Tag: John Stephen

Public Policy Polling (PDF) (3/31-4/3, New Hampshire voters, no trendlines):

John Lynch (D-inc): 57

Jeb Bradley (R): 33

Undecided: 10

John Lynch (D-inc): 57

Ovide Lamontagne (R): 33

Undecided: 10

John Lynch (D-inc): 57

John Stephen (R): 29

Undecided: 14

John Lynch (D-inc): 54

John Sununu (R): 36

Undecided: 11

(MoE: ±3.5%)

John Lynch is nobody’s idea of a partisan progressive fighter, and we don’t even know if he’ll seek an unprecedented fifth two-year term, but after last November’s utter wipeout in New Hampshire, these numbers have to be heartening to any Democrat. Lynch faced a competitive race from John Stephen in 2010, ultimately winning by eight, so it’s pretty remarkable to see Stephen not even cracking 30. The best performance comes from ex-Sen. John Sununu, but at 18 points back and terrible favorables, Bununu doesn’t look so hot, either.

The obvious question to ask here is what does PPP’s sample look like, since they’re showing such a big reversal of fortune. It’s 35 D, 29 R and 36 I, which makes it much more Democratic (and much less independent) than the last two exit polls have shown: 29 D, 27 R & 44 I in 2008, and 27 D, 30 R & 43 I in 2010. However (and this is an important however), respondents say they supported Obama in 2008 by a 51-42 score, very close to Obama’s actual 9.6% margin.

In a number of states, PPP has been showing a 2012 electorate that’s quite similar to the 2008 voter universe, something that’s been greeted with some skepticism given what seemed like record-high enthusiasm for Barack Obama last time out. We’ll see if history repeats, of course, but PPP nailed things last cycle, and unless and until another pollster (who actually shows their work – I’m looking at you, Quinnipiac) comes along to contradict their work, I’m going to give them the benefit of the doubt.

• CT-Sen, CT-Gov: OK, we can probably scratch Republican ex-Ambassador and rich guy Tom Foley from the list of likely Republican candidates for Joe Lieberman’s Senate seat, if only by virtue of the fact that he’s rhetorically moving himself up to the front of the line for the 2014 gubernatorial race (which would be a rematch against Dan Malloy). He says he’ll keep intact his political operation from last time, where he lost narrowly. Meanwhile, I can’t see this ever becoming reality, but a little wish-listing can’t hurt: Connecticut liberals are already starting a draft movement to get the newly-available Keith Olbermann to think about running for the Senate seat.

• MI-Sen: The idea of Saul Anuzis (the state’s former GOP party chair, and recent RNC election loser) stepping out from behind the curtain and running for Senate still seems a little odd, but it sounds like he’s moving that way, dropping more public statements of interest and apparently polling the field now too. Meanwhile, this isn’t really Senate related unless Debbie Stabenow mysteriously decided to retire and a Dem replacement was needed (and even then it probably isn’t a good idea, considering how unpopular she became), but ex-Gov. Jennifer Granholm says she’s permanently done with politics and moving on to academia with a new position at UC-Berkeley’s school of public policy.

• MO-Sen: Ed Martin (whose main claim to fame is that he lost in MO-03 last year) has been doing everything he can to stay in the public eye, and it seems there’s a method to his madness: he seems to be moving more decisively toward a Senate run. That seems a likely route toward getting flattened by someone known statewide like Jim Talent or Sarah Steelman, but he probably figures he has a couple advantages: one, if Talent doesn’t run, Martin would be the only GOP primary candidate from the state’s largest media market (St. Louis), and two, Martin is tight with the state’s tea party grassroots, and while the Beltway astroturf types like the Club for Growth are big on Steelman, the actual teabagger boots on the ground have a lot of antipathy toward Steelman and are looking elsewhere.

• NJ-Sen: There are lots of politicians who are able to get away with having one penis reference in their names, but it seems like too much to overcome for someone with two penis references in his name. At any rate, New York Jets owner Woody Johnson is considering the race, although insiders concede he isn’t likely to go for it. Johnson has been a major Republican donor for years, and, as of yesterday, has some more time on his hands to consider the race.

• NV-Sen: More signs that John Ensign is moving full speed ahead on running for re-election: he’s convened a meeting of his re-election steering committee for Feb. 1. The invitation for the meeting (to be held at the NRSC) comes from his main fundraisers (indicating that, yes, he still has fundraisers working for him).

• VA-Sen: I suppose George Allen making it official that he’s running for Senate is big news, but we’ve known this for a week; it’s gotten so meta that there have been leaks about upcoming leaks about his candidacy. At any rate, he actually sent out his official e-mail announcement to supporters today and unveiled a new fully operational website for his Senate campaign. Jim Webb’s folks simply say that Webb’s decision about whether or not to run for another term will happen sometime “this quarter.”

• KY-Gov: When Jefferson Co. Clerk Bobbie Holsclaw started making noises about running for the GOP nomination in Kentucky, I assumed she was trying to leverage her way into getting the field cleared for her for a lower statewide office, but it looks like she’s actually following through on her long shot gubernatorial bid, which pits her in the primary against establishment fave David Williams and tea party-backed businessman Phil Moffett. Filing deadlines in Kentucky are tomorrow, so the field looks pretty set. (Dem incumbent Steve Beshear has only some token opposition in the Dem primary, and I’m not making this up: scrap metal dealer Otis Hensley.)

• MS-Gov: Even if SoS Delbert Hosemann doesn’t follow through on rumored plans to run for Governor, we’ll still have at least one candidate with a name that seems to have emerged straight from a Faulkner novel: Pearl River County Supervisor Hudson Holliday. He officially joined the field in the GOP primary, where he seems like he’ll be the third wheel against Lt. Gov. Phil Bryant and businessman Dave Dennis.

• NH-Gov: We already have a poll out of the Republican primary field in the 2012 gubernatorial race, from a never-heard-of-’em-before firm called Strategic National. It looks like Ovide Lamontagne, if he’s interested, may get a second whack at the governorship (remember he was the 1996 candidate, before falling off the map for a long time before re-emerging to almost win the 2010 GOP Senate primary); he leads the field at 37, with losing ’10 candidate John Stephen at 14, state Sen. and ex-Rep. Jeb Bradley at 13, and Manchester mayor Ted Gatsas at 4.

• CT-05: Here are a few more Republican names that have bubbled up, that might get into the field in the now-open seat in the 5th, beyond the obvious re-run from state Sen. Jim Sam Caligiuri. Both the losers in the 2010 primary are also likely to run again, ex-Rob Simmons aide Justin Bernier and rich guy Mark Greenberg. State Sen. Andrew Roraback is also saying he’s interested, while another state Sen., Rob Kane, is sounding pretty lukewarm about it.

• MI-09: Ex-state Rep. Rocky Raczkowski says he’s planning on a rematch against Rep. Gary Peters, after losing narrowly in 2010. However, Raczkowski openly realizes he has some potential problems there (that go beyond his own weaknesses as a candidate): Peters may not have a district left to run in, either. With Michigan losing a seat, Republicans controlling the process, the bulk of the state’s depopulation happening in the Detroit area, and the probable need to keep having two Detroit-area VRA seats, Peters is the likeliest target. (On the other hand, Peters could find himself drawn into a seat stretching across Detroit’s northern suburbs with Sandy Levin, which might prompt the elderly Levin to retire, and that seat probably would be much more Dem-friendly than Peters’ old seat.)

• NY-25: This strikes us as a disappointing move, given that he defended his progressive voting record pretty strongly during his campaign (although, unfortunately, most strongly in his concession statement): ex-Rep. Dan Maffei has taken a position with post-partisan centrist group Third Way. (Although, if nothing else, it points to the paucity of truly left-leaning think tanks and non-profits where Dems can park themselves and stay engaged within the Beltway for several years; there’s no shortage of Heritages and Catos on the right, but this may have been the best option Maffei could find.) No indication on whether Maffei intends to make a 2012 rematch (although he’ll probably want to wait to see whether the 25th winds up being the upstate district that gets chopped).

• UT-02: This may give a clue to the GOP’s plans for redistricting (where their choices are to create four GOP seats in what may risk being a dummymander, or to decide to tolerate Jim Matheson’s continued existence and create a Dem vote sink for him to strengthen their other districts). Incoming state GOP chair Thomas Wright has two goals for the cycle: raise $1 million, and beat “that rascal Jim Matheson.” (At least he didn’t call him a scalawag or a mugwump. Them’s fightin’ words.)

• CT-St. Leg.: There’s a total of nine special elections pending in the upcoming months in both houses of Connecticut’s legislature, all of which are seats that were previously held by Democrats (with eight of them heading off to join the Malloy administration and one of them heading to jail). To my eye (looking at the very helpful map provided by the Hartford Courant), these all look like they’re in Dem-friendly areas (with the possible exceptions of HD-36 and HD-101?), but Republicans are hopeful they can make some gains somewhere.

• PA-St. Sen.: The fields have been picked (by the party committees in Berks County) for the upcoming special election to replace Michael O’Pake in the light-blue SD-11. Dems, as expected, picked former Berks County Commissioner Judy Schwank, while the GOP picked Berks County Register of Wills Larry Medaglia. (Interestingly, PA-06 loser Manan Trivedi was one of the other names considered for the Dems.) The Mar. 25 election theoretically will be a big test of whether the state GOP has any more continued momentum in SE Pennsylvania suburbs after their gains in November, although there are rumors of polling showing the locally-well-known Schwank leading in the 20-point realm against all potential opponents.

• State parties: One of the big stories over the weekend was that assorted tea partiers won three of the four state GOP chair races that were being contested. Maybe the most attention-getting one, because of ’12 presidential implications, was the victory of Jack Kimball (who lost the ’10 gubernatorial primary to John Stephen) over the Sununu dynasty’s handpicked choice, Juliana Bergeron, in New Hampshire. However, the win of talk radio host Kirby Wilbur over incumbent Luke Esser in Washington also has substantial implications, inasmuch as former state Sen. Esser was a key ally of Rob McKenna (they both hail from suburban Bellevue and are among the last remnants of the state’s moderate establishment tradition), and this may presage increased willpower on the right to mount a strong primary challenge to McKenna in the ’12 gubernatorial race, despite the near-certainty that McKenna is the only Republican capable of winning the general election. Arizona also elected Tom Morrissey (against the wishes of both John McCain and Jon Kyl!). Oregon was the only state to buck the trend, electing Allen Alley (a moderate who lost the ’10 gubernatorial primary, although he actually got most of the tea party support in that primary against the also-moderate-but-vapid Chris Dudley, geriatric John Lim, and laughable Bill Sizemore, and still seemed to have some goodwill reserves among that set).

• Voter suppression: With Wisconsin and Minnesota’s Republican-held legislatures moving to maintain their power (by making it more difficult for Democrats to vote for Democrats, by imposing strict voter ID laws), the floodgates seem to be opening, indicating that the GOP’s main priority isn’t jobs but fighting the nonexistent rising tide of alleged voter fraud. Similar legislation is now emerging in legislatures in Texas, Kansas, and Iowa. It’s also becoming clearer that a voter ID law is just one step in the process in Wisconsin where the ultimate goal is elimination of Wisconsin’s fairly unique (and Dem-friendly) quirk of allowing same-day registration.

• Poll Closing Times: In case you haven’t seen it already, check out our handy map of poll closing times and key races across the country. Also, we’ll be accepting entries in our predictions contest until 6pm Eastern. Reach for that golden chocolate babka!

• Weather: Forecasts today call for plagues of locusts in Arizona, frogs falling from the sky in Illinois, periodic blood showers in Pennsylvania, hellfire and brimstone in Ohio. Partly sunny in California.

• AK-Sen: The rumor mill over the last few days has had the NRSC turning its attentions back to Lisa Murkowski, whom they’d once shunned, seeing her as their best plan for holding Alaska as Joe Miller seems to lag. (Of course, they may have semi-consciously been doing that for weeks, running ads hitting Scott McAdams instead of hitting Murkowski.) Miller, for his part, is dismissive, saying he didn’t need them to win the primary.

DC Dems are finally showing some interest here… maybe it was a conscious decision to avoid the taint of Washington in this race, or more likely it was just being blind to the possibility of a pickup here until the last moment. Bill Clinton is robocalling on McAdams’ behalf, and the DSCC finally rolled out a TV ad here over the weekend (anti-Murkowski, not anti-Miller). Here’s what’s probably motivated them: the final Hays Research poll, this time on behalf of the DSCC (instead of the IBEW like the last ones). Its results: Miller 27, McAdams 26, “another candidate you have to write in” 25, and undecided 21. That’s close. With the specter of analyzing tens of thousands of write-in ballots for intent, and the attendant legal challenges, it will almost assuredly be weeks before we have a winner in Alaska. UPDATE: Just got late word of yet another poll here, from yet another local pollster: Dittman. I don’t know who, if anyone Dittman is working for, but they’re pretty Murkowski-friendly results: Murko 37, Miller 26, McAdams 22.

• DE-Sen: Despite having essentially no chance of winning, somehow Christine O’Donnell got more media coverage than any other candidate this cycle, according to a Pew study. (Thanks, Gawker!) Of course, it’s hard not to, when she provides us with so much good material, as with her closing argument fail: she’d planned on 30-minute blocks of TV time on the local Fox affiliate and on public access, but somehow neither happened, owing to miscommunication and flat-out never getting around to purchasing the time on Fox. A remarkable end to a remarkable campaign.

• PA-08: I imagine you’ll be hearing a lot of stories today and in the following days about voter “suppression” (from the Dems) and “fraud” (from the GOP), but we’re already getting a jump on it in the 8th: both sides are alleging irregularities in absentee ballots. 8,000 ballots have been sequestered at the Bucks County courthouse already, so assuming the margin is less than that, here’s another one we can already expect to find its way into court.

And here are a few more straggler polls:

• NC-Sen (PPP): Richard Burr (R-inc) 52%, Elaine Marshall (D) 40%

• NH-Sen, NH-Gov (UNH): Kelly Ayotte (R) 54%, Paul Hodes (D) 36%; John Lynch (D-inc) 49%, John Stephen (R) 41%

• ID-01 (Greg Smith): Walt Minnick (D-inc) 48%, Raul Labrador (R) 38%

• Fox/Pulse:

• CO-Sen, CO-Gov: Ken Buck (R) 50%, Michael Bennet (D-inc) 46%; John Hickenlooper (D) 47%, Tom Tancredo (C) 44%, Dan Maes (R) 6%

• IL-Sen, IL-Gov: Mark Kirk (R) 46%, Alexi Giannoulias (D) 42%, LeAlan Jones (G) 6%; Bill Brady (R) 44%, Pat Quinn (D-inc) 38%, Scott Lee Cohen (I) 6%, Rich Whitney (G) 4%

• NV-Sen: Sharron Angle (R) 48%, Harry Reid (D-inc) 45%

• OH-Gov: John Kasich (R) 48%, Ted Strickland (D-inc) 44%

• IL-Sen: Serial exaggerator Mark Kirk has a new one on his hands: he was previously claiming that he was the driving force behind a bill that cracked down on companies that do business with Iran (but that got turned into a Howard Berman bill so it could pass the Democratic House, says Kirk). Berman says that’s not the case at all, and that his committee didn’t even consider the Kirk version of the bill.

• NV-Sen: Sharron Angle had possibly the weirdest ever visit to a group of Latino high school students, first telling them that those weren’t supposed to be Latinos in her ad featuring scary-looking dark-skinned persons crossing the border. Maybe those are actually Arabs, and maybe they’re crossing the Canadian border, she mused? She then turned the tables back on the students, saying that “I don’t know that all of you are Latino. Some of you look a little more Asian to me.” Asian like… Middle Eastern terrorists, maybe? With Sharron Angle speaking, who even knows?

• IL-Gov: Whitey no more? Green Party candidate “Rich Whitey” will apparently get ballots in select Chicago wards changed back to his actual (and preferred) name, Rich Whitney. Apparently there was enough time to reprogram all the machines if crews work overtime.

• SC-Gov: I’m not sure whose side to take here: on the one hand, it’s good to see the DNC putting money into the late-breaking South Carolina governor’s race, where internals see it as a mid-single-digits race and a real opportunity now. On the other hand, South Carolina Dems just sound pissed, saying the $100K expenditure is too little too late (which is probably true).

• CA-03: Here’s an eye-catching independent expenditure: American Crossroads (aka Rove, Inc.) is pouring $682K into a TV buy against Ami Bera in the 3rd. That would tend to support the idea that Dan Lungren, who’s lost the fundraising game to Bera every quarter, is also putting up some middling internals too.

• PA-07: Now this isn’t good, especially this late in the game: the Pennsylvania state Teamsters suddenly revoked their endorsement of Bryan Lentz. There’s no official word on what caused the rift, but it seems to relate back to Lentz’s sponsorship of a bill that cracks down on construction firms that misclassify workers to avoid paying taxes.

• OH-St. House: The Cleveland Plain Dealer has a good profile of 10 of the most important races in one of our most important legislative chambers, where Dems have a small edge (53-46) and need to hold it for redistricting purposes. It’s a mix of suburban Cleveland, suburban Columbus, and the rural southern part of the state.

• AFL-CIO: Here’s an interesting memo out from the AFL-CIO’s political director today suggesting that they’ve made a lot of under-the-radar progress in the last few weeks, redirecting members who weren’t engaged or were flirting with the Republicans. In particular, Pennsylvania stands out, where they’re finding that Joe Sestak now has a 55-26 lead among union members, up from only 45-39 at the start of September. They also point out that Joe Manchin now has a 40-point lead among union members in another union-heavy state, West Virginia.

• Early voting: Early voting gets underway today in Florida and Texas, along with five other smaller states. Adding in the states where voting has already started, that means the election is truly afoot in nearly half of all states.

• Debates: We’re adding a new component to our digests: courtesy of our friends at C-SPAN, a list of all the debates that are on tap and on the air each night on C-SPAN. Because if you’re reading this, we know you can’t get enough politicking:

8 pm ET: WV-Sen

9 pm ET: WI-07

10 pm ET: IL-11

11 pm ET : AZ-05

• SSP TV:

• AK-Sen: Lisa Murkowski may be the only Republican running a pro-pork campaign, with her new ad talking about how Joe Miller will cut off the flow of federal funds to Alaska

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet hits Ken Buck on Social Security privatization and his hardcore pro-life positions

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway moves quickly along from the ‘Aqua Buddha’ ad, turning the conversation back to mine safety, while Rand Paul continues to whine about it, spending an ad touting his Christian faith

• MO-Sen: Roy Blunt tries out a little Medicare sleight-of-hand (the whole HCR-cut-Medicare!!1! line)

• NH-Gov: The DGA, via local group Citizens for Strength and Security, hits John Stephen for retaining his campaign manager even after he received a restraining order for stalking

• NRCC: If you’ve ever wanted to watch 40+ Republican House ads in one sitting, here’s your chance

• Rasmussen:

• AK-Gov: Ethan Berkowitz (D) 39%, Sean Parnell (R-inc) 52%

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 45%, Ken Buck (R) 47%

• CT-Gov: Dan Malloy (D) 49%, Tom Foley (R) 45%

• HI-Sen: Dan Inouye (D-inc) 53%, Cam Cavasso (R) 40%

• MA-Gov: Deval Patrick (D-inc) 47%, Charlie Baker (R) 42%, Tim Cahill (I) 6%

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 47%, Sharron Angle (R) 50%

• UT-Gov: Peter Corroon (D) 29%, Gary Herbert (R-inc) 66%

• UT-Sen: Sam Granato (D) 29%, Mike Lee (R) 54%

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

• AK-Sen: In the avalanche of various other acts of hypocrisy and self-dealing that have come out about Joe Miller in the last few weeks, somehow I missed this one: not only did he avail himself of low-income hunting and fishing licenses, but his family has received assistance from Medicaid and similar state-level Denali Kidcare. Somewhere, his most ardent supporters are hurling their copies of Atlas Shrugged into the fireplace in disgust, learning that their mighty Producer is nothing more than a parasite, weakly availing himself of every program under the sun designed to enslave man. (And somewhere, either heaven or Rick Barber’s fevered imagination, James Madison is hurling his copy of the Federalist Papers into the fireplace, upset that this ostensible patriot is availing himself of such a plainly unconstitutional program.)

• DE-Sen: I think this had been made pretty clear few weeks ago, but Mike Castle reiterated it in as official terms as possible on CNN yesterday: he’s not endorsing anybody in the Senate race.

• FL-Sen: Very-tanned centrist GOPer governors gotta stick together, and Arnold Schwarzenegger just gave his probably-not-worth-much backing to Charlie Crist yesterday. The Marco Rubio camp may have gotten the last laugh here, though:

“When it comes to inflicting ‘Collateral Damage’ on the economy, Charlie Crist and Arnold Schwarzenegger are definitely ‘Twins.’  Charlie’s flip-flops have made him a master at telling ‘True Lies.’ We all know the only thing Charlie cares about is the next election. But this year, Florida will take an ‘Eraser’ to ‘The Running Man.'” – Rubio campaign spokesman Alex Burgos, responding to Schwarzenegger’s endorsement of Crist.

• PA-Sen: I wouldn’t start popping the champagne cork (or even buy a bottle of champagne) yet, but the DSCC seems to be seeing some negative-ad-driven progress in Pennsylvania. They’ve released an internal poll, via Garin Hart Yang, that actually gives Joe Sestak the lead. He’s up 44-42 over Pat Toomey, in a poll taken Oct. 8-10. With leaners pushed, Sestak expands to a 47-44 lead. No public pollster has seen anything like that (at least yet).

• WA-Sen: If you’re wondering what’s up with the huge disparities in Washington Senate numbers between the live-caller and auto-dialed polls, you’re not alone. Nate Silver doesn’t exactly have answers, pointing to unique Washington variables that confound pollsters, like its (almost entirely) vote-by-mail status and its large number of cellphone-only users. But he does have some interesting charts showing that Rasmussen and SurveyUSA have consistently overestimated GOP performance all decade long in Washington (while, at the same time, Elway has overestimated Dem performance).

• WV-Sen: Hot on the heels of PPP’s poll showing Joe Manchin back in the lead, the DSCC is out with an internal poll showing similar numbers. The GQR poll from Oct. 7-12, the height of “hicky” mania, gives Manchin a 49-44 lead over John Raese, whose 40/38 faves lag Manchin’s 63/28.

• CA-Gov: All previous political self-funding records are quickly receding in Meg Whitman’s rearview mirror, as she just plowed another $20 million into her gubernatorial bid, bringing her all-cycle total to over $141 million.

• WV-Gov: I don’t know what West Virginians’ aversion to comprehensible succession laws is, but after emerging from the morass of how to replace Robert Byrd, now the legislature is grappling with what to do with the Governor position if Joe Manchin manages to win the Senate special election. Legislative lawyers say that unless the legislature takes some sort of action, Senate President Earl Ray Tomblin would take over as “acting governor” for the entire remainder of Manchin’s term, until the regularly scheduled Nov. 2012 election… but that there would be two elections that day, one for the full four years and one for the lame-duck period.

• FL-25: I look forward to seeing David Rivera’s explanation:

Over the past seven years, Republican state Rep. David Rivera repeatedly said in sworn documents that his main source of income, outside of his salary from the Legislature, came from consulting work he did for the U.S. Agency for International Development. But USAID has no record of ever hiring Rivera — now a candidate for Congress — or his company.

• KS-04: SurveyUSA has shown an unexpectedly close race (for an open seat in a dark-red district in this climate), with several polls in high single digits, so GOP nominee Mike Pompeo is offering some pushback with an internal from Cole Hargrave Snodgrass & Associates from Oct. 10-11. His poll gives him a 48-31 lead over Raj Goyle. (You may recall that this pollster works with the Club for Growth, and is responsible for highlights like this one. Senator Dick Zimmer vouches for their accuracy!)

• NY-24: Richard Hanna’s out with an internal poll, courtesy of  McLaughlin (no dates given by Politico, and with a big fat MoE of 5.6%). Hanna leads, but only by 46-43. Considering that Hanna is trying to push back against not a Mike Arcuri internal but an honest-to-gosh public poll (from Siena) with an Arcuri lead of 8, that seems like kind of weak sauce.

• MN-06: Today’s fundraising highlight is that Michele Bachmann pulled in $5.4 million in the third quarter. Interestingly, it looks like she’ll report “only” $3.4 million cash on hand, suggesting a similar phenomenon as Sharron Angle (for whom there weren’t any CoH numbers at all), where there’s a lot of churn going on not just for a TV blitz but also for widespread nationwide direct-mail marketing, which is expensive. (Just ask Joe Cao.) While these numbers certainly don’t bode well as far as unseating Bachmann this year, the bright side is that’s money that low-information voters might otherwise have given to GOP House challengers in tight races who could have actually leveraged that money a lot more effectively.

• TX-27: Even if you’re a political junkie like us, yesterday’s internal poll was probably the first you’ve ever heard of Blake Farenthold. The DCCC fills in some blanks, suggesting that you’re probably not likely to hear too much about him in the future, either. He’s somehow sitting on a negative $5K in cash, and… I’m not quite sure how this happened, but he appears on the front of what appears to be some sort of local tea party-oriented publication, in pajamas, in the company of what appears to be some sort of sex-industry professional (and not as an example of what not to do, but apparently because said publication is endorsing him). Yeah, I’m just as confused as you; you’ll have to check out the link.

• WA-08: Ordinarily, we don’t report on newspaper endorsements, since they don’t seem to move many votes and are usually pretty predictable based on each paper’s e-board leanings. We’ll make an exception in this case, since Dave Reichert largely owes his continued existence to the Seattle Times, who’ve clung to him as, in their eyes, the last remaining exemplar of the old-style moderate Republicanism they fetishize. So it’s a strange and wondrous thing to see them turning their back on him in favor of Suzan DelBene.

• Blue Dogs: CQ has an interesting piece about the yawning leadership gap at the Blue Dogs, where two of its key members, John Tanner and Dennis Moore, are skedaddling. It cites a number of possible new heads (most notably Allen Boyd and Jim Matheson), but there’s a certain amount of cart-before-horse here, because the Blue Dogs are disproportionately in the crosshairs this cycle and it’s unclear how many of the key ones (Boyd, especially, as well as Stephanie Herseth Sandlin) will even be back.

• DLCC: The DLCC is out with its third and probably final installment in its “Essential Races” series, pointing you (and your contribution dollars) toward 15 more legislators in key races that might determine chamber control in some of the most important state legislatures.

• Money: More evidence that the advantage by the Democratic committees and individual members was pretty illusory, given the myriad ways (527s and 501(c)(4)s, oh my) that the wealthy have to plow nearly-unlimited money into political races: an alliance of groups (Karl Rove’s American Crossroads and Norm Coleman’s American Action Network, as well as a new one, Commission on Hope, Growth, and Opportunity) is planning a $50 million ad blitz focused on some relatively underserved House races. This includes IN-02, CO-07, and even Maurice Hinchey’s NY-22. (H/t Nathan Gonzales.)

• SSP TV:

• IL-Sen: Mark Kirk revisits the Broadway Bank yet again with his newest ad

• LA-Sen: A solid ad from Charlie Melancon, hitting David Vitter on outsourcing and cozying up to BP

• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan tries some anti-Washington (including congressional pay raises) shots at Roy Blunt

• PA-Sen: VoteVets boosts Joe Sestak with a hit on Pat Toomey for voting against veterans’ benefits

• CT-Gov: The RGA has a boilerplate attack ad on Dan Malloy as tax-raising career politician

• HI-Gov: It’s not your imagination, this race is looking competitive, at least if the DGA is advertising here: they’re out with an anti-Duke Aiona ad

• IL-Gov: Pat Quinn’s new ad actually comes close to saying that Bill Brady will kill your dog if you vote for him.

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland’s ad goes back to the basics: hitting John Kasich on his outsourcing Wall Street ways

• SC-Gov: The RGA is having to advertise and staff up in SC-Gov, probably much to their chagrin, as this looks like it’s turning into a real race: their new spot calls Vincent Sheheen liberal, morphs him into Obama, and does all the usual

• IL-17: The SEIU backs up one of labor’s biggest backers in the House, Phil Hare, with a 10-day buy for $317K in the Quad Cities, for an ad hitting Bobby Schilling on free trade and outsourcing

• PA-06: Manan Trivedi’s new ad goes after Jim Gerlach and ‘special interests’

• PA-08: VoteVets is also out with a spot in the 8th, hitting Mike Fitzpatrick on veterans’ benefits votes during his brief stay in Congress

• WI-03: The National Federation of Independent Business is out with a slew of new ads that includes softening up not-quite-top-tier Dem districts, with 10-day ad buys including not just WI-03 but also CA-11, CO-03, MO-03, NY-19, NY-23, PA-10, OH-16, and SC-05.

• Rasmussen:

• ME-Gov: Libby Mitchell (D) 32%, Paul LePage (R) 35%, Eliot Cutler (I) 21%

• NH-Gov: John Lynch (D-inc) 53%, John Stephen (R) 43%

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 48%, Sharron Angle (R) 49%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 45%, John Kasich (R) 48%

• OR-Sen: Ron Wyden (D) 52%, Jim Huffman (R) 36%

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 46%, John Raese (R) 49%

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

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

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

Paul Hodes (D): 42 (32)

Kelly Ayotte (R): 47 (46)

Undecided: 7 (20)

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

John Stephen (R): 41 (40)

Undecided: 6 (14)

(MoE: ±4%)

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

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

Joe Sestak (D): 38 (39)

Pat Toomey (R): 45 (46)

Dan Onorato (D): 36 (37)

Tom Corbett (R): 47 (46)

(MoE: ±4%)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Andrew Cuomo (D): 55 (49)

Carl Paladino (R): 37 (43)

Undecided: 6 (7)

(MoE: ±2.9%)

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

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

Tom Barrett (D): 43

Scott Walker (R): 51

Undecided: 6

(MoE: ±4.5%)

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

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

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

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

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

Joe Donnelly (D): 48

Jackie Walorski (R): 39

Mike Vogel (I): 6

Undecided: 7

(MoE: ±4.9%)

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

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

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

Bryan Lentz (D): 45

Pat Meehan (R): 49

Undecided: 7

(MoE: ±3.8%)

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

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

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

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

• SSP TV:

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

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

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

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

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

• Rasmussen:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

John Stephen (R): 34 (29)

(MoE: ±4.3%)

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

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

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

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

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

• Fundraising:

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

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

• SSP TV:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Rasmussen:

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

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

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

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

• Rasmussen (appearing as Fox/Pulse):

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• IA-Sen: Selzer & Co. for Des Moines Register (9/19-22, likely voters, 11/8-11/09 in parentheses):

Roxanne Conlin (D): 30 (30)

Charles Grassley (R-inc): 61 (57)

Undecided: 6 (10)

(MoE: ±4.2%)

Not much to see here other than the remarkable consistency over the almost one year’s period since the previous Selzer poll of this race. (I just learned a new word today, while searching for how to describe this race, linked to the Chet Culver vortex: “syntropy.” It’s synergy + entropy.)

• NH-Sen, NH-Gov: American Research Group (9/22-26, likely voters, Dec. 2009 in parentheses):

Paul Hodes (D): 32 (36)

Kelly Ayotte (R): 46 (43)

Undecided: 20 (21)

John Lynch (D-inc): 42

John Stephen (R): 40

Undecided: 14

(MoE: ±3.5%)

ARG, mateys! Here be a mighty treasure trove of undecided scallywags! (And here be the gubernatorial link.)

• OH-Sen, OH-Gov: Univ. of Cincinnati for various Ohio newspapers (9/16-20, likely voters, 5/11-20 in parentheses):

Lee Fisher (D): 40 (47)

Rob Portman (R): 55 (46)

Undecided: 5 (6)

Ted Strickland (D-inc): 45 (49)

John Kasich (R): 49 (44)

Undecided: 6 (6)

(MoE: ±3.4%)

University of Cincinnati hasn’t been in the field for a while, so they missed the very steady decline of the Dems in Ohio, making it look like more of a sudden collapse. At any rate, this is actually Ted Strickland’s best non-internal showing since early August.

• WA-Sen: Commonsense Ten is out with a $412K independent expenditure in the Washington Senate race, on Patty Murray’s behalf. (Wondering who they are? This Hotline article from July explains how they’re something of a Dem answer to groups like American Crossroads, as well as giving some legal background on just how it came to be that the super-wealthy can give endless money to 527s to spend endlessly on IEs.) Meanwhile, there are dueling ads in Washington. As one might expect, Patty Murray lets Dino Rossi hang himself with his own anti-Boeing words, while Rossi hits Murray on her support of tarps. (Since most Washingtonians own several tarps — they only thing that allows them to go camping during the ten rainy months of the year — I don’t see what the big deal is.)

• WV-Sen: The Dems are definitely getting active in here: the AFL-CIO is out with a huge direct mail blitz in West Virginia, and the DSCC is placing a major ad buy there starting tomorrow. In the meantime, John Raese, Tweeter and Facepage aficionado, is sticking to the GOP party line on global warming: it’s all volcanoes’ fault! (Wait… I thought it was sunspots. They’d better get their stories straight.)

• AK-Gov: Bill Walker, after weeks of dithering in the wake of losing the GOP gubernatorial primary, has formally decided against a write-in bid (despite having an easier-to-spell name than Murkowski). No word on an endorsement of either Sean Parnell or Ethan Berkowitz, although Berkowitz has been steadily reaching out to Walker.

• GA-Gov: With Nathan Deal not really having done much to deflect the attention being paid to his family’s imminent financial collapse, now he’s having to run damage control on another issue: his campaign is accused of having spent $135K to lease aircraft from a company where Deal himself is a part-owner. State ethics law bars candidates from using campaign funds for personal benefit, although the open legal question here is whether this turns into “personal benefit.”

• NM-Gov: Third Eye Strategies for Diane Denish (9/21-23, likely voters, no trendlines):

Diane Denish (D): 46

Susana Martinez (R): 46

Undecided: 7

(MoE: ±4.4%)

This is kind of odd… we just got a Diane Denish internal poll from a totally different pollster (GQR) in the middle of last week. Does she have two different pollsters working for her? At any rate, the news is decidedly better in this one, showing a tie where last week’s poll had her down by 5.

• TX-Gov: Blum & Weprin for Texas newspapers (9/15-22, likely voters, 2/2-10 in parentheses):

Bill White (D): 39 (37)

Rick Perry (R-inc): 46 (43)

Kathie Glass (L): 4 (-)

Deb Shafto (G): 1 (-)

Undecided: 8 (13)

(MoE: ±3.9%)

The Texas race is extremely stable (check out the flatness in Pollster‘s regression lines, with a mid-single-digits spread). While I’d like to think that Bill White can get over 50% on his own, his best hope at this point might be for Libertarian candidate Kathie Glass to start taking a bigger share (presumably out of Rick Perry’s hide, via the same crowd who went for Debra Medina in the primary).

• FL-24: Hamilton Campaigns for Suzanne Kosmas (9/22-23, likely voters, 8/25-29 in parentheses):

Suzanne Kosmas (D-inc): 45 (43)

Sandy Adams (R): 43 (49)

Undecided: 12 (9)

(MoE: ±3.7%)

This is the first internal we’ve seen from Team Kosmas, and while it’s not the kind of numbers that fill you with great confidence (up 2 in one’s own internal), it is an indicator that we’re still looking at a Tossup here instead of Lean R (which is where some of the other prognosticators have been sticking this one). The movement in Kosmas’s direction suggests that voters have found out more about the crazier side of Adams in the wake of her surprise primary victory.

• MS-04: Tarrance Group for Steven Palazzo (9/21-22, likely voters, December 2009 Tarrance Grop poll for NRCC in parentheses):

Gene Taylor (D-inc): 45 (68)

Steven Palazzo (R): 41 (24)

(MoE: ± ?%)

There were reports last week that the NRCC was starting to smell smoke in this race (despite having an underfunded, low-name-rec candidate in Palazzo), and was going to try out a round of polling. Seems like their hunch may be right, as long-time Rep. Gene Taylor (who hasn’t given Dems much reason to take interest in him lately… well, ever, really) is up only by single-digits in a new poll from the Palazzo camp.

• PA-10: Momentum Analysis for Chris Carney (9/23-25, likely voters, no trendlines):

Chris Carney (D-inc): 46

Tom Marino (R): 38

Undecided: 17

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Chris Carney, having been slightly on the wrong end of a public poll from the Times-Leader (and on the very wrong end of that sketchy AFF poll last month), rolls out an internal giving him an 8-point lead over Tom Marino. Marino (who’s pretty underfunded, although the NRCC is starting to get involved) is little-known (only 26/24 faves), so this is going to be one of many races where the Dem’s survival is based on localizing in order to fend off Generic R.

• PA-16: I’m not sure what to make of this: the uphill campaign of Lois Herr (going against Joe Pitts in the 16th, which is solidly Republican but moved a lot in the Dems’ direction in 2008) is out with a second internal poll from PPP that has her within single digits of the GOP incumbent. Pitts leads 41-34, which seems kind of bizarre considering that we’re seeing polls in Pennsylvania with incumbent Dems losing by larger margins than that in much friendlier districts.

• SD-AL: Bennett Petts and Normington for Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (9/22-23, likely voters, no trendlines):

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-inc): 51

Kristi Noem (R): 38

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Here’s one race that seems to be becoming a little more comfortable for the Democrats. (Recall that Herseth Sandlin led in the last Rasmussen poll of this race, after months of trailing.) I wonder how much of that has to do with the reveal of Noem’s atrocious driving record, given voters’ memories of leadfooted ex-Rep. Bill Janklow?

• DLCC: If you’re looking to really micro-target your financial contributions to where your dollars get stretched the furthest and the leverage is the greatest (given the knife-edges on which many state legislatures, and the entire 2012 redistricting process, rest) the DLCC has rolled out its “Essential Races” program. This points to some of the tightest races in the tightest chambers; the link details their first wave of 20.

• CA-Init: There are some Field Poll leftovers to look at, concerning three of the biggest initiatives on the ballot this year. The news is good all around, although the margins aren’t decisive: Proposition 19 (marijuana legalization) is passing 49-42 (it was failing 44-48 in the July Field Poll). Proposition 23 (undoing greenhouse gases limiting legislation) is failing 34-45. And maybe most importantly, Proposition 25 (allowing budget passage with a simple majority) is passing 46-30.

• Florida: Mason-Dixon’s latest Florida poll (we gave you Sen and Gov numbers over the weekend) has a lot of miscellany in the fine print that’s worth checking out. They find the GOP leading narrowly in three major downballot races: Pam Bondi leads Dan Gelber in the AG race 38-34, Jeff Atwater leads Loranne Ausley in the CFO race 29-27, and Adam Putnam leads Scott Maddox in the Ag Comm race 36-32. They also find that Amendment 4 has a shot at passing; it’s up 53-26, although bear in mind that you need to clear 60% for a Florida initiative. Amendment 4 would require localities to put changes to comprehensive zoning plans up to a public vote; Josh Goodman has a good discussion of it today along with several other initiatives in other states that may pass despite having both sides of the entire political establishment lined up against them.

• SSP TV:

• FL-Sen: Marco Rubio rolls out his first ad en espanol, a biographical spot

• PA-Sen: How many freakin’ ads has Pat Toomey come out with? Anyway, here’s another one

• CT-02: Joe Courtney stresses his independence, especially regarding TARP

• CT-05: Chris Murphy’s new ad focuses on stopping outsourcing

• PA-03, PA-11: The DCCC is out with new ads in the 3rd and 11th, continuing the trends of hitting Mike Kelly as out-of-touch millionaire and hitting Lou Barletta for sucking as Hazleton mayor

• Rasmussen:

• AL-Sen: William Barnes (D) 30%, Richard Shelby (R-inc) 58%

• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal (D) 50%, Linda McMahon (R) 45%

• DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 49%, Christine O’Donnell (R) 40%, Mike Castle (I) 5%

• GA-Sen: Michael Thurmond (D) 36%, Johnny Isakson (R-inc) 52%

• IA-Gov: Chet Culver (D-inc) 37%, Terry Branstad (R) 55%

• ND-Sen: Tracy Potter (D) 25%, John Hoeven (R) 68%

• SC-Sen: Alvin Greene (D) 21%, Jim DeMint (R-inc) 64%

• AR-Sen: Move along, nothing to see here. Talk Business, via Hendrix College, is out with another poll of the Arkansas Senate race. They find John Boozman leading Blanche Lincoln 56-29, with 5 for indie Trevor Drown. (The previous Talk Business poll, taken by Zata|3, had it at 57-32.)

• DE-Sen: Trying to put his money where his mouth is, Jim DeMint, via his Senate Conservatives Funds, is going on the air with a new cable TV spot on behalf of Christine O’Donnell. The buy is for at least $250K. As I expected, it makes very obvious hay out of Harry Reid’s dumb reference to Chris Coons as his “pet.”

• FL-Sen: This is a long read, but worth checking out, not just from a partisan standpoint but also as insight into the constant revolving door between politics, big law, academia, and the nebulous world of “consulting.” It’s a thorough going-over of Marco Rubio’s finances over the years, looking at some of the already-known stuff (his foreclosure problems and overuse of state party credit cards) but also at the connections that have gradually allowed him to enrich himself.

• KS-Sen, KS-Gov: SurveyUSA finds… brace yourselves… Republicans in the lead in Kansas! The Senate race appears to be out in no-man’s land, with Jerry Moran leading Lisa Johnston 66-24. The Governor’s race, however, remains moderately interesting, with Sam Brownback up over Tom Holland 59-32. Still not a good result, but that’s a 15-point swing in Holland’s favor from last time, as he now leads among self-described moderates.

• KY-Sen: This poll from last week is probably interesting enough for the front page… but it’s getting more than a little stale, after our having repeatedly fumbled attempts to write it up, so we’re just dropping it off here (figuring many of you have already seen it on over at Daily Kos). PPP, on behalf of Big Orange, finds that Rand Paul leads Jack Conway 49-42. On the plus side, not much of an enthusiasm gap here, thanks to Paul’s polarizing nature; it’s just a solidly red state.

• LA-Sen: Two different polls in Louisiana tell different stories. Dem pollster Bennett Petts & Normington, on behalf of the DSCC, sees a 10-point race, with David Vitter leading Charlie Melancon 48-38. On the other hand, Republican pollster Magellan sees it as an 18-point race: 52-34. The truth, as is often said, probably lies somewhere in between.

• UT-Sen: The Senate half of the Dan Jones poll (for the Deseret News and KSL-TV) finally showed up. In what could be called “not a surprise,” the Republican is winning in Utah. Mike Lee (who turfed out Bob Bennett at the state convention) is easily beating Sam Granato, 52-25.

• WA-Sen: Here’s a nice story about hypocrisy… or hypoc-Rossi, in this case. Dino Rossi made a campaign stop at a Whidbey Island shipyard last week, one that’s nearly doubled its workforce from 130 to 210. Turns out, though, that the shipyard received $841K in stimulus funds, and the yard’s owner says the expansion is a direct result of the stimulus. (Interestingly, Rossi, without any guidance from Admiral Ackbar, may have sailed right into A TRAP: he showed up at the invitation of the yard’s owner, who has donated to Patty Murray in the past.)

• WI-Sen: If that Rossi hypocrisy story seems kind of small potatoes to you, well, don’t worry, because Ron Johnson seems to have, over the last few weeks, been exposed as the absolute master of hypocrisy about engorging yourself on the government teat all the while raging against it. While he can claim that building-a-rail-spur-to-Pacur thing was in the distant past, now it comes out that in March 2009, in his role as board member of Oshkosh’s Grand Opera House, he sought stimulus funds for renovations to the opera. Y’know, the stimulus bill that’s KILLING US ALL AND ALL FUTURE GENERATIONS!!1!  

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin has had good relations with the state-level Chamber of Commerce, who’ve backed him in the past. They must have put in a good word for him with the national organization, as now the US Chamber of Commerce is endorsing him too, quite the rarity for a high-profile Dem.

• FL-Gov: Rick Scott’s previous defense against the massive Medicare fraud problems at his former healthcare company Columbia/HCA was that he’d have stopped them if only he’d known they were going on (which, considering his job was to run the company, should have demolished his credibility right there). But now it’s been revealed that his legal team was keeping him apprised, at least on the issue of trying to skirt a federal anti-kickback law.

• FL-22: They’ve had to call out the biggest fundraising gun of all for Ron Klein, seeing as how he’s up against a nutty opponent but one with a direct line into seemingly hundreds of thousands of teabaggers’ wallets in Allen West. Barack Obama will fundraise for Klein in the Miami area on Oct. 11 (at the home of former NBA star Alonzo Mourning).

• MS-01: The Tarrance Group is out with another Alan Nunnelee internal giving him a single-digit lead over Travis Childers in the 1st: this time, he’s up 48-41.

• NY-23: Would you believe the NY-23 count is still going on? Although it seems like Matt Doheny is the likely victor in the GOP primary, with a 582-vote lead right now, 1,969 military and overseas ballots remain to be counted. In Friday’s count, Doug Hoffman added 207 votes while Doheny added 177.

• American Crossroads: Rove, Inc., seems to be becoming the main conduit for billionaires looking to put their thumbs on the electoral scales but skeptical of the Michael Steele-helmed RNC: they raised $14.5 million in the last 30 days, almost doubling their year-to-date total.

• NRCC: The NRCC is out with a bonanza of IEs in 23 different districts (click the FEC link for specific numbers): PA-11, VA-09, PA-08, WI-07, NJ-03, PA-03, IL-14, MI-01, MI-07, PA-07, NC-07, IL-11, AL-02, AZ-01, CA-11, FL-02, KY-06, MS-01, TN-08, TX-23, VA-05, IN-02, and IL-10.

• SEIU: So, while the CoC is endorsing the Dem in West Virginia, the SEIU is endorsing the not-Dem in Rhode Island: they’ve thrown their backing behind indie Lincoln Chafee. (United Nurses and Allied Professionals will also endorse Chafee today, and the AFL-CIO is currently meeting about which way to go.) The SEIU is also out with a couple IEs of their own, spending $250K against Tim Walberg in MI-07 and $435K against deep-pocketed Jim Renacci in OH-16.

• SSP TV:

• CO-Sen: The DSCC is out with three different ads focusing on various aspects of Ken Buck’s nuttery, including the 17th Amendment and opposition to common birth control methods

• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal’s ad focuses on pushback against various Linda McMahon misrepresentations

• FL-22: Ron Klein calls out Allen West for his various veiled calls for armed uprising

• HI-01: Charles Djou’s first ad of the general is a positive spot listing accomplishments from his short time in office

• IL-10: Bob Dold! ties Dan Seals to Nancy Pelosi in a health care-themed ad

• PA-10: Here’s the winner of the day: Chris Carney quickly and effectively summarizes the nasty links between Tom Marino and Louis DeNaples

• PA-15: Charlie Dent goes after John Callahan’s bookkeeping as mayor of Bethlehem

• WI-08: Steve Kagen dips into the well of 50s-era public-domain stock footage to hit Reid Ribble on his calls for Social Security phaseout

• Rasmussen:

• MD-Gov: Martin O’Malley (D-inc) 50%, Bob Ehrlich 47%

• MD-Sen: Barbara Mikulski (D-inc) 54%, Eric Wargotz (R) 38%

• NH-Gov: John Lynch (D-inc) 48%, John Stephen (R) 46%

• NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo (D) 54%, Carl Paladino (R) 38%, Rick Lazio (C) 0% because Rasmussen didn’t bother to include him

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 43%, Scott Walker (R) 51%

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 50%, John Raese (R) 43%

Public Policy Polling (9/11-12, likely voters, 7/22-25 in parentheses):

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

John Stephen (R): 39 (34)

Undecided: 10 (15)

(MoE: ±2.2%)

Despite the fact that the odds are probably against the Dems in the Senate race, and that they face down-to-the-wire blockbusters in both House retentions (and also are probably at risk of losing the state Senate because of retirements), there’s one relatively bright spot for Granite State Dems: Governor John Lynch, seeking an unusual fourth term.

He’s kind of on the cusp of the race being competitive and not, though: he’s over 50 in PPP’s first post-primary poll, but up 12 on a more credible opponent than the last couple he’s faced (former state HHS director, and losing NH-01 primary candidate in 2008, John Stephen). That’s a somewhat smaller gap than PPP found in July, but bigger than the 11-point gap they had in April, so things have looked pretty stable here all along. The financial race within the race is a dead heat, though: as of pre-primary reports several weeks ago, Lynch had $745K CoH, while Stephen, who’s spent very little so far, has $794K. Given that and the nature of the year, it’s a race worth keeping an eye on.