Tag: John Hickenlooper

• CO-Sen: On the Democratic side, we have a heart-warming love-in between Michael Bennet and Andrew Romanoff, bitter rivals until about 48 hours ago. Romanoff said supporting Bennet was “an easy call,” while Bennet praised Romanoff for his stances on the issues, especially campaign finance reform. On the Republican side, well, there are no plans for a comparable unity event between Ken Buck and Jane Norton. Buck did raise some eyebrows with news that he went the full-on Paulist last year, though, lauding the gold standard and saying the main thing that would keep us from doing it is because there isn’t enough gold available to do so (well, maybe we could stimulate the economy by hiring hundreds of thousands of grizzled prospectors to go out and find us that gold…).

• DE-Sen: Is this a sign of unprecedented confidence in Delaware, as the GOP is spinning it… or worries that they need to bolster their preferred candidate Mike Castle, over unelectable-in-November Christine O’Donnell in the primary? The national party is sending three full-time staffers to work on the ground game in Delaware, which is three more than they do most cycles.

• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek is out with an internal poll from Diane Feldman, giving him an 8-point lead over Jeff Greene, 38-30, after a week in which Greene’s yacht (and the vomit that it was caked with) seemed to be the main story figuring in the press about the Senate race this week. (Perhaps confirming these numbers: Greene is now engaged in the last refuge of a guy about to lose a race, which is to start threatening libel suits, here against the St. Petersburg Times for its look into his real estate transactions.) Meek’s also bolstered by two new anti-Greene IEs for TV spots, for a total of $260K from “Florida Is Not For Sale.”

• KY-Sen: The GOP seems to have let Rand Paul off his leash a little in the last few weeks, but between his Fancy Farm performance and some new items, they may be rethinking a return to his undisclosed location. Paul just said that eastern Kentucky’s drug problem (where meth runs rampant and marijuana growth is common) is not “a pressing issue,” and he topped that off by ditching local affiliate Fox reporters after taping a national Fox TV appearance in Lexington, in their own studio.

• PA-Sen: If you’ve been wondering where the DSCC was going to launch its first IEs of this year, Pennsylvania seems like it’s a good place to start. They’re spending $452K on running an ad highlighting Pat Toomey’s Wall Street background (good for 300 GRPs in Philly, 400 in Pittsburgh, and more in selected smaller markets). This will let Joe Sestak focus on marshalling his resources, as is his wont, while keeping the pressure on Toomey, who’s been advertising continually.

• SC-Sen: In case you were wondering if South Carolina could get any more farcical, Dem nominee Alvin Greene just finally got indicited on his pending obscenity charges for showing porn to a college student in a computer lab. I have no idea what the trial’s timetable is, but maybe Dems could actually get a new candidate in there if he’s convicted before November?

• CO-Gov: Ruh roh. The Colorado rumor mill has Dan Maes, the guy who swore he wouldn’t drop out, meeting with the state GOP about… dropping out. They’ve already been conspicuous in their silent non-support of Maes, who won Tuesday’s primary. Despite the meeting, though, Colorado Pols still seems to think that the posture from the Maes camp is one of a man who isn’t dropping out, and he’s meeting with them to try and get some additional support. At any rate, something would need to happen by Sep. 3, at which point the November ballot is finalized.

• MD-Gov: Fundraising numbers are out in Maryland. Republican Bob Ehrlich has almost kept pace with Dem incumbent Martin O’Malley over the course of this year, with Ehrlich raising $3.2 million and O’Malley raising $3.3 million in ’10 (and O’Malley couldn’t fundraise until April, because of the legislative session). O’Malley’s been building up funds for a longer time, though; O’Malley’s CoH advantage is 3:1, with $6.7 million banked compared to $2 million for Ehrlich.

• WY-Gov: Hmmm, this should turn the dominant media narrative about next week’s Wyoming GOP gubernatorial primary into “OMG! Palin/Bush proxy battle!” The Bush in question, though is George H.W. (41) Bush, who extended an endorsement today to Colin Simpson, the state House speaker and son of his long-time pal ex-Sen. Alan Simpson.

• MI-01: The final count’s over in MI-01, and it’s Dan Benishek by a whopping 15 votes, over state Sen. Jason Allen. The ball’s in Allen’s court now; he has until Sunday morning to file a written request for a recount that would need to allege mistakes or fraud.

• TX-17: Here’s an interesting stance from Republican challenger Bill Flores, especially considering this is a red enough district that it may be one of the few places in the country where John Boehner has positive ratings. But in response to questions whether he’d support His Orangeness for Speaker if the GOP had a majority in the House, Flores ducked the question, saying he’d cross that bridge if he got elected.

• Rasmussen:

• CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 43%, Dan Maes (R) 31%, Tom Tancredo (I) 18%

• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal (D) 47%, Linda McMahon (R) 40%

• GA-Gov: Roy Barnes (D) 42%, Nathan Deal (R) 51%

• MN-Gov: Mark Dayton (D) 45%, Tom Emmer (R) 36%, Tom Horner (I) 10%

Public Policy Polling (pdf) (8/7-8, Colorado voters):

John Hickenlooper (D): 50

Dan Maes (R): 38

Undecided: 12

John Hickenlooper (D): 48

Dan Maes (R): 23

Tom Tancredo (C): 22

Undecided: 7

(MoE: ±3.1%)

PPP’s newest look at the Colorado gubernatorial race finds Denver mayor and Dem nominee John Hickenlooper in pole position, regardless of whether ex-Rep. Tom Tancredo follows through on his kamikaze mission to run on the Constitution Party line. With the GOP having chosen paranoid bike-hating very-very-small-businessman Dan Maes as their standard bearer, there’s really no path to victory for them. (Not that Scott McInnis, mortally wounded by plagiarism scandal, would likely have fared any better. Although that’s purely conjecture… I assume that PPP polled Hickenlooper/McInnis when they took this sample last week, since McInnis still had a decent shot of winning the primary, but they don’t release those numbers today.) (Also, note that there are no trendlines from their May poll, as the idea that they’d have to be polling based on Maes, let alone Maes and Tancredo justifiably didn’t occur to them.)

The favorable numbers tell most of the story: Hickenlooper is at 50/33 (including 47/30 among indies), extremely strong for any Dem gubernatorial candidate anywhere, while Maes and Tancredo are pretty widely reviled, at 23/38 and 27/50 respectively… and bear in mind that there’s probably a lot of overlap in that one-quarter of the electorate, meaning that Maes and Tancredo are going to be competing over the few crazies who can tolerate them.

OK, OK, there is one way the Republicans can salvage this race, although that got a lot slimmer with Maes having won the primary rather than McInnis (who was a loyal enough solider that he might have dropped out). They can: 1) convince Maes, who’s vowed to stay in, to drop out for someone more electable, 2) get someone like Jane Norton or Josh Penry (UPDATE: or self-funding ReMax founder Dave Liniger?) to take over, and 3) hope that the presence of a more electable Republican drives the rather, um, mercurial Tom Tancredo out of the race. It’s at least imaginable, and I’m sure state party chair Dick Wadhams is already working the phone lines, but it’s something of a triple bank shot for the GOP to hang their hopes on. As a result, Swing State Project is moving this race from Tossup to Lean Democratic.

UPDATE: PPP’s Tom Jensen kindly shared with us the Scott McInnis numbers that they tested. Hickenlooper would have beaten McInnis 52-38 in a two-way, and 48-24-22 in a three-way, barely budging the numbers.

STILL ANOTHER UPDATE: A new Politico piece from Dave Catanese — mostly focusing on McInnis having conceded to Maes and offering his support — quotes Maes as saying that Wadhams “pledged to back whoever wins the primary and I believe him.” Maes was also later quoted as saying “that rattlesnake pledged not to bite me, and I believe him.”

• Colorado: What looked like a hotly contested race on the Democratic side of the Senate race (thanks to a mixed bag of poll results, including an Andrew Romanoff lead according to SurveyUSA) turned into a fairly comfortable win for Michael Bennet in the end. Propped up by Obama and DSCC help, and weathering a last-minute patented hit job from the New York Times, Bennet won 54-46. Maybe this’ll help put to sleep two memes that are getting very very tiresome: that it’s an “anti-incumbent year,” and that Obama endorsees all lose. Bennet will face off against Ken Buck, who defeated Jane Norton in the GOP primary 52-48. Polls haven’t been conclusive in terms of whether Dems should have wanted to face off against Buck or Norton. Buck gets lumped in with Sharron Angle and Rand Paul because of his teabagger proclivities, but he’s considerably more skilled than they are; nevertheless, he still seems gaffe-prone and irritable, so I’ll take him.

Dan Maes won the GOP gubernatorial nod, 51-49. The only way things could have gone better for Dems in the GOP gubernatorial race would be if Maes’ margin had been small enough to force a recount. The risk here was that irreparably-damaged Scott McInnis would win and then, being a good GOP team player, promptly drop out, allowing a better Republican (Jane Norton?) to take his place, which would then drive Tom Tancredo out of his indie bid. Maes has vowed to fight on, though, and his underwhelming presence is likely to keep Tancredo in the race, meaning not one but two guys not just spewing the crazy, but splitting the crazy vote and ensuring Gov. John Hickenlooper.

Finally, in Colorado, the GOP House primaries were uneventful wins for establishment candidates, with Ryan Frazier beating Lang Sias 64-36 in CO-07 and Scott Tipton beating Bob McConnell (Sarah Palin’s other losing endorsee yesterday) winning 56-44 in CO-03.

• Connecticut: Probably the biggest surprise of the night was the 58-42 victory by former Stamford mayor Dan Malloy over Ned Lamont in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, seeing as how Lamont had led all polls (although polls did capture a late and rapid Malloy surge). The lesson here mostly boils down to one more race where the organizational power of the local political establishment was able to overcome the money of a rich outsider, but there’s one other story here that Dem message-setters will hopefully notice. Judging by when polls saw the race tigthen, the wheels seemed to come off Lamont’s campaign with a late round of attack ads that focused on layoffs at Lamont’s company. Taking not just that but the air war in the PA-12 special in mind (where Mark Critz won in large measure by hammering Tim Burns over outsourcing), it really seems like, despite this year’s overarching CW, voters will go for a “career politician” over a self-described job-creating outsider businessman, once it’s made clear that said businessman’s interest in jobs only extends as far as his own bottom line.

Malloy will face a flawed Tom Foley in November, and based on general election polling recently should be considered a slight favorite. Foley won the GOP primary narrowly over Lt. Governor Michael Fedele and Oz Griebel 42-39-19. Also, for the GOP, Linda McMahon unsurprisingly won the GOP primary in the face of Rob Simmons’ half-assed comeback-type-thing. Simmons and Paulist economist Peter Schiff did keep her under 50% though: 49-28-23. McMahon faces Richard Blumenthal in November, who already launched his first TV ad this morning, shirking a no-doubt-tempting smackdown in favor of… what’s that thing that McMahon doesn’t have… oh, yeah. Dignity. The three GOP House primaries led to expected victories for Janet Peckinpaugh in CT-02 (43-38 over Daria Novak), Dan Debicella in CT-04 (60-24 over Rob Merkle), and Sam Caligiuri in CT-05 (40-32-28 over Justin Bernier and Mark Greenberg).

• Georgia: The main event in Georgia was the GOP gubernatorial runoff, and hoo boy, did it live up to its billing. The two candidates finished in recount territory at 50-50, with Nathan Deal leading Karen Handel by 2,500 votes. Unfortunately, Handel just conceded this morning rather than following through with the recount, so Dem nominee Roy Barnes doesn’t get to spend weeks watching them keep fighting it out. Pundits will no doubt focus on the proxy war aspects of the battle (“Huck beats Palin!”), but the outcome seems to have more to do with Deal consolidating conservative votes outside the Atlanta area, where Handel’s anti-corruption, anti-good-ol’-boyism message may have fallen flat.

We also had outcomes in three GOP House primaries, one to determine the nominee in a Likely Dem race, and the others to determine who’s the next Rep. in dark-red districts. In GA-07, establishment-backed former John Linder CoS Rob Woodall beat teabagging radio talker Jody Hice, 56-44. In GA-09, Rep. Tom Graves won his fourth (and probably final) faceoff against Lee Hawkins, 55-45. And in GA-12, Ray McKinney beat Carl Smith 62-38 for the right to take on Rep. John Barrow. If you want to argue that this year’s crop of Republican candidates is radioactive, you don’t need to look any further than McKinney; he’s a nuclear power plant project manager by day.

• Minnesota: Finally, there was only one race worth watching last night in Minnesota, and it turned out to be a barnburner: the DFL gubernatorial primary. State House speaker (and DFL endorsee) Margaret Anderson Kelliher led most of the night based on her strength in the Twin Cities, but as results trickled in from the rest of the state, ex-Sen. Mark Dayton crept into the lead. In the end, despite having convincing pre-primary poll leads, Dayton won 41-40-18 over Kelliher and Matt Entenza. Dayton pretty clearly benefited not only from his statewide familiarity, but also from picking a running mate from Duluth, where he cleaned up, late in the game. With a 7,000 margin separating them, Kelliher didn’t concede last night… but she did this morning, meaning Dayton faces the increasingly woeful GOP nominee Tom Emmer in November. The most recent spate of polls has given Dayton double-digits advantages in that matchup.

Public Policy Polling (8/7-8, likely voters, 5/14-16 in parens):

Michael Bennet (D-inc): 49 (46)

Andrew Romanoff (D): 43 (31)

Undecided: 9 (23)

(MoE: ±4.6%)

Andrew Romanoff has clearly made some pretty big strides in recent weeks, snaring a big chunk of undecideds and turning this sleepy race into a potential nail-biter tomorrow night. Still, unlike SurveyUSA, which released a poll last week showing Romanoff with a slim lead over Bennet, PPP’s tricorder is detecting a Bennet win to be the likeliest outcome. If that’s true, I wonder if that recent NY Times piece on Bennet’s exotic financial deal-making that backfired while he was the Superintendent of the Denver Board of Education may have come out a little too late for Romanoff to make enough hay out of it. But, maybe robocalls from Bubba will help change a few minds.

Meanwhile, over in GOPville…

Jane Norton (R): 45 (31)

Ken Buck (R): 43 (26)

Undecided: 12 (29)

(MoE: ±3.5%)

Scott McInnis (R): 41

Dan Maes (R): 40

Undecided: 19

(MoE: ±3.5%)

PPP also offers slightly different takes than SUSA on the GOP Senate and Gube primaries, showing bare leads for Norton and McInnis where SUSA found Buck and Maes leading the pack last week.

One has to wonder if McInnis would really stick with this thing if he won the primary (his favorability numbers are in the net negatives among Republicans, so the dude is clearly screwed), or if he would step aside and let someone like former state Sen. Josh Penry or Jane Norton (assuming she loses the Senate primary) take his spot on the ballot instead, a deal that ColoradoPols is picking up plenty of chatter about on their enemy radio surveillance channels. And even then, you’ve gotta wonder if Tom Tancredo would stick out his third-party bid or allow one of Penry or Norton (or whomever) a fighting chance in the general election.

• 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%

• CO-Sen: Now it’s Michael Bennet’s turn to dip into his personal funds to pay for the closing days of the Democratic Senate primary. After Andrew Romanoff posted a lead in the most recent poll of the primary (and sold his house to finance his last push), now Bennet’s fronting himself $300K. Here’s some good news, though, if Romanoff does succeed in pulling off the upset: he’s reversed course on his previous refusals of DSCC help (seemingly aware of the difficulty of winning without it, with him having burned through all his money on the primary). Meanwhile, on the GOP side of the fence, John McCain is providing some good news! for Jane Norton. He’ll be stumping on her behalf soon, and also sent around a fundraising e-mail, asking for another $200K for Norton and attacking Ken Buck’s past prosecutorial misconduct. (Buck responded by saying that McCain and “his lobbyist friends” were “greasing the power brokers” for Norton. “Greasing the power brokers?” I’m not even sure what that means, and I don’t know if I want to.)

• PA-Sen: Diarist cilerder86 does some digging into Joe Sestak’s Act Blue contributions, and finds that his fundraising isn’t letting up at all. In fact, based on Act Blue data (which seems to have a stable relationship with his overall fundraising), he extrapolates Sestak having raised at least $1.1 million in July, and on track to raise at least $3 million this quarter.

• CO-Gov: It looks like John Hickenlooper had the right idea emptying his coffers to reserve cheap ad space and hope they’d get refilled quickly, because they did. Of course, it helps that he got a big assist from Scott McInnis’s well-timed implosion. Hickenlooper’s pre-primary report had $203K raised in the last two weeks of July, compared with $41K for McInnis and $20K for fellow GOPer Dan Maes.

• GA-Gov: With Barack Obama speaking in Atlanta, Dem nominee Roy Barnes managed to be found in a totally different part of the state, meeting in rural Monroe County with 28 county sheriffs who are supporting his candidacy at a previously-scheduled engagement. Barnes said, “I’d rather be with these folks, if you want to know the truth. I’m not running for governor of Washington D.C. I’m running for governor of Georgia.”

• HI-Gov: Mufi Hannemann is the money leader in the Hawaii governor’s race. He raised $822K in the first half of the year, and is sitting on $2 million CoH. Democratic primary rival Neil Abercrombie raised $712K in that period, but spent considerably, leaving him with only $469K CoH. Republican Duke Aiona raised $374K in the first half, and has $719K CoH.

• MI-Gov: There’s word of one more poll out in Michigan of the Dem gubernatorial primary. Details are, well, sketchy; all I can tell you is that it’s from a firm I’ve never heard of, Foster McCollum White & Associates, and I have no idea whether it’s a public poll or an internal from Virg Bernero or an ally. At any rate, it’s more evidence for a late Bernero surge, giving him a 50-22 lead over Andy Dillon.

• MA-10: With most of the attention having fallen on the flawed Republican candidates in this open seat race, it’s easy to forget there’s still a competitive Democratic primary between two well-established fixtures here too. State Sen. Robert O’Leary has the lead in his own internal poll, conducted by Gerstein-Agne. He leads Norfolk Co. DA William Keating 44-38, with a 57-38 lead among voters who know both candidates.

• NY-25: Dueling internals got rolled out in the 25th, which is pretty low on people’s priority lists in New York, but still needs to be watched carefully, given the climate of the day. Republican challenger Ann Marie Buerkle (one of the more obscure Mama Grizzlies) offered a poll from McLaughlin & Associates giving Democratic incumbent Dan Maffei a 46-37 lead (and closer numbers among those who’ve heard of both). Maffei responded with a Kiley & Co. poll giving him a 54-35 lead instead.

• Rasmussen:

• AZ-Sen: Rodney Glassman (D) 34%, John McCain (R-inc) 53%

• AZ-Sen: Rodney Glassman (D) 43%, J.D. Hayworth (R) 38%

• CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 43%, Scott McInnis (R) 25%, Tom Tancredo (I) 24%

• CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 42%, Dan Maes (R) 27%, Tom Tancredo (I) 24%

• NY-Sen-B: Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc) 50%, Joe DioGuardi (R) 33%

• NY-Sen-B: Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc) 48%, Bruce Blakeman (R) 34%

• NY-Sen-B: Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc) 51%, David Malpass (R) 31%

• SC-Sen: Alvin Greene (D) 20%, Jim DeMint (R-inc) 62%

SurveyUSA for the Denver Post/KUSA-TV (7/27-29, likely and actual voters for the primary, registered voters for the general, 6/15-17 in parens):

Michael Bennet (D-inc): 45 (53)

Andrew Romanoff (D): 48 (36)

Undecided: 8 (11)

(MoE: ±4.3%)

Ken Buck (R): 50 (53)

Jane Norton (R): 41 (37)

Undecided: 9 (10)

(MoE: ±4.1%)

Michael Bennet (D-inc): 43 (43)

Ken Buck (R): 43 (46)

“Third Party”: 7 (6)

Undecided: 7 (5)

Michael Bennet (D-inc): 46 (44)

Jane Norton (R): 43 (47)

“Third Party”: 7 (5)

Undecided: 5 (4)

Andrew Romanoff (D): 44 (40)

Ken Buck (R): 44 (49)

“Third Party”: 6 (6)

Undecided: 6 (5)

Andrew Romanoff (D): 40 (41)

Jane Norton (R): 45 (45)

“Third Party”: 8 (8)

Undecided: 7 (7)

(MoE: ±3.2%)

Yup, shit just got real for Michael Bennet. After dwarfing Andrew Romanoff in terms of both polls and fundraising for months, Bennet’s support has taken a major hit from the stream of negative ads that Romanoff has launched in recent days. I suppose it shouldn’t be surprising, considering that voters have no fealty to an incumbent appointed by an unpopular departing Governor who’s still struggling to project himself as more Senatorial than Some Dude, but it’s still remarkable, nonetheless.

Perhaps most disturbing for Michael Bennet is that his pushback against this poll, in the form of his own internal poll, was less than forceful. Bennet’s poll, conducted by Harstad Strategic Research from 7/28-29, has Romanoff trailing by only 41-37. Yikes!

Gubernatorial numbers:

Scott McInnis (R): 39 (57)

Dan Maes (R): 43 (29)

Undecided: 18 (14)

(MoE: ±4.1%)

John Hickenlooper (D): 48 (43)

Scott McInnis (R): 43 (47)

Undecided: 9 (4)

John Hickenlooper (D): 50 (44)

Dan Maes (R): 41 (45)

Undecided: 9 (6)

John Hickenlooper (D): 46

Dan Maes (R): 24

Tom Tancredo (ACP): 24

Undecided: 7

John Hickenlooper (D): 44

Scott McInnis (R): 25

Tom Tancredo (ACP): 26

Undecided: 6

(MoE: ±3.2%)

Is John Hickenlooper the luckiest candidate this cycle, or what? For what it’s worth, a Republican poll of otherwise unknown origin, flashed to Chris Cillizza, apparently has McInnis ahead of the unknown, poorly-funded Dan Maes by 15% — and Jane Norton ahead of Ken Buck by 45-40 in the Senate primary.

Seemingly unsatisfied with Republicans Scott “Plagiarist” McInnis and Dan “under the table” Maes’ refusal to exit the race, former CO-06 Rep. (and certifiable nutjob) Tom Tancredo will run for Governor under the banner of the American Constitution Party. From the Denver Post:

Former Congressman Tom Tancredo is in the race for Colorado governor, he said this morning.

“I will officially announce at noon that I will seek the nomination of the constitution party,” Tancredo told The Denver Post.

Barring both Maes and McInnis pulling a Dede Scozzafava and dropping out (allowing Tancredo to consolidate the conservative vote), the only Dem in this race, John Hickenlooper, must be feeling pretty lucky.

Is the Scott McInnis Plagiarism Story going the full Vaughn Ward?

Sources in Colorado Republican circles say it’s likely a matter of when, not if, McInnis will exit the race.

“Almost without exception, they think he is done,” said one senior Colorado Republican granted anonymity to speak candidly.

“He may be the last one to know it, but he’s dead in the water,” said another. “It’s likely he will resist heavily, but at some point he’s got to realize this is a fact of life.”

Indeed, the bad headlines keep piling up, including the news that the foundation that paid McInnis to write his now-discredited “musings” on water issues wants their $300K back (which, by our math, adds up to $2,000 per page). McInnis’ efforts to deflect the misdeeds to a researcher are being denied, and the he’s also being hit with fresh allegations that a 1994 column he published in the Rocky Mountain News (and later recited on the floor of the House) was in part lifted from a column published in the Washington Post six weeks earlier.

Aaron Blake writes that Colorado Republicans are trying to find out what they can do to replace McInnis with someone more acceptable on the gubernatorial ballot. Without knowing anything about Colorado’s election law, the major stumbling block would seem to me to be the fact that they’re attempting to replace McInnis after the convention (and filing deadline) but before the primary — where McInnis’ only challenger is the broke-assed Don Maes. My guess is that McInnis would have to win the state’s August 10th primary and then drop out in order to be replaced, but perhaps the staffers at the Colorado Republican Party will find a more legally definitive answer.

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway is pulling in some big fundraising numbers now that Dems are seeing an opening here. He raised $1.4 million last quarter (although $400K of that was a loan from himself). That tops Rand Paul’s $1.1 million raised, although Paul will point out that all of his haul came from donors. No word on either side’s CoH.

• LA-Sen: It seems like the scandal that’s emerged surrounding David Vitter’s employment of violent aide Brent Furer was what pulled ex-state supreme court justice Chet Traylor into a last-minute credible challenge to Vitter in the GOP primary. Traylor says “if Vitter was in good shape, I wouldn’t be running,” and his camp says they’ll be focusing on Vitter’s “personal foibles” rather than ideological differences. In fact, Traylor’s campaign manager (whom the Monroe local newspaper identifies as “sweet potato kingpin” Lev Dawson) says “I don’t think there’s a difference politically.” Traylor also tells ABC News that many local GOP establishment figures urged his last-minute entry out of fears that Vitter may be too badly damaged politically to survive the general against Charlie Melancon. Meanwhile, we’ve all known that Vitter is quite willing to experiment with interesting new, um, practices, but as he seeks to move even further right in view of Traylor’s challenge, he’s now going birther-curious.

• NC-Sen: If there’s a reason Richard Burr is able to hold on to the “cursed” seat this year, it’s going to be his bank account. The GOP freshman Senator raised $1.9 million last quarter, and is sitting on $6.3 million CoH. While Elaine Marshall seems to have gotten a good fundraising boost after the Democratic runoff, she’s likely to have only a fraction of that.

• SC-Sen: Be afraid. Be verrrrrrrrry afraid. (Alvin Greene is about to give his first formal speech as candidate, addressing a local NAACP chapter on Saturday.)

• WA-Sen: Here’s the good news for Patty Murray: she had a $1.6 million quarter, which is a lot of money in the “other” Washington. She’s sitting on $6.8 million CoH. The bad news is that conservative group American Action Network is spending $750K on a statewide buy for TV ads attacking Murray. The ad, continuing in Demon Sheep/Boxer Blimp impresario Fred Davis’s avant-garde performance-art tradition, features various Joe and Jane Sixpacks lying in the dirt getting walked all over by an unseen figure in white tennis shoes.

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin’s giving a little more clarity to his timeline in West Virginia. He says he expects to fill Robert Byrd’s seat with a temporary appointment by “this Sunday,” possibly as early as Friday if the special legislative session about the special election is done by then. He’ll announce after that (probably by Monday) whether he intends to run in the special.

• CO-Gov: This is a surprisingly amateurish thing to get taken down over: the Denver Post has observed that a series of articles on water rights “written” by Republican ex-Rep. Scott McInnis as part of a 2005-06 fellowship were simply plagiarized from articles written twenty years earlier by Gregory Hobbs, who’s now a Colorado Supreme Court justice. The foundation McInnis was working for would like the salary returned to them that they paid him. It’s unclear how much damage this will do to McInnis, or how this stacks up compared with allegations of dishonesty leveled at Mark Kirk and Richard Blumenthal… but locked in a dead heat with John Hickenlooper, McInnis doesn’t have any margin of error to shed a few points over character issues. (For what it’s worth, RCP seems to think he’s finished. Too bad the only GOP alternative, Dan Maes, is completely broke and in campaign-finance hot water.)

• IL-Gov: The DGA is out with a new ad running on Chicago area TV stations, trying to introduce the area’s many residents to downstate state Sen. Bill Brady and disabuse them of any notion that he’s the sort of GOP moderate that’s typically occupied the state house over the last few decades. The ad points out his extreme positions on reproductive health and minimum wage.

• TN-Gov: Republican Knoxville mayor Bill Haslam is still the man with the money, although everybody’s moved into the seven digits. Haslam has $2 million CoH, compared with Ron Ramsey’s $1.35 million and Zach Wamp’s $1.29 million. On the Dem side, Mike McWherter has $1.5 million CoH, having raised $315K last quarter.

• AR-01: Radio broadcaster Rick Crawford, the GOP nominee, has a small cash edge in the 1st, as Democrat Chad Causey’s pretty depleted after having to go through a runoff. Crawford raised $131K post-primary and has $221K CoH. Causey raised $416K over the quarter, but spent $420K on the primary. No word on Causey’s CoH (although I assume it’s something higher than -$4K).

• CO-04: With Corey Gardner having released his financial numbers, it’s clear Betsy Markey has the money edge for now. His $377K raised last quarter is still pretty impressive, but it’s less than Markey raised, and Gardner’s $763K CoH is about half of Markey’s $1.5 million.

• FL-25: Joe Garcia reports raising $700K last quarter, including $230K in online contributions (thanks, netroots!). He still lags behind likely GOP nominee David Rivera, though.

• NH-02: Of the candidates in the 2nd, Ann McLane Kuster (another netroots project) was the big raiser. She pulled in $316K, for $745K CoH. Fellow Dem Katrina Swett raised $188K, but has more CoH at $1.15 million. GOPer Charlie Bass leads in the polls but not at the bank: he raised $170K, for $360K CoH.

• NJ-03: Freshman Democratic Rep. John Adler is out with an internal poll that has him sprinting for the end zone while Jon Runyan limps along behind: the Greenberg Quinlan Rosner poll gives Adler a 51-34 lead over Runyan, with 12 to independent teabagger Peter DeStefano (I’d imagine that lead would tighten as the DeStefano share shrinks). Runyan raised $501K last quarter (a bit more than Adler’s $415K), but $301K was from donors and the other $200K was from himself. Runyan seemed to burn a lot on his surviving his primary, though; he’s sitting on $472K CoH compared with Adler’s more than $2 million.

• NV-03: Rep. Dina Titus is in good shape financially (less so, poll-wise). The freshman Dem raised $426K and has $1.2 million CoH.

• PA-04, PA-17: Keystone State Blue Dogs Jason Altmire and Tim Holden posted good numbers. Altmire raised more than $300K in May and June and is sitting on $1.4 million CoH. Holden raised $213K in that period and is sitting on $885K CoH, which isn’t huge but far more than David Argall (who had $70K before the primary he barely survived) is likely to have.

• TN-09: Here’s a big score for Steve Cohen, facing a primary from former Memphis mayor Willie Herenton that’s, as is usually the case in the 9th, all about the race card. Cohen just got an endorsement from prominent African-American politician Barack Obama, as well as financial backing from several key House CBC members (John Lewis, Alcee Hastings, William Clay) apparently unenthused with the specter of the potentially-embarrassing Herenton joining their ranks.

• Rasmussen:

• CO-Sen: Andrew Romanoff (D) 42%, Jane Norton (R) 44%

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 40%, Jane Norton (R) 47%

• CO-Sen: Andrew Romanoff (D) 42%, Ken Buck (R) 47%

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 39%, Ken Buck (R) 48%

• MD-Sen: Barbara Mikulski (D-inc) 58%, Eric Wargotz (R) 33%

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 43%, Sharron Angle (R) 46%

If you’re Scott Rasmussen, what do you like to do on your day off? Well, you might like to go on a cruise. A cruise for fans of conservative magazine National Review, as their all-expenses-paid guest.