Tag: CA-03

Senate:

• FL-Sen: Dem Sen. Bill Nelson said he raised over $2 million in Q1 and would report somewhere between $4.5 and $5 million on hand. Republican Mike Haridopolos said he raised $2.6 million and would show $2.5 mil in the bank.

• HI-Sen: So that weird SMS poll we showed you yesterday which only pitted Ed Case vs. Mufi Hannemann in a Dem primary had another, more useful component. They also included favorables for a whole host of Hawaii politicians. Mazie Hirono was best (62% fave), while Linda Lingle was worst (44% unfave). Click the link for the rest. (And no, we still don’t know who SMS took this poll for. They’re just saying it was a private client.)

• MI-Sen: Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D) raised $1.2 million in Q1 and has $3 million on hand.

• MO-Sen: Sen. Claire McCaskill (D) raised over $1 million in Q1 and has about $1.8 million on hand.

• NM-Sen: Teabagging businessman Greg Sowards raised $150K in Q1… but it sounds like that’s all his own money. The writeup is unclear, though – it’s possible he raised $150K from outside sources and threw in an equal amount on his own.

• NV-Sen: Wealthy Dem attorney Byron Georgiou raised $1.1 million in Q1, with $500K of that coming from his own pockets.

Gubernatorial:

• ME-Gov: We previously mentioned a proposed constitutional amendment in Maine that would require gubernatorial candidates to receive 50% of the vote (a hurdle almost no one has reached in recent decades). That proposal just died in the state Senate, so it’s basically dead for this term.

• MT-Gov: Democratic state Sen. Larry Jent officially announced he is running for governor. He faces fellow state Sen. Dave Wanzenried in the primary. State AG Steve Bullock may also run.

House:

• AZ-06: Ex-Rep. Matt Salmon, who served in a similar seat in the 1990s, says he’s now thinking about running for Jeff Flake’s open seat. Salmon previously said he was considering a run for governor.

• CA-03: Dem Ami Bera, seeking a rematch against Dan Lungren, says he raised over $230K in Q1. If this haul only dates to the time of his official announcement (just two weeks before the end of the quarter), it’s nothing short of un-fucking-believable. However, he gets a demerit for emailing me a press release without putting it on his website so that I can link to it directly. Boo!

• CA-06: Activist Norman Solomon became the second Dem to file in Lynn Woolsey’s district, in the event that she retires this cycle.

• CT-05: Dem Dan Roberti, a 28-year-old public relations exec whose father Vincent was a state rep, officially announced his entrance into the race to succeed Chris Murphy. On the GOP side, businesswoman Lisa Wilson-Foley, who sought the Republican nomination for Lt. Gov. last year, also said she was getting in.

• FL-22: Lois Frankel announced she raised $250K in Q1. Previously, we mentioned that fellow Dem “no not that” Patrick Murphy said he raised $350K.

• IN-02: Dem Rep. Joe Donnelly announced he raised $363,288 in Q1, his best single quarter ever. Dude’s not going down without a fight.

• NM-01, NM-Sen: An unnamed advisor to state Auditor Hector Balderas says he won’t seek Rep. Martin Heinrich’s now-open House seat (something that insiders apparently were encouraging him to do, in the hopes of avoiding a contested primary). According to this advisor, Balderas is still considering a Senate run. Personally, I think it was a mistake for Balderas to say he was almost definitely going to run, only to be upstaged by Heinrich, who of course said he was actually going to run. I think Heinrich has the advantage in a primary, but Balderas needs a way to save face here if he doesn’t want that fight any longer.

• NY-19: Freshman GOPer Nan Hayworth announced she raised $330K in Q1 and has a similar amount on hand. Question of the day: Do you think Hayworth could get teabagged to death?

• NY-26: Dem Kathy Hochul announced she raised $350K for the special election coming up on May 24th.

• OR-01: It took a little time, but Dems are now finally drawing out the knives for Rep. David Wu in earnest. Oregon Labor Commissioner (an elected position) Brad Avakian is putting together a team of political advisors and is likely to challenge Wu in the Dem primary. Another Dem elected official, Portland Commissioner Dan Saltzman, also apparently became the first Democrat to openly call for regime change (though he says he isn’t interested in running). All eyes will certainly be on Wu’s fundraising report, due on Friday.

• PA-07: Republican frosh Pat Meehan raised $325K in Q1.

• WI-07: Former state Sen. Pat Kreitlow has formed an exploratory committee for a possible challenge to freshman GOP Rep. Sean Duffy. Kreitlow served a single term in the Senate after defeating a Republican incumbent, before losing in last year’s red tide. This could be a pretty good get for us if he goes through with it (which seems likely, just reading this article).

Other Races:

• NJ Lege: Johnny Longtorso has a good summary of the candidate filing for New Jersey’s legislative races this November. Out of 120 seats, only four total are unopposed (though there may be signature challenges).

• Suffolk Co. Exec.: Will seriously no one hire Rick Lazio? Perennially a contender for Saddest Sack of the Year, Lazio is apparently considering a run for Suffolk County Executive, now that the seat will be open in the wake of Steve Levy’s unusual plea agreement with law enforcement (which involved him not seeking re-election).

Grab Bag:

• Dark Money: Dems are finally starting to play catchup with the David Kochs of the world. Ali Lapp, a former DCCC official (and wife of one-time DCCC ED John Lapp) will head up a new “Super PAC” called the House Majority PAC. Such groups are actually not all that shadowy – they do have to disclose their donors. But they can raise and spend in unlimited amounts, and engage in direct “vote for/vote against” advocacy.

• EMILY’s List: EMILY announced four new GOP targets: Bob Dold (IL-10), Frank Guinta (NH-01), Adam Kinzinger (IL-11), and Steve Stivers (OH-15). The group only endorses women, and there are no declared Dems in any of these races yet, but I note with interest that they claim “there is major Democratic female talent waiting in the wings.” In NH-01, they could be expecting a rematch from ex-Rep. Carol Shea-Porter, and I guesss maybe Debbie Halvorson in IL-11 and Mary Jo Kilroy in OH-15, but those seem very unlikely. Any ideas?

Redistricting Roundup:

• Iowa: It looks like Iowa’s new maps will indeed pass into law very shortly. A state Senate committee approved them unanimously, and now the full body is deliberating. The state House will take the issue up today. Republican Gov. Terry Branstad hasn’t yet said whether he’ll support the new plans, but it’d be pretty explosive if he nuked the maps in the face of widespread backing among legislators. This has all been a very interesting process to watch, especially since after the initial federal map threw both Republican congressmen together, it was easy to imagine that the GOP would want to go back to the drawing board. But the fear of the unknown has pushed politicians to accept what they have before them, rather than risk something worse.

• Indiana: With the new GOP maps looking very much like reality (how Bobby Jindal must envy Mitch Daniels), the state legislator shuffle is set to begin. The AP notes that the new state House map “has three districts that put two current Republican legislators together, three districts with at least two Democrats and four districts with a Republican and a Democratic incumbent,” which doesn’t sound so bad, but Democrats point out that “five of their House members from Indianapolis were drawn into just two districts.”

• Michigan: The MI lege is about to start the redistricting process. State law says maps have to be drawn by Nov. 1st.

• Texas: Republicans in the lege have introduced a bill that would require any new maps (or voter ID bills) to get litigated before a three-judge panel in D.C., rather than go through the DoJ for pre-clearance. Rick Perry apparently is already interested in this alternative. As I’ve speculated before, he may be hoping for a more favorable hearing from potentially conservative judges. However, I’ll note that you can still sue even after the DoJ renders a pre-clearance decision, so I’m not sure why you wouldn’t just take the (cheaper and easier) free shot first.

Also of note, the Latino civil rights group MALDEF released two proposals for nine majority-minority districts in Texas. (They deliberately did not offer a map that covered the entire state.) MALDEF is no random organization: They were part of the LULAC v. Perry litigation in 2006, in which the Supreme Court forced Texas to redistrict yet again because Tom DeLay’s map had improperly diluted Hispanic voting strength.

• Virginia: So what’s going on with this supposed deal? In a rather public bit of horse-trading, Dems (who control the state Senate) and Republicans (who control the state House and the governor’s mansion) agreed that each body would get to gerrymander itself (that sounds kind of dirty, huh?), and would also agree to an incumbent protection map for congress, which would of course lock in the GOP’s 8-3 advantage. But now Republicans and Democrats have each produced separate federal maps, and they are quite different, with the Dems deliberately trying to create a second district likely to elect a minority.

The oddest part of this deal is that the legislative parts of the deal have already passed – the congressional map is now an entirely separate beast, which I don’t really get, since they each seemed to constitute one leg of a three-legged stool. I guess that’s why the Senate Dems felt free to reject the House’s federal plan, which suggests that the agreement has fallen apart. But Republicans don’t seem to be howling that the Dems have somehow reneged, so maybe we didn’t understand this deal properly in the first place. In any event, we’re very much at an impasse here, but sometimes these logjams break apart very abruptly (see Louisiana and Arkansas).

Via email:

More than four months have passed since the election and I am still humbled and inspired by what we accomplished.  It was truly an incredible journey.

And now, the journey continues. After a period of honest reflection and consultation with my family and members of the community, I have decided to run again for Congress in 2012. I am running because the issues we care about are no less important today than they were last November, and the dysfunction in Congress is only getting worse.  I’ve dealt with these issues in a recent Huffington Post Op-Ed addressed to Congress.

Though he lost, Ami Bera was one of the rare bright spots for Democrats in 2010. A physician with no prior political experience, he ran a deft campaign and hauled in a ton of money, putting the fright into the Republican Party and Rep. Dan Lungren. In the end, Bera outraised Lungren by an impressive $3 million to $2 million margin, but thanks to the brutal overall climate, Lungren hung on with just 50.1% of the vote.

Of course, with California’s new redistricting commission, district lines are liable to change quite radically. But hopefully Bera will have someplace he can reasonably run – and with any luck, he’ll put an end to Dan Lungren’s career, too.

Time for our second-to-last round of updates to our Senate, Gubernatorial, and House ratings.

• PA-Sen: Lean R to Tossup

• CA-Gov: Tossup to Lean D
• CO-Gov: Likely D to Lean D
• MD-Gov: Tossup to Lean D

• AZ-03: Likely R to Lean R
• CA-03: Likely R to Lean R
• CO-04: Tossup to Lean R
• FL-02: Tossup to Lean R
• FL-12: Likely R to Lean R
• MA-06: Safe D to Likely D
• MA-10: Lean D to Tossup
• MS-04: Lean D to Tossup
• NC-11: Likely D to Lean D
• NY-20: Lean D to Tossup
• NY-22: Likely D to Lean D
• OR-05: Lean D to Tossup
• TN-04: Lean D to Tossup
• TX-27: Safe D to Likely D
• VA-11: Lean D to Tossup
• WA-06: Safe D to Likely D

14 of these changes favor Republicans; 6 races have moved in the Democratic direction. If anything, we’re seeing a continuation of the pattern where the Dems in some high-profile statewide races seem to have bottomed out and there’s a little bounce-back, but where things seem to be keeping on worsening in the House. (Although that probably doesn’t have as much to do with the overall national atmosphere continuing to get worse, as it just does with additional polling coming to light that lets us see more underserved races in sharper relief.)

• IL-Sen: Serial exaggerator Mark Kirk has a new one on his hands: he was previously claiming that he was the driving force behind a bill that cracked down on companies that do business with Iran (but that got turned into a Howard Berman bill so it could pass the Democratic House, says Kirk). Berman says that’s not the case at all, and that his committee didn’t even consider the Kirk version of the bill.

• NV-Sen: Sharron Angle had possibly the weirdest ever visit to a group of Latino high school students, first telling them that those weren’t supposed to be Latinos in her ad featuring scary-looking dark-skinned persons crossing the border. Maybe those are actually Arabs, and maybe they’re crossing the Canadian border, she mused? She then turned the tables back on the students, saying that “I don’t know that all of you are Latino. Some of you look a little more Asian to me.” Asian like… Middle Eastern terrorists, maybe? With Sharron Angle speaking, who even knows?

• IL-Gov: Whitey no more? Green Party candidate “Rich Whitey” will apparently get ballots in select Chicago wards changed back to his actual (and preferred) name, Rich Whitney. Apparently there was enough time to reprogram all the machines if crews work overtime.

• SC-Gov: I’m not sure whose side to take here: on the one hand, it’s good to see the DNC putting money into the late-breaking South Carolina governor’s race, where internals see it as a mid-single-digits race and a real opportunity now. On the other hand, South Carolina Dems just sound pissed, saying the $100K expenditure is too little too late (which is probably true).

• CA-03: Here’s an eye-catching independent expenditure: American Crossroads (aka Rove, Inc.) is pouring $682K into a TV buy against Ami Bera in the 3rd. That would tend to support the idea that Dan Lungren, who’s lost the fundraising game to Bera every quarter, is also putting up some middling internals too.

• PA-07: Now this isn’t good, especially this late in the game: the Pennsylvania state Teamsters suddenly revoked their endorsement of Bryan Lentz. There’s no official word on what caused the rift, but it seems to relate back to Lentz’s sponsorship of a bill that cracks down on construction firms that misclassify workers to avoid paying taxes.

• OH-St. House: The Cleveland Plain Dealer has a good profile of 10 of the most important races in one of our most important legislative chambers, where Dems have a small edge (53-46) and need to hold it for redistricting purposes. It’s a mix of suburban Cleveland, suburban Columbus, and the rural southern part of the state.

• AFL-CIO: Here’s an interesting memo out from the AFL-CIO’s political director today suggesting that they’ve made a lot of under-the-radar progress in the last few weeks, redirecting members who weren’t engaged or were flirting with the Republicans. In particular, Pennsylvania stands out, where they’re finding that Joe Sestak now has a 55-26 lead among union members, up from only 45-39 at the start of September. They also point out that Joe Manchin now has a 40-point lead among union members in another union-heavy state, West Virginia.

• Early voting: Early voting gets underway today in Florida and Texas, along with five other smaller states. Adding in the states where voting has already started, that means the election is truly afoot in nearly half of all states.

• Debates: We’re adding a new component to our digests: courtesy of our friends at C-SPAN, a list of all the debates that are on tap and on the air each night on C-SPAN. Because if you’re reading this, we know you can’t get enough politicking:

8 pm ET: WV-Sen

9 pm ET: WI-07

10 pm ET: IL-11

11 pm ET : AZ-05

• SSP TV:

• AK-Sen: Lisa Murkowski may be the only Republican running a pro-pork campaign, with her new ad talking about how Joe Miller will cut off the flow of federal funds to Alaska

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet hits Ken Buck on Social Security privatization and his hardcore pro-life positions

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway moves quickly along from the ‘Aqua Buddha’ ad, turning the conversation back to mine safety, while Rand Paul continues to whine about it, spending an ad touting his Christian faith

• MO-Sen: Roy Blunt tries out a little Medicare sleight-of-hand (the whole HCR-cut-Medicare!!1! line)

• NH-Gov: The DGA, via local group Citizens for Strength and Security, hits John Stephen for retaining his campaign manager even after he received a restraining order for stalking

• NRCC: If you’ve ever wanted to watch 40+ Republican House ads in one sitting, here’s your chance

• Rasmussen:

• AK-Gov: Ethan Berkowitz (D) 39%, Sean Parnell (R-inc) 52%

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 45%, Ken Buck (R) 47%

• CT-Gov: Dan Malloy (D) 49%, Tom Foley (R) 45%

• HI-Sen: Dan Inouye (D-inc) 53%, Cam Cavasso (R) 40%

• MA-Gov: Deval Patrick (D-inc) 47%, Charlie Baker (R) 42%, Tim Cahill (I) 6%

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 47%, Sharron Angle (R) 50%

• UT-Gov: Peter Corroon (D) 29%, Gary Herbert (R-inc) 66%

• UT-Sen: Sam Granato (D) 29%, Mike Lee (R) 54%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 49%, Dino Rossi (R) 46%

CO-Sen: In a debate on Meet the Press with Sen. Michael Bennet, GOPer Ken Buck said he thinks that being gay is a choice – and then followed up by saying, “I think that birth has an influence over it, like alcoholism and some other things, but I think that basically you have a choice.”

NH-Sen: This is not so helpful: Paul Hodes’s former pollster, Mountain West Research, just agreed to pay New Hampshire a $20K fine for failing to comply with state law regarding a negative message-testing poll they did on behalf of Hodes this past summer. The AP calls it “push polling,” but it quite clearly wasn’t, given the small number of respondents involved, and also the timing (push polling is something you do to mass numbers of people right before election day). It seems like Mountain West’s sin was failing to identify the poll’s sponsor (i.e., Hodes) on their calls.

PA-Sen: CQ says that the DSCC has spent $4.7 million in Pennsylvania to date (not include the $1.2 million they shelled out to help Arlen Specter), and Dems expect to spend $9 million before all is said and done, making it the biggest commitment in the nation. Thanks to independent groups, the NRSC has only spent about $600K here so far.

WV-Sen: This has already come up on the campaign trail (Joe Manchin’s mentioned it in ads, for instance), but now it’s official: John Raese’s wife has been formally purged from the West Virginia voting rolls – because she’s also registered to vote in Florida, where she lives. (Ooh! Voter fraud!) And while we’re on the topic, Raese probably wishes that Rush Limbaugh would shut his big fat mouth. This is how Big Pharma described the senate candidate while endorsing him on his show:

“Full disclosure, I happen to know John Raese. He is a part-time resident here in Palm Beach and he has a locker right across the, right across the bench from me at a prominent local club. I’ve never played golf with him, but I’ve met him.”

As the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette’s Daniel Malloy says, “The image of Raese rubbing elbows with Rush at a swank Palm Beach country club is not one that the Raese campaign must welcome right now.”

AZ-07: I wonder what guys like Steve Driehaus have to think when they get told to walk the plank while veterans in much bluer districts who are victims only of their own self-inflicted wounds – oh, such as, I dunno, Raul Grijalva – get help airlifted in from above. Anyhow, the DCCC must clearly sense trouble in AZ’s 7th CD, since they’ve gone up on the air here with an ad hitting Ruth McClung for supporting a 23% national sales tax.

FL-22: You may have seen the news that GOPer Allen West has a disturbingly close relationship with a notorious gang of violent criminals known as the Outlaws Motorcycle Club. The best part now, though, is West’s denial that he has any affiliation with the group, in which he channels a sort of Bizarro Groucho Marx. The Outlaws, you see, “do not accept blacks, Jews or gays.” Phew!

NC-11: Big Dog alert! Bill Clinton is doing a rally for Heath Shuler in Asheville on Thursday.

NY-22: It may not be quite Paul LePage levels, but Maurice Hinchey probably wishes he hadn’t gotten so testy with a reporter who asked him questions about whether he had a financial interest in a local development project. On tape, you can see Hinchey tell William Kemble that he is “full of baloney” and to “shut up.” After the cameras stopped rolling, though, Hinchey apparently “made a beeline for Kemble and got in his face.” Crew for local station YNN said they “saw the congressman poke Kemble in the chest aggressively.”

TN-08: Though Ron Johnson’s received probably the most attention in recent months, I think Steve Fincher may be this cycle’s granddaddy for bailouts-for-me-but-not-for-thee Republicanism. As an agribusiness kingpin, he’s raked in millions in federal farm subsidies. Now it turns out that he also received a state grant just last year – and may have even violated the terms of that grant by selling the equipment it helped him buy too quickly.

TX-17: It looks like Bill Flores is going to win the Tommy Thompson Award for Crazy Beliefs Blamed on Bodily Functions. You may recall that Thompson (by far my favorite Republican candidate to run in the last GOP presidential primary) claimed that a full bladder caused him to say he favored allowing employers to fire gay employees during a debate in 2007. Now Flores wants backsies for telling an interviewer that he was not opposed to raising the Social Security retirement age… because he had a headache.

DCCC/NRCC: CQ says that so far, the NRCC has spent $31 million on independent expenditures this cycle, while the D-Trip has spent $22 mil.

Senate: Politico has a roundup of senate fundraising numbers.

SSP TV:

• PA-Sen: It’s been a while, but at long last, we finally have another poop-themed ad, thanks to Joe Sestak
• KY-Sen: I worship you, Aqua Buddha! (Apparently this ad has turned Rand Paul into a WATB)
• GA-Gov: Roy Barnes hits Nathan Deal for once having tried to weaken the state’s rape shield law; the RGA uses a clip of Roy Barnes dismissing the deaths of two children in state custody: “Out of 20,000 children, you’re going to have children die every day.”
• NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo whacks Carl Paladino on abortion rights
• CA-03: Karl Rove’s American Crossroads attacks Ami Bera for supporting “Obamacare”
• CA-20: The DCCC says Republican Andy Vidak wants to cut federal funding for water projects (apparently a big issue in this district)
• NY-04: Carolyn McCarthy’s first spot of the cycle touts her focus on job creation
• OH-02: Dem Surya Yalamanchili says his ad cost him only $20 to make
• TX-27: In a much-less-good-than-it-could-have-been ad, Rep. Solomon Ortiz features that goofy photo of Blake Farenthold in his pajamas with a scantily clad woman
• VA-01: Dem Krystal Ball introduces herself with her first ad

What would you do without the Daily Digests?

MO-Sen: Republican media trackers tell Politico that the DSCC has cancelled $1.3 million worth of ad buys in Kansas City and St. Louis for the final week before the election. The DS tried to push back, saying that “decisions are made on a week-to-week basis,” but as Swingnuts well know, cancelling early reservations now subjects you to forfeiting deposits – and means you have to pay higher rates if you decide to go back in later. In other words, late cancellations are not made lightly.

WV-Sen: John Raese has one simple request. And that is to have sharks with frickin’ laser beams attached to their heads!

NV-Sen: So maybe some of that cash earmarked for Missouri is going to Nevada instead. On the heels of Sharron Angle’s eye-bursting $14 million haul, the DSCC is making its first ad reservations in the Silver State, apparently for a million bucks a week.

GA-Gov: Wow, Nathan Deal really is the epitome of the corrupt scumbag who thinks the purposes of getting elected to public office is to use his position for personal gain. As the AP explains: “While in Congress, Republican Nathan Deal lobbied Georgia’s attorney general and top state environmental officials to allow the development of a landfill that he and his business partner wanted next to their auto salvage yard….” Note that though this involves Deal’s auto salvage business, this is actually a different scandal from the one which inspired him to resign from Congress (there, he had lobbied the state from his perch in the House to preserve a questionable vehicle inspection program from which he profited immensely).

NY-Gov: For the trouble of offering a half-assed, bullshit, “I’m sorry if you were offended” non-apology, Carl Paladino has now lost the backing of the right-wing rabbi, Yehuda Levin, who helped pen the anti-gay speech which got Paladino into such hot water to begin with.

Relatedly, a truly awesome catch by Politico’s Maggie Haberman: She digs waaay deep to link a story at the Orthodox-oriented news blog Voz Iz Neias (Yiddish for “What’s News?”) about Paladino’s flubbed outreach in the Orthodox community. Though it’s getting far less play than his homophobic outburst, Paladino also attacked a bunch of big-time rebbes (Hasidic leaders) for supposedly being suckered into going soft on the libruhl Andrew Cuomo (who had also done the ritual meet-and-greets in Hasidic communities). Several prominent rabbis are now rebuking Paladino for waltzing on to their turf and making such presumptuous accusations against some of their own. So not only did Paladino piss off half the state thanks to this trip, he pissed off the very people he was trying to win over! In a word: fail.

CA-03: There aren’t a whole lot of bright spots these days, but one of them is definitely Dan Lungren. The former state AG managed to win in 2008 against a badly underfunded opponent with less than 50% of the vote, and has been getting his ass kicked in fundraising literally every quarter this cycle by Ami Bera. So with his back against the wall, Karl Rove is coming to the rescue. American Crossroads/Crossroads GPS is launching ads in the district on Friday, but NWOTSOTB as yet.

CA-45: You know I’m a ratfucking fetishist, so of course it warms my heart to hear that Dem Steve Pougnet is doing his best to prop up teabagger Bill Lussenheide. He’s targeting Republicans with robocalls that say Lussenheide is the “true conservative” – but he’s also sending out mailers to the same households describing him as “extreme” and “dangerous” while calling Rep. Mary Bono Mack a “raging liberal.” I imagine the idea is that what’s “extreme” and “dangerous” to normal people is actually appealing to crazies. I also love the fact that Bono Mack’s people whined that this was a “dirty trick” – just shows they are a bunch of weenies who don’t know how to fight.

LA-02: Man, it seems like most pols in Louisiana care about party loyalty as much as the writers of LOST cared about not pissing off their fans after six fucking years of slavishly watching that goddamn… uh, where was I? Oh yeah, state Rep. Juan LaFonta, who got pasted in the Democratic primary by Cedric Richmond, has decided to endorse Republican Rep. Joe Cao for re-election. This does not seem like the winning move to me. (And screw you, J. J. Abrams!)

OH-09: This comment has the flavor of Star Trek nerds debating whether Captain Picard ever wore the Federation dress uniform while on the bridge of the Enterprise D during season 4… only, except, you know, this guy is actually trying to be serious. Rich Iott’s spokesbot pleaded with Politico to understand that no, it was an SS uniform, not a NAZI uniform! I’m sure that will please John Boehner, who, as it turns out, gave $5,000 to Iott last month. Think he wants his Reichsmarks back?

PA-03: Paging Mark Twain… Mark Twain to the white courtesy phone. The AFSCME evidently thinks that rumors of Kathy Dahlkemper’s demise are at least somewhat exaggerated, since they’re dropping $350K on ads on her behalf. Triage is a tricky business.

WI-08: Aaron Blake tweets that the DCCC is “pulling out” of the 8th CD, but as is often the case, the picture is more nuanced. First off, AFSCME just dropped $750K here (to which Blake alludes). Secondly, Kagen is personally wealthy. In fact, in 2008, he was the 28th-richest member of the House, with a net worth of anywhere between $7 and $20 million. Hopefully his investments haven’t taken too bad of hit the last couple of years and he can still afford to spend large (he gave his campaign almost $900K last cycle).

SSP TV:

• GA-08: Jim Marshall’s anti-Pelosi ad actually has hippies in it – for reals
• NY-20: Fuck yes – Scott Murphy’s latest lacerates Chris Gibson for supporting repeal of the healthcare reform bill. Murphy, like Earl Pomeroy, knows the only way to win is to go loud and proud
• TN-04: Lincoln Davis lacerates Scott DesJarlais for reportedly threatening his ex-wife with a gun – and threatening to kill himself. Stories like this were a big reason why Don Sherwood and Randy Kuhl both lost
• ID-01: On behalf of Walt Minnick, the mother of a woman murdered by her abuser hits Raul Labrador for his failure to support laws that would protect women in abusive relationships
• MA-06: Republican Bill Hudak hits Rep. John Tierney on a story we’ve been somewhat remiss in covering here: namely, his wife’s recent guilty plea for tax fraud. By referring to “Tierney’s family,” the ad makes it sound like Tierney himself was involved, but Hudak gets away with this legerdemain because the wife’s brother (family by marriage, I suppose) was also involved. The ad is only running on cable (Hudak had less than $100K on hand at the end of August)

Independent Expenditures:

• America’s Families First Action Fund: Sounds like a GOP group, but it’s actually Dem to the bone: $80K against David Schweikert (AZ-05); $403K against David Rivera (FL-25); $94K on mail against Bob Dold! (FL-25); $200K against Randy Hultgren (IL-14)
• EMILY: $520K against Tom Ganley (OH-13); $212K against Cory Gardner (CO-04); $20K against Frank Guinta (NH-01)
• NEA: $1.4 million against Ken Buck (CO-Sen); $306K against Harold Johnson (NC-08)
• Realtors: $450K for Jim Gerlach (PA-06)
• SEIU: $100K on radio ads for Cedric Richmond (LA-02); smaller amounts in MI-07 & IL-17
• VoteVets: $325K cable buy against Pat Toomey (PA-Sen); $31K buy against Mike Fitzpatrick (PA-08); $296K for Harry Reid (NV-Sen)

• CA-Gov: Another few weeks go by, and Meg Whitman keeps smashing the barriers on over-the-top self-funding: she’s spent $140 million out of pocket over the entire cycle now. Here’s the number that’s gotta suck for her, though: Jerry Brown, having spent all of $10 million so far this cycle, is sitting on $22 million in reserves for the remaining month, allowing him to compete on perhaps an even financial footing for the last month. Whitman’s cash reserves are $9 million, but even if she cuts herself the biggest check of all to re-up, there’s only a finite amount of TV time left for her to buy. Truly the story of the ant and the grasshopper.

• NM-Gov: The Diane Denish camp keeps up the onslaught of internal polls showing her behind but within arm’s length of Susana Martinez. This time, the poll is from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, and gives Martinez a 49-46 lead. That still feels kind of “meh” to me, but there’s an interesting kernel in the fine print: Martinez has fallen into net negative favorables for the first time (39/42, down from 42/31 in August), suggesting the ad war is having its effect.

• OH-Gov: I’m going to wait until I start seeing these kind of numbers in public polls before I start getting too optimistic about whether Ted Strickland’s comeback really has legs, but here’s another strong internal from his camp. The Feldman Group poll taken 10/3-5 gives Strickland a 46-42 lead over John Kasich, and finds Strickland with 47/40 favorables.

• CA-03: Ami Bera continues to be a fundraising force among Democratic challengers (not that he has much high-profile competition on that front); he raised $550K in 3Q, and $2.1 million raised over the cycle. He beat incumbent Dan Lungren yet again, who raised $480K for a $1.7 mil total.

• FL-02: We still haven’t seen any public polling of this race, but here’s a second GOP poll for challenger Steve Southerland giving him a double digit lead over Allen Boyd (the first one was an NRCC poll from the Tarrance Group way back in May, giving Southerland a 52-37 lead). This one’s from National Research (presumably on Southerland’s behalf?), taken 9/29-30, giving Southerland a 46-30 lead.

• VA-05: The US Chamber of Commerce gave its backing to Robert Hurt, not much of a surprise as he’s the kind of non-threatening establishment conservative that wing of the GOP tends to like. Tom Perriello picked that up and is using it as a cudgel that seems to combine various elements that have apparently polled well for Dems (outsourcing and Citizens United), saying that the endorsement means “foreign money” is pouring into the race now, citing companies in Bahrain, Russia, and China that give money to the US Chamber.

• DCCC: Here’s some more detail on the various ways in which the DCCC is, um, advancing in other directions (we told you about their pullout in AZ-08 last night, which probably has to do with Gabby Giffords having enough money to pull her own weight). They’ve also reduced buys for one week in a few other districts: a mix of ones where they seem genuinely hosed (CO-04, TX-17, FL-24, and the KS-03 and IN-08 open seats), one that seems a true tossup but where our guy has money (Harry Teague in NM-02), and one that’s looking like a pickup (LA-02). The DCCC will be using at least some of that money putting out a new brushfire that popped up in NY-23, where Doug Hoffman’s ceasing and desisting makes the race a tossup, and where they’re spending $500K.

• NRCC: Speaking of CO-04 and being hosed, here’s some additional evidence: the NRCC is taking $700K out of the 4th, and moving it next door to another race that’s looking decidedly tossup-ish: John Salazar’s CO-03.

• Redistricting: This may be the single best use of money anywhere by Dems this cycle: they’re finally putting some money into Florida’s redistricting amendments that purport to make the process less subject to gerrymandering. Over $1 million has flowed from Democratic groups to Fair Districts Florida, who are behind the measures. Fair Districts is ostensibly nonpartisan, but obviously the net effect of a less partisan map would be to dismantle one of the most effective Republican gerrymanders anywhere.

• Polltopia: With dramatically different results (especially in the generic ballot tests, but also in head-to-head polls) popping up that often seem to have very different definitions of “likely voter,” Mark Blumenthal looks at the various ways pollsters cobble together their LV models. There’s a marked difference between the way academic pollsters and partisan pollsters do it, revealing major disparities. If you haven’t seen it already, this should be required reading.

• Independent expenditures: The folks at Zata|3 have put together a very useful table, adding up and comparing DCCC and NRCC independent expenditures in all the districts where they’ve weighed in. (The NRCC has spent a lot more so far, despite their cash shortfall vs. the DCCC. The D-Trip seems to be saving up for a massive blast in the final weeks. Or maybe just saving up for 2012.) They also have charts for the DCCC and NRCC that break down each district’s expenditures by category (media buys, production, internet, etc.).

• SSP TV:

• CO-Sen: The DSCC hits Ken Buck for his enthusiasm for privatizing everything he can get his hands on

• CT-Sen: The Chamber of Commerce has a fairly boilerplate ad against Richard Blumenthal for being too anti-(big) business

• KY-Sen: There are six different ads embedded in this Inquirer article, several of which you’ve already seen (including the DSCC ad on Medicare deductibles), but including a new Rand Paul campaign ad on the “Conway = Obama” theme; separately, the NRSC has a new ad here on Conway waffling on extending Bush tax cuts

• MO-Sen: The DSCC has yet another ad about Roy Blunt and his lobbyist friends

• NY-Sen-B: Kirsten Gillibrand’s out with a second bio ad that seems specifically aimed at the upstate market, pointing out her roots in that part of the state

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak’s new ad points to what we junkies have long known, that Pat Toomey’s free market fundamentalism has given him aggregator ratings even more conservative than Rick Santorum

• WI-Sen: A second cookie-cutter ad from the Chamber of Commerce, this one targeting Russ Feingold

• KS-Gov: Tom Holland’s out with his first ad of the cycle, a comparison spot that’s half negative against Sam Brownback, half positive intro of Holland

• TX-Gov: Bill White’s newest ad rebuts some of Rick Perry’s claims about his mayoral leadership and lists his various commendations

• AZ-05: The National Education Association gets into the ad war in a big way, hitting David Schweikert for being anti-public education (this buy is part of a $15 million initiative on the NEA’s part, also including TV in OH-13 and mailers in NC-08)

• CO-04: EMILY’s List is still sticking around in the 4th, bolstering Betsy Markey with an anti-Cory Gardener spot that’s a mother of a child with autism addressing Gardener not wanting to require insurers to cover that

• Rasmussen:

• AZ-Gov: Terry Goddard (D) 39%, Jan Brewer (R-inc) 55%

• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal (D) 54%, Linda McMahon (R) 43%

• IL-Gov: Pat Quinn (D-inc) 38%, Bill Brady (R) 46%, Rich Whitney (G) 4%

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 41%, Mark Kirk (R) 45%, LeAlan Jones (G) 4%

• MD-Gov: Martin O’Malley (D-inc) 49%, Bob Ehrlich (R) 41%

• RI-Gov: Frank Caprio (D) 30%, John Robitaille (R) 22%, Lincoln Chafee (I) 33%

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 44%, John Raese (R) 50%

• CT-Sen: Remember how Linda McMahon was touting how the WWE dialed things back to “PG-rated” entertainment this decade? That didn’t seem to take into account some corporate synergy between WWE and the Girls Gone Wild empire, who collaborated on a 2003 pay-per-view. My Left Nutmeg has the rundown on GGW’s greatest legal hits, and also some compare and contrast with WWE’s own most luridly misogynist moments from its pre-PG days.

• IN-Sen: Brad Ellsworth, after a few weeks in the dark, is going back on the air with an ad hitting Dan Coats on outsourcing, including his lobbying ties to job-shippers and his own NAFTA vote in the early 90s. However, it looks like this ad is coming out of the Ellsworth campaign coffers, as the DSCC (contrary to a brief flurry of reports) still doesn’t seem to be buying any time here.

• MD-Sen: Washington Post (9/22-26, likely voters, no trendlines):

Barbara Mikulski (D): 61

Eric Wargotz (R): 29

(MoE: ±3.5%)

Here’s the Senate half of WaPo’s last Maryland poll, with Barbara Mikulski looking like she might match the 65% she got in her 2004 re-election. Her lead is 59-24 among RVs, so Maryland, like many solidly blue states, has less of an enthusiasm gap problem than the swing states. Her opponent’s problem is, naturally, name rec: he has 10/9 favorables, with 81% with no opinion.

• NV-Sen: Sharron Angle will be in Washington DC tomorrow, fundraising at the NRSC headquarters at a minimum-$500 event replete with many lobbyists and ex-Senators. If that causes a little head-spinning cognitive dissonance for you — in the wake of revelations of her inexplicably tape-recorded summit with Tea Party candidate Scott Ashjian in which they both agree that the GOP has been corrupt since, oh, at least 1994 — well, then, clearly you’re not a Republican.

• CA-Gov: While Meg Whitman and Jerry Brown have actually gotten down to some debating lately, tomorrow’s planned debate is suddenly off… and without any explanation it’s by mutual agreement, not purely a Whitman pullout (while she retrenches in the wake of her illegal employment arrangement with her housekeeper). If you’re wondering what the first poll of the race taken since the story broke looks like and whether it’s hurting Whitman, well, there’s a box called “Rasmussen” down at the bottom of the digest…

• CO-Gov: Here’s a little more info on what happens to the Colorado GOP if Dan Maes doesn’t reach 10% in the gubernatorial race. You probably know they get stuck in “minor party” status, which affects their ballot position in both 2012 and 2014. But (this is new, at least to me) it also has major fundraising ramifications for state legislative candidates in those cycles, halving what they can raise from individual donors.

• MA-Gov: Tim Cahill, whose right-leaning indie campaign lost its wheels months ago and last week seems to have lost most of its chassis as well too, still plans to go on the air with $1 million worth of attack ads (his only ads so far have been positive, which may explain why he’s polling in the single digits). And here’s the good news… he’s going after Republican Charlie Baker. If he were to join Baker in training his guns only on Deval Patrick, that could be a problem, but he won’t. (Makes me wonder if he was a Patrick plant all along? Probably not, but it’d be one of the greatest stories in the history of ratfucking if true.)

• NY-Gov: Now here’s one big financial disparity, at least on paper. Andrew Cuomo’s warchest, as of required reports last week, is more than $19 million CoH. That contrasts sharply with Carl Paladino’s $209K. Of course, Paladino can write his own checks, and has promised to spend up to $10 million of his own money if necessary. (Even if he did, that’d still be a 2:1 disadvantage, with little likelihood of ‘recouping’ that money in the form of a win, so don’t count on it.) Cuomo spent almost $3 million on TV ads in the last few weeks, so he’s leaving nothing to chance.

• AL-02: Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for DCCC (9/26-28, likely voters, 8/23-26 in parentheses):

Bobby Bright (D-inc): 52 (52)

Martha Roby (R): 43 (43)

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Not a typo. The numbers seem to have stayed exactly the same over the last month, since GQR’s previous internal on behalf of Bobby Bright. In this climate, consistency is good.

• IA-01: If, like me, you’ve been wondering why AFF is pouring $800K into the race against Bruce Braley in the 1st, which no observer has taken much interest in or seen any smoke coming from, well, now you have an answer: Sandy Grenier is the head of AFF. She’s also running for state Senate in her spare time… in Iowa. In other words, she’s pouring money into a race that’s her own personal hobby horse, at the expense of other races that are actually competitive. (And that’s not even the main point of the article… it turns out that Grenier, like so many other members of the current wave of GOP candidates, is a big believer in sucker-punching the government with one hand even as you take money from it with the other. Her family has received over $935K in farm subsidies over the last 15 years.)

• NY-20: Grove Insight for DCCC (9/28-30, likely voters, no trendlines):

Scott Murphy (D-inc): 51

Chris Gibson (R): 38

(MoE: ±4.9%)

We haven’t seen an internal in this district until now. While the numbers are nice, this actually isn’t as good as Siena’s poll of the district mid-September, which put Murphy up 54-37.

• WV-03: Anzalone Liszt for Nick Rahall (9/27-29, likely voters, no trendlines):

Nick Rahall (D-inc): 59

Spike Maynard (R): 34

(MoE: ±4.5%)

With the DCCC out with a poll a couple weeks ago giving Rahall a 55-37 lead (and even that round of AFF polls showing him up by 16), I think it may be time to stop discussing this race as competitive. What’s most remarkable here is that the Dems manage to have a 47-37 edge on the generic ballot question, and Maynard (a controversial ex-state Supreme Court justice) still manages to underperform that low bar.

• DCCC: Now who’s copping out on their DCCC dues payments? CQ finds that the Congressional Hispanic Caucus has been particularly remiss on making its payments, with only junior leadership member Xavier Becerra having paid all his dues as of the Aug. 24 tally. (Two more, including CHC chair Nydia Velazquez, report having paid up since then.) Some members cite failure to move immigration reform as a reason for holding out and giving directly to cooperative individual Reps instead.

• AL-St. Sen.: Despite having a 25-10 20-15 Democratic edge in the Alabama state Senate, many observers are thinking it’s high on the list of legislative chambers that could flip this year, given a perfect storm of local and national dynamics. And this isn’t going to help: 4 different members of the 35-person body got snared in a federal probe of a bingo operation. One is a retiring Republican, but the others are a Dem running in a tossup seat, a Dem running in a safe seat, and an independent running for re-election who was expected to caucus with Dems next session (Harri Anne Smith, whom you might remember from the AL-02 2008 GOP primary). This scandal looks like it’ll drive the legislative race conversation in the state for the remaining weeks.

• NY-St. Sen.: There are four more polls from Siena of state Senate races in New York, showing two pretty safe incumbents (one from each party) but two open seats in true tossup territory. The safe-ish incumbents are Dem David Valesky in SD-40 (beating Andrew Russo 50-40) and GOPer James Alesi in SD-55 (beating Mary Wilmot 55-35). The other two races seem close mostly because of their screwy circumstances. In the Hudson Valley’s GOP-held SD-40, GOPer Greg Ball (an inflammatory teabagger out of step with a district more amenable to moderate GOPers) leads Dem Michael Kaplowitz 45-44. And in Buffalo-area Dem-held SD-58, GOPer Jack Quinn (not the ex-Rep., but a relative) leads at 42, but that’s because Tim Kennedy (on the Dem and Con lines) is at 39 and William Stachowski (whom Kennedy beat in the Dem primary) is at 12 on the WFP and IP lines.

• State legislatures: At SSP, we’re always about finding ways for you to maximize the leverage you get out of your political contributions, and there’s no better way to do that than through giving at the state legislative level, where a little money can go a long way (especially a lot of vulnerable chambers and redistricting looming.) The DLCC is out with its second list of Essential races, in the contests they consider important ones in the quest to hold important legislative chambers.

One other resource you should check out is the “Win Big By Thinking Small” ActBlue page, courtesy of Progressive Kick. They have 18 different progressives in important state legislative races all in one place. (One name you might remember is Patsy Keever, who ran in NC-11 in 2004.)

• SSP TV:

• CT-Sen: The DSCC is out with an ad simply called “Bad” focusing on Linda McMahon as bad CEO of WWE; meanwhile, the McMahon camp is out with an ad calling Richard Blumenthal a liar for the nth time over his Vietnam service

• MD-Sen: Barbara Mikulski seems to have an easy race, but is still hitting the airwaves touting her education record

• OH-Gov: John Kasich says that 400,000 Ohio jobs were lost under Ted Strickland’s watch (without, of course, guessing at how many of those job losses were proximally related to the devastation of the credit market in the wake of the collapse of Lehman Brothers)

• CA-03: Ami Bera hits Dan Lungren for using ethical loopholes to party with lobbyists in Hawaii

• FL-12: Faced with a state Rep. opponent, Dem Lori Edwards tries running against Tallahassee instead of Washington (and against big insurance, while she’s at it), in what’s definitely today’s most cut-through-the-clutter ad

• PA-11: Paul Kanjorski keeps going to the well of how bad a mayor of Hazleton Lou Barletta was

• NRCC: The NRCC is out with freakin’ 27 different ads today… you can see the full list at their blog, and even watch them if you have 13½ minutes of your life you don’t want to get back

• Rasmussen:

• AR-Gov: Mike Beebe (D-inc) 51%, Jim Keet (R) 41%

• AR-Sen: Blanche Lincoln (D-inc) 37%, John Boozman (R) 55%

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 49%, Meg Whitman (R) 44%

• NM-Gov: Diane Denish (D) 41%, Susana Martinez (R) 51%

• PA-Gov: Dan Onorato (D) 41%, Tom Corbett (R) 53%

• WY-Gov: Leslie Peterson (D) 25%, Matt Mead (R) 61%

AK-Sen: Scott McAdams reports raising $650K since the August primary, saying over half his donations came from Alaskans and some 90% were $200 or less. The DSCC also finally registered its first public interest in the race, sending McAdams a $42,000 contribution, the maximum allowable direct donation. McAdams described this as the DS’s “first” check to him, suggesting more help might be on the way – but bear in mind that $42K was exactly what the NRSC gave Christine O’Donnell.

IN-Sen: Aaron Blake tweets that the DSCC appears to be up on the air with a “small ad buy… in the South Bend market.” SSP hoosiers in that corner of the state, let us know if you see anything.

NV-Sen: Jon Ralston obtained a 38-minute tape of an apparently private meeting between Sharron Angle and Tea Party candidate Scott Ashjian, wherein Angle (among other things) pleads with Ashjian to drop out lest he cost her the election. Ralston has links to the full audio, and also posts some transcribed excerpts. The question remains: Why the hell did Angle tape this meeting – and how did it get released publicly?

AL-Gov: Robert Bentley, the GOP gubernatorial nominee, just told Mitt Romney to take a hike. Romney endorsed a bunch of Alabama Republicans (obviously as part of his pre-campaign ass-kissing), but Bentley declined the singular honor. Not surprised, given that you can find something about Willard Mitt which probably makes his backing unwelcome in every state in the union.

SC-Gov (PDF): So there’s a poll out by a firm I’ve never heard of, Cranston & Associates, purporting to show Republican Nikki Haley up just 45-41 over Dem Vincent Sheheen. There are more than a few problem with this poll, though – click a link and check out the responses to their questions. It’s apparently an RV poll, but 100% of respondents say they’re going to vote. The male-female split is twice what it was in 2008, and the African American percentage is equal to 2008. In other words, this sample is waaay too friendly.

CA-03: I can’t summarize this charming bit of hypocrisy better than Torey Van Oot of the Sacramento Bee, whose lede reads: “Rep. Dan Lungren likened the federal stimulus plan to a “spending spree which will add to a growing mountain of debt,” but he helped secure $30 million from the program for a local company whose leaders later contributed to his campaign.” Click the link for the full details.

CA-47: Clinton Alert! The Big Dog is coming to do a rally for Loretta Sanchez (a Hillary supporter, natch) on Oct. 15th. Recall that Joe Biden was in town last month to support Sanchez, who needs all the help she can get these days. After telling a radio host that “The Vietnamese and the Republicans are, with an intensity, (trying) to take this seat” and that her opponent Van Tran is “is very anti-immigrant and very anti-Hispanic,” Sanchez came under intense fire and offered a bullshit “I’m sorry if you misunderstood me” non-apology. This one is not going well.

DE-AL: Republican Glen Urquhart is touting a Wilson Research Strategies poll (n=300) which supposedly has him just three points back of Dem John Carney, 45-42.

MA-04: Republican newcomer Sean Bielat, running against Rep. Barney Frank, says he raised $400K in September alone (and has the same amount on hand), after raising just $230K through August 25th. Frank has $1 million on hand. Even though Obama, Kerry, and Gore all won about 65% here, Scott Brown narrowly won this district, 50-49.

MN-06: Jebus – Michele Bachmann says she raised over $3.4 million in the third quarter alone. $3.4 million would be a lot for an entire cycle, let alone just one quarter. Put another way: That’s probably 3 to 4 times what Lee Fisher raised last quarter.

PA-10: Given that things like “competence” and “judgment” were not on the list of criteria Karl Rove used when hiring US Attorneys, it’s no surprise to hear that another legal impropriety has cropped up in connection with Tom Marino. During his days as Lycoming County D.A., Marino sought to get a friend’s drug conviction expunged – and when one local judge refused to do so, he asked another, who granted the expungement, but then reversed himself upon learning what happened with the first judge. Pretty scuzzy – and why was Marino, who seems to have a history of wanting to do favors for unsavory characters, even seeking the expungement in the first place? The Luzerne County Citizens’ Voice also tantalizes us with some other unexplored alleged Marino misbehavior “including claims he hired law enforcement colleagues to serve as an “entourage” and would go days at a time without going to the office.”

Meanwhile, the Allentown Morning Call confirms what I’ve always assumed to be the case, that Marino resigned as US Attorney while he was under investigation in the Louis DeNaples matter (see PA-10 tags), which had the effect of halting the inquiry. Reminds me of Nathan Deal bailing on Congress to stop his ethics investigation.

TN-08: Uh-oh – time to get Steve Fincher on “Better Know a District.” The Republican agribusiness kingpin didn’t realize that the 8th CD includes parts of a small little town you might have heard of once… you know, Memphis, Tennessee. While declaring his ignorance, Fincher also informed the public that he wouldn’t debate his opponent, Dem Roy Herron, nor would he release his tax returns (Herron has). Herron’s also raised some questions about Fincher’s personal financial disclosures, noting that they include zero liabilities – even though Fincher obtained a $250K bank loan that he in turn loaned to his campaign.

SSP TV:

• AL-02: Bobby Bright runs through a litany of numbers which he says define him – including voting with John Boehner 80% of the time
• AZ-03: In his first ad, Dem John Hulburd strikes out at Ben Quayle for his fucked-up moral compass
• IA-01: Republican Ben Lange has his first ad up, a biographical spot
• LA-02: Cedric Richmond features President Obama speaking directly to the camera (and making lots of hand gestures that look like someone speaking very broken sign language)

Independent Expenditures:

• NRCC: $5.3 million worth of NRCC spending on too many races to count
• SC-05: “Citizens for a Working America” spends $250K against Dem Rep. John Spratt

Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos (9/18-19, likely voters, no trend lines):

Ami Bera (D): 38

Dan Lungren (R-inc): 46

Undecided: 16

(MoE: ±3.9%)

Democrats have been lustily eyeing this district, which is anchored in the Sacramento suburbs, since Lungren beat Democrat Bill Durston by under 6% in 2008. That year, Obama managed to beat McCain by half a percentage point – a dramatic turnaround from the 17% Bush win in 2004. Crisitunity examined the factors driving the change in this district (and throughout California) in detail in April of 2009. He found that the bulk of the district’s population growth is coming from minority demographics, which led to a drop in the GOP’s registration advantage from 11% to 2% from 2002 to 2008.

Of course, turnout isn’t likely to be the same beast as it was in 2008 (though there is some evidence to suggest that things won’t be as bad in California), and the top of the ticket isn’t as strong this time around for Bera: Whitman leads Brown by 50-43, while Fiorina leads Boxer by 53-39. Still, Lungren has a net unfavorability rating at 39-46 and only leads Bera by 38-33 among independents – not especially formidable numbers. This is still an interesting race.