Tag: Rick Perry

Senate:

• HI-Sen: Sen. Dan Inouye says in a new interview that he “will not take sides in the primary,” and Politico ads that his “top aides insist” he won’t be lending quiet, behind-the-scenes support to any candidates either. I hope that’s true, since I was concerned Ed Case might have mended things with Inouye to the point that the latter might get behind the former. But without some special help, I think Case will have a hard time. Also, SMS Research took the most useless poll imaginable, pitting Case against former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann in a primary… and absolutely no one else. Whatevs.

• ME-Sen: Olympia Snowe said she raised over $877K in Q1 and has over $2 million on hand.

• OH-Sen: Sherrod Brown said he raised $1.3 million in Q1 and has $2.5 million on hand.

• VA-Sen: George Allen said he raised $1.5 million in Q1 and has $1.25 million on hand.

Gubernatorial:

• KY-Gov: TX Gov. Rick Perry, current chair of the RGA, says his organization won’t decide how heavily it’ll get involved in Kentucky’s gubernatorial race until after the May 17th primary. He also declined to endorse frontrunner (and establishment choice) David Williams, saying he’s “got a really good feeling about all the men and women who are running.”

House:

• CO-04: Republican Rep. Corey Gardner apparently raised over $300K in Q1.

• CT-04: Dem Rep. Jim Himes estimates he took in over $300K in Q1.

• IN-06, IN-05: Luke Messer, a former official with the state GOP who nearly beat Rep. Dan Burton in a primary last year, now finds himself living just outside Burton’s 5th CD, according to new maps proposed by Republicans in charge of the state lege. Messer is now in the 6th, which is likely to be vacated by Mike Pence, who everyone thinks will run for governor. Messer says he’s buddies with Pence and will consider running to replace him if Pence makes the leap for the statehouse, but he wouldn’t rule out a rematch against Burton (though he says he wouldn’t move in order to do so).

• MN-08: This is pretty wild: Former Rep. Rick Nolan (D) says he’s thinking about staging a comeback. It’s wild because Nolan left office in 1981 and is now 68 years old. It’s also rather strange because Nolan represented what was then the 6th CD, which is accurately represented in the map Joe Bodell presents. (His reader update is incorrect.) At the time, Nolan’s district covered the southwestern and central portions of the state; today’s 8th is in the northeastern corner (though they share one county in common, Mille Lacs). And to cap it all off, Nolan was touting himself at a Dem meeting in Bemidji, which is in the 7th CD. Actually, no – the real capper is that Nolan was a practitioner of the ’60s & ’70s fad of “Transcendental Meditation” (whose practitioners claimed they could levitate) and earned a mention in Time Magazine for it.

• MO-03: Not going gently… or padding the warchest for a different race, or perhaps something else down the line? Russ Carnahan raised $333K in Q1, his best first quarter ever, and has $286K on hand. Dave Catanese notes that Lacy Clay raised just $17K (though he has $222K in the bank). Would Carnahan really go up against Clay in a primary? What do you think?

• MS-02: Greenville Mayor Heather McTeer Hudson said she plans to challenge veteran Rep. Bennie Thompson in the Democratic primary next year. She also announced she’s hiring pollster Celinda Lake. Hudson had previously said she wouldn’t seek re-election to her current post. Thompson, meanwhile, ended last year with $1.7 million on hand and has warded off primary challengers before (most recently in 2006, in the form of Chuck Espy, son of former Rep. Mike Espy).

• SD-AL: Though it seems all but certain that ex-Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin won’t seek a rematch this cycle (among other things, she just accepted a teaching position at South Dakota State University, where she once worked), she did say she’s open to the possibility of seeking office again at some point in the future. She didn’t specify what post, so you can mentally flag this item as something other than just SD-AL if you like. Speaking of SD-AL, Rep. Kristi Noem (the woman who beat Sandlin) announced she took in $396K in Q1.

Other Races:

• LA-AG: Former Rep. Joe Cao says he plans to challenge Dem-cum-Republican AG Buddy Caldwell this fall. Cao specifically cited Caldwell’s party switch (which only happened in February) and questioned his Republican bona fides – sort of an unusual move in a state where party switching has been very common. We’ll see if he Cao actually has the chops to make a race of it. (Side note: A proud moment in SSP in-the-weeds history: Live-blogging the LA-AG runoff in 2007, when control of the state House was also at stake.)

• MS-AG: A rare bright spot for Mississippi Dems: Attorney General Jim Hood leads Republican Steve Simpson by 49-32 margin in PPP’s latest poll.

• Special Elections: From Johnny L-T:

Two of the three elections last night were landslides; in South Carolina’s SD-16, Republican Greg Gregory trounced Democrat Keith Brann and Libertarian Stan Smith by a 77-18-5 margin, while in Minnesota’s SD-66, DFLer Mary Jo McGuire beat Republican Greg Copeland 80-20. In Connecticut’s HD-128, Democrat Dan Fox won with 39%, while Republican Charles Pia (not Antonacci, my mistake) came in second with 24%. Independents John Mallozzi and Monique Thomas both made strong showings, pulling in 23% and 13%, respectively, and Green Rolf Maurer brought up the rear with about 1%. Note that Mallozzi failed to win the Democratic nomination, so he petitioned his way onto the ballot.

Remainders:

• Pay-to-Play: MaryNYC, the First Lady of the Swing State Project (aka my wife), has an interesting backgrounder on the SEC’s new regulations which attempt to curtail Wall Street from engaging in “pay-to-play” with elected officials. What’s interesting about the rules is that they make it very difficult for employees of financial firms to donate to state and local officeholders who have a stake in municipal investment decisions, but generally speaking doesn’t affect donations to federal officeholders. So, in a hypothetical example, New Mexico state Auditor Hector Balderas, who is weighing a run for Senate, might find Wall Street’s doors shut, while Rep. Martin Heinrich, who is already in the race, would face no such problems.

Redistricting Roundup:

• Indiana: We’ll have a lengthier redistricting-only digest later today, but I wanted to bring you this information ASAP. A source involved in Indiana politics informs me that these are the Obama percentages for each CD in the new map proposed by Republicans in the state lege:

IN-01: 63.2

IN-02: 49.4

IN-03: 42.9

IN-04: 44.4

IN-05: 46.5

IN-06: 43.5

IN-07: 66.3

IN-08: 48.0

IN-09: 46.1

• AK-Sen: As it gets more and more apparent that victory isn’t going to come on the write-in-challenges front, the Joe Miller camp seems to be admitting as much. However, they aren’t preparing to concede, as they see one last ace in the hole: absentee ballots, which are still trickling in. The last to arrive (ahead of Wednesday’s deadline) will be the military overseas ballots, which Miller expects will break heavily in his favor (seeing as how many military members nearing the end of their commitment are probably looking forward to a profitable career on Miller’s paramilitary goon squad). With Lisa Murkowski’s lead holding at 40-35, though, it’s unclear whether military ballots would show up in sufficient numbers to turn the tide even if they broke widely for Miller.

• DE-Sen, WV-Sen: Congratulations today to Chris Coons and Joe Manchin, both of whom are being sworn into the Senate this afternoon for the lame-duck session. It’s also the first day on the job for Earl Ray Tomblin, who becomes the new West Virginia Governor in Manchin’s absence. If you’re wondering about Mark Kirk, he’ll be sworn in next week thanks to vagaries of Illinois law. (If I may be allowed a brief moment of alma mater pride, Coons appears to be the first Amherst alum elected to the Senate since the ill-fated Thomas Eagleton.)

• MA-Sen: You may remember a boomlet that peaked last week for Senate speculation concerning Setti Warren, the “rock star” mayor of Newton. Well, that’s over, as he’s now saying his “intent” is to finish his term, which runs through 2013. However, a different young up-and-coming mayor of one of the Bay State’s larger cities is now poking the Senate race with a stick: Will Flanagan, the 30-year-old mayor of the much more blue-collar Fall River, is gauging the race.

• TX-Sen: The Fix has a look at possible primary challengers to Kay Bailey Hutchison, who, with her bungled gubernatorial run and her TARP vote, seems to have painted a big target on her back aimed at Texas tea partiers looking for a promotion. Former SoS Roger Williams and former Railroad Commissioner Elizabeth Ames Jones are already in the race (dating back to when it was expected that KBH would be on her way to the Governor’s Mansion at this point), but the bigger names to watch are Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and Railroad Commissioner Michael Williams. Dewhurst is establishment but has the personal wealth to get a foothold here, while Williams has no money but is the favorite of the tea party set. Dallas mayor Tom Leppert is also mentioned as a wild-card. One Dem who won’t be making the race is former Houston mayor Bill White, who in wake of his gubernatorial loss says he won’t pivot to a Senate race. That probably frees up the Dem Senate slot for former comptroller John Sharp, who was going to run in the hypothetical special election that never happened and already has a big stack of cash saved up for the race.

• CT-Gov: If you’re hearing zombie lies from Republican friends about the Connecticut gubernatorial race being stolen by the urban machines, here’s a handy debunking point: exit polls show that the huge falloff in votes in Bridgeport neatly tracks the statewide falloff in Dem crossover votes for the Republican candidate in general from 2006 (when the broadly-popular Jodi Rell ran) to 2010.

• KY-Gov: One more Republican to keep in mind as a potential challenger in next year’s off-year gubernatorial election: Jefferson County Clerk Bobbie Holsclaw. That’s kind of a big step up to Governor, so it seems like she might be starting with a high negotiating position with the party to try to worm her way into the SoS slot instead (assuming Trey Grayson follows through on plans to run for AG instead).

• NC-02, TX-27: Here are updates on two of our outstanding races: recounts have been officially approved in both of ’em. Six counties in the 27th will be recounted, per Solomon Ortiz’s request, as he trails by about 800. In the 2nd, the canvass was officially certified with Bobby Etheridge trailing by 1,489, but he’ll be pursuing a recount as allowed under state law. While neither of these prospects looks that hopeful, we can take some solace in that the likely victors, Blake Farenthold and Renee Elmers, are some of the most amateur-hour entrants into the new House and hopefully likely to help define the new face of the Republican Party.

• NY-29: Best wishes for a quick recovery to soon-to-be-sworn-in Tom Reed, who literally just arrived in Washington and was immediately sickened by it. He was diagnosed with a blood clot in his lungs and says he’ll be released in one or two days, ready to get to work.

• WA-01, WA-03: I’d hoped that Brian Baird was going to take his unique variety of douchiness to the private sector for good, but it looks like his strange retirement decision may have been an inspired case of district-shopping instead. He’s moving to Edmonds in Seattle’s northern suburbs, which just happens to be in the 1st District. Assuming that Jay Inslee follows through on his widely-known plans to run for Governor, lo and behold, the 1st will be an open seat in 2012. The 1st (which is a pretty safe district in its current configuration, and will probably keep similar lines in redistricting) has to be more appealing than the 3rd, which redistricting will probably move from a true swing district to a light-red one, as liberal Olympia will probably have to be exchanged for a Columbia Gorge-centered district that’s based in Vancouver but that runs east into conservative Yakima County. (Which, unfortunately, would be tailor-made for Jaime Herrera, who’s Latina but living in the Vancouver burbs, and will make her much harder to dislodge.) For more detail on Washington’s likely 10-district map, see here.

• NY-St. Sen.: Here’s an update on the three races that are holding New York State Senate control in the balance. Dem incumbent Craig Johnson trails by only 427, and seems to be gaining at a rapid clip as absentee votes get counted, so the trajectory indicates he might pull ahead by the end. Things seem more locked in with two more Dem incumbents, though: Suzi Oppenheimer leads by 504, while Antoine Thompson trails by 597. Wins by Johnson and Oppenheimer would set up a 31-31 tie.

• Chicago mayor: The election’s been over for two weeks, and it’s already time for the first new edition of SSP TV: Rahm Emanuel kicked off his mayoral bid with his first TV spot already. Rep. Danny Davis also made it official this weekend, launching his bid and dubbing himself the “grassroots” candidate. (He looks like he’ll be giving up his House seat only in the event that he wins the mayoral race.)

• DSCC: After some hopeful signs that Michael Bennet might be willing to take on the role of DSCC head, he said “no thanks” late Friday. At this point, Beltway pundits seem to think that the shortest straw has Patty Murray’s name on it.

• RGA: Texas Gov. Rick Perry signed on for another cycle at the helm of the Republican Governor’s Association. I’ve seen speculation that he’s doing it mostly to shut down rumors that he’s really running for President, although it should be a pretty sleepy gubernatorial cycle and he might be able to juggle both tasks (since most big states elect governors during the midterms, and only a few open seats loom… Indiana, North Carolina, and Washington may be the highest-profile races).

• Redistricting: The Wall Street Journal has a good overview of what to expect with redistricting, and they seem to come to the same conclusion that I have: that the downside for the GOP of their strong performance in Dem-held red districts is that it means there are a lot fewer opportunities to turf anyone out through aggressive gerrymandering, and instead their efforts are going to have to more defensive, oriented toward shoring up the deadwood that washed ashore. Meaning, of course, that predictions of another large redistricting-driven gain in the House for the GOP aren’t likely to come to pass, although it will still make it harder for the Dems to regain significant ground.

A couple articles are also out today dealing with the biggest redistricting prize of all, California, although whether it’s a prize or not has much to do with what happens with the newly-created (by Prop 20) congressional redistricting commission; this week, out of the pool of 36,000 applicants, 36 finalists for the commission’s citizen slots will be picked. Of particular interest is what exactly happens with the seats in northern Los Angeles’s San Fernando Valley, where there’s a push underway to get a Hispanic district. (Worth noting: CA-28 already has a Hispanic majority, although Howard Berman seems pretty primary-proof there, and there don’t seem to be enough parts and pieces elsewhere in the Valley to create another neatly-shaped one.)

• Demographics: Here’s a big surprise, on the demographic front: there are reports that there are 100,000 fewer Hispanics in Arizona than there were when SB 1070 passed. That may not have a big impact on voting behavior (since those emigrants are probably unlikely voters), but a big impact on redistricting, where the possibility of a third VRA district in Arizona looms. Or maybe not… since the census only cares where you were on April 1, much of that fleeing may not have happened yet at that point.

• Dave’s App: Exciting news from over in the diaries: version 2.0 of Dave’s Redistricting App is available. You can check out all the details at the link, but two major improvements including use of street maps (making urban work much easier) and ability to save JPGs. Redistricting is going to be one of Swing State Project’s main preoccupations over the next year, and Dave’s App is one of the best tools we have in our arsenal.

• FL-Sen: File this under half a year too late and a few million dollars too short. Charlie Crist, as quietly as possible through an advisor making a leak to the Wall Street Journal, says he’d caucus with the Democrats if elected. If he’d said that many months ago, he would have probably had a clearer shot consolidating the Democratic vote and turning it into a two-man race. This comes shortly after a day of conflicting reports on whether or not Bill Clinton tried to get Kendrick Meek to drop out of the race, as recently as last week. Clinton and Meek have offered partial rebuttals, but at any rate, it’s kind of a non-story at this point with only a few days left.

• LA-Sen: Too bad there isn’t time left in the cycle to turn this into an ad: David Vitter’s verbal gymnastics at the last debate as to direct questions as to whether or not he actually broke the law when he was engaging in “very serious sin,” apparently for pay. The short answer is, of course, yes (assuming that his involvement with a prostitution ring occurred in Washington DC and not Reno).

• NV-Sen: Those of you following Jon Ralston’s tweets of the early voting in Nevada with bated breath probably already know this, but thanks to the movement of the mobile voting booths into some Dem-friendly areas, Democrats have actually pulled into the lead (at least by party registration) among early voters, up by 20,000 in Clark County.

• CO-Gov: My first question was why Tom Tancredo would even bother running for office if he felt this way, but then I remembered that he’s running for an executive position this time, not a legislative one. Apparently he’s a believer in a strong executive. Very, very, very strong.

There is a sort of an elitist idea that seeps into the head of a lot of people who get elected. And they begin to think of themselves as, really, there for only one purpose and that is to make laws. And why would you make laws?

• IL-Gov: Oooops, ad buy fail. A round of Bill Brady ads were pulled from the air on Thursday because the appropriate television stations didn’t get paid first. It appears to have been a “glitch” (their words) rather than a cash flow problem, though, nothing that a Fed-Exed check won’t fix: the ads will resume running tonight.

• PA-Gov: Ah, nice to see that a Republican briefly acknowledge that the fewer people vote, the better Republicans do. Tom Corbett, at a Philadelphia appearance, said that he wanted to keep Democratic participation down, saying “we want to make sure that they don’t get 50 percent.”

• OH-13: Sensing a pattern here? A second woman is coming forward to accuse Tom Ganley of sexual harassment. She filed a police report stating that in 2005, while in the middle of a car transaction, Ganley groped her and later propositioned her. This race, despite Ganley’s money, is seeming increasingly like one of the House Dems’ lesser worries.

• RGA: I’m not sure what you can do with $6.5 million in half a week, but the RGA is determined to find out. They put that much money into four governor’s races in some of the nation’s largest states: Florida, Illinois, Ohio, and (interestingly, since they haven’t sweated this one before) Pennsylvania. (While the other three are for TV ads, in Florida it’s for GOTV… seemingly something that Rick Scott forgot to purchase.)

• Election night: This may be the most shocking news of all today, for the obsessive number crunchers among us. This will be the first election where the powers that be (mostly the AP) will be doing away with precinct reporting. Instead of giving specific numbers of precincts in, they’ll be expressing it as “percentage of expected vote.” The change in longstanding tradition has mostly to do with the increasing prevalence of mail-in votes and early votes, best seen with some locales dumping all their early votes all at once and calling it one precinct, messing with people like us who build complicated models ahead of time.

• SSP TV:

• IL-Sen: Mark Kirk’s last ad calls Alexi Giannoulias “too immature” for the Senate (um, has he actually seen the Senate in action?)

• NV-Sen: Obama! Fear! Tyranny! Aaaghh! And apparently the Carmina Burana playing the background! (Sharron Angle’s closing statement, in other words)

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold puts on a plaid shirt and faces the camera, touting his accomplishments and newspaper endorsements

• TX-Gov: Bill White also rolls out his newspaper endorsements, as well as lobbing “career politician” at Rick Perry one last time

• MN-06: Taryl Clark’s last ad is a look at real people with real problems in the 6th, and the myriad ways Michele Bachmann blew them off

• Rasmussen:

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 49%, Meg Whitman (R) 45%

• CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 47%, Dan Maes (R) 5%, Tom Tancredo (C) 42%

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway (D) 41%, Rand Paul (R) 53%

• MA-Gov: Deval Patrick (D-inc) 46%, Charlie Baker (R) 44%, Tim Cahill (I) 6%

• OR-Sen: Ron Wyden (D-inc) 53%, Jim Huffman (R) 42%

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 46%, Pat Toomey (R) 50%

• YouGov: The English pollster is out with a slew of polls; the numbers seem very plausible, but they’re conducted over the Internet (probably using at least some sort of rigor, but that alone is enough for relegation to the end of the digest)

• CA: Jerry Brown (D) 50%, Meg Whitman (R) 41%; Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 49%, Carly Fiorina (R) 45%

• FL: Alex Sink (D) 44%, Rick Scott (R) 41%; Kendrick Meek (D) 18%, Marco Rubio (R) 42%, Charlie Crist (I) 31%

• NY: Andrew Cuomo (D) 57%, Carl Paladino (R) 27%; Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc) 57%, Joe DioGuardi (R) 33%; Charles Schumer (D-inc) 59%, Jay Townsend (R) 35%

• OH: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 45%, John Kasich (R) 48%; Lee Fisher (D) 40%, Rob Portman (R) 53%

• PA: Dan Onorato (D) 41%, Tom Corbett (R) 50%; Joe Sestak (D) 44%, Pat Toomey (R) 50%

• CA-Sen: Best wishes to Carly Fiorina, who’s temporarily off the campaign trail and in the hospital after an infection associated with reconstructive surgery that she had over the summer after recovering from breast cancer. She’s says she’ll be back in action soon.

• CO-Sen: The Democrats in Colorado have filed an FEC complaint with Ken Buck, alleging illegal coordination. The coordination was between Buck and Jim DeMint’s Senate Conservatives Fund (which has spent $370K here so far). This doesn’t look likely to get addressed before Election Day, though.

• KY-Sen: Rand Paul eventually got around, today, to cutting ties with and condemning a volunteer involved in assaulting a MoveOn activist before last night’s debate, outside the venue. An activist trying to give a fake award to Paul was shoved to the ground and kicked/trampled.

• NV-Sen: Sharron Angle has always been the prime example of the GOP’s apparent strategy for its more troublesome candidates (which is to have them hide from the media), but this is a little extreme: all manner of sleight-of-hand was used at a Reno appearance to keep her away from about 40 reporters who were looking for her, to the extent of using a decoy to get into her official vehicle while she left through a side door. Also, here’s an interesting catch, especially since Angle supposedly has a lot of cash these days: her latest filing has nothing about salaries for her staff. Oversight, or is there more of a burn rate problem than we’d been led to believe?

• WA-Sen: This CQ article is your generic this-race-is-tight-and-important piece, but it has a few interesting tidbits buried in it: one, Patty Murray’s internals have her up “around 4,” although that’s all we get to find out. And two, this election is already effectively more-than-half over: the state SoS’s office says that 50% of all voters have submitted their ballots, on track for turnout of at least 66%, which would be third-highest non-presidential turnout ever in the state. (I assume you all know which party tends to do better in higher-turnout models.) Finally, Dino Rossi’s doing a little hiding from the media himself: on a conference call with reporters, Rossi actually refused to say where he was calling from, just that he was “traveling all over right now.” (Maybe we should be looking for the guy in the red and white striped shirt?)

• VT-Gov: Biden alert! Here’s one election where every single vote will count (seeing as how it has fewer constituents than most House districts), and the veep is trying to roust out some votes with a Burlington appearance with Dem nominee Peter Shumlin the day before the election.

• CA-47: This was a weird election even before this, with stark racial overtones, and now it’s even weirder: an independent candidate, Cecilia Iglesias, is making her presence known with a TV ad buy (although just on local cable on Univision). Who will this hurt? The GOP says it’ll hurt Loretta Sanchez, because it splits the Latino vote. The Dems say it’ll hurt Van Tran, since Iglesias is a “known Republican.”

• CT-05: Hmm, here’s a novel strategy for dealing with ads from third party groups that contain blatant lies: push back against them, and TV stations just may stop running them. That’s what happened in Connecticut, where the American Action Network’s ads against Chris Murphy got taken down, by Fox-CT (on cable) no less. (The ad is part of the series saying that you can go to jail for not having health insurance.)

• VA-05: This is big all around: that the President is stumping on behalf of a House candidate (albeit one within a helicopter ride away from DC), and that said House candidate in a red district is welcoming him. In case you didn’t guess, it’s Tom Perriello, who’ll be rallying UVA students with the Prez in Charlottesville.

• American Crossroads: Here’s part of the Crossroads road map for the last week: at a cost of $3 million altogether, they’re moving into NC-11, NY-20, and GA-02, as well as continuing their presence in HI-01 and NY-22. They’re also launching ads in CA-20, IN-02, MO-03, ND-AL, TN-04, OH-16, and TX-23.

• SSP TV:

• KY-Sen: The NRSC and Rand Paul both turn the tables on Jack Conway, saying he wants to talk about Paul’s checkered past (i.e. Aqua Buddha) to avoid talking about Obama

• NV-Sen: The NRSC is out with a rather incoherent ad about how Harry Reid fancies himself a superhero, while Sharron Angle‘s out with another border-themed ad with menacing shadowy men who, of course, aren’t actually Latino

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak’s closing argument cites his independence

• WV-Sen: Thank God for trackers… Joe Manchin’s camp strings together John Raese’s greatest hits at various appearances to demonstrate his “crazy” ideas

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown wins the jujitsu black belt for his closing ad (if not the overall Zen master award for his whole campaign): unlike the very busy Manchin ad, he only needs one quote from Meg Whitman to make his own case for himself… she says she came to California 30 years ago because it back then it was a land of opportunity and it worked (uh, Meg? who was governor of California 30 years ago?)

• GA-Gov: Nathan Deal’s closing ad says Roy Barnes is too ambitious, and Deal is just a humble public servant

• TX-Gov: Bill White’s new ad says 10 years is too long, playing the dread “career politician” card on Rick Perry

• MA-10: The DCCC’s new ad in the 10th goes after Jeff Perry’s controversial police sergeant tenure, in case anyone there was unaware of it

• OH-18: Zack Space goes after Bob Gibbs on outsourcing and immigration

• VA-05: The Sierra Club’s out with an ad bolstering Tom Perriello

• CA-Init: I’m not sure I thought I’d live to see the day where there ads running in favor of the legalization of marijuana, but apparently the Yes on 19 campaign was able to scrape together enough stems and seeds for a TV buy

• Rasmussen Classic:

• CT-Gov: Dan Malloy (D) 49%, Tom Foley (R) 46%

• GA-Gov: Roy Barnes (D) 39%, Nathan Deal (R) 49%, John Monds (L) 5%

• NM-Gov: Diane Denish (D) 42%, Susana Martinez (R) 52%

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 45%, Sharron Angle (R) 49%

• SC-Sen: Alvin Greene (D) 58 21%, Jim DeMint (R-inc) 21 58%, Some other 15%

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold (D-inc) 46%, Ron Johnson (R) 53%

• New Rasmussen (aka Fox/Pulse):

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 50%, Meg Whitman (R) 41%

• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 48%, Carly Fiorina (R) 44%

• IL-Gov: Pat Quinn (D-inc) 39%, Bill Brady (R) 44%, Scott Lee Cohen (I) 6%, Rich Whitney (G) 4%

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 41%, Mark Kirk (R) 43%, LeAlan Jones (G) 7%

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway (D) 43%, Rand Paul (R) 50%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 43%, John Kasich (R) 47%

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

AZ-Sen, AZ-Gov (Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos): Rodney Glassman (D) 38, John McCain 56; Terry Goddard (D) 44, Jan Brewer (R-inc) 52

GA-Sen, GA-Gov (Landmark Communications): Michael Thurmond (D) 35, Johnny Isakson (R-inc) 56; Roy Barnes (D) 39, Nathan Deal (R) 47

GA-Sen, GA-Gov (SurveyUSA): Michael Thurmond (D) 34, Johnny Isakson (R-inc) 58; Roy Barnes (D) 39, Nathan Deal (R) 49

HI-Gov (Ward Research): Neil Abercrombie (D) 51, Duke Aiona (R) 43

HI-01 (Ward Research): Colleen Hanabusa (D) 45, Charles Djou (R-inc) 48

IN-Sen (EPIC/MRA): Brad Ellsworth (D) 35, Dan Coats (R) 53

LA-Sen (Magellan): Charlie Melancon (D) 35, David Vitter (R-inc) 52

MA-04, MA-10 (UNH for the Boston Globe): Barney Frank (D-inc) 46, Sean Bielat (R) 33; Bill Keating (D) 37, Jeff Perry (R) 33

MD-01 (OpinionWorks for the Baltimore Sun): Frank Kratovil (D-inc) 40, Andy Harris (R) 40

MD-Gov (Abt SRBI for the Washington Post): Martin O’Malley (D-inc) 54, Bob Ehrlich (R) 40

MI-01 (EPIC/MRA): Gary McDowell (D) 40, Dan Benishek (R) 42

MI-03 (Public Opinion Strategies (R) for Justin Amash): Pat Miles (D) 30, Justin Amash (R) 49

MN-Gov (St. Cloud State University): Mark Dayton (D) 40, Tom Emmer (R) 30, Tom Horner (I) 19

NE-02 (Wiese Research): Tom White (D) 39, Lee Terry (R-inc) 44

NY-Sen-B (PDF) (Marist): Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc) 56, Joe DioGuardi (R) 38

OH-Gov (U. Cincinnati for Ohio media): Ted Strickland (D-inc) 47, John Kasich (R) 49

OR-Gov (Elway Research): John Kitzhaber (D) 45, Chris Dudley (R) 44

OR-01, OR-05 (Elway Research): David Wu (D-inc) 51, Rob Cornilles (R) 38; Kurt Schrader (D-inc) 50, Scott Bruun (R) 38

SC-Gov (Insider Advantage): Vincent Sheheen (D) 37, Nikki Haley (R) 51

SD-AL (Mason-Dixon): Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-inc) 43, Kristi Noem (R) 45

SD-AL (Nielson Brothers): Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-inc) 42, Kristi Noem (R) 40

TX-Gov (University of Texas): Bill White (D) 40, Rick Perry (R-inc) 50

Bonus: UT also tested a wide range of down-ballot races.

VA-02 (Christopher Newport University): Glenn Nye (D-inc) 41, Scott Rigell (R) 42

Margins & Errors: The DSCC supposedly has some internal with Alexi Giannoulias up 2 in IL-Sen, but this is some NRCC-style crap with no details other than the toplines… Some MI-Gov poll shows that the race still sucks… Frank Guinta is touting an internal in NH-01 that supposedly has him up 53-37, but there isn’t even word of the pollster’s name

• AK-Sen: I hope the Alaska journalist corps is fueled up on coffee and is ready to go on a week-long dumpster diving binge, because the mother lode just got opened up. A state superior court judge just ordered that Joe Miller’s Fairbanks borough personnel records get released, saying the people’s right to know trumps Miller’s privacy concerns. The release won’t happen until tomorrow, though, to allow time for an Alaska Supreme Court decision if necessary.

• CA-Sen: The polls can’t seem to decide whether the California Senate race is tightening, loosening, or staying basically the same, but it was enough to finally get Carly Fiorina to do what the NRSC had probably hoped she would have done months ago: she put $1 million of her own money into the race. (She’d spent $5 mil of her own on the primary, but nothing since then.) On top of that, the NRSC is throwing an additional $3 million into the race for the last week, while Barbara Boxer is calling the bluff with $4 million from her account for ads of her own.

• NV-Sen: As we expected, Harry Reid’s been keeping up a steady drip-drip of endorsements from prominent Republicans around Nevada. The most recent one: term-limited state Sen. Dean Rhoads, who represents almost all of the state (geographically) except Clark and Washoe Counties. (H/t LookingOver.)

• FL-Gov: Wow, Bill McCollum actually ate his own cat fud. With little time left on the clock, he swallowed any remnants of his pride and endorsed primary rival Rick Scott, the guy he swore he’d never endorse.

• RI-Gov: Interesting approach from a blue state Dem: Frank Caprio just told the President to “shove it,” in reaction to Barack Obama’s apparent decision not to endorse him when he was in Rhode Island today. Payback for Lincoln Chafee’s Obama endorsement in ’08? Or reverse payback for Caprio’s reported flirting with a party switch? Or elaborate theater staged for Caprio’s benefit, to help distance himself from the White House?

• OH-Gov: Obama and Biden alert! The Dynamic Duo are adding yet another campaign stop in Ohio, where saving Ted Strickland seems to be one of the White House’s top priorities. On Sunday, both will appear with Strickland, and then there’ll be a Biden/Strickland stop later in Toledo.

• CA-47: Um, maybe someone should tell Van Tran that taking a page from the Carl Paladino playbook isn’t really a good idea right now… Tran’s out with foul-smelling scratch-and-sniff mailers in the district, hitting Loretta Sanchez for the “stench of Washington.”

• CO-04: Add one more body on the plague wagon: the DCCC brought out Betsy Markey on Friday. They announced that they won’t be spending any more on the 4th this cycle. They’d previously drawn down their efforts here, but now they’re fully pulling out. (If there’s a bright spot, this is probably their last triage move… with one week left, there’s really no time left to cut anyone else off.)

• FL-12: Is there a growing sense of Republican worry in this district? They shouldn’t lose an R+5 district in this climate, but they have probably the most credible 3rd party Tea Party challenger anywhere here, in the form of an actual county commissioner, Randy Wilkinson, who internals polls have seen taking gobbling up double-digit vote shares. They’re taking the problem seriously enough to have Newt Gingrich doing robocalling on behalf of GOP nominee Dennis Ross, suggesting that Wilkinson is a plant from next door’s Alan Grayson.

• IN-02: Oooops. Jackie Walorski ran footage in a web video of a South Bend neighborhood as an example of a neighborhood “in ruin” from Democratic policies. The residents of the neighborhood are now deeply offended, saying their neighborhood is hardly ruined at all, and are demanding an apology.

• KS-03: In a more normal year, this might be enough to do some serious damage in a close race: just-released police records show that Kevin Yoder (the GOP’s nominee here) refused to take a breath test during a 2009 traffic stop. He pled guilty to speeding, also received a citation for not taking the test, and it was left at that.

• MS-04: Look who’s in a bit of a panic, and revealing his true stripes: Gene Taylor just let his district’s voters know that he isn’t one of those Demmycrats at all! Why, he even voted for John McCain in 2008, he says.

• PA-11: Bill Clinton’s traveling schedule takes him to three blue-collar districts that were, in the ’08 Dem primaries, some of the most die-hard Clinton districts anywhere, now all home to pitched battles. He’s appearing in the 11th tomorrow in support of Paul Kanjorski (who we’d expected, a few months ago, to be the first Dem incumbent we wrote off, but who seems to still be in the thick of things). On Thursday, he also visits PA-03 and PA-15.

• VA-05: If you weren’t already sold on Tom Perriello’s particular brand of awesome, check out the highlight reel of some of the best clips from his most recent debate with Rob Hurt.

• WA-06: Here’s an internal poll that’s a real head-scratcher, that requires a bit of explanation. Rob Cloud, the same doofus who runs against Norm Dicks every cycle (four times in a row now) and gets crushed, claims to have an internal poll out giving him a four-point lead over the long-time Dem. (Well, four if you do your own math. For some reason, the poll gave actual respondent totals only, 609 to 558 with 95 undecided. If that strange method doesn’t by itself set off alarm bells, the polling firm is someone called Wenzel (out of Ohio), a company I’d only heard of once, when they polled OH-Gov and OH-Sen last year on behalf of Ohio Right to Life… but (h/t to quiller) it turns out have a regular gig as WorldNetDaily’s pollster and have been responsible for extremely leading-question-rife polls about Barack Obama’s citizenship. And on top of all that, Dicks won the Top 2 primary (the most reliable poll possible) with 57% of the vote, with a combined GOP vote share of 43% (of which Cloud got a pathetic 29%),which shouldn’t imply much vulnerability. On the other hand, Dicks’ district is “only” D+5, one of the least-blue districts that isn’t home to an on-the-radar race… and moreover, Dicks has seemed pretty invisible as far as I can tell, compared with next-door neighbor Adam Smith who’s in a similarly D+5 district but got a polling-related wake-up call and has been working his butt off lately. So, uh… who knows?  

• NRCC: Eager to maximize last-minute take-over opportunities, the party of fiscal responsibility is throwing some more debt on the pile. The NRCC just took out a $20 million line of credit to fund some more late-in-the-game advertising.

• Dark Money: Just as the actual universe’s mass is mostly composed of dark energy and dark matter, so too the political universe is apparently mostly composed of dark money these days. Hotline’s Jeremy Jacobs has an excellent piece that pulls together all the GOP spending by shadowy third-party groups, fleshing out the IE picture greatly, and also showing a remarkable amount of avoidance of duplication of efforts in the districts. They couldn’t actually be coordinating their efforts behind-the-scenes, you think? (Not that that’s illegal, as far as I know.)

• IEs: Speaking of IEs, if you haven’t been following spiderdem’s weekly series over in the diaries regarding the back-and-forth battle of the independent expenditures between the DCCC and NRCC, you absolutely should. It rounds all the numbers up in one handy place, and puts them in the context of the probable lay of the land.

• SSP TV:

• AK-Sen: Here’s that NRSC ad mentioned late last week, where they hit Scott McAdams in a preemptive attack to keep him from shooting the gap (and here’s the SOTB: $75K)

• CA-Sen: No more giddy Carlyfornia Dreaming here, with a dour ad from the Fiorina camp hitting Barbara Boxer for California’s dire economic straits

• FL-Sen: Marco Rubio’s closing statement is a plain talk-to-the-camera spot saying “Reclaim America!”

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold’s out with the ad that he should have run about two months ago, making fun of Ron Johnson’s whiteboard and platitudes

• NM-Gov: Susana Martinez makes the Diane Denish/Bill Richardson connection about as explicit as humanly possible in her new spot

• FL-22: Ron Klein seems to have finally moved away from Allen West’s homeowners association liens, with the Outlaws gang connections too juicy even for him to ignore

• ID-01: Walt Minnick cites his independence and rags on Raul Labrador for getting his own last ad pulled for its bogusness

• MN-06: Taryl Clark hits Michele Bachmann for, well, being a “celebrity”

• VA-05: Robert Hurt goes after Tom Perriello for being a Washington insider

• Rasmussen:

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 48%, Meg Whitman (R) 42%

• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 48%, Carly Fiorina (R) 46%

• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal (D) 56%, Linda McMahon (R) 43%

• IN-Sen: Brad Ellsworth (D) 34%, Dan Coats (R) 52%

• MD-Gov: Martin O’Malley (D-inc) 52%, Bob Ehrlich (R) 42%

• ND-Sen: Tracy Potter (D) 25%, John Hoeven (R) 72%

• PA-Gov: Dan Onorato (D) 45%, Tom Corbett (R) 50%

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 44%, Pat Toomey (R) 48%

• RI-Gov: Frank Caprio (D) 28%, John Robitaille (R) 25%, Lincoln Chafee (I) 35%

• SD-Gov: Scott Heidepriem (D) 36%, Dennis Daugaard (R) 55%

• TX-Gov: Bill White (D) 42%, Rick Perry (R-inc) 51%

• AK-Sen: I thought Joe Miller (last seen praising the COMMUNISTS!!1! in East Germany for their wall-building skills) wasn’t going to talk about his personal life anymore (i.e. personal stuff like his on-the-job politicking while working for the borough of Fairbanks)? Well, now he is, and he’s openly admitted on CNN that he was disciplined by the borough for an ethical violation. “John, I’ll admit I’m a man of many flaws,” he said. Apparently one of those flaws was using his various co-workers’ computers while they were away for lunch to rig an online poll intended to displace Randy Ruedrich as state GOP chair, then wiping out their caches to cover his tracks, then getting caught when the wiped caches were discovered. Miller said he was reprimanded and docked pay as a result. However he maintains the incident had nothing to do with his departure from the office a year and a half later (which others maintain was imminently before he was about to be fired). So… a guy is possibly about to go from not being able to hack it as a contract attorney for a city of about 25,000, to a Senator, in the space of about a year? Geez, only in America.

• CT-Sen: Linda McMahon’s no slouch either on the self-funding front: she loaned herself $20 million last quarter, bringing her all-cycle total to $41.5 million. (No word, of course, on how much of that $20 million actually has been or will be spent.) Meg Whitman was heard sniffing disdainfully and saying McMahon should call once she reaches the eight digits.

• DE-Sen: Sometimes, it’s best to keep your mouth shut and let everyone assume you’re a fool, rather than open your mouth and categorically prove it. The highlight of last night’s debate:

Republican Senate nominee Christine O’Donnell of Delaware on Tuesday questioned whether the Constitution calls for a separation of church and state, appearing to disagree or not know that the First Amendment bars the government from establishing religion….

“The First Amendment establishes the separation, the fact that the federal government shall not establish religion,” Coons said.

“The First Amendment does?” O’Donnell interrupted. “You’re telling me that the separation of church and state is found in the First Amendment?”

• KY-Sen: With Aqua Buddha suddenly back dominating coverage of this race, no one’s really stopped to ask Aqua Buddha lady what she thinks of all this. She thinks that Jack Conway’s ad’s tone is over-the-top, but agrees with the fundamentals, that it’s an accurate reflection of Rand Paul’s past views and that he should acknowledge that he’s just changed his religious views since then (instead of playing the victim).

• MA-Sen: Wait, the 2010 election hasn’t happened yet? Still not too early to talk about 2012. Rep. Mike Capuano, runner-up in the Dem primary in the special election and considered the likeliest opponent against Scott Brown in two years, is openly “mulling” the race, although his official line is “Talk to me in December.”

• NV-Sen: We finally have some confirmation on what we’d suspected, regarding Sharron Angle’s burn rate, thanks to Salon’s crack team. She may have raised $14 million, but she also spent $5.3 million on direct mail expenses last quarter in order to get that money. $920K of that went to BaseConnect and its affiliates, with $1.5 million to somebody called Patton-Kiehl, who seemed responsible for the actual printing and postage. Another $4 million went to TV ads, leaving her with the $4 million CoH she reported.

• MD-Gov: This one looks closer and closer to being wrapped up in favor of Martin O’Malley. On top of today’s Gonzales poll, there’s also news that the RGA is scaling things back in Maryland, planning to spend less than $200K for Bob Ehrlich in the final two weeks. O’Malley may also benefit from an across-the-aisle endorsement (although it’s from a figure who’s committed his fair share of apostasies): ex-Rep. Wayne Gilchrest gave him his backing today.

• MN-Gov: Here’s one more across-the-aisle endorsement (the only kind we’d bother reporting on, at this stage in the game). Tom Horner, the Independence Party candidate in Minnesota, got an endorsement from Mike Ciresi, a wealthy attorney who you might remember from losing the 2000 DFL Senate primary to Mark Dayton (wonder if there are any hard feelings there?) and ran again for Senate in 2008 but dropped out pre-convention. That may make things a smidge harder for Dayton, who needs Horner to draw votes mostly from the R column.

• AL-02: This has to be one of the weirdest IEs of the cycle: Blue America is spending in AL-02 of all places, and they’re spending $48K against Bobby Bright. I guess they hate Blue Dogs just that much.

• FL-22: You know, if you’re fighting allegations that you have links to the outlaw biker gang conveniently known as the Outlaws, probably the best way to do that is by not having bikers providing security at your rallies. Well, that’s what happened at an Allen West appearance, where bikers physically drove off a Ron Klein tracker. Video is available at the link. (At least “Sympathy for the Devil” wasn’t playing in the background.)

• NC-07: Here’s some interesting scuttlebutt out of the 7th, where Mike McIntyre is joining the I-won’t-vote-for-Pelosi brigade but where he’s also saying that he’s heard that she won’t be running for Speaker again. (That would, of course, presume having a majority; no word on whether he’s heard if she plans on running for minority leader.) Relatedly, even Mike McMahon, who’s looking like a good bet to survive his red-leaning district this year, is now sounding noncommittal but at least Pelosi-skeptical.

• OR-04: Wondering who the mysterious Concerned Taxpayers of America are, who’ve trained most of their advertising firepower on Peter DeFazio, turning this into at least a mildly competitive race? Well, it turns out there’s a grand total of two of them, each of whom has ponied up hundreds of thousands of dollars. One of them, Robert Mercer, appears to be the one with the beef against DeFazio, probably because he’s a hedge fund manager and takes issue with DeFazio’s leadership on taxing major hedge-fund transactions.

• VA-05: I guess demanding the moon and the sun when you make your initial offer in a negotiating session is a good strategy, but independent teabagger Jeffrey Clark may have taken that ridiculously far in his attempts to negotiate a dropout from the race and an endorsement for GOP candidate Robert Hurt. Clark offered to drop out if he got the chance to debate Hurt one-on-one, and then if subsequent polling didn’t have him at 25% of the vote! Hurt has refused to appear any at any debates where Clark is included, and doesn’t seem any likelier to do so now.

• WA-08: I know it’s fashionable to paint Dave Reichert as not being one of the sharpest tools in the shed, but it’s hard not to do so when he gives you so much material: at a forum with opponent Suzan DelBene, confessed in response to a question that he wasn’t familiar with the Glass-Steagall Act. (The resurrection of Glass-Steagall was one of the main things being debated as part of the financial reform package passed this year.)

• DCCC: Here’s some activity from the D-Trip that doesn’t bode well: they’ve started going on the air in NC-11 for Heath Shuler, previously thought safe based on most of the polling we’ve seen so far but has been in the crosshairs of a lot of third-party advertising from folks like Americans for Job Security. (NWOTSOTB.) They’re also increasing their buys in the coming weeks in neighboring districts SC-05 (John Spratt) and NC-07 (Mike McIntyre). Also, file this under a sorta-kinda triage decision: the DCCC is cutting off ads in NM-02, on behalf of Harry Teague. Chris Van Hollen says they’re leaving Teague in “great position,” which (shades of Steve Kagen here) is probably code for “he’s personally wealthy” and it’s time for him to buy his own bandaids.

• Polltopia: PPP is letting you choose an unprecedented six states to poll in, as part of their final round of polling. They must be renting some extra robots, because they’re planning to poll 18 different states the week before the election, although 12 states (basically, the most obvious ones) are already locked in. Go vote!

• SSP TV:

• CA-Sen: EMILY’s List is out with a TV spot featuring an opera guy singing a ditty about Carly Fiorina (and her time as Hewlett-Packard CEO)

• NV-Sen: Both the DSCC and NRSC are out with ads; the DSCC says that while you’re angry, don’t take it out by voting for Sharron Angle, while the GOP says Harry Reid lives in a fancy hotel and parties with supermodels

• WA-Sen: One of the Dems’ few big-money behind-the-scenes groups, Commonsense Ten, looks at Dino Rossi’s cozy connections

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin’s new ad just flat out says “John Raese uses people”

• CA-Gov: Too bad this is only a Jerry Brown web ad, because it’s one of the most effective ones we’ve seen this cycle: it ties Meg Whitman to unpopular Arnold Schwarzenegger, matching them quote for quote (UPDATE: Good news, everybody! The ad is going to be running on television, despite its one-minute length! It’s that good.)

• TX-Gov: Bill White’s new ad hits Rick Perry on his rental mansion

• SC-02: Joe “Yewwwwww Laaaaaah!” Wilson talks about dodging mortar fire in his newest ad (mortar fire that apparently landed on the other end of the airport while on what Rob Miller has been calling a Congressional junket, but that’s OK)

• TX-17: Here’s a sign that Chet Edwards has done something to show that he’s stemmed the bleeding (or at least that he called in some serious favors), as the DCCC’s back on the air here with an effective ad about bailout funds for Bill Flores’ oil company

• Original recipe Rasmussen:

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway (D) 42%, Rand Paul (R) 47%

• MI-Gov: Virg Bernero (D) 34%, Rick Snyder (R) 54%

• NV-Gov: Rory Reid (D) 37%, Brian Sandoval (R) 56%

• Extra crispy Rasmussen (aka Fox/Pulse):

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 48%, Meg Whitman (R) 43%

• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 48%, Carly Fiorina (R) 44%

• CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 40 45%, Dan Maes (R) 10%, Tom Tancredo (C) 45 40%

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 45%, Ken Buck (R) 46%

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

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

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 45%, John Raese (R) 48%

• AK-Sen: The story of how his employment with the city of Fairbanks ended is one of the key reasons why Joe Miller suddenly clammed up and said he wouldn’t answer questions about his personal background anymore. Now the city’s former mayor, Jim Whitaker, is offering his version of the story, saying Miller is “not truthful” about it. Whitaker says Miller’s use of borough resources for political purposes (namely, for gaming an online vote for state party chair in a Sarah Palin-orchestrated party coup) was a violation of borough ethics policy and it would have been a cause for termination if they hadn’t been so understaffed. Miller eventually resigned in 2009 anyway, partly because his request to go elk hunting got denied.

• FL-Sen: There are so many Kennedys I really can’t keep track which one is allied with who, but any time one leaves the reservation it’s interesting. Robert Kennedy Jr. announced that he’s backing Charlie Crist for Senate, saying that Kendrick Meek can’t win and the most important thing is blocking Marco Rubio. Meanwhile, with the current race not looking very interesting anymore, PPP has its eye on 2012 (which seems like it could be close, especially if Jeb Bush gets involved). They ran two other hypotheticals, one not very likely: Bill Nelson beats Rush Limbaugh 50-36 (if Limbaugh for whatever reason decided to take the huge pay cut). More plausibly, he also beats Rep. Connie Mack IV by 42-33.

• LA-Sen: Charlie Melancon is out with an internal poll from Anzalone-Liszt. Public pollsters have generally seen this as a double-digit race, but his poll, taken over Oct. 9-12, gives David Vitter a not-overwhelming 49-42 lead. The campaign says that’s a major improvement (no specific numbers, though) over their September poll.

• FL-Gov: The Florida Education Association (obviously a Democratic-leaning organization) polled the gubernatorial race, and found numbers very close to PPP’s results yesterday. The poll from Tom Eldon, taken Oct. 9-12, gives Alex Sink a 47-41 lead over Rick Scott. Scott’s faves are down to 33/50.

• IL-Gov: This is quite the screwup: Green candidate Rich Whitney’s name will appear as “Rich Whitey” on electronic voting machines in nearly two dozen wards in Chicago (half of which are predominantly African-American). And that leads inevitably to the question (to quote the Illinois Nazi Party): “Well, what are you going to do about it, Whitey?” Apparently, he can’t do much, as there isn’t adequate time left to reprogram and test the machines, although he’s looking into various legal options.

• AZ-07: I don’t know if there’s any hard evidence other than a Magellan poll and a McClung internal to prove there’s a real race here, but judging by efforts by some organizations on both sides, something’s going on. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee had members make 21,000 phone calls to the district to shore up Raul Grijalva, while Americans for Tax Reform is going to spend $230K on advertising in the district, hitting Grijalva with an ad for encouraging a boycott of his state in the wake of SB 1070.

• CA-44: Like CA-03, this is one offense opportunity in California that still seems to be alive and kicking. The Bill Hedrick campaign, short on cash but facing an underwhelming opponent that he nearly knocked off last time, is out with a Zata|3 internal poll showing Hedrick trailing GOP incumbent Ken Calvert by only a 48-43 margin (improved a 49-38 showing in September).

• GA-08: He made it implicit with his most recent ad (distancing himself from Nancy Pelosi, even going so far as to show 60s-era San Francisco hippies), but Jim Marshall is now explicitly joining Bobby Bright in the camp of incumbents saying they won’t support Pelosi for Speaker in the next Congress (if they’re there for it).

• IA-03: I didn’t think I’d be saying this a few months ago, but Leonard Boswell is starting to look like he’s in healthy shape for the election, thanks in large part of a variety of damaging details about Brad Zaun that went public. Boswell leads Zaun 47-38 in an internal from his campaign, taken Oct. 3-5 by Anzalone-Liszt.

• IL-10: Bob Dold sure can rake in the fundraising dollars, even if Bob Dold can’t seem to come up with a lead in the polls, in what’s looking like one of the Dems’ few pickups this cycle. Bob Dold raised $843K in the third quarter and is sitting on $979K CoH, enough to start running two broadcast ads this week, while Bob Dold’s opponent Dan Seals has yet to release any numbers. Bob Dold!

• MD-01, VA-02, VA-05: Another testament to the unpredictability of elections: even a few months ago, who’d have thought, that at this point, the DCCC would have cut loose Debbie Halvorson and Steve Kagen, but would be keeping on pumping money into the races of Frank Kratovil and Tom Perriello? Those two, along with Glenn Nye, are among the survivors of the triage process and will receive continued ad buys.

• NH-02: This race is also turning out to be close, and this can’t help Charlie Bass this close to the election: questions are emerging about a stock buy (in New England Wood Pellet, his nephew-in-law’s company) that he made while in Congress the previous time. He then set up a meeting between company officials and Bush administration officials, which is a potential House ethics violation.

• OH-01: Credit Steve Driehaus for having some fire in the belly. After having gotten thrown onto the bring-out-your-dead cart by the DCCC, instead of just shrugging and starting to look for a lobbying job, he’s doubling down on his fundraising efforts, using it as an incentive to ask for more from his supporters. In particular, he’s pissed that the DCCC let him go even while giving money to various Reps. who voted “no” on health care reform.

• OR-04: Well, here’s one more race to add to the watch list. Peter DeFazio hasn’t faced credible opposition in… well, ever. And he’s still not facing credible opposition this year (Art Robinson is kind of a clown; his main action item seems to be the elimination of public schooling, which would kind of help him out considerably, since his day job is selling curriculum supplies for home schoolers). Nevertheless, the mysterious group Concerned Taxpayers (who’ve also made a six-digit ad buy against DeFazio) is out with an internal poll from Oct. 4-5 from Wilson Research showing a single-digit race, with DeFazio leading Robinson 48-42. (MoE is a hefty 5.6%.)

• PA-10: Chris Carney is on the wrong end of a Critical Insights poll of his district (which will be in our Poll Roundup later), but he’s already getting out in front of it with an internal poll. The Oct. 12-13 poll from Momentum Analysis has Carney leading Tom Marino 48-41. With both candidates able to point to leads not just in internal polls but public polls too, this is quite definitely a “Tossup.”

• TN-08: Whew! One last internal. Not much surprise here… GOPer Stephen Fincher has an internal out giving him a double-digit lead in the open seat race against Roy Herron, very similar to yesterday’s 47-37 Penn/Hill poll. The Tarrance Group poll from Oct. 11-12 gives Fincher a 47-36 lead (with 3 to indie Donn James).

• FL-AG: This is one of the higher-profile downballot races around, and it gets a fair amount of polling attention too. This time, it’s Susquehanna’s turn (on behalf of Sunshine State News), and they give a lead to Republican Hillsborough Co. Prosecutor Pam Bondi, who leads state Sen. Dan Gelber 50-42.

• Money: Zata|3 is out with more of their super-helpful charts on the behind-the-scenes money game, which is where the Republicans are really winning this cycle, even more so than the polls. Compared with 2008, spending on Senate races (from both sides) has nearly doubled, and it’s up more than 50% on House races. And Republican groups are leading the way: the top 5, and 8 of the top 10, outside groups, spending-wise are GOP-leaning. That starts with the cash-flush RGA ($12 mil so far), followed by the Chamber of Commerce and American Crossroads.

• Polltopia: You may have already seen the new Pew study on cellphone use, but it’s a real eye-opener, one that should cast some measure of doubt on the accuracy of current polls or even the whole sense that polls can tell us anything. Pew, which in 2008 found a certain amount of pro-Republican bias in polls because of the exclusion of cellphone-only users, is out with a new round of polling showing that bias has only increased. At this point, nearly 25% of adults are “cell-only.” Pew finds a 5-point Republican increase would have occurred in their most recent generic ballot test if they hadn’t polled cellphones.

Also, on the polling front, Daily Kos is taking a page from PPP and asking where readers what gubernatorial and House race they’d like to see polled in the coming weeks.

• SSP TV:

• AK-Sen: This is actually kind of funny: Joe Miller spoofs Old Spice ads in an attempt to get voters to not write in Lisa Murkowski

• CO-Sen: Ken Buck’s out with a base-rallying ad using speech footage of him getting teabaggers fired up about how they got ignored for the last two years and are now out for blood; the NRSC is also on the air, hitting Michael Bennet over his support for the stimulus

• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan’s new TV spot pushes back against various Roy Blunt negative ads, especially on the subject of an extended family member’s wind farm

• PA-Sen: This may be an interesting tea leaf that those Dem internals yesterday may be showing some actual tightening: the NRSC, after letting surrogate orgs do all the work here, is finally having to step in with its own IE ad (a basic HCR/stimulus/cap-and-trade troika)

• WV-Sen: The DSCC goes after John Raese again over the minimum wage

• CA-Gov: What is this, the 80s? Meg Whitman’s new ad hits Jerry Brown for being soft on crime

• TX-Gov: Bill White’s newest ad goes after Rick Perry’s seeming habit of steering state contracts to cronies

• Rasmussen:

• AK-Sen: Scott McAdams (D) 27%, Joe Miller (R) 35%, Lisa Murkowski (WI-inc) 34%

• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 49%, Carly Fiorina (R) 46%

• IL-Gov: Pat Quinn (D-inc) 40%, Bill Brady (R) 46%, Scott Lee Cohen (I) 4%, Rich Whitney (G) 2%

• NC-Sen: Elaine Marshall (D) 38%, Richard Burr (R-inc) 52%

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 39%, Pat Toomey (R) 49%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 42%, Scott Walker (R) 51%

• WI-Sen, WI-Gov: Russ Feingold and Tom Barrett are both out with internal polls today, both from the same pollster (Fairbanks Maslin), both showing tied races. The Senate poll (Oct. 7, and 10-11) shows Russ Feingold and Ron Johnson tied at 48-48. The gubernatorial poll was an entirely separate sample, Oct. 5-7, showing Tom Barrett and Scott Walker are at 47-47.

• GA-Gov: InsiderAdvantage (10/10, likely voters, 9/27 in parens):

Roy Barnes (D): 41 (37)

Nathan Deal (R): 49 (45)

John Monds (L): 3 (5)

Undecided: 7 (13)

(MoE: ±4%)

If you’re wondering about downballot races, IA also has GOPer Casey Cagle leading Carol Porter in the LG race, 50-36, and GOPer Sam Olen leading Ken Hodges in the AG race, 50-40. Also, if you’re wondering how Nathan Deal seemed to regain his footing after a few rocky weeks where the race was seemingly tied, a lot of that seems to have to do with the RGA pouring money into this race ($3.2 million worth), as they’ve tacitly made this race one of their top priorities.

• AZ-05: Although this is an internal poll that has the GOPer leading the incumbent Dem, it’s a little on the lackluster side. David Schweikert responds to the DCCC internal giving Harry Mitchell an 7-point lead with his own poll showing him up by only 2, 45-43. (The poll was taken 10/5-6 by National Research.) An incumbent at 43% is no good, of course, but averaging the two polls out (for whatever that’s worth) gives Mitchell a small edge.

• NY-20, TN-08: What do these two races (one with a Blue Dog incumbent who seems in control of his race, the other an open seat with an aspiring Blue Dog not likely to win) have in common? In both races, the Dem said he wouldn’t support Nancy Pelosi for Speaker. Scott Murphy’s decision (granted, he’s more of a waffle than a flat-out “no”) is much more surprising than Roy Herron‘s; we’ll have to see if this becomes more of a trend in the closing weeks.

• OH-13: Tom Ganley has pulled his broadcast television advertising for the remaining weeks of the campaign, although he will be focusing on less-expensive cable and radio buys instead of going dark completely. He says that’s how he’s going to “cut through the clutter,” but somehow methinks the self-funder (savvy businessman that he is) realized that he shouldn’t throw his own money down the hole in a race that just got considerably more difficult once sex assault accusations started to fly. (H/t LookingOver.)

• PA-13: Here’s an unremarkable internal from a race where we shouldn’t even have to be looking at one: Allyson Schwartz, in the D+7 NE Philly district, leads Dee Adcock 57-32 in a 10/5-6 poll from Cooper & Secrest. Apparently this was released to combat rumors of a Republican internal showing it a single-digit race.

• SD-AL: This was the day’s big fundraising story until Sharron Angle showed up: the reason Kristi “Leadfoot” Noem was driving so fast was because she had to get to so many different donors’ houses. She raised $1.1 million for the quarter, compared to $550K for Stephanie Herseth Sandlin. That actually gives Noem the CoH edge, $770K to $500K.

• TN-03: Here’s one more place I wouldn’t think I’d be seeing an internal, considering that this GOP-held open seat in a dark-red district should be a slam-dunk this year, but I guess Chuck Fleischmann feels like he needs to look busy. The GOP nominee is leading Dem nominee John Wolfe by a 50-20 margin, in a poll (no dates) by Wilson Research.

• DCCC: More news on the triage front, on what’s apparently the last day to cancel ad reservations without taking a big financial hit. Having thrown Steve Driehaus overboard yesterday, the DCCC followed up today with Kathy Dahlkemper in PA-03 and Suzanne Kosmas in FL-24, who won’t get any more ad cover according to the NYT. Aaron Blake also tweets that open seats KS-03, IN-08, and TN-08 got the axe.

• AGs: You probably know Louis Jacobson of Governing magazine for his handicapping of state legislative chambers, but he also works the state AG beat (that’s often short for “Aspiring Governor,” so it’s a key bench-building step), and is out with handicapping for all the Attorney General races up this year. As you might expect, Dems should brace for some losses, especially in open seats.

• Gerrymandering: If there’s any place where people would be psyched to sit down and watch a movie about gerrymandering, it’s here at SSP. The movie’s creator is up with a diary here that lists all the theaters where it’s opening over the next month (including where he’ll be hosting Q&As). Some of them are one-night engagements, starting as early as tonight, so check out the listings ASAP!

• SSP TV:

• CO-Sen: The DSCC hits Ken Buck for his craptastic tenure working for the local US Attorney’s office

• KY-Sen: The DSCC goes back to the $2,000 Medicare deductible issue yet again to hit Rand Paul

• WA-Sen: I’m not sure why Washington Dems always wait until the last minute to remind voters that Dino Rossi is pro-life (that’s what happened in both gube races) — maybe they figure it’s their trump card — but they’re doing it again; meanwhile, the American Action Network hits Patty Murray by whipping up a second version of that weird Fred Davis ad with the tennis shoes walking on people

• WI-Sen: One of Russ Feingold’s myriad problems is that Ron Johnson actually comes up with some effective ads: this one’s a bio spot

• GA-Gov: Nathan Deal’s new ad hits Roy Barnes for having once said that “Mexican workers were good for Georgia”

• SC-Gov: The suddenly resurgent Vince Sheheen’s out with another spot, this one equating Nikki Haley to protégé Mark Sanford

• TX-Gov: Lone Star First (a DGA-backed group) hits Rick Perry on the HPV vaccine and links to Big Pharma

• OH-13: EMILY’s List steers clear of the sex assault allegations of Tom Ganley, going with a humorous spot on outsourcing and his 400 civil lawsuits at his car dealerships

• Rasmussen:

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 44%, Mark Kirk (R) 43%, LeAlan Jones (G) 4%

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 34%, Rob Portman (R) 57%

• TN-Gov: Mike McWherter (D) 31%, Bill Haslam (R) 59%

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold (D-inc) 45%, Ron Johnson (R) 52%

• Rasmussen (as Fox/Pulse):

• CT-Gov: Dan Malloy (D) 45%, Tom Foley (R) 41%

• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal (D) 49%, Linda McMahon (R) 43%

• DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 54%, Christine O’Donnell (R) 38%

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 47%, Sharron Angle (R) 49%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 42%, John Kasich (R) 47%

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 35%, Rob Portman (R) 52%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 46%, Dino Rossi (R) 47%

• Angus-Reid: Another reason to be suspicious of Angus-Reid in addition to their Dem-friendly internet samples: they seem to have neglected to poll the actually interesting Senate race in New York…

• NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo (D) 63%, Carl Paladino (R) 32%

• NY-Sen: Charles Schumer (D) 67%, Jay Townsend (R) 27%

• CO-Sen: This probably doesn’t count as an October Surprise since it made a big media impression five years ago, but it’s suddenly popped back into view, and making things dicier for Ken Buck, already on the wrong end of a sizable gender gap in the polls. Buck refused to prosecute a rape case as Weld Co. DA five years ago (despite the police having recommended charges), and the alleged victim is now back in the news. She has a taped recording of their meeting (transcript available at the link) in which he seems to blame the victim and suggest that the case wouldn’t pass muster with a jury.

• FL-Sen: Mason-Dixon (10/4-6, likely voters, 9/20-22 in parens):

Kendrick Meek (D): 21 (23)

Marco Rubio (R): 42 (40)

Charlie Crist (I): 27 (28)

(MoE: ±4%)

With Marco Rubio way ahead, it looks like a Kendrick Meek dropout (rumored on Friday) and a cobbling-together of some sort of Meek/Crist hybrid cyborg would be the only way for the non-Rubio forces to get an advantage in this race. However, Meek’s definitely not acting like a man who’s dropping out, if getting the president of the United States to cut a radio ad for you is any indication.

• WV-Sen: Remember that “hicky” ad that the NRSC ran, and then promptly got apologetic over, once the casting call instructions got leaked? (I know, that was last week, a lifetime ago in politics…) Now it sounds like it just kept running anyway, through last Friday for several days after the story broke, despite promises to take it down.

• NM-Gov: Yep, this is definitely the most over-polled, or at least over-internal-poll-leaked, race around. Today it’s Diane Denish’s turn to retaliate, and she’s out with another poll from one of her apparently two pollsters, Third Eye Strategies, with a 46-46 tie (a little stale, taken 9/21-23). I think we get the general idea, already: Denish sees a tie, Susana Martinez sees a high-single-digits lead for herself, public pollsters see something in between. (UPDATE: That’s odd… we reported this poll several weeks ago. Not sure why it’s back in the news today.)

• CA-47: This is the kind of unity that Loretta Sanchez (last seen alienating her district’s small but politically active Vietnamese community with an ill-advised remark) probably doesn’t like to see: apparently there was a major rift with the Vietnamese Republican community that just got sealed up, as long-time Van Tran rival Janet Nguyen (an Orange County councilor) gave a late-game endorsement to Tran.

• CT-02, CT-03: Merriman River Group hits the quinella in Connecticut, with polls of the two House races in the Nutmeg State that aren’t interesting. In the 2nd, despite getting some touting when she got in the race, GOPer Janet Peckinpaugh is making little impression against Joe Courtney, trailing 55-41. And in the 3rd, Rosa DeLauro is the state’s safest Dem, leading Jerry Labriola 58-37.

• FL-22: Endorsements from primary challengers, especially at this stage in the game, are interesting only when they go to the guy from the other party. But that’s what’s happening in the 22nd, where the guy who lost to Allen West, David Brady, gave his backing to Democratic incumbent Ron Klein today. (So too did several minor-league local elected GOPers, including Palm Beach mayor Jack McDonald.) Says Brady, apparently from the sane wing of the GOP (to the extent that the Palm Beach Post endorsed him in the primary): “I ran against Allen West. I debated him and I can tell you: Allen West is too extreme for this community.”

• MS-04: Dueling polls in the 4th, where everything still averages out to a Democratic lean but unfortunately this is looking like one more real race. GOP state Rep. Steven Palazzo offered a poll a few weeks ago saying incumbent Gene Taylor led by only 4, and now Taylor says, no, he’s leading by 8 (without giving us any other useful information, like the toplines, let alone the pollster or dates). Hmmm, that’s only a difference of four points, so why show your hand, especially in such haphazard fashion? Somehow I don’t think Taylor would be a very good poker player.

• NY-22, NY-25: Bill Clinton showing up in upstate New York to stump on behalf of Dan Maffei, that’s not a surprise, as this race seems to be competitive. But also Maurice Hinchey in the 22nd? We haven’t gotten any smoke signals out of that district before, but that’s an indication that something may bubbling under here. (It’s a D+6 district, and Hinchey barely won in ’94.)

• OH-01: One more unfortunate though unsurprising triage decision to report: Steve Driehaus seems to have run out of time at the DCCC, who are canceling their remaining ad buy in the Cincinnati market for the next two weeks. The deadline for reservations cancellations is coming up soon, so we’ll soon know who else gets the shortest straw drawn for them.

• PA-10: After seeing a incumbent Chris Carney up by single digits in a recent public poll from Lycoming, GOP challenger Tom Marino rummaged around in his poll drawer and pulled out one from the Tarrance Group giving him a 47-42 lead on Carney. (No word from the Fix on the dates, though.)

• TN-04: One last GOP internal to throw into the mix: a POS survey (from 9/27-28) on behalf of Scott DesJarlais shows him tied with Dem incumbent Lincoln Davis, 42-42. We haven’t seen any public polling of this race (and may not, as the NRCC doesn’t seem to be pushing this one hard, maybe on the off chance that it’s the kind of district that’ll flip in a wave regardless of what they do), but Davis claimed an 11-point lead in a late August internal.

• House: If you’re thinking that it seems like there are a lot more races in the “Tossup” and “Lean” categories this year, you’re not alone. Nate Silver quantifies various ways in which there are way more competitive races this year than in other recent cycles, including number of races where there are polls within single-digits, where there are polls period, and where there are major financial contributions.

• Redistricting: This is an interesting, if counterintuitive, piece from HuffPo on redistricting, which proposes that we’ll be in better shape in 2010 redistricting than 2000 redistricting because (based on projected gubernatorial and state legislative outcomes) we’ll have more control over the process in more important states: oddly he leaves out California, but also including Florida, Illinois, Michigan, and Virginia (all states where there was a GOP trifecta last time), and Minnesota and New York (where we might get the trifecta this time)… while the states where the GOP will improve its position aren’t as large (Alabama, Indiana, Tennessee… with Georgia the most significant one). The article also gets into the nitty-gritty of where the population growth within the fast-growing states has occurred (i.e. among minorities).

• Polltopia: You might have noticed that Political Wire briefly had some Senate polls up today from somebody I’ve never heard of before, called “TCJ Research.” Those polls mysteriously vanished after Nate Silver, vanquisher of bogus pollsters, showed up on the scene with a simple tweet:

A WordPress blog getting ~500 hits a day on posts like “October Giveaway: 32 Gigabyte Apple iPad!” suddenly commissions 5 polls? Not likely.

• SSP TV:

• IL-Sen: Two different ads from the DSCC attacking Mark Kirk, hitting him for his House voting record and also revisiting Kirk’s misrememberment of his military record

• NC-Sen: Elaine Marshall’s finally out with a TV spot, going after Richard Burr for helping to break the economy

• WV-Sen: While John Raese nods to the ‘hick’ ad semi-apologetically before changing the subject back to Washington Dems, Joe Manchin seems to be trying to out-hick the hick ad by touting his pro-gun and anti-environment credentials in one fell swoop by (I kid you not) shooting a copy of the cap-and-trade bill

• IL-Gov: The most famous Illinoisian, Barack Obama, cuts a radio spot on behalf of Pat Quinn

• RI-Gov: The DGA pounds Lincoln Chafee one more time from the right, accusing him of being a tax-hiking hippy

• FL-22: Ron Klein moves past the boring fixation on Allen West’s tax liens and onto the really juicy stuff about 2nd Amendment remedies

• MN-06: Taryl Clark hits Michele Bachmann on Social Security

• PA-03: Kathy Dahlkemper touts her pro-life credentials in her new ad, explaining her siding with the Stupak bloc on health care reform

• VA-02: The DCCC’s IE unit points the “hypocrite” arrow at Scott Rigell, for making hundreds of thousands of dollars off “Cash for Clunkers”

• WI-08: Ditto the DCCC ad in the 8th, where they hit Reid Ribble for making hundreds of thousands of dollars for his roofing business off stimulus projects

• Rasmussen:

• CT-Gov: Dan Malloy (D) 49%, Tom Foley (R) 44%

• FL-Gov: Alex Sink (D) 47%, Rick Scott (R) 50%

• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek (D) 19%, Marco Rubio (R) 50%, Charlie Crist (I) 25%

• GA-Gov: Roy Barnes (D) 41%, Nathan Deal (R) 50%

• GA-Sen: Michael Thurmond (D) 38%, Johnny Isakson (R-inc) 53%

• MN-Gov: Mark Dayton (D) 40%, Tom Emmer (R) 38%, Tom Horner (I) 15%

• NE-Gov: Mike Meister (D) 24%, Dave Heineman (R-inc) 66%

• NH-Sen: Paul Hodes (D) 44%, Kelly Ayotte (R) 51%

• NM-Gov: Diane Denish (D) 43%, Susana Martinez (R) 52%

• NV-Gov: Rory Reid (D) 40%, Brian Sandoval (R) 53%

• OR-Gov: John Kitzhaber (D) 48%, Chris Dudley (R) 46%

• SD-Gov: Scott Heidepriem (D) 33%, Dennis Daugaard (R) 57%

• TX-Gov: Bill White (D) 42%, Rick Perry (R-inc) 53%

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

• Angus-Reid: Some of you might have gotten excited about the California numbers offered up today by Angus-Reid (a well-established Canadian pollster, but apparently making their first foray into the States). Well, don’t, because they’re using an RV model, and more importantly, it’s an Internet sample. (Now presumably there’s some scientific selection behind it, not just a “click here!” banner ad, but we’re highly skeptical nonetheless, especially since that seemed to produce notably pro-Dem results in California.)

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 53%, Meg Whitman (R) 41%

• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 55%, Carly Fiorina (R) 39%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 46%, John Kasich (R) 48%

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 42%, Rob Portman (R) 53%