Tag: SurveyUSA

• CT-Sen: Now that was fast. Only days after his bizarre and probably hopeless parachuting back into the long-abandoned Connecticut Senate race, Rob Simmons just got the primary endorsement from the state’s largest newspaper, the Hartford Courant. That’s a pretty clear indicator of how they feel about Linda McMahon. Meanwhile, out in Crazy Town, former presidential candidate Steve Forbes weighed in, giving an endorsement to Paulist economist Peter Schiff.

• KY-Sen: Rogue ophthalmologist Rand Paul is certainly a glass-half-full (or mountain-half-still-there?) kind of guy. He’s come out in favor of the environmentally destructive mountaintop removal method of coal mining, justifying it, true to form, with economics gobbledygook: “the land is of enhanced value, because now you can build on it.” In fact, it’s really just a branding problem: “I think they should name it something better.”

• WA-Sen: Here’s a rather unexpected endorsement: hard-right kingmaker Jim DeMint is coming out in favor of Dino Rossi, who was very much a moderate back when he ran for governor in 2004. I suppose Rossi taking the plunge as the first major Senate candidate to call for repeal of financial reform was enough for DeMint’s satisfaction. I still have to wonder why Rossi would seek out this kind of endorsement, as it’s certainly not going to help matters in the general election in this blue state; is he actually feeling enough heat from Sarah Palin-backed Clint Didier in the primary that he needs to go to the right-wing well?

• WI-Sen: If you’ve been following the Wisconsin Senate race, Ron Johnson has been vacillating all week on whether or not to sell his hundreds of thousands of dollars in BP stock and plow it into his campaign, move it into a blind trust, or just tape all his stock certificates together and use them to club baby seals. Now he’s just saying he’s going to sit on it and sell when market conditions are favorable — not because it’s the right thing to do, just because he wants a better profit on it.

• NH-Gov: PPP also has gubernatorial general election numbers are part of their New Hampshire sample. We’d been wondering if John Lynch, whose previous PPP numbers were kind of lukewarm, might be ready to sneak onto the list as Likely D, but today’s numbers seem to suggest otherwise. (In fact, the once-unassailable Mike Beebe may now be likelier to fill that role.) Lynch’s approvals are up to 52/36, and he leads his likeliest GOP opponent, ex-state HHS director John Stephen, 51-34. He also leads Jack Kimball 52-29, Karen Testerman 52-28, and Frank Emiro 48-28.

• NV-Gov: Rory Reid just got gifted some serious help in the Nevada governor’s race (and having seen him on the stump at Netroots Nation, he’s going to need all the help he can get…), via a gaffe from Brian Sandoval. Sandoval has denied previous allegations that he’d said on TV that his kids didn’t look Hispanic, but now Univision has dug up the tape. Perhaps even more troublesome for Sandoval: he said that in the context of his kids’ appearance being why he was not worried about his kids being racially profiled under Arizona’s new law.

• NY-Gov: Unfortunately, Carl Paladino has confirmed that no cat fud will be served in the general election in November (not that Andrew Cuomo, polling over 60%, needs any shenanigans to win). Paladino says he won’t puruse a third-party bid on the yet-to-be-named teabagger ballot line if he loses the GOP gubernatorial primary to newly-minted Islamophobe Rick Lazio.

• AZ-03: John McCain waded into the overstuffed GOP primary field in the race to replace retiring Rep. John Shadegg to flag a favorite. He’s backing state Sen. Jim Waring. McCain had his choice of endorsers to pay back (Waring, as well as Vernon Parker and Ben Quayle, are supporting McCain, while Sam Crump is the only out-and-proud J.D. Hayworth backer in the field).

• CA-47: While there’s nothing really newsworthy going on the 47th, Politico has a very interesting look below the surface at this forgotten race in a demographically-complex district. Both Loretta Sanchez and GOP challenger Van Tran seem aware that the Vietnamese minority in this low-turnout Hispanic-majority district is the district’s electoral linchpin.

• DE-AL: Michelle Rollins was supposed to be the moderate in the GOP field in Delaware, but the wealthy philanthropist seems to be going the full Sharron Angle. She joined the swelling Republican ranks of candidates saying that extending unemployment benefits just takes away people’s motivations to go out and get real jobs.

• FL-08: The main story here may be that Zogby, the pollster ubiquitous in 2004 and once though to be in the Dems’ pocket, is now reduced to doing internal polls for low-priority GOP House candidates? Anyway, they did a poll on behalf of attorney/talk show host Todd Long (the guy who almost successfully primaried Ric Keller in 2008). Long’s poll gives him a 46-38 lead over Rep. Alan Grayson. Of course, Long isn’t a likely bet to emerge from the primary (which he shares with ex-state Sen. Daniel Webster, state Rep. Kurt Kelly, and rich guy Bruce O’Donoghue), and there’s no mention of primary numbers.

• IN-03: If this were two years ago, an open seat in the 3rd (especially with 2006 candidate Tom Hayhurst on board) might have been a good pickup opportunity. Not so this year, apparently. GOP nominee state Sen. Marlin Stutzman is out with an internal from American Viewpoint giving him a 56-29 lead. Hayhurst has the financial advantage, though, and may be able to use that to make up at least some of that ground.

• KS-04: SurveyUSA has one last pre-primary look at the primary races in the 4th. There’s a lot of movement in the 4th, where businessman Wink Hartman seems to be rapidly deflating (as the carpetbagging issue may have gotten some traction) and moderate state Sen. Jean Schodorf is quickly gaining (as people realize the other candidates are all wackos). RNC committee member Mike Pompeo is still in the lead, though, at 31. Schodorf is at 24 (up 8) and Hartman at 21 (down 8), with 13 for Jim Anderson. On the Dem side, state Rep. Raj Goyle’s ad blitz seems to have had its desired effect, which was to raise his name rec and prevent him from getting VicRawl’d. (Ah, sweet memories of 2008.) Having trailed Some Dude Robert Tillman in the previous SUSA poll, Goyle now leads 63-19.

• KY-03: This race seemed to move onto the map (albeit just barely) with Republican Todd Lally having narrowly outraised Democratic Rep. John Yarmuth last quarter. Yarmuth seems to be acting quickly to squelch any sense that he’s in unusual trouble, though, rolling out an internal from Cooper & Secrest that gives him a 58-32 lead over Lally.

• OK-05: Everyone in the Beltway seems to be wondering a) what the heck went wrong with state Rep. Kevin Calvey, who was deemed frontrunner in the GOP primary in the 5th based on his Club for Growth and American Conservative Union backing, but finished second, and b) who the heck is James Lankford? The youth camp director and newbie to politics won thanks to grassroots mobilizing in the social conservative community. At any rate, this sets up a GOP runoff that’s similar to a number of others we’ve seen in southern states: a faceoff between the CfG and Mike Huckabee (a Lankford endorser) sub-wings of the right wing.

• DCCC: Here’s an interesting piece from National Journal that runs the DCCC’s list of 60-some districts for ad buys through some demographic sifting. It’s based on “quadrants” developed by Ronald Brownstein (which are pretty simple, really, just education and racial diversity — we’ve been working behind the scenes here at SSP on something similar but more sophisticated, which hopefully will see the light someday soon). As you might expect, most of the vulnerable seats, and the DCCC’s ad buys are in the low-education, low-diversity (i.e. mostly white) districts, which is where Obama tended to perform the weakest in 2008.

• Rasmussen:

• IL-Gov: Pat Quinn (D-inc) 37%, Bill Brady (R) 44%

• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan (D) 43%, Roy Blunt (R) 49%

• OR-Sen: Ron Wyden (D-inc) 51%, Jim Huffman (R) 35%

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold (D-inc) 46%, Ron Johnson (R) 48%

On the Rasmussen front, it’s also worth checking out Chris Bowers‘ latest Senate projections at Open Left. He ran separate Rasmussen-free and Rasmussen-included versions, and the difference is remarkable.

CT-Sen: I thought it was pretty weird that alleged non-candidate Rob Simmons was going to participate in a GOP debate last night. Well, he un-weirded things (I guess) by declaring at this debate that he is “running for the United States Senate.” We’ll see if it sticks. The primary, by the way, is August 10th.

KS-Sen: Not something you see every day: Rep. Jerry Moran’s former campaign manager, who claims he was pushed out in April, has endorsed rival Rep. Todd Tiahrt. Paul Moore said he thinks Moran, who has led in every single public poll, is not “instinctively conservative.”

NC-Sen: A new Civitas poll has Richard Burr leading Elaine Marshall 44-37. It’s been a really long time since Civitas looked at this race; in December of last year, they found Burr up 40-32.

WA-Sen: Obama alert! The POTUS will headline a fundraiser for Sen. Patty Murray on August 17th in Seattle.

FL-Gov: McLaughlin & Associates supposedly has yet another poll out, but not for their client Bill McCollum. Apparently, they did double duty for the Florida Medical Association, and – surprise – found Rick Scott leading McCollum 37-33. This seems like a pretty colossal waste of money, since McCollum’s internal – released just the other day – had him down 37-31.

Meanwhile, McCollum had to deal with a small brush fire: former Florida House Speaker Alan Bense held a private meeting with Rick Scott over the weekend. The problem is that Bense is supposed to be a McCollum supporter – something he re-iterated after his soiree, saying he only got together with Scott to be polite. Bense is also the chairman-elect of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, and his group is expected to get behind Billy Mac. And in case anyone still cares what unlovable loser Gary Bauer thinks, he endorsed McCollum.

KS-Gov: Dem state Sen. Tom Holland raised $283K from Jan. 1 to July 22nd and has $103K on hand. His Republican opponent, Sen. Sam Brownback, took in $519K and has $1.2 million in the bank. Note, though, that Holland’s fundraising mostly took place after the legislative session ended in June (there are strict regulations on fundraising while the lege is in operation), while Brownback was free to raise from all sources throughout the reporting period. Brownback’s been spending his time well, mind you: He just introduced legislation which would ban the creation of “part-human, part-animal creatures.” Sadly, this would mean no manticores, minotaurs, or mermaids. And I was really looking forward to embracing our brave new Greek mythology future.

MN-Gov: Glad to see that Citizens United is proving to be a two-edged sword. Target has donated $150,000 to a right-wing group called MN Forward, which is running TV ads on behalf of extremist Republican nominee Tom Emmer. Gay groups in particular are incensed, since Target had been known as a gay-friendly employer, even going so far as to support the Twin Cities Gay Pride Festival. And speaking for myself, Target can get fucked – as can Best Buy and any other corporation which uses corporate money to help elect Republicans. Not shopping at either location anymore, that’s for sure.

NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo is launching his first TV ad of the cycle, a spot about property taxes. Of course, NWOTSOTB, or whether it’s cable or broadcast, or even where it’s airing. Sigh.

OH-Gov: Obama alert 2! The day after the POTUS appears in WA (see bullet above), he’ll be doing a fundraiser for Ted Strickland in Columbus.

OR-Gov: We haven’t done writeups of our most recent batch of race ratings yet, but Carla Axtman of Blue Oregon has a nice writeup of an interview she did with Crisitunity at Netroots Nation, where he explains our decision to move OR-Gov from Likely D to Tossup.

RI-Gov: Linc Chafee is doing his best to out-do Martha Coakley when it comes to alienating Red Sox Nation (a broad constituency throughout New England). While criticizing state loan guarantees to a video game company owned by Schilling, he also decided to question whether Schilling’s famous “bloody sock” game was legit. Already Chafee’s tried to walk back the remark – but there are no do-overs in baseball. Or politics.

GA-02: Dem Rep. Sanford Bishop, in a competitive race with Republican Mike Keown (who oh-so-narrowly outraised the incumbent last quarter), formally kicked off his campaign yesterday with a newly-famous Georgian at his side: Shirley Sherrod, with whom you are most certainly familiar by now. Even though this district is almost 48% black, it’s also extremely competitive politically, going 54% for Obama and 50% for Kerry.

KS-01: SurveyUSA has one final look at the open-seat GOP primary in KS-01, finding a three-way tie between state Sen. Jim Barnett, realtor Tracey Mann, and state Sen. Tim Huelskamp. All pull 24%. Last time, it was 23-20-18.

MA-09: Bubba alert! Bill Clinton is doing a fundraiser and rally this Thursday for conservadem and anti-healthcare reform asshole Stephen Lynch. Lynch faces a primary from Mac D’Alessandro and has a monster cash advantage ($1.3 million to just $72K), so this surely seems like overkill to me – but of course, the Big Dog loves to pay back favors, and Lynch was (you guessed it) a Hillary supporter in 2008.

NY-13: Rep. Mike McMahon, seeking to avoid a primary on the Independence Party line, is challenging the petitions of third-party irritant John Tabacco. Tabacco needs only 497 valid signatures, but New York has absurdly stringent rules which make it very easy to knock “bad” sigs out. Therefore, the common rule of thumb is that you need to submit at least twice as many petitions as the law requires, and Tabacco only provided 678. Therefore, I’m going to guess that McMahon – who is highly motivated here – will succeed in his challenges. Tabacco has some more problems to worry about, though – after giving a loan to the wife of the chair of the state Independence Party last year, he suddenly got their ballot line in a city council race (funnily enough, for the seat vacated by McMahon).

NY-15: House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is dipping a toe into new waters, suggesting that resignation is an option for Charlie Rangel. So is fighting the charges, Hoyer says, but a ringing endorsement of the embattled former Ways and Means chair this is not. Meanwhile, Walt Minnick isn’t playing footsie, becoming the second Dem (after OH-13’s Betty Sutton) to call on Rangel to quit the House.

Rangel is still in talks with the ethics committee to try to reach some sort of plea bargain, but it seems that he’s unwilling to cop to a sufficiently broad array of violations to satisfy the committee members. If Rangel can’t come to terms, he’d face a “public hearing” (essentially a trial). As the New York Times points out, the last time this happened was in 2002, when Jim Traficant was expelled from the House.

PA-07: Teabagger Jim Schneller, hoping to appear on the ballot as an independent, says he’s gathered 5,200 signatures so far – a thousand more than the 4,200 he needs to submit by August 2nd. It remains to be seen if Republican Pat Meehan will try to challenge Schneller’s bid.

TN-03: Politico has a piece documenting the wingnut-on-wingnut violence stemming from the fight to replace outgoing Rep. Zach Wamp in this dark-red seat. The battle is between attorney Chuck Fleischmann and former state GOP chair Robin Smith.

Fundraising: A rare day: two Steny Hoyer mentions in one digest. The House Majority Leader is parachuting into a whole host of districts, doing events for Dems such as Mark Critz, Chris Carney, Tim Bishop, Denny Heck, and the undeserving Larry Kissell. Hoyer, like Nancy Pelosi, got where he is because lots and lots of people owe him – and will continue to owe him. Let this be a lesson to aspiring progressive leaders in Congress.

SurveyUSA (7/22-25, likely voters, no trend lines):

Martin Heinrich (D-inc): 45

Jon Barela (R): 51

Undecided: 4

(MoE: ±4.2%)

There’s been a lot of chatter today about this explosive new SUSA poll showing frosh Democrat Martin Heinrich trailing his Republican challenger, former Albuquerque Hispanic Chamber of Commerce leader Jon Barela. Let’s slice this sucker open and take a look at the innards.

SurveyUSA polled this contest once before in 2008 and several times in 2006 — culminating in an early November poll showing a razor-thin lead for Democrat Patsy Madrid. Let’s take a look at three demographic yardsticks from each poll, starting with its sample composition of 18-34 year-olds, a particularly controversial age bracket for SUSA this cycle:

	Nov-06	Aug-08	Jul-10
Vote Share	24%	20%	16%
Dem Margin	8%	37%	-3%

Next up, Hispanic voters:

	Nov-06	Aug-08	Jul-10
Vote Share	37%	24%	27%
Dem Margin	16%	23%	13%

And, finally, party affiliation:

	Nov-06	Aug-08	Jul-10
Democratic	46%	47%	45%
Republican	39%	36%	39%
Independent	13%	16%	16%

Nothing particularly dramatic outside of Heinrich’s supposed collapse among younger voters. I’m inclined to believe this is a real race (though I’m not yet convinced that Heinrich is actually down).

In response, Heinrich’s campaign released an internal poll of their own. Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (7/8-13, likely voters, 4/28-5/2 in parens):

Martin Heinrich (D-inc): 53 (55)

Jon Barela (R): 41 (38)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

At the very least, this race is getting closer — which isn’t good news for anyone.

SurveyUSA (7/17-20, likely voters, no trend lines):

Rick Boucher (D-inc): 52

Morgan Griffith (R): 39

Jeremiah Heaton (I): 5

Undecided: 5

(MoE: ±4.2%)

Continuing the clean-up of items we missed while boozing it up in Las Vegas, SurveyUSA’s next stop on their Virginia road trip is the much-hyped match-up between veteran Democratic incumbent Rick Boucher and Virginia House of Delegates Majority Leader Morgan Griffith. Compared to the absolute carnage that SUSA projected in their poll of Democrat Tom Perriello’s race, this poll looks a lot more comforting for Team Blue. Still, like we did for the Perriello poll, it’s worth comparing SUSA’s 2010 likely voter universe to their work in previous cycles.

We have to look back to July 2006 in order to find SurveyUSA’s previous poll of this district. In that poll, Boucher led Bill Carrico, also a member of the state House of Delegates, by 66-29. Boucher ultimately won that race by a 68-32 spread, so I think it’s safe to say that SUSA nailed it four years ago. That year, SUSA’s likely voter model had a 21% sample composition of 18-34 year-olds, who favored Boucher by a whopping 65-31 margin. This year, SUSA’s likely voter screen only has a 12% sample of 18-34 year-olds who favor Griffith over Boucher by an eye-popping 61-31 margin. The sample of self-identified conservatives has shot up from 40% in 2006 to 54% today. As for party composition, SUSA’s screen has shifted from 38D-35R-25I in 2006 to 33D-35R-29I this year, which seems like it could be an entirely reasonable turnout projection.

Would I buy stock in these numbers? I’m not sure, but the fact that this sample’s party ID hasn’t gyrated as wildly as SUSA’s VA-05 polls leaves me more trusting of this poll.

SurveyUSA (7/16-19, likely voters, no trend lines):

Tom Perriello (D-inc): 35

Rob Hurt (R): 58

Jeff Clark (I): 4

Undecided: 3

(MoE: ±4.1%)

Whoa — those are some dreadful numbers for Tom Perriello. But let’s first compare this poll to SUSA’s final poll of this race from 2008. In that one, SUSA’s likely voter universe was 40% Democratic and 38% Republican. This time, it’s 42% Republican and 27% Democratic. In 2008, SUSA pegged the electorate as 22% black — this time, just 13%. Furthermore, African-American voters give 27% of their votes to Hurt in this poll, a significantly higher share than the 13% given to Goode. Young voters, too, have completely flipped against Perriello; Hurt racks up a 62-30 lead among 18-to-34 year-olds after Perriello rocked Goode among those voters by a 61-34 margin two years ago.

Back in February, Public Policy Polling released a poll showing Perriello and Hurt tied. That poll, which used a slightly softer likely voter screen, had a 39D-35R sample, was 24% African-American, and had a sub-sample of 18-to-29 year-olds who favored Perriello by a slim 45-42 margin.

Which poll are you buying stock in?

• 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%

• 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%

CO-Sen: This story is from late last month, but it’s very much worth reading. While an assistant U.S. Attorney a decade ago, Ken Buck was formally reprimanded for “bad-mouthing a felony case to defense lawyers representing Aurora gun dealers.” In fact, he revealed confidential information – an unthinkable breach of attorney ethics – which may well have undermined the entire prosecution: Only one of the three defendants was convicted, and only of a misdemeanor. Buck’s opponent, former LG Jane Norton, has been making an issue of this in radio ads. The craziest thing is that the convicted gun dealer, Greg Golyansky, showed up at a debate yesterday between the two candidates, and when the subject of Buck’s reprimand came up, he jumped out of his seat and started screaming expletives at Norton. Oh, and Golyansky just happens to be a Buck donor. Weird, huh?

One unrelated note on the Dem side: Sen. Michael Bennett raised $1.26 million in the second quarter. No word on his cash-on-hand, though.

CT-Sen: The other day I wondered what Rob Simmons’ plan was – after all, several reasonably high-profile folks were announcing their support for him, even though he wasn’t actually, you know, running for office. It’s starting to look like he might have a super-genius plan after all: running for office. Simmons spoke with Rick Green of the Hartford Courant, who concludes that “it’s looking more and more like he will revive his dormant campaign for Republican nomination for the U.S. Senate.” As Green says, stay tuned.

IL-Sen: When your integrity and honesty are called into question, stonewalling is pretty much exactly opposite the approach you want to take. Yet that’s what Mark Kirk is doing, pulling a John Kasich when it comes to his military records. He says he won’t release any more such records, claiming that he’s already released “absolutely the most sensitive part” of his personnel record. But if that’s the case, then why should he care about releasing the less-sensitive stuff?

NV-Sen: Handsome Harry Reid raised $2.4 million in Q2, according to Jon Ralston, and has $8.9 million cash-on-hand.

CO-Gov: After getting a day-long purple nurple, Scott McInnis is finally apologizing for the plagiarized articles he “wrote” for the Hasan Family Foundation, but he’s still blaming the researcher who worked for him – and that guy says that McInnis was responsible. Big Mac still apparently hasn’t said anything about the purloined Rocky Mountain News op-ed he pretended to pen in 1994, either – and as we relayed yesterday, his continued candidacy is looking very much in doubt.

SC-Gov: Nikki Haley outraised Dem Vincent Sheheen in the second quarter, $543K to $366K. But Haley’s coffers were drained more quickly, thanks to her runoff, meaning Sheheen has more cash-on-hand, $262K to $183K. What’s more, Sheheen’s outraised the latest GOP belle of the ball for the cycle, $1.7 mil to $1.4 mil.

IA-03: The Des Moines Register says that Bill Clinton will be coming to town to do a $250-a-head fundraiser for Rep. Leonard Boswell later this month. The paper also mentions that the Big Dog will be swinging through Minnesota and Michigan on the same trip to help out other House candidates. Any word on who those might be?

MO-03: Republican Ed Martin, who has been semi-touted as a legit threat to Rep. Russ Carnahan, has been busy showing he’s a good fit for the district… if that district were, say, Alabama’s 1st CD. Get a load of this:

And that’s one of the things that’s most destructive about the growth of government is this taking away that freedom, the freedom, the ultimate freedom, to find your salvation, to get your salvation, and to find Christ for me and you, and I think that’s one of the things we have to be very, very aware of that the Obama Administration and Congressman Carnahan are doing to us.

PA-11: Tarrance Group (R) for Lou Barletta (7/12-13, likely voters):

Paul Kanjorski (D-inc): 37

Lou Barletta (R): 56

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Barletta also has his first ad up, airing on broadcast and cable in the Scranton-Wilkes Barre market, but NWOTSOTB. His campaign says he’s raised over $500K to date, which would mean he took in over $200K in the last quarter, based on his last FEC report.

SD-AL: Props to Nathan Gonzales for digging up this bit of info: Stephanie Herseth Sandlin’s initial ad buy – for the spot where she touts her vote against healthcare reform – is just $10,000. As Nathan says, this makes it little more than a video press release.

TN-08: George Flinn, who had mostly avoided the firefight between Ron Kirkland and Steve Fincher in the GOP primary, is now wading in with negative TV ads and mailers accusing his opponents of being too close to Democrats. Flinn was likely goaded into this move by recent attacks from Kirkland’s brother, Rob, who has hit Flinn for his ownership of a Memphis hip-hop station. NWOTSOTB, of course, but the primary is soon (Aug. 5), and Flinn has put a lot of his own money into his campaign.

Fundraising: Buncha links for you – you’ll have to click `em all: AZ-08 | MD-01 | MS-01 | ND-AL | NY-13 | NY-14 | PA-17 (Ha ha!) | VA-02

Polltopia: Mark Blumenthal takes an in-depth look at SurveyUSA’s recent experiments with combined landline-and-cellphone sampling. So far, we’ve seen little variation in the topline numbers in the two races SUSA has looked at in this manner so far: NC-Sen and WA-Sen. But Blumenthal goes deeper, looking at both how the pollster has approached this problem on a technical level, and what it means for the costs of polling. The whole post is worth a read.

• 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%

CA-Sen, CA-Gov: SurveyUSA (7/8-11, likely voters, no trend lines):

Barbara Boxer (D-inc): 45

Carly Fiorina (R): 47

Other: 3

Undecided: 5

Jerry Brown (D): 39

Meg Whitman (R): 46

Other: 7

Undecided: 8

(MoE: ±4%)

CO-Sen: It looks like Ken Buck’s efforts to distance himself from his earlier efforts to distance himself from Tom Tancredo’s recent declaration that Barack Obama is the “greatest threat to the United States today” have hit a bit of a snag. A local FOX News affiliate has obtained audio of Buck in the middle of a major facepalm a day after Tancredo first made his controversial remarks at a Buck rally: “I can’t believe that guy opened his mouth.” Whoops! See, this is the thing with running a successful primary campaign in today’s Republican Party: you either have to fully embrace the crazy, or become Charlie Crist.

KS-04: Cole Hargrave Snodgrass & Associates for Mike Pompeo (7/6-8, likely voters, May in parens):

Mike Pompeo (R): 27 (19)

Wink Hartman (R): 21 (38)

Jean Schodorf (R): 13 (13)

Jim Anderson (R): 4 (5)

(MoE: ±5.3%)

LA-02: Verne Kennedy for Joe Cao (5/27-6/2):

Cedric Richmond (D): 26

Joe Cao (R-inc): 51

(MoE: ±5%)

Cao being in the lead is probably correct (though I have my doubts as to the extent of the lead), given that no one really knows who Cedric Richmond, a state representative, is. Hopefully we’ll see more general election polling once Richmond and fellow state Rep. Juan LaFonta fully engage their primary campaigns.

MI-13: Incumbent Rep. Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick is losing by 27-19 to one of her Democratic primary opponents, state Sen. Hansen Clarke, according to a poll released last month. The only problem, though, is that this poll, conducted by some firm called Practical Political Consulting on behalf of Inside Michigan Politics, has an absurdly small sample (n=137), meaning that the margin of error on this sucker is a monkey-fuck ridiculous 8.4%.

MS-01: Dem Rep. Travis Childers accepted the “Spirit of Enterprise Award” last week from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in recognition of being a “friend of business for the entire country”. It’s another conservative score for Childers, who’s also earned the endorsements of the NRA and the National Right to Life.

NY-13: Democrat Mike McMahon may yet face a primary… for the Independence Party nomination. ’09 NYC city council candidate John Tabacco says he’s laying the groundwork for a bid, and will base his decision to run on the amount of signatures his volunteers can gather.

TX-23: It just wouldn’t be a congressional race without a story of some rich fuck running for office with a limo full of tax liens. KT over at Burnt Orange Report shares the news that Republican candidate Francisco “Quico” Canseco has been hit with over $700,000 worth of “federal, state and mechanics liens over unpaid payroll taxes and contracting fees since the early 1980s”.