Tag: Public Policy Polling

PPP (4/17-18, New Hampshire voters, no trendlines) (primary numbers):

John Lynch (D-inc): 47

John Stephen (R): 36

Undecided: 18

John Lynch (D-inc): 47

Jack Kimball (R): 35

Undecided: 18

John Lynch (D-inc): 47

Karen Testerman (R): 29

Undecided: 23

(MoE: ±2.6%)

John Stephen (R): 29

Karen Testerman (R): 15

Jack Kimball (R): 10

Undecided: 46

(MoE: ±3.9%)

As PPP’s thorough visit to New Hampshire comes to a close, it looks like John Lynch, New Hampshire’s three-term Democratic incumbent Governor going for a barely-precedented fourth term, is going to have a tougher race than was initially expected. Of course, that’s all relative: the broadly popular Lynch has gotten accustomed to winning by huge margins (70-28 in 2008, 74-26 in 2006), and most pundits expected nothing different this year, so the fact that he’s under 50 and looks like he’ll have to put some effort in campaigning certainly amounts to “tougher.”

I’d have chalked that up to the late entry to the race by John Stephen, a better candidate than was expected, to the extent that he’s a former state Health and Human Services secretary and the guy who narrowly lost the 2008 GOP primary in NH-01 to Jeb Bradley. But Lynch fares pretty much identically against random businessman Jack Kimball, suggesting that declines in the Democratic brand in New Hampshire are rubbing off even on the redoubtable Lynch.

PPP (4/17-18, New Hampshire voters, no trendlines):

Carol Shea-Porter (D-inc): 45

Frank Guinta (R): 46

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±3.9%)

Katrina Swett (D): 32

Charlie Bass (R): 47

Undecided: 21

(MoE: ±3.4%)

PPP does us a big favor by throwing in both congressional districts (both of which are tossups this year) in with their statewide poll of the Senate and gubernatorial races. We’ve already gotten a sense that these races are potential trouble thanks to a UNH poll from February; the generally more trustworthy PPP finds Dems in better shape in the 1st (where UNH saw Rep. Carol Shea-Porter losing 43-33 to former Manchester mayor Frank Guinta… although bear in mind that UNH saw Shea-Porter losing through most of her first re-election in 2008) but Dems faring even worse in the 2nd.

There’s not too much falloff in Democratic enthusiasm in these districts; their samples went 48-45 for Obama in the 1st and 52-46 for Obama in the 2nd. Instead, there seems to be some antipathy to the Democratic candidates in these districts; Shea-Porter’s approval is 41/50, and Swett fares even worse, somehow managing to be unknown and unpopular among those who know her: 19/29 (including, tellingly, 35/16 among liberals and 35/18 among Democrats). Shea-Porter is pretty much locked-in; her survival will be all about turnout and the Dems’ overall standing come November. But it’d be interesting to see whether Ann McLane Kuster (who’s probably even less known than Swett, but likely in better standing with the Democratic base) fares any better against Charlie Bass, who benefits from being fairly well-known, having held the seat from 1994-2006. Alas, there were no head-to-heads involving Kuster (or, in the 1st, involving the lesser GOPers).

Public Policy Polling (4/17-18, New Hampshire voters, no trendlines) (primary numbers):

Paul Hodes (D): 40

Kelly Ayotte (R): 47

Undecided: 13

Paul Hodes (D): 41

Bill Binnie (R): 46

Undecided: 13

Paul Hodes (D): 43

Jim Bender (R): 40

Undecided: 18

Paul Hodes (D): 43

Ovide Lamontagne (R): 38

Undecided: 19

(MoE: ±2.6%)

Kelly Ayotte (R): 43

Bill Binnie (R): 19

Jim Bender (R): 11

Ovide Lamontagne (R): 5

Tom Alciere (R): 1

Undecided: 21

(MoE: ±3.9%)

This is PPP’s first poll of New Hampshire since Judd Gregg retired; they find what most non-Rasmussen pollsters have been finding for the last half a year, which is a high-single-digits lead for ex-AG Kelly Ayotte over Democratic Rep. Paul Hodes. PPP thinks that Barack Obama may be dragging the Dems down in this race, but Obama’s approval in New Hampshire is a tolerable 47/48, pretty consistent with national averages and with New Hampshire’s position near the nation’s midpoint. Instead, some of the problem seems to be with Hodes himself, who’s in deeper negative territory, with 32/39 favorables. (The law-and-order, no-controversial-positions Ayotte fares beter at 34/24.)

They also take a rare look at the state of the GOP primary. R2K had a look at the primary from February, finding a much closer race between Ayotte and conservative insurgent Ovide Lamontagne, which Ayotte was winning 36-27. However, that’s gotten scrambled by the two random rich guys in the race, Bill Binnie and Jim Bender, spending money to introduce themselves, while Lamontagne has continued to languish in obscurity. Lamontagne seems to have been a receptacle for all anti-Ayotte votes, and they’re migrating elsewhere thanks to money (despite the fact that Binnie is pretty moderate and seems to be running to Ayotte’s left); as far as teabagger challenges go, Lamontagne seems to be headed in the Chuck DeVore/Patrick Hughes direction rather than that of Marco Rubio or Rand Paul.

PPP (4/17-18, likely voters, no trendlines):

Mark Critz (D): 41

Tim Burns (R): 44

Undecided: 15

(MoE: ±2.8%)

There’s a battle going on in the special election in the 12th, and that’s a battle between the district’s natural Democratic tendencies and its very high disapproval of Barack Obama. The sample is 55% Democratic, but at the same time, Obama clocks in with a 33/57 approval, and approval of HCR is an alarming 28/59 (so maybe not surprising Critz is running ads saying he’d have voted against it).

If you’re wondering what’s up with that disparity, it mostly has to do with demographics. This is a historically Democratic district where Pittsburgh’s collar counties start to fade into the hills of Appalachia, a seat of traditional union strength among coal miners and steelworkers… but it’s also one of the most elderly districts in the nation (with the second highest percentage of seniors of any district outside Florida). Seniors have been the group most resistant to Obama (if Tea Party demographics are any indication), and in this district hard-hit by lost industry, there’s probably a lot more listening to Fox News than the voices at the union hall these days. Much has been made of how this was the only district in the nation to go from voting for Kerry in 2004 to McCain in 2008; it should also be pointed out that this was one of Hillary Clinton‘s strongest congressional districts anywhere in the primary, with most of the counties in the 12th going for her by at least 70%.

That leaves Critz and Burns, both of whom are very blank slate-ish (people feel positively about both: Burns’ favorables are 45/26 and Critz’s favorables are 41/34). Critz may yet benefit from his connections to John Murtha — despite this district’s seeming turn to the right, Murtha is still held in high esteem in the district (55/33 posthumous approval rating, and by a 49/37 margin, voters want their next Rep. to “carry on” Murtha’s legacy). With a motivation gap in the Republicans’ favor (the PPP likely electorate went for McCain by 7%, instead of his 1% margin in 2008), Critz’s best hope is to tie himself to Murtha, rather than the national party, in order to motivate Democratic base voters to get out.

McLaughlin (R) (4/15, likely voters, no trendlines):

Mark Critz (D): 40

Tim Burns (R): 39

Undecided: 21

(MoE: ±5.6%)

Ordinarily, I’d trust PPP (and a MoE of 2.8%) over a Republican internal poll (and a MoE of 5.6%), and I guess I still have to, despite the GOP internal presenting a rosier scenario. The McLaughlin poll (on behalf of conservative group American Action Network, rather than the Burns campaign) points to the same underlying problem holding down Critz: they find Obama with a 31/68 approval rating.

Taking these two polls into consideration, SSP is moving its rating of this race to “Tossup” from “Lean Democrat”.

• Election results: Yesterday’s big event was the special election in FL-19, the first real electoral test after the passage of HCR. The allegedly massive opposition to healthcare reform on the part of the district’s many seniors never really materialized. Democratic state Sen. Ted Deutch beat Republican Ed Lynch 62-35, with very little falloff from Obama’s 65-34 performance in 2008. (Contrast that with John Garamendi’s so-so 53-43 performance in November’s CA-10 special election, a similarly 65-33 district in 2008.)

I should also pause to offer a little credit to Texas’s Republicans, who voted for the less crazy candidates in the Board of Education and Supreme Court runoffs, and in a bigger surprise to me, for the Hispanic-surnamed candidates in the TX-17 and TX-23 runoffs (which, based on incumbent Victor Carrillo’s trouncing in the Railroad Commissioner primary, seemed unlikely to happen). The NRCC has to be pleased to see the wealthier and less wingnutty Bill Flores and Quico Canseco emerge. Rep. Chet Edwards, however, is one guy who knows how to stand and fight, and he wasted no time hitting Flores hard and defining him as a carpetbagger in big oil’s pocket.

One other leftover issue from last night: two races in California, as expected, are headed to runoffs. In Republican-held SD-12, Republican Assemblyman Bill Emmerson will face off against Democrat Justin Blake (the GOPers combined got more than 60% of the vote, so this is a likely hold), while in safely-Democratic AD-43, Democratic lawyer Mike Gatto will face off with Republican Sunder Ramani to replace now-LA city councilor Paul Krekorian. Gatto seemed to shoot the gap in this heavily Armenian-American district after the two Armenian candidates, Chahe Keuroghelian and Nayiri Nahabedian, nuked each other.

• AR-Sen: Bill Halter’s primary campaign gained more momentum, as he picked up an endorsement from the Alliance for Retired Americans, pleased with his time as a Social Security Administration official. One group that really isn’t getting on board with Halter, though, is the Berry family; first outgoing Rep. Marion Berry dissed Halter, and now his son, Mitch, is head of a group, Arkansans for Common Sense, that’s running ads attacking Halter on the Social Security front. (Are there any Arkansans who are actually against common sense?)

• CO-Sen: Looks like GOP establishment candidate Jane Norton sees the handwriting on the wall and is taking a page from Democrat Michael Bennet’s book: not able to rely on getting on the ballot via activist-dominated convention (where teabagger-fueled Ken Buck seems likely to triumph), she’s making plans to qualify by finding 1,500 signatures in each of the state’s seven congressional districts. Speaking of Bennet, he’s still the fundraising kingpin in this race; he just announced he raised $1.4 million last quarter, well ahead of Norton’s $816K.

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist may have sounded Shermanesque last week in his determination not to switch to an Independent bid for Governor, but apparently now there’s increasing moves within his inner circle to move in that direction. Unnamed advisors are floating the idea to the WSJ today.

• IN-Sen: Dan Coats seems to be having more trouble making the transition from the free-wheelin’ world of high-stakes lobbying back to the humdrum electoral politics world, where you actually have to follow the rules and stuff. He’s 10 days overdue on filing his finance disclosure reports with the FEC. One note that the Beltway press seemed to miss though: his main GOP primary opponent, ex-Rep. John Hostettler hasn’t made his filing yet either. (Of course, fundraising was never Hostettler’s strong suit. Or even his weak suit.)

• NC-Sen (pdf): PPP issued its latest installment in polls of the Senate general election in its home state. Maybe the biggest surprise is that incumbent Republican Richard Burr’s approvals are just continuing to fall; he’s currently at 32/41 (while likeliest opponent Elaine Marshall is in positive territory at 19/11). Also encouraging, I suppose, is that the actual human Democrats are starting to draw even with Generic D (while previous polls have had Generic D far outpacing them), showing they’re getting better-defined. Burr leads Generic D 43-38, while he leads Marshall 43-37, and leads both Cal Cunningham and Kenneth Lewis 43-35.

• NY-Sen-B: With ex-Gov. George Pataki’s phantom interest in this race finally having been dispelled, Swing State Project is removing this race from its “Races to Watch” list.

• PA-Sen, PA-Gov (pdf): One more poll in the rapidly-becoming-overpolled Pennsylvania Senate race, this time from Republican pollster Susequehanna. They use an LV model, and find Pat Toomey with a 48-38 lead over Arlen Specter. Of more immediate consequence, they find Specter leading Joe Sestak 42-28 in the Dem primary. They also polled both primaries in the gubernatorial race, finding Dan Onorato seeming to break away from the ill-defined pack among the Dems. Onorato is at 32, followed by Joe Hoeffel at 13, Jack Wagner at 6, and Anthony Williams at 4. Tom Corbett beats down Sam Rohrer on the GOP side, 50-7. After marshaling his resources, Specter is finally starting to open fire; he’s up with his first TV ad of the cycle starting today.

• WI-Sen: The only thing that’s sure is that Tommy Thompson likes to see his name in the press. There’s been a lot of conflicting reporting about Tommy Thompson today, with many outlets running with the story that he’s decided against running for Senate (that all traces back to one leak to a local TV station, although it sounds like Politico got some confirmation from an anonymous GOP source). Other outlets are emphasizing that Thompson’s spokesperson says that Thompson hasn’t made a final decision, though. Either way, Thompson will be announcing his plans at a Tea Party rally tomorrow in Madison, so our pain will be ended tomorrow one way or the other.

• MA-Gov: Here’s more evidence for my expectation that Dem-turned-indie Tim Cahill will be running to the right (or at least to the incoherent-angry-working-class-Catholic-guy-position) of the Republican in the Massachusetts gubernatorial race this year. He’s appearing at today’s Tea Party rally on Boston Common today, the same one with Sarah Palin that Scott Brown ditched (although MA-10 candidate Joe Malone and GOP gubernatorial underdog Christy Mihos will be there). Likely GOP gubernatorial nominee Charlie Baker (from the party’s old-school moderate WASP tradition) decided against attending, probably out of fears that he might get jostled by some ruffian and spill some of his gin and tonic on his white Bermuda shorts.

• MN-Gov: Two blasts from the past in the Minnesota gubernatorial race. Walter Mondale weighed in in favor of Democratic state House speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher, while a guy I’ve never heard of named Al Quie, who claims to have been governor from 1979 to 1983, endorsed Republican Marty Seifert.

• NE-Gov: Via press release, the campaign for Democratic candidate Mark Lakers let us know that he took in $314K, impressive considering his late entry to the campaign.

• AL-07: State Rep. Earl Hilliard Jr. got an endorsement from the United Steelworkers, a union that seems to still have a lot of clout in Birmingham, once a major steel town.

• AZ-03: Now here’s some news I didn’t expect: the fundraising champ in the 3rd isn’t one of the many state legislators running here, but rather attorney (and vice-presidential progeny) Ben Quayle. He pulled in $550K in the first quarter, thanks no doubt to family connections. There are a couple other self-funders in the race too, but the elected officials seem to be lagging: case in point, well-known ex-state Sen. Pamela Gorman, who raised only $37K and ends with $23K CoH.

• FL-24: Rep. Suzanne Kosmas announced a haul of $260K for the first quarter. That’s less than the $340K reported by her likely GOP opponent, steakhouse mogul Craig Miller (although a slab of his money was apparently carved out of his own personal funds); Kosmas has a big CoH advantage, though, sitting on more than $1 million.

• GA-07: Retiring Republican Rep. John Linder didn’t look far to endorse a replacement for him: he gave his nod to his former chief of staff, Rob Woodall.

• HI-01: Sen. Dan Inouye just transferred $100K of his money to the DCCC, despite appearances that they’re actively backing Ed Case, rather than Colleen Hanabusa, who has the support of Inouye (and pretty much everyone else in the local Democratic establishment). Inouye has apparently been working behind the scenes, including reaching out to Nancy Pelosi, to get the DCCC to dial back their Case support, so maybe the cash infusion will give him a little more leverage. (Inouye is sitting on $3.2 million and faces little if any opposition this year.)

• IN-03: Nice fundraising numbers from Democrat Tom Hayhurst, who ran a surprisingly close race against Rep. Mark Souder in 2006 and is back for another try. Hayhurst has racked up $234K CoH, more than Souder ($99K in the first quarter).

• IN-05: Politico has a look at Rep. Dan Burton’s difficult primary in the 5th, in Indianapolis’s dark-red suburbs. While Burton may actually be safer this year compared with 2008 (since he has four opponents instead of just one), the article traces the roots of the local GOP’s discontent with him, and also shows the magnitude of his collapse in support: only 2 of the 11 local party organizations are supporting Burton this time.

• MO-08: Another Dem in a dark-red seat who keeps impressing everybody with his tenacity is Tommy Sowers. The veteran and college instructor, who’s challenging Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, raised $295K in the first quarter and is now sitting on $675K CoH.

• NM-02: Ex-Rep. Steve Pearce can write himself his own checks if he needs to, but he may not need to at this rate. Pearce raised $277K in the first quarter, and now sits on $708K. Democratic Rep. Harry Teague hasn’t reported yet, but in the duel of wealthy oil guys, he can self-fund too if need be.

• NY-14: With Democratic primary challenger Reshma Saujani having some success on the financial front, Rep. Carolyn Maloney got some top-tier help from Barack Obama, who endorsed her and sent out a fundraising appeal on her behalf.

• PA-11: If this doesn’t wake up Rep. Paul Kanjorski from his nap, I don’t know what will. Three-time Republican opponent Lou Barletta raised $300K in the first quarter. An important caveat: there was no mention of cash on hand, which is telling because Barletta was still saddled with a lot of debt from his 2008 campaign when he decided to run again. (UPDATE: Barletta’s CoH is now $205K.)

• PA-17: Republican state Sen. David Argall raised a tolerable but not-too-impressive $125K in the first quarter. He’ll need more than that to battle Rep. Tim Holden, who, if nothing else, has great survival skills (he had the worst district of any freshman who survived 1994, and then survived a 2002 gerrymander designed to rub him out). In fact, he’ll need more than that just for his primary; heretofore unknown GOP opponent ex-Marine Frank Ryan raised $70K in the first quarter.

• Redistricting: Maryland beat out New York to be the first state in the nation to enact legislation that will, in terms of redistricting, treat prisoners as residents of their last known address, rather than where they’re incarcerated (and thus move the center of gravity back toward the cities from the countryside). Also, on the redistricting front, if there’s one group of people who are the target audience for a whole movie about redistricting (Gerrymandering), it’s the crowd at SSP. The film’s director has a diary up, touting its release in two weeks at the Tribeca Film Festival.

• Special elections/Runoffs: Believe it or not, it’s a busy election night tonight. Top of the list is the special election in FL-19, where the successor to Robert Wexler will be chosen. In this D+15 district in the more middle-class parts of the Gold Coast, the Democrat, state Sen. Ted Deutch, is heavily favored. The parties haven’t gotten involved, and Republican Ed Lynch (who lost a lopsided decision to Wexler in 2008) is hamstrung by the presence of independent right-wing candidate Jim McCormick.

It’s runoff day in Texas, with almost all the action on the GOP side. TX-17, between self-funder Bill Flores and 2008 candidate Rob Curnock, and TX-23, between self-funder Quico Canseco and ex-CIA agent William Hurd, are the marquee races as far as the U.S. House goes. There are also some GOP runoffs in some state House races, an interesting mixed bag of open seat succession races, teabaggish challenges to GOP incumbents, and challenges to vulnerable Dems. Finally, there’s a culture war clash between just-very conservative and super-duper conservative in two statewide contests: one for the Supreme Court (with Rick Green, the former state Rep. known for punching the guy who beat him in 2002, representing Team Crazy), and one for the Board of Education (between Marsha Farney and Brian Russell, with Russell the movement conservative here).

Finally, there’s some state legislature action in Massachusetts, California, and Florida. Primaries for two state Senate seats are in Massachusetts, the ones held by now-Sen. Scott Brown and now-disgraced Anthony Gallucio. This is the de facto election in Gallucio’s dark-blue seat, seeing as how no Republicans are running, but the winner between state Rep. Lida Harkins and doctor Peter Smulowitz in the Dem primary will face off against GOP state Rep. Richard Ross on May 11 to succeed Brown. In California, there are two legislative specials; using the California system, each one will likely head to a runoff (unless someone in the cluttered fields breaks 50%). Both seats will likely turn out to be holds: SD-37 is in Republican exurban Riverside County, while AD-43 is in Democratic Glendale in LA County. And in the Florida Panhandle, dark-red HD-04 should be an easy Republican hold.

• AR-Sen: Looks like Blanche Lincoln picked the wrong week to stop acting like a Democrat. She got seriously outraised by Bill Halter in the first quarter, earning $1.3 million (Halter got $2 mil). She also spent more than she earned, running a blitz of TV ads, probably to the tune of $2 million, as her cash on hand dropped $700K –although it’s still a high $4.7 million. Still no word yet from the race’s key Republicans.

• CA-Sen: Carly Fiorina filled in the last blank in the California Senate race; her fundraising total for the first quarter was $1.7 million, edging out Tom Campbell (who pulled in $1.6 million). Both GOPers lagged Barbara Boxer’s $2.4 million.

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist is still trying to find something that’ll stick to Marco Rubio, and he’s trying again to link ex-state House speaker Rubio to some of the other less savory elements among legislative leadership. He’s up with a new ad trying Rubio to another former speaker, Ray Sansom, who’s currently under indictment for charges of falsifying state budget items.

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias is lagging Mark Kirk on the cash front; he raised $1.2 million last quarter, compared with Kirk’s $2.2 million. Giannoulias didn’t release cash on hand figures, which may not be too impressive either considering that he had to fight through a competitive primary.

• NC-Sen (pdf): PPP looked at the primaries only in the North Carolina Senate race (they’re on May 4). On the Dem side, former state Sen. Cal Cunningham is still within striking distance of SoS Elaine Marshall; she leads Cunningham 23-17, with Kenneth Lewis at 9 and 5% for assorted minor candidates. (Last month, Marshall led Cunningham and Lewis 20-16-11.) On the GOP side, Richard Burr is at 67%, with his closest competition, Brad Jones, at 7.

• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov: Quinnipiac finds a lot of same-ol’-same-ol’ in the Empire State: Andrew Cuomo crushing, and Kirsten Gillibrand crushing anyone non-Pataki. Gillibrand trails non-candidate George Pataki 45-40 but leads actual candidate Bruce Blakeman 47-25 (none of the other third-tier GOPers get polled); she’s also sporting her highest-ever approvals, at 47/25. (Pataki beats Blakeman in a GOP primary, 64-15.) On the Governor’s side, Rick Lazio is still poised to be GOP nominee; he leads Steve Levy and Carl Paladino 34-11-11 (note that the poll was in the field prior to the whole bestiality thing). Andrew Cuomo dispatches Lazio 55-26, Levy 57-24, and Paladino 60-24.

• OH-Sen: I’d assumed Lee Fisher had been on the air before, but he’s just now launching his first TV spots of his campaign with the primary only weeks away (apparently marshaling his resources for the general). Fisher also pulled down the endorsement of Cleveland mayor Frank Johnson, although he didn’t gain the backing of his own home town’s Democratic party (in Shaker Heights), which instead declined to endorse.

• PA-Sen: Here’s a bit of a surprise: Joe Sestak succeeded in his ballot challenge, getting last-minute conservadem entrant Joe Vod Varka kicked out of the Democratic primary, setting up a two-man fight against Arlen Specter. If Sestak’s going to have any hope of knocking off Specter, he’ll need to consolidate every anti-Specter vote (and also not have the Slovak-American vote — a big segment in western Pennsylvania — split).

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold had a successful fundraising quarter, considering right now he’s only running against the specter of Tommy Thompson. Feingold earned $1.34 million, leaving him with $4.26 million CoH.

• FL-Gov: Rick Scott has decided, rather belatedly, to throw his hat in the ring in the Republican field in the Governor’s race. If the name’s familiar, he’s a former hospital-industry businessman who funded much of the initial anti-HCR astroturfing efforts via his organization Conservatives for Patient Rights. He’s sound teabaggish themes about establishment candidate AG Bill McCollum (despite McCollum taking the lead on the GOP AGs’ anti-HCR lawsuit). Considering that state Sen. Paula Dockery is already trying to run against McCollum from the right and getting no traction, it’s hard to see Scott going anywhere with this, though.

• NM-Gov: Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, the lone Dem in the race, is dominating the fundraising front; she raised $1.1 million in the six-month reporting period and has $2.6 million CoH. Among the GOPers, former state party chair Allen Weh leads both in money raised ($691K, although $500K was a personal loan) and CoH ($544K). Dona Ana County DA Susana Martinez raised $428K and sits on $364K CoH.

• PA-Gov: Here’s a blow to, well, everybody in the Democratic field; after not being able to find two-thirds support for anybody, the AFL-CIO won’t be endorsing any particular candidate in the Dem primary. Former Philadephia city controller Jonathan Saidel got their Lt. Gov. endorsement.

• AL-05: Party-switching Rep. Parker Griffith (most recently in the news for forgetting his party-switch and billing the DCCC for expenditures) surprised his GOP primary opponents at a debate by asking them sign a unity pledge that the losers of the primary would campaign for the winner in November. No thanks, said both Mo Brooks and Les Philip.

• DE-AL: Looks like wealthy self-funder Michelle Rollins, the NRCC’s preferred recruit in the race, has some competition on the big bucks front in the GOP primary. Real estate developer Glen Urquhart just announced that he has $512K in his account (of course, $500K of that came from his own pocket).

• FL-08: Alan Grayson had another big fundraising quarter, thanks in large part to netroots moneybombing (especially his March event which brought in $500K). He raised $803K in the last three months, bringing his CoH total to $1.5 million (along with the possibility of writing checks to himself).

• HI-01: CQ has an interesting piece on HI-01 that focuses primarily on just how difficult it is (especially for “mainland” pollsters) to poll in Hawaii. With only two polls of this race having seen light of day so far, the main takeaway may be that anyone’s guess is as good as mine where the race stands.

• MI-01: One of the top Republicans on everyone’s candidate list for the newly-opened seat in MI-01 has said that he won’t run. State House minority leader Kevin Elsenheimer said he won’t run, even though he’s termed out of the House and needs something else to do. (Elsenheimer, from the Traverse City area, is disadvantaged by not coming from the Upper Peninsula portion of the district.)

• MS-04: Here’s one other eye-catching fundraising note: a Dem incumbent who got outraised by Republican opposition previously considered inconsequential. Rep. Gene Taylor raised $41K and has $221K CoH, while GOP state Rep. Steven Palazzo raised $125K and has at least $100K CoH. Let’s hope Taylor doesn’t hit the “snooze” button for another quarter. National Journal’s latest fundraising outline also has noteworthy numbers from Charlie Dent (PA-15), Dan Debicella (CT-04), and Rick Crawford (AR-01).

• Redistricting: With the Fair Districts redistricting initiative seeming destined to make the ballot in Florida, now the Republican-controlled legislature is trying to get its own redistricting initiative on the ballot, in an apparent effort to clarify (or gut) the Fair Districts proposals. The Senate’s proposal deals with the thorny questions of VRA-mandated districts and communities of interest, which aren’t addressed in satisfactory manner by the original initiatives, which forbid designing districts in a manner that is favorable to one party or the other.

• Demographics: Josh Goodman has an interesting look at population change in Texas, similar to some work we’ve done at SSP over the last few years; he finds that while Texas’s largest counties are becoming swingier, its fastest-growing counties are still pretty solidly Republican (although the growth in these counties is in demographics that aren’t likely Republican). Of course, the parts of the state that are becoming less and less of the state, percentage-wise — the rural parts — have become even more conservative than the fast-growing exurbs, so in a way that’s progress too.

Public Policy Polling (3/29-4/1, Pennsylvania voters, no trend lines):

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 43

Pat Toomey (R): 46

Undecided: 11

Joe Sestak (D): 36

Pat Toomey (R): 42

Undecided: 22

(MoE: ±3.2%)

Quinnipiac (3/31-4/5, registered voters, 2/22-28 in parentheses) (primary numbers):

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 41 (49)

Pat Toomey (R): 46 (42)

Undecided: 12 (8)

Joe Sestak (D): 34 (36)

Pat Toomey (R): 42 (39)

Undecided: 22 (24)

(MoE: ±2.6%)

Arlen Specter (D): 53 (53)

Joe Sestak (D): 32 (29)

Undecided: 15 (14)

(MoE: ±3.2%)

PPP’s first look at the Pennsylvania Senate race finds a small lead for Pat Toomey; Quinnipiac’s newest entry pretty much confirms their numbers, despite their slightly different models (Quinnipiac polls registered voters) and despite showing a decent Arlen Specter lead last month. PPP’s sample breaks down very neatly: Specter leads by 71 among people who approve of Obama, while Toomey leads by 71 among people who disapprove. With Obama at 46/50 approval in Pennsylvania, that’s enough for a small Toomey lead. (The sample breaks down 49 voted for Obama, 48 for McCain, so their sort-of-LV model is a bit more conservative than the 2008 electorate.)

Public Policy Polling (3/29-4/1, Pennsylvania voters, no trend lines):

Dan Onorato (D): 32

Tom Corbett (R): 45

Undecided: 23

Jack Wagner (D): 30

Tom Corbett (R): 43

Undecided: 27

Joe Hoeffel(D): 31

Tom Corbett (R): 46

Undecided: 23

Anthony Williams (D): 27

Tom Corbett (R): 45

Undecided: 28

(MoE: ±3.2%)

Quinnipiac (3/31-4/5, registered voters, 2/22-28 in parentheses) (primary numbers):

Dan Onorato (D): 33 (32)

Tom Corbett (R): 45 (42)

Undecided: 21 (24)

Jack Wagner (D): 29 (30)

Tom Corbett (R): 48 (42)

Undecided: 21 (26)

Joe Hoeffel(D): 28 (30)

Tom Corbett (R): 50 (41)

Undecided: 21 (27)

(MoE: ±2.6%)

Dan Onorato (D): 20 (16)

Joe Hoeffel (D): 15 (10)

Jack Wagner (D): 13 (11)

Anthony Williams (D): 5 (2)

Undecided: 47 (59)

(MoE: ±3.2%)

Tom Corbett (R): 58

Sam Rohrer (R): 7

Undecided: 35

(MoE: ±4.4%)

The Pennsylvania Governor’s race didn’t look good before, and now it looks even worse if you follow Quinnipiac’s trendlines (although the shift mirrors the shift in the Senate race in the same sample, indicating they got a much more conservative batch this month). PPP’s first look at the race isn’t quite as bad, but still confirms the general idea. As both PPP’s Tom Jensen and Quinnipiac’s Peter Brown point out in their writeups, things are likely to tighten up once the Democratic primary is over and the focus is on one candidate. Right now, the Dems have such a name rec deficit (against Tom Corbett, currently getting his name in the news constantly with the Bonusgate prosecutions) that the race is very much of a question mark at this point. With Corbett flirting with the 50% mark, though, the Dems may be getting into too deep a hole here to dig out once they’ve coalesced.

RaceTracker Wiki: PA-Sen | PA-Gov

This is just brutal.

Public Policy Polling (4/1-5, Illinois voters, no trend lines):

Pat Quinn (D-inc): 33

Bill Brady (R): 43

Undecided: 24

(MoE: ±4%)

The scariest number, though, is this one: Pat Quinn’s job approval rating is 25-53. Those are some true toilet bowl numbers. It’d be an amazing feat for an incumbent, even in a blue-leaning state like Illinois, to survive in the face of such discontent. Indeed, PPP has even gone so far as to coin “The Corzine Line“, pointing out that Jon Corzine’s -23% job approval ended up giving him a defeat by a 4% spread in last year’s New Jersey gubernatorial election.

I know that some observers believed that Quinn got an easy ride with the primary win of the sharply conservative Brady. And, yes, Quinn’s lucky that he’s not dealing with the Illinois equivalent of Chris Christie, but it’ll still be pretty hard for him to gin up enthusiasm among his own base — especially with the extremely underwhelming Alexi Giannoulias sharing space on the ballot as the party’s nominee for U.S. Senate. Brady is already cleaving off 19% of the Democratic vote, and a further 28% is undecided. Quinn may be able to turn off those Democratic voters from Brady with blistering attack ads, but at this point I just have to wonder if those same voters that Quinn needs would just as easily decide to stay home.

Public Policy Polling (4/1-5, Illinois voters, 1/22-25 in parens):

Alexi Giannoulias (D): 33 (42)

Mark Kirk (R): 37 (34)

Undecided: 30 (24)

(MoE: ±4%)

It remains to be seen whether or not this mark represents something of a low ebb for Giannoulias in the wake of a recent flare-up of the cloud of bad press related to his family’s bank that continues to dog him — or whether we can take this as a warning sign of an extremely difficult campaign to come. At the very least, the biggest chunk of undecideds are Democrats:

The main reason Giannoulias is behind is that he’s getting only 54% of the Democratic vote while Kirk is winning 77% of the Republican vote. It’s not that a lot of Democrats are planning to cross over and vote for Kirk, but 36% of them are undecided right now compared to just 16% of Republicans. That suggests Democratic voters don’t really know what to make of Giannoulias’ problems right now so they’re just taking a wait and see approach to the race.

However, Jensen also adds: “There may not be a state in the country where Democrats have a weaker top of the ticket at this point than Quinn and Giannoulas.”

That doesn’t bode well for the gubernatorial portion of this poll, which will be released later this week.

Public Policy Polling (3/27-29, Alabama voters, no trend lines):

Artur Davis (D): 32

Bradley Byrne (R): 48

Ron Sparks (D): 30

Bradley Byrne (R): 43

Artur Davis (D): 33

Tim James (R): 42

Ron Sparks (D): 33

Tim James (R): 38

Artur Davis (D): 37

Roy Moore (R): 43

Ron Sparks (D): 37

Roy Moore (R): 42

(MoE: ±2.5%)

Also included in the poll was state Treasurer Kay Ivey, who announced today that she’ll be switching races to the less-crowded Lt. Governor’s race. Ivey leads Davis by 44-33 and Sparks by 39-33.

In every permutation of this race tested by PPP, a greater share of Democrats are undecided compared to Republicans — especially in the match-ups against Byrne, where twice as many Democrats are undecided. Even if most of those voters come home, Democrats will need some lucky breaks in order to win here… breaks such as a Roy Moore primary win, for instance.