Tag: Mark Kirk

• KY-Sen: The online “moneybomb” technique seemed to help Rand Paul get a lot of traction in the early months of the Republican primary, but his latest few scheduled moneybombs have been fizzles. Yesterday’s was a case in point: $258K is still a lot of dough for two days, but it was far short of the planned $400K. (And every penny counts: Paul reported only $319K CoH at the end of June.) Are Paulists feeling tapped out these days, or are his early-adopting libertarian-minded nationwide fans chafing that he’s increasingly parting ways with his dad and becoming more of an NRSC sock puppet? (As seen just today with their divergence over Cordoba House.)

• PA-Sen: Two pieces of good news in Pennsylvania: first, Joe Sestak is rolling out an endorsement from Chuck Hagel, the former GOP Senator from Nebraska who was on the short list for an Obama cabinet position. Not that Hagel is probably a household name in the Keystone State, but it certainly burnishes Sestak’s bipartisan (and military) cred. Also, the DSCC is planning to spend even more on this race, letting Sestak, presumably, keep marshaling his resources for a big late push (the kind that helped him shoot past Arlen Specter in the closing weeks in the primary). They’re spending $546K on broadcast media this week, on top of $494K last week; the DSCC’s total spending and reservations so far in this race amount to $4.4 million.

• WI-Sen: Hmmm, maybe all that sunspot and Greenland stuff actually started to stick. Republican wingnut candidate Ron Johnson is trying to undo the crazy on his various climate change comments, offering the usual last refuge of the pathetic walkback, that his remarks were “taken out context.” Johnson is also trying to walk back his previous support for elimination of the home mortgage interest deduction, about as popular a provision of the tax code as there is. If you wanted to simultaneously set back both the entire real estate business and the middle class by several decades, eliminating the home mortgage interest deduction would be a good way to do it.  

• IL-Gov: The exodus from the field of broken dreams that is the Pat Quinn camp just continues. Today, the departee is CoS Jerry Stermer, and while it isn’t a rancorous departure (as was the case with Quinn breaking it off with David Axelrod’s media firm last week), he is resigning to avoid being a distraction with an ethics investigation (over whether he sent political e-mails from his government account) hanging overhead. With Quinn seemingly circling the drain, that ain’t gonna help.

• AZ-05: In the “ooops, spoke too soon” department, presumed Republican primary frontrunner David Schweikert opted for a last-minute ad buy for $14K on cable, apparently worried that he was losing momentum going into tomorrow’s primary. Last week, his camp had said he was so far ahead they were just going to go dark and start saving money for the general. Meanwhile, next door in AZ-03, Steve Moak, the only candidate who rivals Ben Quayle on the money front, is out with a new ad hitting Quayle over his pseudonymous tenure writing for the website that was the precursor to TheDirty.com.

• FL-24: Wow, Craig Miller actually went there: he sent out a last-minute mailer going after the widely-known, but not yet broached in the campaign context, issue of GOP primary opponent Karen Diebel’s mental stability. Maybe he’d been planning to do a last-minute boom-lowering all along, but it seems kind of strange, as Miller’s millions have seemed to have the race locked down, not requiring him to get his hands dirty. Was there a last minute Diebel surge (she’s been attacking him on being too soft on immigration)?

• TX-23: Republican challenger Quico Canseco is out with an internal poll, via OnMessage, giving him a small lead over incumbent Dem Rep. Ciro Rodriguez. The poll gives Canseco a 43-37 lead, a turnaround from Rodriguez’s lead of 48-45 in a Canseco poll from June.

• Ads: Bobby Bright’s out with his first ad, in AL-02. SSP southern correspondent Trent Thompson’s description of the ad says it all, so I’ll just quote him: “”Bobby” voted against everything Obama. Also, he kisses a baby.” Ben Chandler is also out with an ad in KY-06, touting his saving the local VA Hospital. Finally, Rick Boucher’s GOP opponent, Morgan Griffith, is also out with a new TV spot, reminding you that he’s a conservative. (As an interesting ethno-linguistic observation, one clear indicator that VA-09 is an Appalachian district, not a Southern district, is that Griffith cites “Warshington” as being the source of all our problems.) NWOTSOTB, in all three cases.

• We Ask America: The quirky little Republican-linked pollster that could, We Ask America, is out with an array of polls in Illinois (the state where they’re based). They find Mark Kirk leading Alexi Giannoulias 39-33, but they also look at three House races. In fact, they looked at these races back in March, so we now have trendlines. In IL-11, they find Adam Kinzinger leading Debbie Halvorson 52-32 (down from an already bad 42-30); in IL-14, they have Randy Hultgren leading Bill Foster 44-37 (also down, from 38-36). The good news: they have Dan Seals leading Bob Dold! in IL-10, 43-40 (Seals led 40-37 in March, so he’s holding his own). We’ve also discovered a few recent WAA odds and ends that we didn’t cover earlier: they also see Roy Blunt leading Robin Carnahan 47-43 in MO-Sen, and see Sean Duffy leading 42-33 over Julie Lassa in WI-07.

• Rasmussen:

• AL-Sen: William Barnes (D) 28%, Richard Shelby (R-inc) 60%

• AR-Gov: Mike Beebe (D-inc) 53%, Jim Keet (R) 33%

• MD-Sen: Barbara Mikulski (D-inc) 55%, Eric Wargotz (R) 39%

• TX-Gov: Bill White (D) 41%, Rick Perry (R-inc) 49%

Public Policy Polling (8/14-15, likely voters, 6/12-13 in parens):

Alexi Giannoulias (D): 37 (31)

Mark Kirk (R): 35 (30)

LeAlan Jones (G): 9 (14)

Undecided: 19 (24)

(MoE: ±4.1%)

As you know, PPP has made the Great Schlep to a likely voter model from their earlier voter model, which was lightly-screened and tastefully seasoned with a patented formula of herbs and spices. (God, I’m hungry.) In terms of sample composition, the results have, predictably, been pretty ugly for Democrats. In this poll, for instance, the likely voter universe favored Obama over McCain by only 9% in the 2008 election — a big jump from the 19% Obama margin that PPP found in their poll from June, and from the actual election day margin of 26%.

However, unlike their Pennsylvania Senate poll, Democrat Alexi Giannoulias is still holding onto a very slim lead. Some more color, from Tom:

Kirk does have a big lead with independents, 36-20. But you can’t win as a Republican in Illinois without winning over a fair number of Democratic voters and Kirk just isn’t doing that right now. He’s getting only 5%. Kirk’s getting 74% of the Republican vote while Giannoulias is getting 72% of the Democratic vote and it’s going to be very hard for Kirk to win unless the party unity gap ends up being bigger than that.

Both candidates continue to be very unpopular. Giannoulias’ favorability is 26/42 and Kirk’s is 26/34. Independents have a negative opinion of both of them, and each of them is viewed more unfavorably by voters of the opposite party than they are favorably by their own party base. Only 51% of Democrats have a favorable opinion of Giannoulias and just 49% of Republicans have a favorable opinion of Kirk so neither contender is doing much to fire up even their partisans.

Battle of the weak, indeed.

• CT-Sen: This may be the first time we’ve ever linked to Jezebel, but they have a nice deconstruction of the public face of the new image that Linda McMahon has built up for herself, and its complicated relationship to the WWE, the source of the millions that Linda McMahon plans to spend on her Senate bid. (Although I wish they’d focused more on the behind-the-scenes stuff: the steroids, the lack of health care, the union-busting, and so on…)

• KY-Sen: Is this really the kind of headlines that Rand Paul (or any candidate, for any office) would want to be seeing today? “Woman Says Paul Did Not Kidnap Her,” and “Paul Apologizes for Fancy Farm Beer Flub.” The former story isn’t that surprising, in that Paul’s college acquaintance clarifies that the whole let’s-tie-her-up-make-her-smoke-pot-and-pray-to-a-graven-idol thing was more of a consensual hazing than an out-and-out kidnapping (of course, other than the “kidnapping” semantics, all that Bong Hits for Aqua Buddha stuff still seems to stand). The latter story has its roots in Paul’s worries that the audience at the Fancy Farm church picnic (the same ones who got the vapors last year when Jack Conway used the words “son of a bitch”) were going to start throwing beer at him – even though the event was dry. Having realized that you don’t go around dissing politically-legendary church picnics unless you have the political instincts of a brick, Paul later apologized.

• LA-Sen: Southern Media & Opinion Research finds that David Vitter leads Charlie Melancon 46-28, not much changed since their last poll from spring, where Vitter led 49-31. They also take a look at the Republican Senate primary, finding (as did POS a few weeks ago) that Chet Traylor is really turning into something of a paper tiger: Vitter leads Traylor 78-4! They also do a quick look at the jungle-style Lt. Governor special election, giving the lead to current Republican SoS Jay Dardenne at 26.

• OR-Gov: Well, it seems like the John Kitzhaber campaign has finally acknowledged what the blogosphere realized a while ago, that it’s time to shake things up and bring in a more feisty and uptempo approach. That’s hopefully what they’re doing with a new campaign manager, Patricia McCaig. Interestingly, McCaig is a former right-hand woman to ex-Gov. Barbara Roberts, who Kitzhaber shoved over in 1994 and whose relations with Kitz have been rocky since then.

• AZ-03: Will today’s double-whammy be enough to knock Ben Quayle out of his seeming frontrunner position in the GOP primary in the 3rd? Rocked by controversy over having denied and then having gotten outed as having written pseudonymously for sleazy local website DirtyScottsdale.com (a forerunner to today’s TheDirty.com), he’s out with a TV spot that he hopes will take some of the heat off. Unfortunately for him, the ad seems to have gotten an almost universally derisive reaction, based on his odd combination of hyperbolic claims (“Barack Obama is the worst president in history”), slow, droning delivery, and strange robotic motions.

• IA-03: When we moved Leonard Boswell in the 3rd to Tossup a few weeks ago, we weren’t fooling around. A second Republican poll was released today giving his GOP challenger, state Sen. Brad Zaun, a decent-sized lead: Victory Enterprises, on behalf of the Polk County GOP and not the Zaun camp, finds a 45-38 lead for Zaun. (There was also a June poll giving Zaun a 41-32 lead. It was also by Victory Enterprises, and shared the same Republican-friendly party ID composition, but that one was for the Zaun campaign.)

• OR-05: He’s Scott Bruun, and he drives a truck. He also supports privatizing Social Security. Or doesn’t he? Bruun has reversed himself several times on how he frames the issue, depending on who his audience is, but either way, he seems to be relying on the Paul Ryan roadmap for his ideas.

• Passages: Here’s a sad bookend to yesterday’s death of Ted Stevens: today’s death of another legendary, long-time Congressman who was a master at horse-trading and pork-wrangling, this one from the other side of the aisle. Former Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, one of the biggest Democratic names to fall in 1994, died at age 82.

• Rasmussen:

• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek (D) 21%, Marco Rubio (R) 38%, Charlie Crist (I) 33%

• FL-Sen: Jeff Greene (D) 20%, Marco Rubio (R) 36%, Charlie Crist (I) 37%

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

• TN-Gov: Mike McWherter (D) 31%, Bill Haslam (R) 56%

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

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold (D-inc) 48%, Dave Westlake (R) 39%

• AK-Sen: You might have seen mention at other sites of a Tea Party Express “poll” of the GOP Senate primary in Alaska that had Joe Miller within 9 points of Lisa Murkowski. Mother Jones has been digging around, trying to find the poll, and can find no confirmation of its existence or even word of who took the poll, from either the Miller campaign or TPE.

• CO-Sen: Jane Norton’s closing argument wasn’t about how great she was, but rather about her “concerns” with Ken Buck. Her interview with Politico this morning alluded to his “issues with spending and ethics.”

• IL-Sen: If all else fails, try tying your opponent to Saddam Hussein. That’s what Mark Kirk’s attempting, with an ad that accuses Broadway Bank of having made a 2006 loan to an Iraqi businessman with some sort of Hussein connections. Alexi Giannoulias pointed out that was after he’d already left the bank, but I think a better argument would be that Saddam Hussein was played in South Park Bigger Longer & Uncut by Matt Stone, who was in Baseketball with Greg Grunberg, who was in Hollow Man with Kevin Bacon.

• LA-Sen: Charlie Melancon is out with his very first TV ad, as he and GOP candidate Chet Traylor try to put the squeeze on David Vitter from both directions. The ad (NWOTSOTB for $115K) launches a direct hit on how Vitter “hasn’t been honest.”

• PA-Sen: Pat Toomey is out with yet another TV ad, a negative ad against opponent Joe Sestak. Their only word on the size of the buy is “significant.” The Toomey campaign has been on the air with at least five different ads for a month now, without seeming to budge the poll numbers at all. Sestak hasn’t hit the TV airwaves yet, and seems to, as was the case with his successful primary bid, marshalling his resources for a large salvo closer to the election.

• KS-Gov: Wow, check out the opponent Sam Brownback dispatched in the GOP gubernatorial primary, if you’re in the mood for serious nutjobbery. Joan Heffington alleges “CIA infiltration of western Kansas” and has faced sanctions for practicing law without a license. At any rate, having garnered 15% in the GOP primary, she’s now saying she’s a GDI (God-driven independent) and shouldn’t have gotten suckered into that whole Republican racket in the first place, and as such is launching a write-in candidacy for November.

• MI-Gov: You may remember state Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith, who pulled the plug on her gubernatorial candidacy on the day of the filing deadline, saying she didn’t want to split the progressive vote (and thus giving a big boost to Lansing mayor and eventual primary winner Virg Bernero). Probably figuring that Bernero owes her big-time and also that he’d like some diversity on the ticket, Smith is now floating her own name for the Lt. Governor slot.

• NY-Gov: GOP gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino has gone ahead and pulled the trigger on creating his own ballot line, the Taxpayers Party. It still remains a completely open question as to whether he plans to run on it if he loses the GOP primary, though. (He originally said he wouldn’t be a spoiler in the race against Andrew Cuomo, but then changed to an “options open” position.)

• IL-10: Dan Seals got apparently re-endorsed by the Illinois Federation of Teachers today. (He also had their backing in the Dem primary against Julie Hamos.)

• IL-11: Rep. Debbie Halvorson didn’t start out near the top of anyone’s list of vulnerable Democrats, but she’s starting to earn her position there. Republican opponent Adam Kinzinger has issued a second internal poll (the first one was in March) giving him a lead over Halvorson. The poll from POS gives him a 51-40 edge. (The article, however, helpfully points out that POS saw Halvorson with only a 2-point lead over the hapless Marty Ozinga six weeks before the election in 2008, a race which she went on to win by 24. Update: In 2008, we wrote about that POS poll here.)

• IN-02: Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly, no stranger to occasional use of conservative framing, goes an extra step in his new TV ad hating on those immigrants, using a photo of Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama when saying how he stands apart from “the Washington crowd.” John Boehner’s lurking in the photo’s background, too, so at least it’s bipartisan.

• KS-01: Wow, SurveyUSA sure likes polling KS-01, probably one of the likeliest races in the country to stay red. (Or at least KWCH-TV sure likes paying them to poll it.) They find Republican state Sen. Tim Huelskamp, who just won the primary, leading Dem Alan Jilka 65-23. (Jilka is a former mayor of Salina, which may actually make him a pretty big ‘get’ as far as this hopeless district goes.)

• NH-02: When is a lobbyist not a lobbyist? It turns out that Katrina Swett, who has denied (gasp) lobbying, in fact filled out the required federal paperwork in 1997 to register as a lobbyist, although now her defense is that she never actually got around to lobbying once she registered. Swett has previously been attacking Dem primary foe Ann McLane Kuster for her own previous lobbying work.

• TX-17: Rep. Chet Edwards got a key endorsement in this dark-red, largely rural Texas district: he got the backing of the NRA. It may seem odd to see so many conservaDems getting NRA backing, but the NRA’s policy is where there are two equally pro-gun candidates, the incumbent gets the nod.

• WV-01: Alan Mollohan 2.0? The man is actually talking like he’s eyeing a 2012 comeback, having filed FEC paperwork setting up a 2012 candidacy (although it’s unclear whether that was just to have a fundraising receptacle for donors’ funds to repay a personal loan to his committee). He also just issued a long memo to supporters, bashing, well, everyone, ranging from Republican House members who pursued ethics complaints against him while they were in charge, to Mike Oliverio, who he says defeated him in this year’s Dem primary using those discredited charges.

• Census: Next time a Republican complains to you about the ineffective, bloated government, point him in the direction of the Census, which just came in $1.6 billion under budget (out of a total $14.7 billion appropriated) as it wraps up its main phase. A solid 72% initial response rate helped save money on the inevitable follow-up process.

• Passages: Sadly, today we bid farewell to Ted Stevens, the long-serving Republican Senator from Alaska and chronicler of the inner workings of the series of tubes. Stevens died last night in a plane crash near the town of Dillingham, at the age of 86. Stevens was the survivor of a previous 1978 plane crash, which killed his first wife. We offer our best wishes to his friends and family.

• Rasmussen:

• IA-Sen: Roxanne Conlin (D) 35%, Chuck Grassley (R-inc) 55%

• IN-Sen: Brad Ellsworth (D) 29%, Dan Coats (R) 50%

• NH-Gov: John Lynch (D-inc) 50%, John Stephen (R) 39%

• IL-Sen: Barack Obama’s in Chicago today to help get Alexi Giannoulias across the finish line, at least on the fundraising front, where he’s faltered lately. The fundraiser he’s appearing at today is projected to raise $1 million for Giannoulias’s coffers. Meanwhile, this is a little gossipier than we usually like to get into, but you might check out Chicago Magazine’s interview with Mark Kirk‘s ex-wife, which, jaw-dropping as it is, seems to raise even more questions than it answers, especially regarding Kirk’s former aide and Svengali-figure Dodie McCracken.

• NH-Sen: Here’s an indication that Bill Binnie still has to be taken seriously in the GOP Senate primary in New Hampshire: a conservative group called Cornerstone Action (affiliated with the Family Research Council and Focus on the Family) has launched a $125K ad buy attacking Binnie on his socially moderate stances (he’s pro-choice and apparently pro-gay marriage). While Cornerstone hasn’t specifically backed Kelly Ayotte, Binnie’s camp is trying to link them together.

• CO-Gov: Democratic candidate John Hickenlooper announced his pick for a running mate today: the president of CSU-Pueblo and former Director of the state Dept. of Regulatory Agencies, Joe Garcia (no, not the FL-25 one). Meanwhile, Dan Maes — who was a Some Dude until Scott McInnis imploded — is starting to rival Sharron Angle in terms of his ability to get into the digest every single day for having said something dumb or having some terrible detail from his past revealed. Today, the Denver Post is out with a comprehensive list of his delinquent filings over the years, ranging from annual reports to the state’s SoS office for his credit reporting business for the years 2007-2010, to a lien against his house for not paying his homeowners’ association dues for seven months.

• FL-Gov: Ex-Gov. Jeb Bush is throwing a lifeline to Bill McCollum. He’ll join McCollum on the stump for appearances around the state on Monday. Meanwhile, the spotlight is starting to swing over from Columbia/HCA, Rick Scott’s old healthcare company, to his new one, Solantic. The Miami Herald looks at various lawsuits that Solantic has racked up, ranging from filing false medical information with the state to discrimination lawsuits.

• GA-Gov: Breaking with Sarah Palin and Mitt Romney (who’ve endorsed suburban Karen Handel), Mike Huckabee announced his support today for the more southern-fried Nathan Deal in the GOP gubernatorial runoff.

• MI-Gov: Looks like Rep. Peter Hoekstra, douchebag to the bitter end, may need some time to pout/mourn after his sizable loss in the GOP gubernatorial primary to Rick Snyder. He sent an e-mail to supporters yesterday thanking them but making no mention of support for Snyder. A Hoekstra endorsement, of course, would go a long way toward helping consolidate conservatives behind Snyder, whose moderation may leave them cold.

• SC-Gov: Nikki Haley has liked to emphasize her accounting background on the campaign trail, but she filed her federal income taxes more than a year late in both 2005 and 2006, and has accrued more than $4,000 in late-payment penalties since then.

• CT-05: Justin Bernier has filed a complaint with the state’s SoS against GOP primary rival state Sen. Sam Caligiuri. Caligiuri sent out a mailer calling himself the “Republican nominee,” not the “Republican-endorsed candidate” (which he is, thanks to the convention). Of course, the mailer then asks for the recipients’ votes in the Republican primary, which according to elementary logic would mean that he is not yet the Republican nominee, but, then again, Republican usually =/= logic.

• MI-02: Jay Riemersma, who finished 2nd in the open seat GOP primary in MI-02 by a margin of about 700 votes to ex-state Rep. Wayne Huizenga, has said he won’t seek a recount. Not that a protracted battle would have been any aid to Democrats, who aren’t expected to be a factor in November in this dark-red district. (A recount, of course, may still loom in MI-01, where there’s either a 1-point or 14-point gap, depending on your source, and both GOPers have claimed victory.)

• Washington: PPP looked at a whole lot of miscellany in their Washington Senate poll, too. They look ahead to both the 2012 Senate and gubernatorial races, finding Maria Cantwell in fine shape for now: she’s at 46/38 approval, and she leads Rep. Dave Reichert (not likely to run) 47-41 and Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (who’s largely unknown statewide) 49-37. The gubernatorial numbers for now favor the likely GOP nominee, AG Rob McKenna, though. He leads Democratic state Sen. majority leader Lisa Brown 47-29 (although her problem is that she’s completely unknown, with 81% with no opinion, though she as Generic D is probably also weighed down by Chris Gregoire’s approvals, currently at 39/52… I’d have been more interested in seeing how Rep. Jay Inslee matches up, although he may be just as unknown statewide). Finally, they find a 41-41 tie in support for I-1098, which is on the November ballot and would create an income tax for high earners. SurveyUSA, of all people, has given a big lead to “yes” on this initiative, so it’ll be interesting to see how that shakes out.

• State legislatures: You may recall Louis Jacobson’s piece at Governing Magazine from last month where he handicapped the most competitive state legislative chambers this year. He’s out with an expanded version, with every state legislature included and with more detailed writeups. Well worth a read (and maybe even a bookmark). Another similar piece worth checking out today is from Taniel, writing at Open Left, with a comprehensive rundown of who is likely to control the redistricting process in all the states that don’t have independent commissions (or only one CD).

• Rasmussen:

• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 45%, Carly Fiorina (R) 40%

• KS-Sen: Lisa Johnston (D) 28%, Jerry Moran (R) 61%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 42%, John Kasich (R) 45%

• NH-Sen, NH-Gov (pdf): As PPP’s Tom Jensen hinted yesterday, Kelly Ayotte may have lost some ground in the general election, but isn’t suffering in the GOP primary. Ayotte has a 53/23 favorable among GOPers, and they also say that by a 38/28 margin, a Sarah Palin endorsement makes it more likely that they’d vote for the endorsee. Ayotte is polling at 47%, with Bill Binnie at 14, Ovide Lamontagne at 8, Jim Bender at 6, and a handful of Some Dudes in low single-digits. (Lamontagne’s personal unpopularity seems to be keeping him from catching fire among the right wing; he’s at 23/31.) They also looked at the gubernatorial primary, where establishment frontrunner John Stephen hasn’t quite sealed the deal against teabagging businessman Jack Kimball and social conservative activist Karen Testerman. Stephen leads Kimball and Testerman 26-15-5.

• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov: Quinnipiac offers up polls of the major races in New York state today, and, try as they may, they just can’t find anything interesting going on here, any more so than any other pollster. The main point of interest may be the GOP primaries; they find Rick Lazio leading Carl Paladino 39-23 in the gubernatorial primary, and Bruce Blakeman leading David Malpass 19-12 in the Senate primary (although Joe DioGuardi, who has submitted his petitions, really should be polled in that race too). In the general, they find Kirsten Gillibrand beating Blakeman 48-27 and Malpass 49-24. Andrew Cuomo defeats Lazio 56-26 and Paladino 55-25.

• WA-Sen: Having been on the receiving end of one of Fred Davis’s abstract-expressionist attack ads, Patty Murray’s out with her own first second TV spot of the election cycle, one that’s relentlessly job-o-centric and focuses on her close links to the region’s largest employer: Boeing. It’s a panorama of Boeing workers thanking her for saving their jobs.

• FL-Gov: Bill McCollum’s trailing in the polls of the GOP primary, but he got a boost from the Florida Chamber of Commerce, which is endorsing him. The Chamber also gave the cash-starved McCollum a $500K transfusion, although it went to McCollum-supporting 527 Florida First Initiative rather than directly to McCollum.

• GA-Gov: Nathan Deal got two presents, one good, one very bad. He got the endorsement for the runoff from fellow House member Jack Kingston, who had previously endorsed fellow Savannah resident Eric Johnson in the GOP primary. However, he also got news that a federal grand jury has issued subpoenas of Georgia’s Revenue Commissioner, in its investigation of whether Deal personally intervened with him to protect a state auto inspection program that was particularly beneficial to the Deal family’s auto salvage business. At least Deal isn’t lagging on the fundraising front; both he and rival Karen Handel have raised about $500K each in the week since the primary.

• MI-Gov: Rumors keep on resurfacing regarding Republican AG Mike Cox’s presence at an out-of-control mayoral mansion party hosted by now-disgraced former Detroit mayor Kwame Kilpatrick, and they’re back in the news again, inconveniently timed for him with the primary next week. An eyewitness has just signed an affidavit placing the religious-right Cox at the stripper-laden party. Meanwhile, Rick Snyder, who’s actively trying to court Dems and indies to cross over to the GOP primary to vote for him, has rolled out an endorsement from a highly respected but long-ago GOP governor: William Milliken.

• MN-Gov: Alliance for a Better Minnesota is out with a new TV ad that’s hitting Republican nominee Tom Emmer on one of his weakest spots (of which it turns out he has many). It criticizes him for voting to weaken drunk driving laws, and oh, just happening to point out that Emmer himself has twice been convicted of drunk driving. (The Alliance name is a little oblique, probably intentionally so, but they’re a labor-backed 501(c)(4).)

• CO-04: Could Scott McInnis’s implosion and Tom Tancredo’s gubernatorial run actually help Democratic fortunes downballot, especially in the hotly-contested 4th? That’s what Politico is wondering, with a piece looking at how reduced GOP turnout and/or increased interest in Constitution Party candidate Doug Aden might ultimately benefit Democratic freshman Rep. Betsy Markey.

• NH-02: If there’s one competitive Democratic primary left where there’s a pretty clear ideological contrast, it’s in the 2nd. While Ann McLane Kuster is a netroots fave, Katrina Swett is on record as having supported the Bush-era tax cuts in 2002 (the decision of whether or not to extend said cuts is about to become an issue in Congress). Swett says she’s being misrepresented, to the extent that only supported the middle-class parts of the tax cuts, although she didn’t clarify whether or not she would have voted for the whole shebang.

• PA-06: Buried in a story about how Rep. Jim Gerlach has actually been giving money to the NRCC (to the tune of $44K just now, for a total of $100K all cycle) is news of an internal poll from a few weeks ago, which suggests he’s not in the sort of imminent danger that would require him to horde cash. He’s pointing to a Wilson Research poll from mid-July that gives him a 54-29 lead over Dem nominee Manan Trivedi.

• MI-Legislature: One state where we aren’t hurting for details on the state of the state legislatures, thanks to Michigan Liberal’s pbratt, is Michigan. He’s out with pre-primary filing fundraising databases for both the Senate (Republican-controlled, but one of our best offensive opportunities) and the House (reliably Democratic-controlled).

• Meta: I’ve always wondered, if this is such an anti-incumbent year, where the losing incumbents actually are. The Fix’s Aaron Blake is taking notice of the same thing, as we’re on track to have not really any more of an anti-incumbent year than 2008. With really only one more House member who seems on track to lose a primary (Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick), that puts us on track for 4 primary losses for both parties in the House… exactly the same number as 2008. Winning a primary, of course, takes loads of money, and the thing that sets the successful challengers (Mike Oliverio or Mo Brooks, or Joe Sestak at the Senate level) apart from the vast array of the rabble attacking from both left and right is $$. It is worth observing, though, that the average incumbent winning percentage seems to be down this year from last cycle, with many incumbents winning ugly, in the 60-70% range. We’d need to investigate how much that average percentage has changed since 2008, though, before declaring a trend to be underway.

• Rasmussen:

• AL-Gov: Ron Sparks (D) 35%, Robert Bentley (R) 55%

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 43%, Mark Kirk (R) 41%

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 45%, Sharron Angle (R) 43%

• OR-Gov: John Kitzhaber (D) 44%, Chris Dudley (R) 47%

If you’d told me back in, say, January, that in late July Rasmussen would be finding Harry Reid winning and John Kitzhaber losing, I wouldn’t have even laughed at you, I would have just picked up the phone and called for assistance from men in white suits with big butterfly nets.

Netroots Nation: In case you missed it, click the link to watch the video of our panel on the 2010 horserace from last Friday at Netroots Nation. It was a terrific, fast-paced panel and we were asked a broad range of questions on a ton of different races. Fun stuff! Also of interest, Greenberg Quinlan Rosner conducted a straw poll of convention-goers. They included one horserace-ish question, asking participants which race was their top priority this fall. 31% picked NV-Sen, followed by PA-Sen (25%), KY-Sen (21%), MN-06 (15%), and VA-05 (7%).

CA-Sen: The NRSC has reserved $1.75 million in ad time for Carly Fiorina – but remember, just cuz you reserve time doesn’t mean you necessarily wind up buying it, so this could just be a feint.

FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek is up with his first ad, attacking zillionaire schmuckface Jeff Greene for his past run for Congress in California – as a Republican – and for the windfall he reaped by betting on a housing market collapse two years ago. Adam Smith of the St. Pete Times says the buy is for $420K, which he thinks is “pretty small” for the pretty big state of Florida.

IL-Sen: Mark Kirk is pulling a Pat Toomey. You’ll recall that the ultra-conservative Pennsylvania senate candidate somewhat surprisingly endorsed Sonia Sotomayor’s nomination for the Supreme Court. Now it’s Kirk’s turn to try to burnish his “moderate” credentials, so he’s backing Elena Kagan.

Meanwhile, here’s some new craziness: A federal district court judge just ordered a special election to fill the remaining months of Roland Burris’s term, most likely to coincide with the regular election in November. Both Kirk and Dem Alexi Giannoulias have said they want to run in the special, and they probably won’t have to face a primary, since the judge seems inclined to allow nominees to be picked by party committees. Politico points out a potentially huge angle to all of this: the FEC says that since the special would constitute a new election, the candidates would be able to raise fresh money for that race – meaning that Kirk and Giannoulias could hit up maxed-out donors once more.

PA-Sen: But wait! Pat Toomey isn’t pulling a Pat Toomey! He’s coming out against Elena Kagan.

WV-Sen: When early word came that Rep. Shelley Moore Capito wouldn’t run for Robert Byrd’s seat, we said that we’d move the race to Likely D. Capito made it official last Wednesday, so consider this move retroactive to that date.

MI-Gov: Bummer: Detroit Mayor Dave Bing has endorsed DLC Dem Andy Dillon, whom Dillon called a “kindred spirit.” Given Bing’s outsider status and short tenure, I suspect he’s not quite a “machine” mayor, though, who can deliver wards on the turn of a heel.

MN-Gov: Republican gubernatorial nominee Tom Emmer continues to burnish his moron credentials. The other day, he declared that Minnesota should pass its own GI bill to help veterans. Good idea, right? So good, in fact, that the state actually passed such a law three years ago. Even better: Emmer, a state representative, voted against the bill!

RI-Gov: Linc Chafee won the endorsement of the 10,000-strong Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals, his first big union nod. The Projo says that the teachers had been favored to go to AG Patrick Lynch, but Lynch rather unexpectedly dropped out of the race not long ago, and evidently Dem Treasurer Frank Caprio didn’t suit them.

SC-Gov: Nikki Haley, a member of the Strength Through Crippling Austerity wing of the Republican Party, is trying to soften (i.e., flip-flop) some of her less business-friendly stances. The AP explains her shifts on two issues: the infamous anti-tax pledge sponsored by Americans for Tax Reform, and the bailout.

IL-17: Can an internal poll sometimes seem just too good? That’s how I feel about this survey by Magellan Strategies for GOPer Bobby Schilling, which has him up 45-32 over Dem Rep. Phil Hare. YMMV.

NY-13: John McCain is endorsing former FBI agent Mike Grimm in the GOP primary. Grimm has faced hostility from the Republican establishment here, which has backed Michael Allegretti (whom Maggie Haberman delightfully refers to with the epithet “Bayside fuel heir”). Apparently, McCain (who has a race of his own to worry about) will both fundraise and campaign for Grimm, though no word yet on when. As for why he’s getting involved, Haberman says it’s because of his relationship with Rudy Giuliani and Guy Molinari, both of whom are supporting Grimm.

NY-15: Charlie Rangel’s autobiography is titled “And I Haven’t Had a Bad Day Since,” referring to his service in the Korean War. Well, it sure seems like he’s had more than a few bad days lately, with the latest batch coming in the last week. The House Ethics Committee declared on Thursday that Rangel had indeed committed transgressions and created a new panel to investigate further. In response, Indiana senate candidate Brad Ellsworth announced he would give to charity all the money he’s received from Rangel (some $12K). Rep. Betty Sutton (OH-13) went one further, calling on Rangel to resign. For the record, Rangel disagrees with me, saying: “I’m not in a foxhole, I’m not surrounded by a million Chinese communists coming after me. Life is good. I’m 80 years old. I’m on my way to a parade.”

OK-05: SoonerPoll.com has a survey out of the 5th CD Republican field, finding former state Rep. Kevin Calvey increasing his lead from 20 to 28 since the last test in March. Some Dude James Lankford is in second with 20, followed by 15 for state Rep. Mike Thompson, 6 for state Rep. Shane Jett, and a bunch of other Some Dudes bringing up the rear.

PA-15: This is what we call a good get: Bill Clinton will be coming to Salisbury Township for a fundraiser for John Callahan on August 10th. As is so often the case with the Big Dog, this is payback for Callahan’s support of Hillary Clinton’s presidential bid in 2008.

TN-09: Willie Herenton, asshole until the end:

Willie W. Herenton, the former mayor, is accusing Steve Cohen, the white two-term United States representative, of “trying to act black.” He tells voters in this majority-black city that they “need to come off that Cohen plantation and get on the Herenton freedom train.”

WI-03: State Sen. Dan Kapanke has an internal out from Public Opinion Strategies (memo here) which shows Dem Rep. Ron Kind up just 44-38.

• CO-Sen: So since the last time we checked in, Ken Buck royally stepped in it not just once, but twice. First, he made the argument that voters should opt for him and not Jane Norton because “he doesn’t wear high heels.” (It was by way of arguing that, instead, he wears cowboy boots with actual bullshit on them, but the gender card was pretty clear. And Norton’s response was easy to write, and was on the air almost instantaneously. It probably played at least something of a role in today’s decision by Arizona governor Jan Brewer, amassing her own clutch of Mama Rattlesnakes, to extend an endorsement to Norton.) Then second, it came out over the weekend that on June 11, Buck was overheard referring to Tea Partiers (or at least the birthers among them) as “dumbasses.” (Compounding the unforced nature of the error was that he was joking around with his Democratic tracker while saying it!) Buck was out with the inevitable apology to the teabaggers within the day. (Y’know, for a bunch of self-styled tough guys, they sure do get their feelings hurt easily.)

• CT-Sen: Despite his blowing through a large chunk of his remaining cash on hand in a baffling ad urging people to vote in the Republican primary (although not specifically for him), Rob Simmons is still maintaining that he’s not currently a candidate for the Senate. He considers his $350K ad buy as something like “public service announcements.”

• FL-Sen: Must be nice to have Jeff Greene’s money! Concerned observers are a bit troubled by the close correlation between his hiring of DNC member Jon Ausman as a consultant, and his next-day endorsement of Greene’s campaign. Greene has spent $6 million of his own money on the race so far, which apparently is a drop in the bucket for him, as he’s been content to ignore a $1.87 million fine from the government of Belize that’s outstanding against him, after he crashed his 145-foot yacht into a sensitive coral reef there.

• IL-Sen: Continuing the boat-crashing theme, in case you’ve been living under a rock all weekend, the big news in Illinois is that Mark Kirk has gotten caught in yet another series of misrememberments, this time about his sailboat accident and subsequent Coast Guard rescue that supposedly got him devoted to public service. Turns out he at least got the being in a sailboat accident part right, but, unlike his own description of the events, he was rescued long before nightfall, he probably didn’t swim for a mile because he was within half a mile of shore, and his core temperature certainly wasn’t 82 because he would have lost consciousness long before getting to that point. Sensing a pattern here?

• KY-Sen: Rand Paul is re-affirming that he supports Mitch McConnell. Well, sort of. During his Fancy Farm appearance this weekend, he said he’s going to vote for McConnell for leader, but almost immediately afterwards, reduced that to not seeing a reason why he wouldn’t vote for him. Observers also noted that, in his earlier sorta-support for McConnell, he was implicitly dissing Sharron Angle as unlikely to win, by way of saying that Jack Conway’s first action would be to vote for Harry Reid for majority leader (something that, of course, wouldn’t happen if Reid weren’t to get re-elected).

• NV-Sen: Sharron Angle’s media policy can be summed up in one word: RUN! That’s what she did when faced with questions from a six-months-pregnant reporter last week, who, in typical lamestream media fashion, insisted on asking some further questions after a three-minute speech of boilerplate on the estate tax. How presumptuous! Harry Reid got further good news, too, with the endorsement of Las Vegas mayor and relentless self-promoter Oscar Goodman, who called Reid “the man we go to get things done in the city.” If there’s one Nevadan having an even worse time than Angle, though, it’s John Ensign; his one-time crony Tom Coburn just hung him out to dry, handing over e-mails from Ensign in the ongoing criminal investigation by the DOJ into l’affaire Hampton.

• WV-Sen: With filing closed in West Virginia, there are eleven GOPers fighting in the primary for the right to oppose Joe Manchin in the Senate special election. Most prominent, of course, is businessman John Raese, who lost the 2006 Senate race to Robert Byrd and is also something of an archenemy to the Moore/Capito family. The only other noteworthy GOPer is Mac Warner, who already lost the WV-01 primary this year (and whose brother, Monty Warner, was the 2004 GOP gubernatorial nominee, losing badly to Manchin). Raese punctuated his entry with some ill-advised and outdated ethnic humor, comparing the Italian-American Manchin to Tony Soprano. The NRSC, probably not liking any of its options here (and having gotten burned by some of its earlier interventions), says it isn’t getting involved in the primary.

• CO-Gov: The rumor du jour last week was that the RGA was prepared to pull out of Colorado entirely — and that was before this morning’s confirmation that Tom Tancredo was going to jump into the race as an indie candidate in order to either leverage the GOP nomination or crash-land the whole operation. The RGA denied the rumors when they first came out, but the local GOPers working on the race are suddenly leaking e-mails that they’re broke. And with Tancredo‘s bid today, suddenly his allies and core backers among the Tea Partiers are suddenly denouncing him, accusing him of being a likely spoiler, whether intentional or not. Bafflingly, Tancredo pushed back in the way most likely to rub them the wrong way, calling the teabaggers new members of the “establishment.” Tancredo’s getting some pushback from state party chair Dick Wadhams, too; TPM has audio of the literal screaming match between the two of them.

• FL-Gov: You may remember state Sen. Paula Dockery, who was running a futile campaign against Bill McCollum in the GOP gubernatorial primary until dropping out after getting totally eclipsed by Rick Scott. Well, now she’s teaming up with Scott; she’s stopping somewhere short of endorsing him, but is joining him on his bus tour, saying she share similar stances on the issues. (She can’t be angling for a Lt. Gov. slot, as Florida elects its LG separately, so what her angle is, I don’t know. UPDATE: Actually, commenters have corrected me on Florida’s LG procedure, wherein the nominees pick running mates, so, yes, it does sound like she’s angling for LG.) Also, while it isn’t exactly about the horse race, here’s a fascinating (at least to me) piece of backstory about Democratic candidate Alex Sink. Her slightly Asian appearance is because she’s 1/8th Thai, and her great-grandfather was a well-known celebrity in the early 1800s: circus performer Chang Bunker, one-half of the original so-called “Siamese Twins.”

• GA-Gov: Dueling (banjo) endorsements in the Georgia GOP gubernatorial runoff, and they seem to fit the overall media narratives about the two candidates. The suburbanized Karen Handel got Mitt Romney’s endorsement, while the more hickory-smoked Nathan Deal got the backing of the NRA.

• OK-Gov (pdf): There’s one more poll of the primaries in Oklahoma (to be decided tomorrow night), from the Republican firm of Cole Hargrave Snodgrass & Associates, apparently on their own and not on anyone else’s behalf. The results are pretty similar to this weekend’s Sooner Poll: they see AG Drew Edmondson beating Lt. Gov. Jari Askins 38-27 on the Dem side, and Rep. Mary Fallin well ahead of state Sen. Randy Brogdon 50-22 on the GOP side. Askins did get one late-breaking endorsement, though, that’s good as gold in this football-mad state: she got the backing of former OU and Dallas Cowboys head coach Barry Switzer. Switzer’s backing is credited with helping Brad Henry win a come-from-behind victory in the 2002 Dem gubernatorial primary.

• OH-St. House: Here’s something you don’t see every day: a local article about a competitive state legislative chamber where you don’t get just platitudes about the closeness, but actual detail about the most competitive races. Democrats currently control the state House 53-46 after picking it up in 2008, and it could revert back to the GOP this year. The Democratic seats on defense that they list are scattered among Columbus, Cincinnati, and Cleveland suburbs, and Appalachian-flavored rural areas like Portsmouth and Zanesville.

• OR-Init: Oregon stands out as the only west coast state that doesn’t have an independent redistricting commission for state legislative seats. It looks like that’s going to continue: a proposed initiative to create an independent commission of retired judges for redistricting didn’t qualify for the ballot, after too many signatures turned out to be invalid. 2002 GOP governor candidate and bringer-of-the-crazy Kevin Mannix was the leader of the move, although he actually had some big money interests behind him this time (like Nike’s Phil Knight).

• Rasmussen:

• AZ-Sen (R): John McCain (R-inc) 54%, J.D. Hayworth (R) 34%

• ND-Sen: Tracy Potter (D) 22%, John Hoeven (R) 69%

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Paul Kanjorski (D-inc): 37

Lou Barletta (R): 56

(MoE: ±4.9%)

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

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

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

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

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

These are my first rankings of any set of seats for the 2010 Congressional elections. The Senate outlook for the Democrats was at first good (this was early 2009.) Then it became poor as fall hit but now the Democrats have a stronger shot in the Senate. Still, the Republicans will pick up seats but the Democrats will still have a majority in the Senate. I am expecting the Republican to pick up 5 seats and they should lose one or two so I am looking at a 3-4 seat gain for the Republican. This is more optimistic than other rankings I have seen but Republican candidates made some mistakes and/or Democrats found the right candidates. Unfortunately, with the economy starting to slump again, the climate will be less favorable to the Democrats. Still, in many races, it is the candidate and not the climate that people are thinking about when they cast their ballots. This at first looks good for the Democrats but it actually helps the Republicans in a few states such as Illinois where Obama and Democrats are popular but Republicans are waging tough races. Enough chatter about Senate races, to the rankings!

1. North Dakota OPEN (D)

Byron Dorgan (D) retired so popular Governor John Hoeven (R) is running. The race was over before it even started.

Ranking: Safe Republican

2. Arkansas Blanche Lincoln (D)

Blanche Lincoln held off the unions (which were never powerful in Arkansas,) the progressives and Bill Halter (D)  when she won the Democratic primary with the help of Bill Clinton. Although Blanche Lincoln came from behind to win, that should not happen this time. Rep John Boozmen (R) from the northwest portion of the state (where Wal Mart was started) is running. All recent polls show Boozmen with a lead about 20 points. Although this race has not been polled for a couple of weeks, all indications clearly show that Boozmen is ahead. Barring a major gaffe or a big burst of luck, Boozmen will be Arkansas’s next Senator.

Ranking: Likely Republican

3. Delaware OPEN Ted Kaufman (D)

The Democrats have had bad luck with this seat. First, Michael Castle (R), Delaware’s popular representative threw his hat in the ring and Beau Biden (D), Joe Biden’s son who was supposed to run jumped ship. Now Democrats nominated New Castle County (Wilmington) executive, Chris Coons (D) to run for Senate. It should be noted that New Castle County is a bellwether so Coons already has an advantage. Michael Castle though is a moderate and is well known throughout the state but if people get fed up with all the incumbents…Still, expect a Michael Castle win.

Ranking: Lean Republican

4. Indiana OPEN Evan Bayh (D)

Bye bye Bayh, after being a popular Governor and Senator, Bayh left open a seat the Democrats should have held (and it aint no lie.) Dan Coats (R) is a former Republican Senator and lobbyist who won the primary with only 40% of the vote. He faces Brad Ellsworth (D), the moderate and popular Congressman from southern Indiana, filled with rural swing voters. Although Ellsworth is moderate and should do well with rural voters, Dan Coats has a strong lead. Ellsworth just got out an effective ad attacking lobbyists (not explicitly mentioning the one running against him.) This is helpful but he also needs to appeal to urban voters who were key to Obama’s winning coalition in 2008.  Ellsworth is a great candidate and he definitely will make it close. Unfortunately, I think due to the Republican lean of the state and the year’s climate, Coats will win by about 5 points.

Ranking: Lean Republican

5. Florida OPEN Mel Martinez (R)

Once Crist jumped into this race, it appeared that he would win easily. Then along came Marco Rubio who started out at 4% but forced Crist to run as an independent. Many pundits including myself believed Crist would take away Republican votes but since they view him as a traitor, he did not steal many. Now he is taking away votes from Meek. I expect Crist to caucus with the Democrats because Crist has suddenly become more Democratic and has strongly advocated against more oil drilling. He participated in a hands across the sands protest against oil drilling too. Most polls show Crist with a slight lead over Rubio and I think that it will be close but Crist will win.

Ranking: Lean Independent

6. Colorado Michael Bennett (D)

Michael Bennett was the former School Superintendent for Colorado and he was appointed by Bill Ritter (D) because Ken Salazar (D) was pulled out to become Secretary of the Interior. Now Republicans Ken Buck and Jane Norton are challenging Bennett. Also, Bennett faces a challenge from Andrew Romanoff (D) who is the former speaker for Colorado’s House. Although the Republicans are not very moderate, Bennett keeps trailing them by a few points and Romanoff trails them too. Ken Buck though, the leader in the primary favors strong cuts to the Department of Education and Norton favors eliminating it. This could come back to haunt them. Most polls show Bennett winning the primary but I do not have a good feeling about this race.

Ranking: Toss Up/Tilt Republican

7. Missouri OPEN Christopher Bond (R)

I was debating whether I should put Ohio here but in the end, I decided that this spot belonged to Missouri. Christopher Bond, one of the dwindling group of reasonable Republicans is now retiring. A not so reasonable Republican, Roy Blunt (R) from southwest Missouri is running to replace Bond. Blunt is the former House Majority Whip under the Bush Administration. The Democrats found a good candidate in Robin Carnahan (D), a member of a strong political family and the Secretary of State. A recent Rasmussen poll shows Blunt with a 5 point lead but Rasmussen is known to be biased toward the right. The latest non Rasmussen poll was in March and it showed Blunt with a 4 point lead. Missouri has a strong rural conservative base but Carnahan has her advantages. She won by 26 points in 2010, losing only 10 counties so she proved she can win rural areas. Also, her family owns a farm so she can highlight her rural roots. This is why I believe that once Carnahan starts campaigning, the race will become very close.

Ranking: Toss Up

8. Ohio OPEN George Voinovich (R)

Voinovich is another reasonable Republican who is retiring. After a bruising primary against Jennifer Brunner (D), Lieutenant Governor Lee Fisher (D) won. He is facing Rob Portman (R) who is a former congressman and official during the Bush Administration. Every poll since March that is not Rasmussen shows Fisher with a lead although most of the leads are by a few points. Fisher’s main jobs will be to tie Portman to Bush, remind people how bad Bush was (because everyone is blaming Bush’s problems on Obama) and Fisher should highlight how he will create jobs. Also, Fisher needs to step up the fundraising. Also, Portman is from southern Ohio while Fisher is from Northeast Ohio. On election night, you should expect a map similar to 2004 except Fisher may get a few Ohio river counties. I still believe that if one race leads to a recount, it will be this one.

Ranking: Toss Up

9. Illinois OPEN Roland Burris (D)

Really good candidates, especially those whose names are spelled L-I-S-A M-A-D-I-G-A-N decided not to run so we have Alexi Giannoulis (D) who is the State Treasurer. He is young but his family’s bank problems are not. Mark Kirk (R), the moderate Republican from Chicago suburbs and candidate for Senate appeared to have an advantage because of this. He still did not think that gave him a strong enough lead so he decided he could woo voters by bragging about military credentials…he forgot he did not have. Now the race is closer and I think due to the Democratic lean of the state, Giannoulis will win by a couple of points.

Ranking: Toss Up/Tilt Democratic

10 (tie) Nevada Harry Reid (D)

The Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid will be facing Sharron Angle (R) a State Senator from Washoe County. Harry Reid is very unpopular in Nevada but neither is Sharron Angle. Her beliefs range from wanting to eliminate social security, the Department of Education, support of Scientology and that Abraham Lincoln lost all his elections but President (he lost only one election is his whole lifetime.) Also, Angle faces another problem because as of last month, Harry Reid has $12 million COH (cash on hand) and Angle has only $138,000. Recent polls show this race close because many people have not heard about Angle just yet. She is trying to hide her opinions though by saying Harry Reid cannot quote them and she seems shocked that people are monitoring everything she says. Angle…welcome to the world of campaigning. Harry Reid is still unpopular but I expect him to win by a few points. The only good tactic Angle has used is behaving callously toward oil spill and rape victims and not having a moment where she does not care about Yucca Mountain. In Nevada, you can vote for “None of these candidates” and I would not be surprised if they won.

Ranking: Toss Up/Tilt Democratic

10 (tie). Kentucky OPEN Jim Bunning (R)

Once Bunning realized he had a poor shot at hitting a home run and winning again, he decided to bail out of the race. Rand Paul (R), the son on Ron Paul (R) is now running against Jack Conway (D). At first, it appeared that teabagger Paul would win this race until he revealed how much he hated big government. He thought that government could not prevent businesses from discriminating. Then he flip flopped and believes the U.S needs to use government spending to build a border fence. Conway is a good candidate but Kentucky is too conservative for him and this is not a good year for Democrats.

Ranking: Toss Up/Tilt Republican.

Do you agree or disagree with the rankings? What are yours?

This post was cross posted at http://frogandturtle.blogspot…. which you should visit for more election analysis.