing specific on 2Q or CoH, though).

    NJ-03: Democratic freshman Rep. John Adler seems to be putting some fundraising distance between himself and Jon Runyan. Adler raised $415K in 2Q to break the $2 million mark for CoH, while Runyan has about $500K in cash.

    NY-01: Randy Altschuler’s got a whole lotta cash: he’s reporting $1.8 million CoH. A lot of that is coming right of the Altschuler family piggy bank, though. He raised a decent $257K last quarter, but loaned himself another $500K on top of that.

    OH-16: Yikes! GOP nominee Jim Renacci must have some deep-pocketed connections from the high-stakes world of Arena Football, because he’s reporting $725K raised last quarter. (No word on CoH.)

    PA-04: This is kind of a small haul to be touting (touting may not be the right word, actually, when even your own campaign adviser calls it “not half bad”), but maybe it’s a good amount when you weren’t even supposed to have won the primary in the first place. Keith Rothfus, who blasted establishment fave Mary Beth Buchanan in the GOP primary, says he has $200K CoH (up from $157K in his pre-primary report … no word on what he actually raised).

    VA-05: Finally, here’s the delicious cherry on top of the shit sundae of fundraising reports: Tom Perriello announces that he raised $660K last quarter, giving him $1.7 million CoH. No word yet from Robert Hurt, but with $121K on hand in his May 19 pre-primary report, I can imagine it’s not in Perriello’s ballpark. The Richmond Times-Dispatch has an interesting compare-and-contrast enterprise in how Perriello and fellow vulnerable freshman Dem Glenn Nye are approaching their re-elections (Perriello emphasizing his base, Nye emphasizing his independence); clearly, based on these numbers, playing to the base can pay off, at least at the bank.

    CA-LG (pdf): We’re still sweeping up from that last installment of the Field Poll. In the Lt. Governor’s race, there’s surprisingly good news for Dems, with Gavin Newsom looking solid against appointed GOPer Abel Maldonado, leading 43-34. The Attorney General results aren’t that surprising: Republican Los Angeles Co. DA Steve Cooley has a narrow edge over SF DA Kamala Harris, 37-34.

    Illinois: It looks like we’ll never have another Scott Lee Cohen scenario again (or for that matter, probably not even another Jason Plummer scenario). Pat Quinn signed into law new legislation requiring, from now on, that Governor and Lt. Governor tickets are joined together before the primary, not after.

    Rasmussen:

    IN-Sen: Brad Ellsworth (D) 30%, Dan Coats (R) 51%

    MD-Gov: Martin O’Malley (D-inc) 46%, Bob Ehrlich (R) 47%

    SSP Daily Digest: 7/12 (Morning Edition)

  • AK-Sen: It’s not every day you see an incumbent agreeing to debate a primary challenger, but Sen. Lisa Murkowski has done just that. She’ll meet Joe Miller for three debates in the middle of August, just before the primary on the 24th.
  • CT-Sen: This Politico story reminds me of that scene in Monty Python and the Holy Grail where, amidst the Black Plague, the peasant exhorts everyone to “Bring out yer dead!” and dump them on his cart. One not-quite victim protests, “But I’m not dead yet!” So, too, the Rob Simmons campaign. A whole bunch of people – including Rob Simmons himself – plan on voting for Simmons in the August 10th primary. But it’s pretty clear that hope indeed seems to be the plan here, since Simmons still isn’t campaigning and seems to just be praying for an unlikely win. At least it’s a better system of governance than strange women lyin’ in ponds distributin’ swords.
  • FL-Sen: Charlie Crist is pulling the trigger on a special legislative session in which he’ll ask lawmakers to add a constitutional amendment to the November ballot which would allow voters to ban offshore drilling. The Miami Herald notes that Crist didn’t lay any groundwork for this special session with state House leaders, meaning he could potentially get negged here. But even that could redound to Crist’s benefit, as he’d be able to campaign against the legislature’s failure to give the people a voice on this pressing issue.
  • KY-Sen: It’s like John Galt forgot the fact that his motors still had to be delivered along public roads: Rand Paul is taking heat from local officials on account of his distaste for using federal money for drug treatment programs. Note that we aren’t talking about the “war on drugs” here, but money used to treat addicts – which Paul says should come from local sources. But the people who actually have to deal with the problem say that Paul doesn’t understand how important federal dollars are for these programs. Not really surprising, given Rand Paul Math:
  • When tax money flows to the nation’s capitol, half stays there, half is wasted and half of it goes to political cronyism, Paul said.

  • LA-Sen: David Vitter got a somewhat-prominent primary challenger at the very last minute: retired LA Supreme Court Judge Chet Traylor. There’s also at least one other Some Dude in the race. If for some reason Vitter can’t get 50% in the primary – which is not until August 28th – then he’d have to deal with a runoff on October 2nd, barely a month before the general. Also interestingly, Republican state Rep. Ernest Wooton qualified for the race, too – as an independent. This might be a rare bit of good news for Charlie Melancon. (H/t Darth Jeff.)
  • NV-Sen: At the state GOP convention, Sharron Angle expressed her support for the party’s platform – a wonderfully nutty document, as Jon Ralston points out, that touts its opposition to a “one-world government.” Angle was later seen leaving the convention on a black helicopter. Meanwhile, President Obama just did a fundraiser for Harry Reid late last week, which apparently raised $800K.
  • SC-Sen: Alvin Greene won’t face any charges regarding the $10,440 filing fee he paid to run for senate, or over whether he misrepresented his finances when he asked for a public defender after being charged with a crime (showing an obscene photo) last fall. It turns out that Greene really did pull together the scratch himself, mostly from his Army exit pay and a hefty tax refund. It’s not how I would have spent my last ten thousand bucks, but to each his own.
  • SD-Sen: With zero opponents on the ballot – not even a Some Dude independent – John Thune is shuttering his campaign team. While it’s always painful to see a Republican senate seat go completely uncontested like this, I wonder if this might not be for the best in terms of Stephanie Herseth Sandlin’s re-election chances. At the very least, it means that Thune won’t be out there stumping on the campaign trail – and won’t provide an attractive top-of-the-ticket draw in November. While it’s probably unprovable, I know a lot of folks here feel that Dick Lugar’s lack of an opponent probably helped us win three house races in Indiana in 2006, a sentiment I tend to share.
  • WI-Sen: Cute: Zillionaire teabagger Ron Johnson had previously criticized President Obama for pushing BP to set up a fund to pay out claims for damage their oil spill has caused. It turns out that Johnson owns at least $116,000 worth of BP stock. Johnson laughably tried to point out that Wisconsin’s public employee pension fund also invests in BP – and that Russ Feingold is a member of that fund (he was a state legislator before being elected to Congress). Srsly?
  • WV-Sen: It looks like that statement is no longer operative. On Friday, Gov. Joe Manchin told Politico’s Ben Smith that he would “declare his intentions about a Senate run Monday.” The next day, though, he informed Politico’s Jonathan Martin that he’s going to hold off until two things happen: first, he wants the state legislature (called back for a special session) to clarify the law on special election to replace Sen. Robert Byrd. Second, he wants to name an interim office-holder. Manchin also said that the special session will be held this Thursday at noon. (And in an odd aside, Manchin – who seems all but certain to run for Byrd’s seat – just became head of the National Governors Association.)
  • AL-Gov: This is probably too late to help much, but term-limited Gov. Bob Riley is endorsing former college chancellor Bradley Byrne in tomorrow’s runoff against state Rep. Robert Bentley. Still, Bentley seems to be in the better position. Despite being something of a dark horse in the first round, Bentley has apparently done a good job of consolidating conservatives, and internal polling has generally showed him in the lead.
  • AL-02: It’s not like we can love Bobby Bright – but we probably can credit him with running a good campaign. Republican Martha Roby is trying to paint herself as a champion against illegal immigration, but as Politico points out, in past battles on the subject, Bright took a harder line than Roby did. As Alex Isenstadt says, “It’s the newest iteration of a recurring challenge for Roby’s campaign: How do you run to the right of a Democrat who’s been squarely on the conservative end of his party since even before he was elected?” Roby still has a runoff fight tomorrow with Rick “The Barber” Barber.
  • CA-11: David Harmer, running against Dem Rep. Jerry McNerney, pulled in more than $400K last quarter.
  • FL-25: Marili Cancio, running against establishment favorite David Rivera in the GOP primary, accused him of “repeat domestic violence” on her Facebook page. There have been some rumors circulating about a potential story here (you can Google for more).
  • LA-02: State Sen. Karen Carter Peterson, who lost a runoff to then-Rep. Bill Jefferson in 2006, will not seek to challenge Rep. Joe Cao. This leaves state Reps. Cedric Richmond and Juan LaFonta as Cao’s most likely opponents. I’m actually a bit surprised that more big names didn’t get into the race, given how tempting a target Cao seems to be.
  • MI-13: The Detroit Free Press takes a look at the field challenging Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick in the Dem primary – and points out that Kilpatrick, who only took in 39% in the 2008 primary – doesn’t even have a website. The Freep thinks her two toughest challengers are state Sen. Hansen Clarke and businessman John Broad, while three other Some Dudes round out the field. No one has raised very much, and even Kilpatrick has only $300K on hand. But she may yet benefit from a split field for the second cycle in a row, much like Jean Schmidt.
  • NM-02: Handsome Harry Teague raised some $320K in Q2 and has $1.2 mil in the bank.
  • NY-14: Reshma Saujani is claiming that Carolyn Maloney agreed to a debate – but Maloney’s camp says no such thing ever happened. Given Maloney’s consistent stance of refusing to credit Saujani in any way, I have a very hard time believing anything Saujani’s team says about this. And meanwhile, the Washington Post has a pretty puffy profile of Saujani, which if nothing else confirms that she truly is the candidate of the banksters.
  • NY-18: Self-funding venture capitalist Paul Wasserman has dropped his bid to take on Rep. Nita Lowey in this suburban New York district. Westchester County Republicans are now instead backing 2008 nominee Jim Russell, who has a decidedly less-gaudy campaign warchest ($5,000).
  • Fundraising: A couple of memos – which were probably designed to be leaked – are now circulating which detail Democratic fears that they will be outspent by conservative interest groups this fall. What I don’t get is why every cycle, people always act like one side outspending the other is some kind of big surprise. New 527s come and go all the time, and it’s not like big Dem or GOP donors all of a sudden forget every January that, hey, there’s an election on! Maybe we should look into this newfangled 527 thing? This stuff is cyclical, and the fact that we’re getting our asses kicked in 2010 is not really news. But if memos like these spook a few rich Dems into opening their wallets, then okay.
  • Polltopia: Or more like poll dystopia. Media Matters has a distressing piece on McClatchy’s decision to stop polling altogether as part of a budget cutback. (They had previously done about a dozen polls a year with Ipsos.) The piece also details how many, many other news organizations, particularly local newspapers, have also pared down or eliminated their polling in recent years. I know there are far worse problems in the world, but as far as Swingnuts are concerned, this is very, very sad and unfortunate.
  • Rasmussen Reports, You Decide, Vol. 22

    Hey, have you ever noticed that if you dressed Scott Rasmussen in Tea Party garb, he’d look exactly like the guy on the Quaker Oats box?

    On a more serious note, we’re sad to say this is our final volume of Rasmussen Reports, You Decide. Nobody here enjoys the mind-numbing, Hercules-cleaning-the-stables task of putting them together (and that only looks to get worse, with the demoralizing news that they plan to further up their output as election season progresses). But rather than jettisoning Rasmussen entirely (tempting as it may be), we’re just going to start doing what Steve Singiser at Daily Kos already wisely does with “Ras-A-Poll-Ooza,” which is to eat the elephant in bite-sized chunks and keep each day’s Rasmussen polls in their own little containment pool at the end of each day’s digest. If you’re even more obsessive than us, and you absolutely need to know trendlines, sample dates, the breakdown between “Some Other” and “Not Sure,” or MoEs, well, you probably already know where Pollster.com is.

    AZ-Gov: Terry Goddard (D) 35%, Jan Brewer (R-inc) 53%

    FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek (D) 15%, Marco Rubio (R) 36%, Charlie Crist (I) 34%

    FL-Sen: Jeff Greene (D) 18%, Marco Rubio (R) 37%, Charlie Crist (I) 33%

    HI-Gov: Neil Abercrombie (D) 58%, Duke Aiona (R) 32%

    HI-Gov: Mufi Hannemann (D) 52%, Duke Aiona (R) 30%

    HI-Gov: Neil Abercrombie (D) 59%, John Carroll (R) 30%

    HI-Sen: Dan Inouye (D-inc) 68%, John Roco (R) 20%

    IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 40%, Mark Kirk (R) 39%

    KS-Gov: Tom Holland (D) 31%, Sam Brownback (R) 59%

    KS-Sen: David Haley (D) 25%, Jerry Moran (R) 60%

    KS-Sen: Lisa Johnston (D) 25%, Jerry Moran (R) 61%

    KS-Sen: Charles Schollenberger (D) 25%, Jerry Moran (R) 59%

    KS-Sen: Robert Conroy (D) 23%, Jerry Moran (R) 60%

    KS-Sen: David Haley (D) 27%, Todd Tiahrt (R) 58%

    KS-Sen: Lisa Johnston (D) 29%, Todd Tiahrt (R) 57%

    KS-Sen: Charles Schollenberger (D) 30%, Todd Tiahrt (R) 55%

    KS-Sen: Robert Conroy (D) 29%, Todd Tiahrt (R) 53%

    KY-Sen: Jack Conway (D) 42%, Rand Paul (R) 49%

    LA-Sen: Charlie Melancon (D) 36%, David Vitter (R-inc) 52%

    MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan (D) 43%, Roy Blunt (R) 48%

    NC-Sen: Elaine Marshall (D) 37%, Richard Burr (R) 52%

    NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo (D) 55%, Rick Lazio (R) 28%

    NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo (D) 55%, Carl Paladino (R) 25%

    OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 40%, John Kasich 47%

    OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 39%, Rob Portman (R) 43%

    OK-Gov: Drew Edmondson (D) 39%, Mary Fallin (R) 48%

    OK-Gov: Drew Edmondson (D) 44%, Robert Hubbard (R) 31%

    OK-Gov: Drew Edmondson (D) 46%, Randy Brogden (R) 35%

    OK-Gov: Drew Edmondson (D) 45%, Roger Jackson (R) 29%

    OK-Gov: Jari Askins (D) 32%, Mary Fallin (R) 55%

    OK-Gov: Jari Askins (D) 38%, Randy Brogden (R) 47%

    OK-Gov: Jari Askins (D) 38%, Robert Hubbard (R) 43%

    OK-Gov: Jari Askins (D) 40%, Roger Jackson (R) 42%

    OK-Sen: Mark Myles (D) 27%, Tom Coburn (R-inc) 62%

    OK-Sen: Jim Rogers (D) 26%, Tom Coburn (R-inc) 65%

    PA-Gov: Dan Onorato (D) 39%, Tom Corbett (R) 49%

    PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 39%, Pat Toomey (R) 45%

    UT-Gov: Peter Corroon (D) 31%, Gary Herbert (R-inc) 58%

    WY-Gov: Mike Massie (D) 22%, Matt Mead (R) 49%

    WY-Gov: Leslie Peterson (D) 23%, Rita Meyer (R) 51%

    WY-Gov: Leslie Peterson (D) 28%, Colin Simpson (R) 44%

    WY-Gov: Leslie Peterson (D) 27%, Ron Micheli (R) 47%

    WY-Gov: Pete Gosar (D) 23%, Matt Mead (R) 51%

    WY-Gov: Pete Gosar (D) 23%, Rita Meyer (R) 52%

    WY-Gov: Pete Gosar (D) 24%, Colin Simpson (R) 51%

    WY-Gov: Pete Gosar (D) 28%, Ron Micheli (R) 46%

    SSP Daily Digest: 7/8 (Morning Edition)

  • AZ-Sen: Props to the Hotline’s Sean Sullivan – and to the McCain campaign! Thanks to them, we know that the size of J.D. Hayworth’s first ad buy is an amazing $2,100 – and that “the ad will only run on Fox News in Tucson for the entire month of July.” This is incredibly pathetic, and it’s really too bad that this Matthew Lesko wannabe is going nowhere. A McCain flack gets in a good dig:
  • “That’s actually less than he spent on bumper stickers and lapel pins in the first month-and-a-half of his campaign. Sounds like Hayworth really could use some of that free government money he hawked in his infomercial.”

  • CO-Sen: Jane Norton says she raised $900K in Q2 and has $600K on hand. Her primary against Ken Buck (who hasn’t released any numbers yet) is on August 10th.
  • FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek raised another million bucks in Q2, essentially the same as his hauls in each of the previous two quarters. He has about $4 million on hand – which, as Shira Toeplitz points out, is less than the $5 mil that zillionaire asshole Jeff Greene has already spent on the race.
  • IN-Sen, MO-08: Speaking of bullshit ad buys, Politico’s Dave Catanese takes a good close look at several attempts to “earn media” by spending just a few bucks on the airwaves. Catanese’s piece includes that quip about Hayworth cited above, and also some digs at Brad Ellsworth (IN-Sen) and Tommy Sowers (MO-08) for their less-than-impressive ad time purchases. A consultant for Dan Coats says that Ellsworth’s buy is “very light and brief – not statewide – and about evenly split between cable and broadcast.” Meanwhile, Sowers bought “just $6,400 in air time, with most of that on cable television in two counties.”
  • SC-Sen: Just click the link. A mouth-agape must-read.
  • FL-Gov: Zillionaire whacko Rick Scott is challenging Florida’s version of the “millionaire’s amendment,” which provides matching funds to candidates whose opponents exceed a certain spending cap – in this case, a pretty portly $25 million. You may recall that Crazy Jack Davis successfully challenged the federal millionaire’s amendment before the Supreme Court in 2008, and that the SCOTUS blocked Arizona from distributing matching funds last month, so I’d give Scott decent odds of prevailing.
  • GA-10 (via email): Russell Edwards (no, I’d never heard of him either) is a Democrat running against Rep. Paul Broun in this dark red 61% McCain district. Still, he managed to raised just over $100K (from “nearly 500 individual donors”) in the second quarter, which seems pretty good for a guy running in these circumstances.
  • ID-01: Rep. Walt Minnick kicked some fundraising ass last quarter, pulling in $410K and leaving him with $1.1 mil on-hand. Anyone care to guess what GOPer Raul Labrador will show?
  • SC-02: The otherwise seemingly invisible Rob Miller will be in DC today, doing some relatively low-dollar fundraisers. But it’s not like the guy – who lucked into millions thanks to Joe Wilson’s undying outburst – is really hurting for money (he had $1.7 mil on hand as of Q1). No word on his Q2 haul as of yet, though.