Tag: Alexi Giannoulias

• AK-Sen: Joe Miller finally got around to belatedly filing his financial disclosures, maybe feeling he had something to hide. He really shouldn’t, because he’s just like the rest of us: he’s carrying a lot of credit card debt. He owes between $35K and $80K on three separate charge accounts, and also owes himself $103K for a campaign loan.  That, my friends, is fiscal conservatism you can believe in. (His biggest asset seems to be undeveloped farmland worth at least $250K, apparently the same Delta Jct. land for which he was receiving farm subsidies.)

• FL-Sen: Here’s a freaky rumor (and I think it’s nothing more than that, as everything seems to be business as usual with the Kendrick Meek camp today, at least on the surface). The Wall St. Journal alludes to increased chatter that a Meek/Charlie Crist deal might be in the works for Meek to drop out of the race and clear the way for Crist to take all the left-of-center votes.

• IL-Sen, IL-Gov: The DGA is out with an internal poll of Illinois, via Global Strategy Group. The poll, though, has better news on the Senate front than the gubernatorial battle. Alexi Giannoulias leads Mark Kirk by 3: 40-37, with 3 each to the Green and Libertarian candidates. On the other hand, Pat Quinn, who’s popped up in the lead in a couple polls lately, trails Bill Brady by 1, at 36-35, with 4 for Green Rich Whitney, 2 for Lex Green, and 6 for Scott Lee Cohen. Just the fact that Quinn seems to be climbing back into the thick of things at this late date seems to be newsworthy in itself, though.

• MO-Sen: As is often the case with these advancing-in-a-different-direction stories, there have been some mixed signals about whether the DSCC is packing up in Missouri. Hotline is observing that this seems to be at least partially the case: they’ve canceled buys from Oct. 11 to Oct. 25, although the buy still seems intact for the last week before the election. They’ve spent $1.8 million in Missouri so far, but probably will be looking to spend that money on defense in West Virginia, or maybe even Washington, which seems to be slowly edging back onto the map.

• NV-Sen: We might expect a steady stream of endorsements on a regular basis from now until the election for Harry Reid from not-insane Republicans. Two were just unveiled in the last few days. One is from Bill Raggio, the former Republican leader in the state Senate (and a legislator since 1972), who has particular reason to dislike Sharron Angle, as she tried to primary him out of his Reno-area seat in 2008. The other is Dema Guinn, the widow of the recently deceased ex-Gov. Kenny Guinn, who also says that her former husband would have backed Reid in this case too.

• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov: Quinnipiac (10/1-5, likely voters, 9/16-20 in parens):

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 55 (48)

Joe DioGuardi (R): 34 (42)

Undecided: 11 (9)

(MoE: ±2.9%)

SurveyUSA (10/5-7, likely voters, 9/20-21 in parens):

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 54 (45)

Joe DioGuardi (R): 35 (44)

Other: 8 (8)

Undecided: 3 (4)

Andrew Cuomo (D): 57 (49)

Carl Paladino (R): 34 (40)

Other: 5 (8)

Undecided: 3 (3)

(MoE: ±4%)

I think we can conclude that both those previous Quinnipiac and SurveyUSA polls — the two ones that came out simultaneously and had the big New York races in single digits, spurring a wave of panic — were some combination of a perfect wave of primary bounce and big honkin’ outlier. These races have resumed looking pretty much the way they have all cycle except for those two blips.

We also have NY-Sen-A numbers (60-30 for Chuck Schumer over Jay Townsend in SurveyUSA, and 63-32 in Quinnipiac), and NY-AG numbers (Eric Schneiderman leads Dan Donovan 46-40 in SurveyUSA, and 43-32 in Quinnipiac). Quinnipiac also has Thomas DiNapoli leading Harry Wilson 49-31 in the Comptroller race.

• CT-Sen: I hope Joe Lieberman has a nice lobbying firm picked out for a job starting in 2013. PPP threw in some Lieberman-related questions in their Connecticut sample, and he generates genuine bipartisan support in terms of the desire to replace him with someone else (72% of Dems, 63% of indies, and 61% of GOPers say “someone new”). He has 31/57 approval, including 20/69 among Dems. In a three-way with Dem Chris Murphy and GOPer Jodi Rell, Lieberman finishes 3rd, with Murphy winning 37-29-17. Substitute Peter Schiff for Rell and it’s about the same: 39-25-19. If Lieberman goes the full GOP, he still loses a head-to-head with Murphy, 47-33.

• IL-Sen: Barack Obama’s coming to town today, on behalf of Alexi Giannoulias. No stumping though, just two fundraisers. (On a related note, though, Obama will be in Oregon on Oct. 20 to appear with gubernatorial candidate John Kitzhaber.)

• NH-Sen, NH-Gov: American Research Group (10/3-5, likely voters, 9/9-14 in parens):

Paul Hodes (D): 42 (32)

Kelly Ayotte (R): 47 (46)

Undecided: 7 (20)

John Lynch (D-inc): 51 (42)

John Stephen (R): 41 (40)

Undecided: 6 (14)

(MoE: ±4%)

Wow! Wild fluctuation in an ARG poll! I’m sure that’s never happened before! Well, at any rate, if all undecideds are rapidly breaking toward the Dems, I guess we can call that good news.

• PA-Sen, PA-Gov: Muhlenberg for Allentown Morning Call (9/28-10/4, likely voters, 9/18-23 in parens):

Joe Sestak (D): 38 (39)

Pat Toomey (R): 45 (46)

Dan Onorato (D): 36 (37)

Tom Corbett (R): 47 (46)

(MoE: ±4%)

These races just don’t seem to budge. Muhlenberg’s newest numbers are just where they were a few weeks earlier, and they’re pretty much at the median for all pollsters’ averages in these races.

• VA-Sen: More looking ahead to 2012: George Allen is probably figuring that ‘macaca’ has faded into the mists of time, and he’s starting to publicly let it be know that he’s interested in a rematch with the man who beat him, Jim Webb. No formal preparatory activities, but it seems like he’s engaging in some pre-emptive GOP field-clearing.

• WA-Sen: Here’s something we haven’t seen in a while: a poll with a lead for Dino Rossi. Of course, it’s a Republican poll (from Fabrizio & Associates, on behalf of American Action Forum (that’s AAF, not AFF)), so take it with some salt, but it’s a reminder that this race is far from a done deal and that things may have tightened since that polling bulge for Patty Murray a few weeks ago. Rossi leads Murray 48-42 in a 9/26-27 sample.

• WV-Sen: You’ve probably already heard about this story: the NRSC has pulled an ad that it had started running in West Virginia featuring stereotypically blue-collar guy sitting around a diner grousing. Well, if they seem a little stereotypical, it’s because they were intended to be, if you read the details from the NRSC’s casting call for the ad that was shot in Philadelphia, asking for a “‘hicky’ blue collar look” and listing the various blue-collar clothing items that they should wear, including “John Deer [sic] hats (not brand new, preferably beat up).”” Somehow, I’m not hopeful this flap will become a game-changer in the race, but maybe it’ll help West Virginians see what Beltway Republicans really think of them. The NRSC is in fact distancing itself from the ad, throwing the talent agency under the bus.

Meanwhile, this seems like a richer vein to mine: the ongoing and seemingly growing controversy of John Raese’s residence. He owns a Florida mansion, where his wife and kids spent most of their time. But Dems are trying to raise questions about whether Raese is a West Virginia resident at all, and are asking whether he’s filed West Virginia income taxes (Florida, as you might know, doesn’t impose income taxes).

• NM-Gov: Can a race have too much internal poll leaking? There seems to be more tit-for-tat in this race than any. In response to yesterday’s Diane Denish internal showing a 3-point race, today Susana Martinez brandishes a POS internal from 10/3-5 giving her a 51-42 lead over Denish.

• NY-Gov: Quinnipiac (10/1-5, likely voters, 9/16-20 in parens):

Andrew Cuomo (D): 55 (49)

Carl Paladino (R): 37 (43)

Undecided: 6 (7)

(MoE: ±2.9%)

Either Carl Paladino had a huge primary bounce that quickly faded, people who hadn’t been paying close attention a few weeks ago suddenly found out that Paladino is a sputtering rage volcano who’d be a huge liability in office, or Quinnipiac put up a big stinky outlier a few weeks ago. (Probably a little of all three.)

• WI-Gov: Marist for McClatchy (9/26-28, likely voters, no trendlines):

Tom Barrett (D): 43

Scott Walker (R): 51

Undecided: 6

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Ooops, we missed that there was a gubernatorial half to that Marist poll from a few days ago.

• AL-02: I don’t know which is a bigger story here: that Bobby Bright is the first Democratic incumbent to announce, pre-election, that he won’t vote for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker, or that he’s trailing in a Martha Roby internal after having, for most of the cycle, seemed safer than a lot of other incumbents in less hostile districts… although the announcement seems pretty clearly motivated by the polling trends here. He says he certainly won’t vote for John Boehner, though, saying he wants to vote for a centrist “more like me.” Roby’s poll comes from POS, giving her a 45-43 lead (with the memo saying their July poll gave Bright a 49-41 lead). Bright still overperforms the generic ballot by a wide margin, which is 51-32 for the GOP in this R+16 district.

• CT-01: Merriman River Group (who put up a surprising poll finding Chris Murphy trailing in CT-05 yesterday) are out with another poll that should give some pause: they find John Larson only ahead by 7 against no-namer Ann Brinkley, 52-45, in what’s Connecticut’s bluest (D+13) congressional district. For what it’s worth, this district is eleven points bluer than D+2 CT-05, so the spread (Murphy was down 5) is consistent… but also remember that Merriman was about five points to the right of where everybody else was seeing the statewide races in that big pile of CT polls from the last couple days, so feel free to adjust accordingly.

• IL-17: Yep, we’ve definitely got a real race here this time, after Phil Hare got away unopposed in 2008. He’s up only slightly over Bobby Schilling in a POS internal (which I assume is on behalf of the Schilling camp, as the NRCC has been using Tarrance in this district), leading 38-37 in a 9/26-27 sample.

• IN-02: EPIC-MRA for WSBT (10/1-3, likely voters, no trendlines):

Joe Donnelly (D): 48

Jackie Walorski (R): 39

Mike Vogel (I): 6

Undecided: 7

(MoE: ±4.9%)

These numbers (which include leaners) look pretty good for Donnelly, in the first public poll of the race (although he’s seemed to fare OK in partisan polls of the race, compared with many other vulnerable Dems, leading in both AFF and Susan B. Anthony List polls). Donnelly has 47/32 faves, while Walorski is at 32/35.

• NY-23: Here’s one more Republican internal, that was taken before Doug Hoffman officially pulled the plug on his Conservative Party bid, but suggesting that he wasn’t having much of an effect this year anyway. In the POS poll taken for the NRCC 9/22-23, Matt Doheny leads Dem incumbent Bill Owens 51-37. (Somehow they didn’t leak what percentage Hoffman was getting… obviously it couldn’t be more than 12%… but they do tell us 68% of Hoffman supporters would, in the alternate, support Doheny.)

• PA-07: Monmouth (10/4-6, likely voters, no trendlines):

Bryan Lentz (D): 45

Pat Meehan (R): 49

Undecided: 7

(MoE: ±3.8%)

Believe it or not, this is the first public poll of this race, and it’s definitely better than the conventional wisdom on this race would dictate: although Bryan Lentz is still losing, it’s by a 4-point margin. It’s a seat that leans Dem-enough that even with a strong GOP candidate and a strong GOP tailwind it looks like it’ll still be at least close. (That conventional wisdom seems founded largely on a June Meehan internal giving him a 21-point lead.) One other interesting tidbit: Joe Sestak, the district’s current Rep., is leading Pat Toomey 49-46 within the district in the Senate race. He’d need to be cleaning up by a much wider margin than that, here, to be competitive statewide.

• WA-08: Let’s throw in a Democratic internal poll to break up the monotony. It’s from one of the few Dem challengers who seem to be keeping things within striking distance, Suzan DelBene. She trails GOP incumbent Dave Reichert by only 48-44 in a Fairbank Maslin poll taken 10/4-5 (where they gave Reichert a 9-point lead in August). That coincides, perhaps not coincidentally, with Dave Reichert finally having to come out and say “no, I don’t have brain damage.” Reichert, you may remember, had to have emergency surgery after getting hit in the head by a tree branch in March. Reichert’s fitness had been the subject of increasing whispers and question marks in recent months, some of which may have rubbed off on his poll numbers.

• Early voting: Fun fact of the day: early voting is up 50% over this point in time over the 2006 midterm, with nearly 6 million votes already having been cast. This, of course, is in large part because states have, in the intervening years, made it easier to vote early. (Nearly 30% of votes were cast early in 2008; officials don’t expect this year’s numbers to reach that peak, though.) At any rate, it looks like early voting is increasingly here to stay, and campaigns will have to adjust their strategies accordingly. (I.e. planning for the “September Surprise” instead?)

• Demographics: Now these are some interesting numbers: a chart breaking down the “voting-eligible” (not just “voting age”) population by percentage in each state, eliminating non-citizens as well as prisoners and ineligible felons. And here’s an interesting statistic: despite the fact that we haven’t completed the dang fence, the percentage of non-citizens in the U.S. has actually dropped from 2006 (8.6%) to 2010 (8.3%), partly because the government has processed a backlog in citizenship cases and partly because the lousier economy has made the U.S. a less attractive destination.

• SSP TV:

• AR-Sen: Blanche Lincoln uses Bill Clinton as surrogate to talk about John Boozman’s privatization mania

• PA-Sen: The Club for Growth does some stimulus act cherry-picking to portray Joe Sestak as a sockpuppet for the sockpuppet lobby

• WV-Sen: The DSCC hits John Raese on outsourcing

• ND-AL: The NRCC attacks Earl Pomeroy for taking money from the insurance industry

• SD-AL: Stephanie Herseth Sandlin’s newest ad focuses on her work on parochial issues, while Kristin Noem’s ad says Sandlin’s gone Washington

• Rasmussen:

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 46%, Sharron Angle (R) 50%

• 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%

• AK-Sen: It’s never a dull moment with Joe Miller in the race. Hot on the heels of the news that he believes that federal unemployment insurance is unconstitutional, today comes the news that his wife went on unemployment after leaving a job in 2004, and that Miller did not disown his wife for betraying the Founding Fathers. But wait, it just gets more interesting: the job Miller’s wife left was working for… Miller himself. He hired his wife as a part-time clerk when he was working for several years as a magistrate judge for the federal district court (y’know, for the federal government he just hates so much). Local gadfly (and Lisa Murkowski ally) Andrew Halcro is, in fact, suggesting that Miller was forced to fire his wife because the blatant nepotism may have been a violation of court policies. (Of course, Miller’s response was that Murkowski’s not one to talk about nepotism.)

And on top of that, now it’s come out that Miller is a full-on Seventeenther. In other words, part of the new crop of right-wingers who want you to vote for him so he can take away your rights to vote for him in the future.

• HI-Sen: Term-limited GOP Gov. Linda Lingle is saying she’ll “take a look” at a Senate bid in 2012. That seat’s current occupant, Dan Akaka, is 86 years old, so it’s not clear whether he’ll run for another term or not. Lingle is probably the only Republican on the bench in Hawaii with enough juice to make a Senate race, especially an open seat one, competitive.

• IL-Sen, IL-Gov: Mark Kirk is out with an internal poll (from Fulcrum), giving him a much larger lead than, well, anyone else, considering that most pollsters have seen this within a point or two either way. His poll says he leads Alexi Giannoulias 42-33, with 2 for the Green Party’s LeAlan Jones. (The same poll also shows Bill Brady leading Pat Quinn 39-27 in the Governor’s race.) Sitting on a big cash advantage, Kirk has reserved most of his entire kitty ($5.2 million) on ad buys for the remaining month.

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold seems determined to follow Nancy Boyda down the path of integrity/obscurity. He’s telling the DSCC (who haven’t advertised yet on his behalf) to back off and let him fight the election himself. Says Feingold: “I consider it to be outside help of a kind that is uncontrolled and tends to believe in a philosophy of slash-and-burn politics. That’s frankly not who I am. I don’t want to win that way.”

• NH-Gov: Univ. of New Hampshire (9/23-29, likely voters, July in parentheses):

John Lynch (D-inc): 51 (54)

John Stephen (R): 34 (29)

(MoE: ±4.3%)

Considering that UNH’s sample had Paul Hodes down by 15 and Carol Shea-Porter losing too, it’s pleasantly surprising to see John Lynch hanging in there with little trouble (in contrast to several other recent polls, such as UNH’s in-state rival for weird results, ARG).

• WV-Gov: I guess the 2010 election is over already? Because the conversation today already seems to be changing to 2012. Republican state Sen. Clark Barnes (whom you might remember for briefly getting in and then getting out of the field in WV-01 last year) says he’ll run for governor two years from now.

• NY-20: Finding himself on the very wrong end of both a Siena poll and a Scott Murphy internal, Chris Gibson offers up a POS internal of his own, taken 9/27-28, showing that he’s still within striking distance. He says he trails Murphy 42-38.

• VA-05: Here’s one more Dem poll from the 5th that shows Tom Perriello is narrowly trailing, but not officially dead yet. Rob Hurt leads Perriello 44-43 in a poll sponsored by the League of Conservation Voters and the SEIU (no word on who the pollster is, though). (UPDATE: The pollster is David Dougherty, and the memo is here. The sample was taken 9/20-23 with a 4.4% MoE.)

• American Crossroads: Remember back when we all laughed at American Crossroads for not raising any money, apparently because they were waiting for the million-dollar checks from their half-a-dozen billionaire donors to clear? Ha ha, boy, those were simpler times. Anyway, Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center are going to the IRS to ask for an investigation of Crossroads GPS, one tentacle of the group that’s organized as a non-profit “social welfare organization” or 501(c)(4). The larger Crossroads is a PAC, but GPS itself isn’t supposed to participate in campaigns. Rather than take it up with the FEC, which has fallen into chaotic uselessness because of empty seats on the commission, they’re going straight to the IRS, alleging tax law violations instead.

• Fundraising:

• MO-Sen: Roy Blunt raised $2 million in 3Q, no CoH given

• PA-07: Pat Meehan raised $725K, giving him $1.5 million CoH

• SSP TV:

• AK-Sen: Two different ads, one a coordinated spot between the Joe Miller camp and the NRSC that’s a bio spot for Miller, the other a Tea Party Express one-minute extravaganza that calls Lisa Murkowski a liar, a fraud, and various other things

• IN-Sen: Here’s a link to that Brad Ellsworth ad we mentioned yesterday, where he literally calls Dan Coats a sellout over that all-covers album he released outsourcing

• KY-Sen: The DSCC rolls out an ad hitting Rand Paul on his proposed $2,000 Medicare deductible, while Paul’s newest ad returns to the Jack Conway=Obama theme

• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan goes back to the theme of Roy Blunt’s cozy DC insider relationships

• NY-Sen-B: Joe DioGuardi’s first ad is an intro spot, as well as bemoaning the dwindling American Dream

• WA-Sen: The DSCC revisits Dino Rossi’s days as a state Senator, including support for cutting unemployment benefits and the minimum wage

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold takes the GOP to task for prematurely celebrating short of the end zone

• WV-Sen: John Raese follows the NRSC’s lead with his own ad doing the Joe Manchin=Obama thing

• FL-Gov: The DGA’s out with a Florida ad with various law enforcement officials bashing Rick Scott’s Medicare fraud

• NH-Gov: Here’s the ad of the day: John Lynch leaps out of the gate and punches John Stephen in the nose over scandals at New Hampshire’s HHS Dept.

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland, bedecked in camo, reminds the state’s hunters who got the NRA’s backing

• PA-Gov: Well, at least Tom Corbett isn’t saying Dan Onorato = Obama, but he is saying Onorato = Ed Rendell

• RI-Gov: The DGA hits Lincoln Chafee from the right? Their new ad says that vulnerable Rhode Islanders can’t afford all the new taxes Chafee wants

• FL-24: Suzanne Kosmas hits Sandy Adams over the Paul Ryan roadmap

• PA-04: Oh, good… more kids complaining about how their allowance isn’t big enough to cover all the debt they’re going to have to pay off, courtesy of Keith Rothfus

• Rasmussen:

• AZ-Sen: Rodney Glassman (D) 33%, John McCain (R-inc) 54%

• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 49%, Carly Fiorina (R) 45%

• CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 43%, Dan Maes (R) 16%, Tom Tancredo (C) 35%

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 45%, Ken Buck (R) 50%

• Rasmussen (appearing as Fox/Pulse):

• CT-Gov: Dan Malloy (D) 47%, Tom Foley (R) 41%

• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal (D) 52%, Linda McMahon (R) 42%

• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan (D) 42%, Roy Blunt (R) 50%

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 46%, Sharron Angle (R) 49%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 43%, John Kasich (R) 49%

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 37%, Rob Portman (R) 53%

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 43%, John Raese (R) 48%

Suffolk University (9/30-10/3, likely voters, no trendlines):

Pat Quinn (D-inc): 43

Bill Brady (R): 37

Scott Lee Cohen (I): 6

Rich Whitney (G): 3

Lex Green (L): 1

Undecided: 8

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Market Shares Corp. for the Chicago Tribune/WGN-TV (9/24-28, likely voters, 8/28-9/1 in parens):

Pat Quinn (D-inc): 39 (32)

Bill Brady (R): 38 (37)

Scott Lee Cohen (I): 4 (4)

Rich Whitney (G): 3 (2)

Lex Green (L): 2 (2)

Undecided: 12 (23)

(MoE: ±4%)

Suffolk University weighs in with its first poll of the race, showing Quinn with his biggest lead since….December 2009. The Chicago Tribune also has Pat Quinn surging to a lead, albeit a statistically insignificant one. Quinn’s job approval is up to 40/49 according to Suffolk and 33/48 according to the Trib, which – while terrible – is better than the 28/50 he saw last month. Perhaps most significantly, Quinn and Brady are now even in the collar counties, a large improvement from Quinn’s 17-point deficit. These socially moderate areas are where Quinn needs to do well – and where Brady’s extraordinarily conservative record as a state Senator might come to bite him.

Quinn hasn’t been shy on the airwaves with his “Who Is Bill Brady?” campaign, and from a purely anecdotal perspective, Democrats (at least that I’ve seen) seem to be coming home for Quinn… and they’re realizing that an [alleged] prostitute-cutting pawn shop owner might not be the best recipient of their protest votes if it results in a Governor Brady.

The Trib’s also not the only pollster showing some movement towards Quinn:

Public Policy Polling (9/23-26, likely voters, 8/14-15 in parens):

Pat Quinn (D-inc): 35 (30)

Bill Brady (R): 42 (39)

Scott Lee Cohen (I): 6(-)

Rich Whitney (G): 4 (11)

Lex Green (L): 2 (-)

Undecided: 11 (20)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

PPP has him down 7 and up to 35, which is up from being down 9 two months ago. Quinn’s still only getting 59% (!!) of self-reported Obama voters, but he’s doing much better among indies, now losing them 39-27 to Brady.

All three pollsters also have numbers from the Senate race, which remains close (and brutal on the airwaves, I might add…):

Suffolk University (9/30-10/3, likely voters, no trendlines):

Alexi Giannoulias (D): 41

Mark Kirk (R): 42

LeAlan Jones (G): 4

Mike Labno (L): 3

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Market Shares Corp. for the Chicago Tribune/WGN-TV (9/24-28, likely voters, 8/28-9/1 in parens):

Alexi Giannoulias (D): 38 (34)

Mark Kirk (R): 36 (34)

LeAlan Jones (G): 5 (6)

Mike Labno (L): 3 (3)

Undecided: 17 (22)

(MoE: ±4%)

Public Policy Polling (9/23-26, likely voters, 8/14-15 in parens):

Alexi Giannoulias (D): 36 (37)

Mark Kirk (R): 40 (35)

LeAlan Jones (G): 8 (9)

Mike Labno (L): 3 (-)

Undecided: 13 (19)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Both candidates’ favorables remain in the tank, at 33/48 for Alexi and 33/47 for Kirk, according to PPP.

Lastly, while the GOP’s been shut out of all statewide offices since 2006, that looks bounded for a change. For state Comptroller, south suburban State Rep. David Miller (D) trails former state Treasurer (and failed ’06 gubernatorial candidate) Judy Baar Topinka (R) by twenty points at 52-32 according to PPP or 39-23 by Suffolk, while Giannoulias aide Robin Kelly trails downstate state Rep. Dan Rutherford (R) for state Treasurer 34-42 by PPP and 26-32 according to Suffolk. (Fortunately, Democrats won’t be swept out statewide entirely, SoS Jesse White and AG Lisa Madigan are safe for re-election. Suffolk has White up 60-15, and Madigan up 63-14).

Opinion Research for CNN/Time (9/24-28, likely voters):

CA-Sen, CA-Gov (9/2-7 [RVs] in parens):

Barbara Boxer (D-inc): 52 (48)

Carly Fiorina (R): 43 (44)

Jerry Brown (D): 52 (46)

Meg Whitman (R): 43 (48)

(MoE: ±3.5%)

You can sort of sense that Democrats everywhere are letting out a sigh of relief (not unlike the one made by Admiral Ackbar after his fleet concentrated all their firepower on that super-star destroyer) after a string of polls have shown Babs Boxer and Jerry Brown putting some daylight between themselves and their moneyed GOP opponents. (That was certainly accentuated earlier today by the news that the NRSC canceled their ad buy on Carly Fiorina’s behalf in the final week of the campaign.) Among registered voters only, the gaps are even bigger: Boxer leads Fiorina by 56-37, and Brown’s up by 52-39.

FL-Sen, FL-Gov (9/2-7 [RVs] in parens):

Kendrick Meek (D): 23 (24)

Marco Rubio (R): 42 (36)

Charlie Crist (I): 31 (34)

Alex Sink (D): 45 (49)

Rick Scott (R): 47 (42)

(MoE: ±3.5%)

Not as good. Among registered voters, Sink has a slim 46-45 lead over chrome-domed scumbucket Rick Scott.

IL-Sen, IL-Gov (no trend lines):

Alexi Giannoulias (D): 43

Mark Kirk (R): 42

LeAlan Jones (G): 8

Pat Quinn (D-inc): 38

Bill Brady (R): 40

Rich Whitney (G): 4

Scott Lee Cohen (I): 14

(MoE: ±3.5%)

Those are the best numbers we’ve seen for Pat Quinn since… well, a long time. Among RVs, he’s tied at 37-37 with Brady (while Giannoulias gets a 42-38 lead over Kirk). The biggest surprise of the poll is how many votes disgraced ex-Dem Lt. Gov. nominee Scott Lee Cohen is vacuuming up (he runs strongest among Dems, indies, moderates and liberals – go figure). Is he drawing voters that would normally go Democratic, but can’t bring themselves to pull the trigger for Quinn this year?

• AK-Sen: Daily Kos just added Scott McAdams to its Orange to Blue list, so if you’re still looking to throw some money in his direction, you can do so via Big Orange. Meanwhile, Lisa Murkowski is trying to gear up her write-in campaign, and with Ted Stevens having been laid to rest this week, she’s mulling whether to roll out those ads featuring Stevens that she had ready to go pre-primary but pulled because of his death. This can’t be good news for Murkowski, though: Rep. Don Young, more from the Murkowski/Stevens wing of the local GOP than the teabagger wing, is having a bout of self-preservation and is staying neutral, not endorsing anyone in the race. Finally, here’s one more page in Joe Miller’s ongoing saga of milking the system that he hates so darn much: when new to Alaska (but after he’d bought his expensive house and started working as an attorney), he obtained an indigent hunting/fishing license that required an income of less than $8,200/yr.

• DE-Sen: Christine O’Donnell says she attended Oxford. Oh, no, wait, she took a course from something called the Phoenix Institute that “rented space from” Oxford. Why am I not surprised?

• FL-Sen: I always figured that the early love affair between the local teabaggery and Marco Rubio wouldn’t last; he seemed more from the mainstream Jeb Bush camp and it seemed more a marriage of convenience based on his charisma but mostly on the fact that he wasn’t Charlie Crist. Anyway, he’s pretty much severed the relationship and making a break for the establishment with his latest revelation, that he decided several months ago against privatizing Social Security after concluding the idea “doesn’t work.” (If Ken Buck gets elected, I wonder how long it’ll take him to make the same move?)

• IL-Sen: The DSCC is keeping on pouring money into the Land of Lincoln, bolstering Alexi Giannoulias. They’re adding another $400K to the pile, for another week on the air.

• KY-Sen: The NRSC is taking the opposite tack, engaging in a little advertisus interruptus and pulling out for a week from Kentucky. (They claim they’re doing so from a position of strength, naturally.) Meanwhile, this is kind of small ball ($1,400 in contributions from three guys), but it’s still the kind of headline you probably don’t want to see if you’re Rand Paul, especially once you’ve made your feelings on the Civil Rights Act clear:

Conway camp calls on Paul to return money from white separatists

• NY-Sen-B: Marist (9/19-22, likely voters, 5/3-5 in parentheses):

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 52 (50)

Joe DioGuardi (R): 41 (30)

Undecided: 7 (20)

(MoE: ±4%)

Marist gives you a buffet of different numbers of choose from, as it’s 54-42 for Gillibrand when leaners are pushed, or it’s 55-36 when polling just registered voters (meaning there’s an enthusiasm gap worth 8 points here). They also find Chuck Schumer having no problems in the other Senate race, leading Jay Townsend 58-37 among LVs (and 63-32 among RVs).

• WI-Sen: Ron Johnson’s one act of political participation prior to this year — testifying before the state legislature in opposition to the bipartisan-supported Wisconsin Child Victims Act — is getting a second look in the press. His main interest in opposing the bill was that it could lead to corporations or other business entities being held liable for acts of employees, worried about the “economic havoc” it would create (and worried that those meddling “trial lawyers” would benefit). Think Progress has video of the testimony.

• WV-Sen: This seems like a new one to me… John Raese is actually paying people to write letters to the editor on his behalf. Not just offering them McCain Bucks that can’t be redeemed for anything in the real world, but running an actual contest giving money to people who get the most letters published. Also, I’ll give John Raese credit for being himself even when he’s being followed around by reporters. Here’s his reaction to finding out that the NRA endorsement went to Joe Manchin:

Raese speaks angrily into the phone, his words full of threat: “Tell them that I have an A plus rating with them, and that if they are fair they should include that. Tell them about the polling. Tell them I’m riding an elephant.” Raese pulls the cell phone away from his ear,  hands it back to Patrick the driver, and says “That has made it a lot harder.”

• CT-Gov: Little known fact: did you know that Jodi Rell still hasn’t endorsed Tom Foley yet, despite only weeks to go? Foley’s camp is saying it’s imminent, but it looks like Rell has summoned up even less enthusiasm in the general as she did for her Lt. Gov., Michael Fedele, in the GOP primary.

• FL-Gov: Here’s an interesting endorsement for Alex Sink: she got the backing of term-limited Republican state Sen. Alex Villalobos. Villalobos is also backing Charlie Crist (and even Dan Gelber in the AG race), so this exactly a sign of the Republican edifice collapsing, though.

• IA-Gov, SD-AL: Add one more to the long list of Dems who are getting a nice NRA endorsement as their box-of-Rice-a-Roni-and-can-of-Turtle-Wax-style parting gift on their way out the studio door. Chet Culver just got the backing of the gun lobby. (One state to the north, they also just backed Stephanie Herseth Sandlin today.)

• CA-44: PPP for Democrats.com (9/24-26, likely voters, no trendlines):

Bill Hedrick (D): 38

Ken Calvert (R-inc): 49

Undecided: 13

(n=760)

Despite being woefully underfunded, Bill Hedrick’s keeping the race competitive in his rematch against Ken Calvert (recall that he almost won, out of nowhere, in 2008). How he makes up that last 12 points in this climate, though, I’m not sure.

• FL-22: Harstad Research Group for Project New West (9/20-22, likely voters, no trendlines):

Ron Klein (D): 48

Allen West (R): 43

Undecided: 9

(n=504)

There’s lots of back-and-forth in the polling of the 22nd, with each side sporting their own internal with a lead in the last week. Dem pollster Harstad weighs in with another one going in Ron Klein’s column.

• KS-03: Moore money, Moore problems? Retiring Rep. Dennis Moore is still busy emptying out his campaign coffers, transferring $100K more to the Kansas Democratic party (on top of a previous $100K in June). That’s probably with the understanding that the money will be used to pay for their newest mailer in support of Stephene Moore, running to succeed her husband.

• NH-01, NH-02: American Research Group (9/22-26, likely voters, no trendlines):

Carol Shea-Porter (D-inc): 40

Frank Guinta (R): 50

Undecided: 8

Ann McLane Kuster (D): 36

Charlie Bass (R): 38

Undecided: 21

(MoE: ±5%)

Here are some unusual results from ARG! (although should we expect anything else?): they find Carol Shea-Porter getting keelhauled in the 1st, while the open seat battle in the 2nd is a swashbuckling battle (contrary to other polls we’ve seem of these races, where the 1st has been a tossup or a narrow CSP advantage while the 2nd has looked bad).

• PA-08: I’ve been patiently waiting here for actual toplines for more than a day, but it seems like they aren’t forthcoming… so I’ll just let you know there’s a Harstad Research Group poll (on behalf of SEIU and VoteVets, not the Patrick Murphy campaign) out in the 8th that gives Murphy a 3-point lead over Mike Fitzpatrick and an 8-point lead among voters who voted in 2006. It was taken Sept. 20-22.

• WI-07: Garin Hart Yang for Julie Lassa (9/26-27, likely voters, in parentheses):

Julie Lassa (D): 41

Sean Duffy (R): 42

Gary Kauther (I): 7

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±4.4%)

I don’t know how good a sign this is, releasing an internal where you’re still trailing in a Democratic-leaning district. Lassa needs to let the donors know she’s still in this, I suppose.

• WV-03: Global Strategy Group for DCCC (9/23-26, likely voters, no trendlines):

Nick Rahall (D-inc): 55

Spike Maynard (R): 37

Undecided: 8

(MoE: ±4.8%)

Well, here’s one district where all the polls (even the one from AFF) are consistent in showing a nearly-20 point edge for long-time Dem Nick Rahall.

• NY-St. Sen.: Four polls from Siena of key New York State Senate races have, on the balance, bad news for the Democrats: Darrell Aubertine, the first Democrat in several geological epochs to hold SD-48 in the North Country, is trailing GOP opponent Pattie Ritchie for re-election, 48-45. Brian Foley, in Long Island-based SD-4, is also in a tough race, leading Lee Zeldin 44-43. Meanwhile, two Republican incumbents are looking fairly safe: Frank Padavan, who barely survived 2008 in Dem-leaning Queens-based SD-11, leads ex-city councilor Tony Avella 56-32, while in SD-44, Hugh Farley leads Susan Savage 55-37. (I’d rather see them poll the open seat races; that’s where the Republicans are at more risk.)

• Mayors: There aren’t a lot of big-city mayoral races where the decisive vote is in November (most were wrapped up in the primaries), but one interesting one is Louisville, where the longtime Dem incumbent Jerry Abramson is leaving in order to run for LG next year. Dem Greg Fischer (who you may remember from the 2008 Senate primary) is beating Republican city councilor Hal Heiner 48-42, according to SurveyUSA.

• DLCC: You probably saw yesterday that the DLCC is out with a first round of 20 “essential races” for controlling key state legislative chambers. Well, over in diaries, now they’re soliciting suggestions for further additions to the list, so please add some suggestions from races that are near and dear to your own hearts.

• SSP TV:

• CA-Sen: The Chamber of Commerce, trying to salvage this dwindling race, tries to hang the “career politician” tag on Barbara Boxer

• CO-Sen: The DSCC goes after Ken Buck on Social Security again

• CO-Sen: The NRSC runs an anti-Michael Bennet ad, hitting him on his support for health care reform

• DE-Sen: The DSCC crams as much Christine O’Donnell insanity as it can into 30 seconds

• IL-Sen: Mark Kirk goes back to where he began, with another bio spot of small town boy made good

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak’s newest ad keeps on trying to tie Pat Toomey to Wall Street

• WV-Sen: The DSCC goes after John Raese for supporting eliminating the minimum wage and his own ooopses at his own company

• CT-Gov: The DGA hits Tom Foley on outsourcing in his former career as textile magnate

• MI-Gov: The RGA hits Virg Bernero on spending as mayor (OMG! he spent $1,277 on pencils!)

• NM-Gov: Another Susana Martinez attack ad hits Diane Denish for some bungled solar power thingamajig

• TX-Gov: Here’s a mindblowing stat: the DGA has never paid for advertising in Texas… until now. They’re out with an attack on Rick Perry, calling him what nobody wants to be called this cycle (“career politican”)

• KY-03: Todd Lally’s out with two ads, one a bio spot, the other a pretty funny attack on John Yarmuth using the K-Tel greatest hits album motif

• MI-07: Tim Walberg has to call on his mom for help: not to do any polling on his behalf, just to appear in an ad about Social Security

• NC-02: This was probably inevitable… AJS weighs into the 2nd with an ad using Bob Etheridge going apeshit on a poor innocent little tracker

• NC-11: Repent now or Jeff Miller will forever cast you into the fiery pits of Nancy Pelosi’s hell!

• ND-AL: Earl Pomeroy touts how well he cooperated with George W. Bush! (on Medicare Part D, though, which probably plays well among North Dakota’s aging population)

• PA-08: Outsourcing must be polling well for the Dems these days, as Patrick Murphy hits Mike Fitzpatrick on that

• VA-05: Indie candidate Jeff Clark scrounged up enough money to advertise? And he’s attacking GOPer Robert Hurt? That’s good enough for me

• Rasmussen:

• CT-Gov: Dan Malloy (D) 50%, Tom Foley (R) 40%

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 46%, John Raese (R) 48%

• Fox/Pulse (aka Rasmussen):

• CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 44%, Dan Maes (R) 15%, Tom Tancredo (C) 34%

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 43%, Ken Buck (R) 47%

• IL-Gov: Pat Quinn (D-inc) 36%, Bill Brady (R) 46%, Rich Whitney (G) 8%

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 40%, Mark Kirk (R) 42%, LeAlan Jones (G) 7%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 43%, John Kasich (R) 45%

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 37%, Rob Portman (R) 50%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 48%, Dino Rossi (R) 47%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 45%, Scott Walker (R) 49%

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold (D-inc) 44%, Ron Johnson (R) 52%

• AK-Sen: If anything makes clear the depth of the NRSC’s change of allegiance from Lisa Murkowski to Joe Miller, check out the list of five different NRSC-organized, Senator-filled fundraisers that’ll be held on Miller’s behalf next week. Murkowski, meanwhile, is shrugging off the loss of her leadership post (which went to John Barrasso) and ranking committee position, seeming more focused on the mechanics of her write-in bid. She’s going to have to do a little better than this, though (although Alaska doesn’t require precise spelling of write-ins): the original version of the ad telling people about her write-in bid directed people to a URL that misspelled her name (LisaMurkwski.com). (I wonder if some cybersquatter has already grabbed that URL by now?)

• AR-Sen: Ipsos, on behalf of Reuters, is out with a look at Arkansas, a Senate race that’s hardly worth looking at anymore. Nevertheless, they show a closer race than anybody else has lately: Blanche Lincoln trails John Boozman by “only” 14, a 53-39 gap among LVs. Lincoln’s favorables seem to be improving a bit too, but time’s running out for a full-fledged comeback.

• CO-Sen: Here’s a tantalizing tidbit, although it doesn’t have any bearing on the current race, just likely to exacerbate the seemingly-escalating war between the NRSC and Jim DeMint. It turns out the NRSC gave the maximum $42K to Jane Norton, just four days before the GOP primary. Not much of a vote of confidence in Ken Buck, is it?

• NH-Sen: Unfortunately, where many Republican primaries have dissolved into acrimony afterwards, we’re seeing lots of unity in New Hampshire. Ovide Lamontagne is helping to raise funds for narrow victor Kelly Ayotte at a DC fundraiser scheduled for Sep. 27.

• WA-Sen: Considering the play this has gotten in the local press, this small comment on a parochial issue looks to be a major faceplant for Dino Rossi… he dared depart from the party line on the mighty Boeing. He suggested that Boeing should get no favorable treatment from the Pentagon in its competition with Airbus (whose efforts are subsidized by European governments) over who gets to build the next-generation Air Force tanker. (To put that in context, that would be like a candidate going to Iowa and dissing ethanol, or going to West Virginia and dissing coal.) Boeing had already explicitly endorsed Patty Murray, but now she has a nuclear-grade weapon to use against Rossi in the Boeing-dependent swingy suburbs.

And here’s a hat tip to Horsesass’s Goldy, who spots some interesting details in the fine print of that Elway Poll from last week. People were surprised when that CNN/Time poll found a reverse enthusiasm gap for the Dems in Washington (with Murray faring better among LVs than RVs), but Elway actually shows something similar. The 50-41 topline was LVs, but pushed leaners. Include only the “definite voters” and that pushes up to a 13-pt lead for Murray (43-30). I don’t have one good explanation for this phenomenon, but I’d guess it’s a combination of a) Dems being more diehard liberal in Washington and less swingy and/or sporadic than in other states, b) the economy being somewhat better in Washington than many other places, and c) teabagger ennui after Clint Didier lost the primary to establishment leftover Dino Rossi.

• NM-Gov: We’ve got dueling banjos internals in the Land of Enchantment. Susana Martinez whipped it out first, rolling out a POS poll from last week with a 50-40 lead for her. Not to be outdone, Diane Denish pulled out her own poll from GQR from the same timeframe, showing that Martinez is leading “only” 49-44. Um… take that?

• NY-Gov: Rick Lazio is hedging on what exactly he’s going to do with his spot on the Conservative Party line, sounding like he wants to wait and see how Carl Paladino fares before making up his mind. Meanwhile, Andrew Cuomo got a pretty significant endorsement, from NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg, which may sway a few moderate indies but is probably mostly helpful from a GOTV organizational standpoint within the city. Meanwhile, you might have also heard something about a poll of this race today? I’ve heard a few rumblings. Anyway, we’re deferring discussion of today’s Quinnipiac poll until the Siena and SurveyUSA polls, due tomorrow, also come out, offering us a better yardstick.

• RI-Gov, RI-01: Quest for WJAR-TV (9/15-17, likely voters, no trendlines):

Frank Caprio (D): 36

John Robitaille (R): 13

Lincoln Chafee (I): 24

Ken Block (M): 2

Undecided: 25

David Cicilline (D): 49

John Loughlin (R): 26

Undecided: 25

(MoE: ±4.7%)

This is probably the biggest lead we’ve seen for Frank Caprio in the Governor’s race, and also the first post-primary poll of the race in the 1st, which looks to be an easy race for Providence mayor David Cicilline despite being an open seat in a dangerous year. The poll also finds the Dems easily winning the LG, AG, SoS, and RI-02 races.

• TN-Gov: Crawford Johnson and Northcott for WSMV-TV (registered voters, trendlines from early July):

Mike McWherter (D): 24 (34)

Bill Haslam (R): 55 (60)

Undecided: 19 (6)

(MoE: ±4%)

I’m not going out on a limb by saying we can expect Bill Haslam to win the Tennessee governor’s race. The only odd thing here is that this is WSMV’s second poll of the race, and the number of undecideds has shot up dramatically since July (of course, it’s a mystery how there were so few back then).

• FL-22: Anzalone-Liszt for Ron Klein (9/14-16, likely voters, no trendlines):

Ron Klein (D): 48

Allen West (R): 40

(MoE: ±4.4%)

While this isn’t an awe-inspiring lead for Klein in his own internal, it’s a good topline and there are some interesting numbers in the fine print. Most notably, West’s unfavorables have tripled (to 26%) since May as people have started paying attention.

• MA-04: OMG, even Barney Frank’s in trouble! (In case you couldn’t tell, I was being sarcastic.) (Or was I?) Anyway, the Republican candidate running against Frank, Sean Bielat, is out with a poll from GOP pollster On Message giving Frank a 48-38 lead over Bielat. I suppose a ceiling of 38% is plausible for a no-name GOPer in this part of Massachusetts, which went 63% for Obama but includes a lot of exurbs and went narrowly for Scott Brown in the special election, but I’m unclear on how he gets much further than that.

• PA-03: Franklin & Marshall (9/14-19, registered voters, no trendlines):

Kathy Dahlkemper (D-inc): 38

Mike Kelly (R): 44

(MoE: ±4.8%)

This seems to be the first truly independent poll of this race, although we’ve seen various internals and Republican third-party polls all showing Dahlkemper in trouble, though not always losing. Franklin & Marshall opts for the “losing” side, although it’s slightly less severe among RVs (42-38).

• VA-05: Benenson Strategy Group for Tom Perriello (9/14-16, likely voters, no trendlines):

Tom Perriello (D): 44

Rob Hurt (R): 46

Jeff Clark (I): 4

Undecided: 5

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Not much difference here than that DCCC poll by Global Strategy Group a few weeks ago that also saw Perriello down by 2. Again, not the most appetizing numbers for rolling out when it’s your own internal, but at least it’s some pushback against those SurveyUSA numbers.

• WA-09: Benenson Strategy Group for Adam Smith (9/18-20, likely voters, no trendlines):

Adam Smith (D): 54

Dick Muri (R): 35

Undecided: 19

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Hmmm, speaking of pushback against SurveyUSA numbers, here’s an internal from the Adam Smith camp (who were seen as being in a close race in a public poll from over the weekend). Now these are the kind of internal poll numbers we like to see… although the very fact that Adam Smith should have to be releasing internal polls in the first place is, well, a sign of the times.

• DCCC: Here’s some interesting money shuffling from the DCCC, which might portend an increased focus on GOTV. A CQ piece detailing some miscellany from their report this month included a number of transfers from the DCCC to state Democratic party committees. That includes $196K to Ohio, $142K to Arizona, and $132K to Arizona.

• American Crossroads: Wasn’t the “Crossroads” myth about selling your soul to the devil? At any rate, Politico is out with a nauseating story that’s a stark counterpoint to the normal old committee numbers that we released this morning: while the Dems have advantages at the committee level, they’re getting crushed in outside TV spending by third-party groups, to the tune of $23.6 million for GOP ads to $4.8 million for Dem ads. (Of course, some of that is money that in previous cycles would have gone to the RNC, which is way out of whack (or “wack,” as Michael Steele might say) and unable to do much with its usual task of helping state committees… making the GOP more reliant than ever on hoping that their air saturation can overcome disadvantages in the ground game.)

The largest of these groups, of course, is American Crossroads, which is out with six new attack ads in different Senate races: Illinois ($482K), Kentucky ($235K), Nevada ($320K), New Hampshire ($643K), Ohio ($260K), and Pennsylvania ($226K). I know the teabaggers like to think that when the 2010 election is written in the history books, the story will be about some sort of populist uprising, but more likely, their useful idiocy will be long forgotten and the story will be about the uprising of a dozen or so billionaires, leveraging tens of millions on ads in order to save themselves hundreds of billions in taxes.

• SSP TV:

• CT-Sen: The state Democratic party goes after Linda McMahon, looking at job cuts she oversaw at WWE

• MO-Sen: The DSCC wades back into Missouri, looking at how Roy Blunt keeps his corruption all in the family

• MD-Gov: A DGA-allied group hits Bob Ehrlich for being in the pocket of utilities during and after his gubernatorial term

• IL-10: Dan Seals goes negative against Bob Dold!, hitting him on social security and abortion rights

• IL-14: Nancy Pelosi’s coming for you! Booogetyboogetyboogety! (or so says Randy Hultgren’s second ad)

• NC-02: Renee Elmers found the money to run an ad? Well, it is cable only… Anyway, it’s about the Burlington Coat Factory mosque, despite that Bob Etheridge says he doesn’t support it

• PA-11: Paul Kanjorski again goes negative on Lou Barletta on the bread and butter stuff, hitting for him opposition to a State Department security forces training center for the district

• PA-17: Even Tim Holden’s hitting the airwaves with two different ads, one that’s a soft bio spot for himself, and then an attack on his opponent’s role in legislative pay raises

• WA-08: Suzan DelBene’s second ad is against negative against Dave Reichert, especially for opposing financial reform

• Rasmussen:

• AK-Gov: Ethan Berkowitz (D) 34%, Sean Parnell (R-inc) 54%

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

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 41%, Mark Kirk (R) 44%, LeAlan Jones (G) 4%

• ME-Gov: Libby Mitchell (D) 27%, Paul LePage (R) 45%, Eliot Cutler (I) 14%

• MI-Gov: Virg Bernero (D) 38%, Rick Snyder (R) 51%

• NY-Sen: Charles Schumer (D-inc) 58%, Jay Townsend (R) 36%

• AK-Sen: All signs are now pointing toward a Lisa Murkowski write-in bid, although nothing is official yet. But she’s inviting supporters to a “campaign kickoff” tonight, which are certainly not the words of someone ready to go gently into that good night. She seems undeterred by the fact that the Tea Party Express already fired a shot across her bow yesterday, warning her to be a “good team member” and saying they’ll resume spending money against her if she does. Meanwhile, hilarious and slightly damning news on the Joe Miller front, as it turns out that he, like so many other teabagger candidates this year, was a recipient of $14K in farm subsidies over the decade for a thousand acres of land he owned near Fairbanks. Y’know, subsidies from the federal government that he hates so much, in order to pay for the otherwise-unprofitable way of life that he chose. (Can you even grow anything near Fairbanks? That may be the most surprising part of the story to me.)

• DE-Sen: Christine O’Donnell and Chris Coons faced off in their first appearance together, and O’Donnell seemed to be doing a lot of rhetorical distancing from the O’Donnell that had existed up until Tuesday. Meanwhile, O’Donnell is now facing the wrath of multiple ex-aides, all willing to dish to Politico on the trainwrecks that were previous O’Donnell campaigns.

• IL-Sen: Illinois-based Republican-linked robo-pollster We Ask America is out with their second poll of the IL-Sen race, giving Mark Kirk a 39-36 link over Alexi Giannoulias. That’s better than their previous offering, which gave Kirk a 6-point edge.

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold’s “Cheddarbomb” sounds like it was very successful, bringing in at least $435K in one day’s worth of contributions.

• AR-Gov: With yesterday’s PPP NH-Gov poll, I think it’s now safe to say that Mike Beebe is officially the nation’s safest Democratic incumbent governor this year. The gubernatorial half of yesterday’s Mason-Dixon poll on behalf of Arkansas News Service is out, and Beebe leads Republican challenger Jim Keet by 21 points, 54-33. (One other very important detail: currently, Beebe has $2.5 million CoH, while Keet has $9,000.) Given the state’s turn to the red this cycle, Dems should be glad that they aren’t defending an open seat here, though, as in the open Lt. Governor race, Dem state Sen. Shane Broadway is barely leading Some Dude (Mark Darr) 36-34.

• CA-Gov: Well, my cynicism has been eased a bit, I guess: Bill Clinton will be giving Jerry Brown the full endorsee treatment and not just throwing him a bone, including stumping on his behalf (and Gavin Newsom’s behalf too) in mid-October.

• HI-Gov: It feels like the primary season wrapped up on Tuesday, but there’s one last race that needs to be previewed: the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Hawaii, which will be settled in their regularly scheduled election tomorrow. The race pits ex-Rep. Neil Abercrombie against former Honolulu mayor Mufi Hannemann in what’s literally a clash of titans (the 72-year-old Abercrombie can bench-press 272 lbs., while former basketball player Hannemann is 6’7″). Hannemann seems to running a bit to Abercrombie’s right, at least on social issues, and Abercrombie seems to have the late momentum based on polling and fundraising. The linked WaPo article points to some intriguing behind the scenes drama (with Dan Inouye behind Hannemann and Ed Case behind Abercrombie) and the racial resentments stirred by the race (Abercrombie is white, Hannemann is Samoan).

• NM-Gov: The DGA is keeping the pressure on in New Mexico, hitting Susana Martinez again on staff bonuses and sweetheart deals. Bill Clinton, who’s increasingly turning out to be the #1 Dem surrogate on the stump this cycle, is also now scheduled to stump on Diane Denish’s behalf on Oct. 14 in the heavily-Latino northern town of Espanola.

• NY-Gov: This may be the dumbest idea in the history of political advertising: send intentionally bad-smelling mailers to people’s houses. Carl Paladino is trying to make the point that “something smells” in Albany, but there has to be a smarter way to do it than invading people’s houses to intentionally physically sicken them.

• CO-04: Hot on the heels of the NRA backing John Salazar next door in the 3rd, now they’re also endorsing Democratic freshman Betsy Markey in the similarly rural, reddish 4th.

• MI-09: There’s a poll out in the 9th from a previously unknown (to us) pollster (The Rossman Group/Team Telcom) giving Rocky Raczkowski a small lead over Dem freshman Gary Peters, 45-41. Thanks to Paleo in the comments, we know that the Rossman Group is a PR firm associated with state-level GOP operative Audrey Perricone, so salt this one as you see fit.

• NY-23: All that hoping paid off, and now the cat is now officially in the dryer! A replay of the special election is on, as Doug Hoffman, who narrowly lost the GOP primary to Matt Doheny, is saying that he is going to stick with the Conservative Line no matter what. (More accurately, Conservative party chair Michael Long, who’s basically been Hoffman’s puppetmaster for the last year, is the one saying that.)

• TN-04: Sure, we’ve all been accused of harassment, intimidation, and physical abuse, but… oh, wait. We haven’t? Well, Republican candidate Scott DesJarlais was accused by his ex-wife of all of that, in divorce filings from a decade ago. It’s unclear how much this’ll affect the direction of the race, though; buried deep in the Roll Call article is word of a late August internal poll on Lincoln Davis’s behalf (released in response to a DesJarlais internal showing him within 4 of Davis), giving Davis a 51-40 lead. (No word on who Davis’s pollster is.)

• Mayors: Primary-defeated Dem incumbent Adrian Fenty somehow won the Republican mayoral primary. There wasn’t a candidate, and Fenty got more write-in votes than anyone else. It didn’t sound like Fenty was interested in turning coats and running again under the GOP aegis, and now the DC BoE is arguing that he couldn’t anyway, as he would have had to be a member of the Republican Party as of the election date.

• IE Tracker:

• MO-Sen: $124K from Commonsense Ten against Roy Blunt

• WV-01: $439K from American Future Fund against Mike Oliverio

• NC-02, VA-09: $341K from Americans for Job Security against Bob Etheridge, $431K against Rick Boucher

• AL-02: $414K from AFF against Bobby Bright

• SC-05: $191K from AFF against John Spratt

• NJ-03: $170K from AFF against John Adler

• MI-01: $304K from AFF against Gary McDowell

• GA-08: $346K from AFF against Jim Marshall

• MI-07: $501K from AFF against Mark Schauer

• SSP TV:

• PA-Sen: The DSCC rides to Joe Sestak’s rescue with an ad tying Pat Toomey to George Bush’s deficit-swelling tax policies, while the Club for Growth tries to walk a delicate balance, thanking Sestak for his military service before laying into his voting record

• AZ-Gov: Terry Goddard’s out with not one but three different ads using footage of Jan Brewer’s tongue-tied performance at last month’s debate, one of which focuses on her unproven allegations about headless bodies in the desert (and ending with the tagline “Is this the best Arizona can do?”)

• KS-Gov: The Kansas Moderate Majority PAC runs an anti-Sam Brownback ad hitting him on the flat tax, while Brownback is out with two ads of his own

• MI-Gov: Virg Bernero’s on the air, hitting Rick Sndyer for outsourcing jobs while he was head of Gateway

• ID-01: Walt Minnick actually hits Raul Labrador for being too soft on illegal immigrants, saying it’s “good business” for Labrador’s immigration law practice

• MI-01: 2 ads from Gary McDowell, one about cleaning up the Great Lakes and one hitting Dan Benishek on Social Security privatization

• TX-17: Chet Edwards is doing the distancing-from-DC-Democrats game in his newest ad

• WA-08: Suzan DelBene’s first TV ad starts negative against Dave Reichert, hitting him on his financial reform vote and on earmarks, of all things

• Rasmussen:

• IN-Sen: Brad Ellsworth (D) 34%, Dan Coats (R) 50%

• MA-Gov: Deval Patrick (D-inc) 45%, Charlie Baker (R) 42%, Tim Cahill (I) 5%

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold (D-inc) 44%, Ron Johnson (R) 51%

• DE-Sen: Despite all the hullabaloo about the late-breaking surge by Christine O’Donnell (which, if you look at fundraising and ad spending, seems like it might not have been that much of a surge at all), both parties seem to be reconciled to a Chris Coons/Mike Castle race, according to CQ. O’Donnell seems to be hanging her hopes on a last-minute Sarah Palin endorsement, which, according to intense semantic analysis by Twitterologists, didn’t really happen with her recent retweety-hashtaggy thing.

• HI-Gov: Hawaii’s the last primary in the nation, and that also means it’s the last for pre-primary financial reporting. Neil Abercrombie, who’d been lagging Mufi Hannemann on the fundraising front previously, shot ahead for the months of July and August. Abercrombie raised $768K while Hannemann raised $330K. Hannemann still has the CoH edge, $792K to $275K.

• NM-Gov: GOPer Susana Martinez has led narrowly in most polls here, but the RGA isn’t taking this race for granted: they’re moving $500K to the Martinez campaign. The DGA is also continuing to fight here, and they seem to think they have something here with their own little Bonusgate story here (where Martinez allegedly spent border security money on staff bonuses instead); they’re running their second attack ad here, and it (like the first ad) focuses on the bonuses.

• RI-Gov: There had been rumors of this way, way back, but the RNC is revisiting them today, saying that Democratic candidate Frank Caprio talked to them about a possible party switch in February (back when he was still facing the more-liberal Patrick Lynch in the Dem primary). It’s unclear what the GOP’s angle is in releasing this now… their chances are pretty much DOA, so are they just hoping to deny the DGA a victory here (for post-election talking points purposes) by driving Caprio votes to Lincoln Chafee (the indie who seems to be running, for the most part, to Caprio’s left)?

• VT-Gov: The recount has begun for the ultra-close Democratic primary in the Vermont gubernatorial race, but instead of lobbing grenades at each other, 197-vote leader Peter Shumlin and runner-up Doug Racine are touring the state together in an RV, stumping along with the other three candidates. In fact, Racine is urging his donors to get behind Shumlin, despite having requested the recount. (So far, Shumlin’s lead has edged up by 9, with 10 of the state’s 14 counties having completed the recanvass.)

• WI-Gov: Here’s a good development, that a lot of other outgoing Dem incumbents might take a lesson from: Jim Doyle, with $1.8 million sitting around in his campaign funds as he ends his gubernatorial run, is transferring $1 million of that money to the Greater Wisconsin Committee, which has aired both anti-Scott Walker and anti-Mark Neumann ads.

• CT-05: Here’s one House GOP internal that’s getting a little stale, but somehow eluded us until just now: Sam Caligiuri put out a late-August internal from National Research showing him right on Chris Murphy’s heels, trailing 40-39.

• Committees: Jim Doyle’s not the only guy with money to burn who’s emptying out the piggy banks. Barack Obama will be transferring $4.5 million from his campaign fund, divvying it up three ways with $1.5 million each to the DCCC, DSCC, and DNC.

• Mayors (pdf): Two mayoral polls are out today. One is more timely, with the DC primary only days away: Clarus finds Vincent Gray ready to oust incumbent Adrian Fenty in the Dem primary, 45-38. We Ask America also pounces on the Chicago mayor question, despite a thoroughly unclear field, and finds Rahm Emanuel would be starting in the pole position out of 10 names they gave. Emanuel’s at 30, followed by Tom Dart at 14, and both Luis Gutierrez and Jesse Jackson Jr. at 13.

• Massachusetts: Here’s an interesting set of numbers out of the Bay State: despite the election of Scott Brown and running a competitive gubernatorial race, Republicans have actually lost ground lately in terms of registration. The GOP has lost more than 9,000 voters over the last two years, and are down to 11% of all registrations. Dems held almost even at 37%, while the ranks of the unenrolled grew (by 187K since 2006), up to 51% of the electorate.

• SSP TV:

• IN-Sen: The Chamber of Commerce is out with an anti-Brad Ellsworth ad hitting the usual “trillions of government spending” points

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin’s first TV ad attacks John Raese for running attack ads

• OH-Gov: The SEIU attacks John Kasich on his Wall Street days, with a “significant six-figure” buy

• PA-Gov: Dan Onorato’s first TV ad of the general is a 60-second extravaganza focusing on the revitalization of Pittsburgh

• IL-14: Randy Hultgren talks jobs

• MI-01: Gary McDowell’s first ad has testimonials from locals saying he’s just like them, only “better dressed”

• OH-18: Americans for Job Security is out with four anti-Dem House ads, in IN-08, PA-04, and PA-07 as well as the 18th… and we have actual numbers ($124K in OH-18, $415K in PA-04, $293 in PA-07, and $318K in IN-08)

• SC-05: John Spratt’s first TV ad of the cycle focuses, unsurprisingly, on his constituent service reputation and attention to local issues

• Rasmussen:

• AZ-Sen: Rodney Glassman (D) 37%, John McCain (R-inc) 51%

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 34%, Mark Kirk (R) 37%, LeAlan Jones (G) 12%

• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan (D) 43%, Roy Blunt (R) 53%

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 50%, John Raese (R) 45%