FL-08: A poll for Sunshine State News, apparently by a firm called Voter Survey Service, finds GOPer Daniel Webster leading Rep. Alan Grayson 43-36. Tea Party candidate Peg Dunmire is at 6, and independent George Metcalfe takes 3.
IL-10: Bob Dold! must have superpowers. That’s because Bob Dold! can seemingly exist in two places at once. He claimed the city of Chicago as his “primary residence” from 2004 to 2006, and received a tax credit for doing so… but somehow also claimed the town of Winnetka as his “permanent residence,” enabling him to register and vote there during the same time period (which he did). So if I’m wrong and Bob Dold! is actually a mere mortal, it seems like it’s either tax fraud or voter fraud. Bob Dold!
IL-11: I think this is going to be the last cycle we keep track of this whip count, because now it’s becoming routine. The NRA endorsed Debbie Halvorson.
NY-20: Yep, definitely the last cycle. The NRA endorsed Scott Murphy, too.
PA-08: Yesterday we mentioned there was a Dem pol of this race, but that we lacked the toplines. Well, now we have the memo. A Harstad Research poll for the SEIU and VoteVets has Dem Rep. Patrick Murphy leading Mike Fitzpatrick 49-46 among likely voters. Interestingly, the poll shows slightly larger Murphy leads when an even tighter voter screen is applied.
VA-05: Ugh, this again? SurveyUSA’s latest in VA-05 is pretty much the same as last time (and the time before that). They have Rob Hurt leading by an eye-popping 58-35 margin, a gap not seen in any other polling. Teabagger Jeffrey Clark takes 4%.
NRCC: The NRCC claims to be out with a bunch of internal polls, but they only provide the alleged toplines for races in seven districts. Forget about field dates or margins of error – they don’t even bother to tell us who the pollsters are! If you want to know the numbers, you’ll have to click the link.
SSP TV:
KY-Sen: Is mockery better than scolding? Compare this Jack Conway ad, which wryly features seniors saying they “don’t know what planet Rand Paul is from” when it comes to his Medicare views, with the Halvorson spot below
WV-Sen: John Raese attacks Joe Manchin for being soft on coal and buddies with Barack Obama
IL-11: A bunch of seniors scold Adam Kinzinger (on Debbie Halvorson’s behalf) for his anti-Social Security views
NV-03: Grr… Dina Titus seems to have pulled her latest ad off of YouTube!
Independent Expenditures:
CO-07: American Future Fund drops $560K against Ed Perlmutter
AK-Sen: Lisa Murkowski is seeking clarification on just how expansively the state elections board will view misspellings or variants of her name. Lt. Gov. Craig Campbell, who’s in charge of all this, previously said he leans “toward a liberal view” of how to count Murkowski ballots, but now he’s refusing to get more specific. See you in court?
O’DONNELL: You know what, evolution is a myth. And even Darwin himself –
MAHER: Evolution is a myth?!? Have you ever looked at a monkey!
O’DONNELL: Well then, why they – why aren’t monkeys still evolving into humans?
FL-Sen: Former Rep. Robert Wexler became one of the most prominent Democrats to break ranks and endorse Charlie Crist. Wexler, who has long had a close relationship with Crist, famously abandoned his party earlier this year by resigning his seat in the middle of the term, before the final votes on healthcare reform.
FL-Gov: Douchebag zillionaire Rick Scott really just out-did himself with only three words. When asked if he had forked over another million bucks to his campaign (he had), Scott responded: “I don’t know.” I guess it’s easy to forget writing seven-figure checks when you’re Rick Scott!
IA-Gov: This race has been depressing for a long while now, and the latest news is no different. A Selzer poll for the Des Moines Register shows GOPer Terry Branstad crushing Gov. Chet Culver 52-33. Just ugh.
ME-Gov: Greenberg Quinlan Rossner (D) for Libby Mitchell (9/22-24, likely voters, July in parens):
Libby Michell (D): 34 (32)
Paul LePage (R): 38 (44)
Eliot Cutler (I): 10 (8)
Shawn Moody (I): 8 (5)
Kevin Scott (I): 2 (2)
Undecided: 7 (10)
(MoE: ±4.4%)
Mitchell also says her internal shows LePage’s favorability weakening from 33-19 to 38-36 over the same timespan.
AZ-01: CQ got ahold of a month-old internal poll for Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick by Lake Research Partners, which shows the race to be very tight. Kirkpatrick had a 43-39 lead over Republican Paul Gosar. But of course, we’re talking about late August. Who knows what’s changed since then.
CO-03: Nice catch by Colorado Pols. Check out Republican Scott Tipton trying to backpedal away from his earlier statements that he’d eliminate the Department of Education:
Tipton said his plan for that department is the same as his plan for the entire federal government, to cut it in half. He said he plans to do that without cutting government services….
That is some seriously lulzy shit right there, my friends. Even better is the fact, as CO Pols points out, that Tipton already tried to back away from this plan (“slice the gov’t in half”) a few days ago, but he’s already re-un-flip-pivot-flopping back to it. Man.
CT-05: Smaller, fun-size cat fud: Mark Greenberg, who lost in the GOP primary to Sam Caligiuri, showed up on Caligiuri’s hometown to make an endorsement… of the Republican running in Rosa DeLauro’s district. A Caliguri endorsement sounds unlikely.
FL-22: I’m not a big fan of Politifact for a variety of reasons, but they sink their teeth into a good one here. At a recent candidate forum, Allen West claimed, “If you look at the application for a security clearance, I have a clearance that even the president of the United States cannot obtain because of my background.” This is obviously insane, points out Politifact, because security clearances exist because of a presidential executive order… which is signed by, uh, the president. The other possible way of viewing this (which is what West’s campaign proudly says is their view) is as a birther-esque claim that grew out of right-wing email forwards. This “school of thought” holds that Obama’s shaaady personal background means that he’d never have gotten security clearance by normal means (if he hadn’t been elected). Yeah, okay.
MS-04: Remember when, a few weeks ago, Heath Shuler suggested that he might run for Speaker of the House? Well now Rep. Gene Taylor is the latest ConservaDem to take up residence in fantasy-land, saying that he’d prefer 78-year-old Ike Skelton for Speaker, rather than answer a question about whether he’d vote for Nancy Pelosi again. Taylor also refused to answer how he’d react if Republicans approached him about a party switch.
NV-03: In response to a claim by the Smart Media Group that the DCCC was cancelling a week-long buy on behalf of Rep. Dina Titus, the D-Trip announced that three panzer divisions were reconsolidating on the Eastern front the cancellation was actually a sign of strength. Later that same day, perhaps realizing that sounded like bullshit, the same Dem spokesman said that the party was still committed to a million-dollar ad buy.
PA-10: After an AP report cited an anonymous Dept. of Justice source on this story, the Scranton Times Tribune obtained an on-the-record statement from the DoJ confirming that the department has no record of having given approval for then-US Attorney Tom Marino to serve as a reference on a casino license application for his buddy Louis DeNaples. If you’ve been following this story, you know that DeNaples was a possibly-mobbed-up “businessman” who was under investigation by Marino’s own office – and when Marino got busted for providing the reference, he resigned in disgrace, and then took a sinecure with DeNaples. Marino claimed back in the spring that he had received permission from the DoJ to give a reference for DeNaples, but this has clearly turned out to be bullshit. Dem Chris Carney has gotten a lot of mileage out of this so far.
While we’re on the subject, Maine-based pollster Critical Insights tested this race for the Wilkes-Barre Times Leader. They found Marino ahead of Carney 40-36. But the n on this poll was extremely low – just 196 LVs.
PA-11: The Times Leader also polled the 11th CD. Again, with a very small sample (211 LVs), they found Republican Lou Barletta leading Rep. Paul Kanjorski by a 43-32 margin. The Kanjorski campaign blistered the poll, offering some slightly dumber lines of attack (“Makes you wonder if The Times Leader didn’t cook the numbers”) and some sharper ones (noting that the TL doesn’t seem to be very adept at polling, given that last week they tested the Lt. Gov. race, even though Pennsylvanians don’t elect the LG separately). They also questioned the partisan makeup of the sample, and its small size.
NRCC: The NRCC just made $3.2 million in expenditures on a ton of different races – too many to list here. It looks like it’s mostly for paid media, as well as a bunch of polls in a number of districts. Be interesting to see if any see the light of day.
SSP TV (by James L.):
DE-Sen: Chris Coons’ latest ad touts reform and fiscal conservatism
KY-Sen: Jack Conway’s out with a great ad that personalizes Rand Paul’s nagging hostility to federal anti-drug funding
FL-Gov: Alex Sink attacks chrome-domed creep Rick Scott for attacking her over the Florida state pension fund
CO-04: Dem Rep. Betsy Markey paints Cory Gardner as a career politician with his hand in the trough
FL-08: Dem Rep. Alan Grayson takes off the gloves… and straps on a set of brass knuckles. In his latest ad, he paints his Republican opponent as a radical religious fundamentalist, going so far as to call him “Taliban Dan Webster”. In another ad, Grayson hits Webster for his Vietnam deferrals. Also worth mentioning is this ad, which came out two weeks ago but went unmentioned here, where Grayson resurrects his famous “briefcase” theme from last cycle.
HI-01: GOP Rep. Charles Djou responds to the DCCC’s latest attack ad
IA-03: Dem Rep. Leonard Boswell unleashes a decent ad hitting Brad Zaun on “personal responsibility” hypocrisy
IL-14: Dem Rep. Bill Foster goes after GOP state Sen. Randy Hultgren for his company’s role in fueling the mortgage crisis (and profiting from it)
NY-13: Frosh Dem Rep. Mike McMahon’s first ad touts his accomplishments and votes, including his vote against healthcare reform
OH-15: Dem Rep. Mary Jo Kilroy touts her votes, while, in another ad, smacks Steve Stivers over his support of a national sales tax.
OR-05: A six-pack of seniors form a chorus to sing Dem Rep. Kurt Schrader’s praises, and wave their hickory walking sticks in Republican Scott Bruun’s direction
PA-11: GOPer Lou Barletta responds to Paul Kanjorski’s attacks
CT-Sen: It feels as thought we’ve been partying like it’s 1994 in more ways that one this cycle. One major throwback has been Republicans who can’t control teh crazy and insist, Newt Gingrich-style, on calling for the abolition of the Department of Education. In fact, Linda McMahon did `em one better, telling some teabaggers that she would also consider getting rid of the Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency. I don’t understand whatever cultural bug Republicans have up their ass about the Dept. of Education, but suffice it to say that when you say you want to get rid of it, it sounds like you want to cut education funding, period. So please, keep saying that.
DE-Sen: A GOP source tells Politico that Mike Castle is fielding a poll to test his chances as a write-in. Castle has until Sept. 30th to file a statement with the elections board, something a spokesman said is an “under 5%” chance.
AL-Gov: We’ve seen all kinds of unexpected touting of seemingly sucky internal polls this cycle, but this may be one of the roughest. Dem Ron Sparks is saying that a poll by Capital Survey Research Center showing him down 52-39 to Republican Robert Bentley is “good news,” because a July survey had Sparks behind by 22. (Technically this isn’t an internal, but rather was produced by Dem-allied teachers union Alabama Education Association.)
FL-22: Allen West is out with what the Palm Beach Post is terming a “brushfire” poll (n=300) from Wilson Research Strategies that has him up 48-42 over Ron Klein. A recent Klein internal had almost opposite numbers, 48-40 for the Dem.
NC-04: This is a couple of weeks old, but repeat Republican candidate B.J. Lawson claims to have an internal poll from robopollster Action Solutions, purporting to show him up 47-46 over Rep. David Price. But, cautions Dave Wasserman of the Cook Political Report: “This isn’t your standard polling outfit. This is an outfit that most in Washington would not consider reputable.” Lawson only has $50K on hand (though Price only has $300K), and got crushed last time out, 63-37. His fundraising also seems to be off from his 2008 pace, when he took in half a million (he’s raised just $150K this cycle).
RI-01: Dem David Cicilline is out with a comforting poll from the Feldman Group, showing him up 53-38 over Republican John Loughlin.
VA-05: I’m almost getting tired of keeping track of these, but anyhow… the NRA is expected to endorse Dem Tom Perriello.
NY-AG: A couple of pollsters also took a look at the AG’s race in their recent New York polling packages. Quinnipiac, unsurprisingly, finds a close race: Dem Eric Schneiderman is at 37 while Republican Dan Donovan is at 36. Siena (PDF) paints a somewhat different picture, showing Schneiderman up 45-32 over Donovan. Both men have very low name rec in both polls, and the both hold voters of their own parties equally well. Donovan has small leads among independents in both surveys.
Women Vote!: Aka EMILY’s List puts in $80K (TV) against Joe Heck (R) in NV-03, $23K (mail) for Julie Lassa (D) in WI-07, and $32K (mail) against Roy Blunt (R) in MO-Sen
MI-07: The Communications Workers of America put in $100K (TV) against Tim Walberg (R)
OR-04: Conservative front group Concerned Taxpayers of America puts in $86K (TV) for Art Robinson (R)
• AK-Sen: Lisa Murkowski is still mum on the prospects of a write-in run, but this looks like a potentially important tea leaf: she isn’t returning to the Beltway as the Senate goes back into session, but is remaining in Alaska attending to… something. Maybe it’s the grieving process, but it’s also shades of how Bob Bennett behaved while he weighed his post-primary recourse. And while this hadn’t looked likely in a week, Libertarian candidate David Haase confirmed he won’t step down to make way for Murkowski on the Libertarian line… so it’s write-in or bust for her.
• DE-Sen: With everyone abuzz over last night’s PPP poll giving Christine O’Donnell an improbable lead in the GOP primary, there’s word today of a Mike Castle internal giving him a 7-point lead (it’s buried deep in this Politico article, with no further details). PPP has some further thoughts on their poll, pointing out that in some ways Castle might be in worse shape than Lisa Murkowski going into the primary: his faves among GOP voters were 43/47, compared with Murk’s 48/46, and 55% thought he was too liberal, compared to 47% in Alaska. At any rate, the right wing is still engaged in full court press on O’Donnell’s behalf, though, with Sarah Palin cutting a radio ad for her. And if you’re like me, you were spending a lot of time last night trying to mentally ballpark how big an impact on an O’Donnell win would have on overall odds of retaining the Senate… well, don’t worry, because Nate Silver has already figured it out for you.
• ME-Sen: So after Murkowski and Castle, which GOPer is next on the chopping block? Looks like it’s Olympia Snowe, looking ahead to 2012. PPP finds that only 29% of Republicans are committed to backing Snowe in that year’s primary, with 63% saying they’ll back a more conservative alternative. Snowe loses a hypothetical primary matchup with 2006 gubernatorial nominee Chandler Woodcock, 38-33.
• NH-Sen: GOP pollster Magellan is out with a last-minute pre-primary look at the GOP Senate field, and they find the closest result yet for late-surging Ovide Lamontagne. It still doesn’t look likely he can pull out the upset unless somehow an extra week or two of stoppage time got added to the election’s clock (based on the rate at which he’s closing), but he’s within 4. The poll puts it at Kelly Ayotte 35, Lamontagne 31, Bill Binnie 14, Jim Bender 10.
• CO-Gov: Could the Colorado GOP find itself a “minor party” in 2012, mostly just an embarrassment but also something that affects where they’re positioned on the ballot? That’s what would happen if Dan Maes somehow finds himself gaining less than 10% of the vote in November’s gubernatorial race.
• MN-Gov: In a convoluted way, this is likely to help Dem nominee Mark Dayton. The former moderate Republican governor, Arne Carlson, announced that he’s backing the IP nominee, Tom Horner, and will be stumping on his behalf today. That may give some a nice outlet to moderate Republican rank-and-file loath to the too-far-right-for-Minnesota Tom Emmer but who can’t bring themselves to vote DFL.
• OR-Gov: Chris Dudley’s attempts to game the system vis-à-vis the clashing tax structures of Washington and Oregon get dicier the more the media look into it, maybe to the extent of actual tax avoision. (It’s a word. Look it up.) Long story short: he moved his primary residence from Oregon to Washington because Washington doesn’t have income tax (he still had to pay tax on his Trail Blazers salary, but not on capital gains and dividends). However, it’s come to light that not only did he not sell his Portland home, but he just kept on using it at least part-time for years after switching his domicile.
• TX-Gov (pdf): The Texas Tribune is out with another poll of the Texas gubernatorial race via the University of Texas, and they find that while Rick Perry has a decent lead, he’s far from putting the race away yet. Perry leads Dem Bill White 39-33, with 5 for Libertarian Kathie Glass, and 1 for “Green Party” plant Deb Shafto. Dems are losing all the statewide downballot races as well, although Hank Gilbert’s in striking distance in the Agriculture Commissioner race (down 33-26 to Todd Staples).
• LA-02: Despite the warm relations between Barack Obama and GOP Rep. Joe Cao, Obama isn’t going easy on Cao. Obama just gave his endorsement to Dem primary winner Cedric Richmond in a statement last night.
• MD-01: Wow, still no love lost between Wayne Gilchrest and the man who teabagged him to death in the 2008 GOP primary before teabagging was fashionable, Andy Harris. Gilchrest jumped into the fray with an endorsement for Harris’s self-funding primary opponent, Rob Fisher.
• NY-15: Clinton alert, times 4! Hot on the heels of support from Michael Bloomberg for Charlie Rangel ahead of tomorrow’s primary, Bill Clinton (maybe the 15th’s most famous commercial tenant) just cut a robocall on Rangel’s behalf too. The Big Dog is also making campaign appearances in three different gubernatorial races: stumping with Dan Onorato in Pennsylvania today, Mark Dayton in Minnesota tomorrow, and Rory Reid in Nevada on Wednesday.
• DCCC: At SSP, we’re all about The Size Of The Buy, and National Journal has sussed out which of the DCCC’s round of 60 reservations are the biggest ones. There are at least a dozen districts where they’ve reserved $1 million or more: MO-04, NV-03, NH-01, AZ-01, CA-11, AL-02, AZ-05, IN-09, ND-AL, PA-03, and (no surprise here, giving Larry Kissell’s fundraising fail) NC-08. Interestingly, they’re also putting $1.8 million in to FL-25, where they’re on the offensive, a sign of a lot of confidence in Joe Garcia’s chances. (The story also details some investments in big markets where there are multiple races and it’s unclear which races will get the money.)
• AFL-CIO: The AFL-CIO is spending big on a gigantic direct mail binge, hitting 2 million households of members. (They’ll also be making 4 million follow-up phone calls.) The six Senate races involved are NV-Sen, MO-Sen, WI-Sen, IL-Sen, FL-Sen, and PA-Sen; the four gubernatorial races are OR-Gov, OH-Gov, IL-Gov, and MI-Gov. There are also 24 House districts (see the link for more).
• SSP TV:
• NV-Sen: Harry Reid’s newest ad targets Sharron Angle’s “extreme and dangerous” legislative record, focusing on voting against allowing out-of-state restraining orders to be enforced in Nevada
• FL-12: Dennis Ross goes after Dem Lori Edwards, tying her to Obama
• FL-22: Ron Klein moves past the who-cares lien stuff and gets on to the juicy stuff regarding Allen West’s statements about Social Security and Medicare
• MS-01: Another Travis Childers spot goes negative on Alan Nunnelee, hitting him on the regressive “Fair Tax”
Mason-Dixon for Las Vegas Review-Journal (9/7-9, likely voters, 8/23-25 in parentheses):
Harry Reid (D-inc): 46 (45)
Sharron Angle (R): 44 (44)
Other: 1 (2)
None of these: 3 (4)
Undecided: 6 (5)
(MoE: ±4%)
There’s very little movement in the Nevada Senate race; most everyone has decided and it’s a game of inches. Tea Party candidate Scott Ashjian is in better shape after a U.S. District Court judge dismissed a suit intended to keep Ashjian off the ballot, saying the time for legal challenges was long ago. Of course, with “Other” (not just Ashjian, but also the AIP candidate) polling at 1%, that really doesn’t mater one iota.
Jon Ralston has teased the existence of some other poll that has Reid the Younger within 9 (saying “he’s not dead yet”), which we’ll be on the lookout for. That, plus Ralston-tweeted word of another Reid internal that has him within 7, and the trendlines here, suggest that Reid somehow has gotten some momentum. Is there enough time left to capitalize, though?
One other race where there’s some Democratic progress — and where it may actually affect the bottom line — is the 3rd, where Dina Titus moved from a 1-point edge to a 4-point edge, and closer to the 50% mark. It’s pretty easy to diagnose what happened there, though: the AFSCME poured $750K into the district on Titus’s behalf. Now if we could just get them to do that in about 30 or 40 other districts, then we’d be in pretty good shape overall.
If you’re wondering about the state’s downballot offices, they’re all crammed in there too. GOPer Brian Krolicki is poised to return for another turn as Lt. Governor, while the Dems, including sorta-embattled AG Catherine Cortez Masto, are winning the other four races.
All too often, I hear the Beltway pundits chatter away over national poll numbers, party fundraising, who’s hiring which lobbyists, what the strategists at The White House must REALLY be thinking, and so much more.
But you know what? Here in what may be one of the districts that determines who will control Congress next year, none of that really matters. People here are asking who has solutions to the actual problems that plague us.
“For Sale” signs hang in front of houses on most blocks. Apartment buildings fly banners advertising discounted rent and free Internet to lure tenants into vacant units. Businesses are closing, and the ones staying open are cutting employees’ hours. The district leads the nation in unemployment and the state in foreclosures.
In interviews with the Sun, the overwhelming sentiment among voters of all political persuasions is that government is not working.
How to fix it? That’s the debate that will decide this congressional race – and the races for U.S. Senate and governor.
And I know all about these real problems, as my own friends and family here have suffered in this economy. They’ve lost jobs. They’ve come dangerously close to foreclosure. And I’ve felt scared.
No, most of my fellow voters in Nevada’s 3rd Congressional District aren’t paying too much attention to the DC chatter. They just want solutions to the problems we’re facing here.
Over the past year, her office estimates Titus has saved constituents $2.4 million, most of it by reworking mortgages. (Some of the savings is from unrelated help, including securing veterans’ or Social Security benefits.)
Five staffers in Titus’ district office in Las Vegas now handle housing problems, in addition to the jobs they were hired to do. They have no formal training in real estate or mortgage finance. Each carries about 100 cases at a time. One staffer has personally handled 300 cases.
The group started out rescuing homes from foreclosure in much the same way homeowners facing foreclosure do, dialing up the banks’ call centers and asking for help. They got put on hold, transferred, disconnected.
They learned by “trial and error.” Each time they found a bank staffer who seemed competent, they jotted down the name and number, and returned with new cases. They built relationships.
Dr. Heck even used the same wording as Angle, “the role of Congress is not to create jobs”, and he also wants to privatize Social Security and Medicare, just as Sharron Angle wants to do. In fact,Dr. Heck took $5000.00 dollars for signing a pledge to privatize Social Security and Medicare.
For more than 200 years, voters in every State have sent their elected officials to DC to help bring money back to their States for all kinds of special projects that create jobs.
There are thousands of special projects across the country and most of them are worthy projects and deserving of our federal dollars, not all special projects are pork.
Because of Nevada’s Democratic delegation of Dina Titus, Shelly Berkley, and Harry Reid, new jobs are being created for Nevada.
Solar plants, wind turbines, and geothermal are all being expanded in our State, and with that expansion comes jobs. A new high speed train system from Southern California to Las Vegas will be built, which will bring more tourists to our State, which will create new jobs. A new VA hospital, more jobs, etc. You get the idea.
None of those special projects could have happened without the help of the federal government and the federal dollars that our elected officials help to secure for those special projects.
What, you thought we could talk about Nevada politics without bringing up Sharron Angle??!!
“The primary’s over. We now have to rally around a slate of candidates up and down the ticket — Sharron Angle all the way down the ticket.” [Emphasis mine.]
But of course, there’s a flip to this. What about this guy?
Yep, Harry Reid factors very much into this as well. Not that long ago, when Reid was considered “a goner”, many pundits were also quick to write off Titus. However, I had thought otherwise for some time… And now, I’m hoping and doing whatever I can to ensure I’ll be proven right in November.
For one, it’s not like everyone here is ignorant as to who’s been working hard to deliver some much needed help.
In addition, Angle and Heck are doing themselves (and each other) no favors in refusing to offer any help and skewing so far to the right.
Phil Esser, 68, a music minister in Boulder City, said he voted for Porter two years ago because he trusted him. This year, Esser will vote for Titus.
“I think she’s doing a good job.”
For Esser, it comes down to the approach. The Tea Party, with its aggressive anti-establishment campaign, turns him off. He sees local Republicans, including Heck, as sharing the Tea Party vision.
“It’s kind of like the old Ross Perot party, but with torches,” Esser said. “Ross Perot wanted change and accountability in government. I thought that was healthy for our political system. But I don’t see that now with the Tea Party people insisting our president is a Muslim.”
In the U.S. Senate race, Esser plans to vote for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid for the same reasons. Two years ago, Esser was unsure whether he would vote to re-elect Reid.
And here’s another thing that the pundits don’t see, but I do. I see Dina Titus out in the community all the time, whether it’s at festive events like the Boulder City Damboree Parade…
Or at all the “Congress on the Corner” open house days with constituents and other events throughout the community where she just takes time to listen to us and whatever concerns we have to share with her. Honestly, I really can’t think of any representative I’ve had to deal with before who was more available and more accessible than Dina is. If I had to grade Dina on constituent service, she’d easily get an A+!
(And for the record, I still haven’t seen Heck anywhere around here…)
And finally, there’s a little something I consider to be Nevada Democrats‘ “secret weapon” in winning this election. No, I’m not really about EMILY’s List or President Obama coming to town, though both will certainly be helpful in keeping NV-03 and the entire state blue. No, I’m talking about something that I saw being built up in 2008, and is now operating in full force.
The state party has been very wise in investing in a strong party structure and strong field operation designed to turn out votes for Reid, and for Titus here in NV-03. Whenever I stop by my local office in Henderson, I always see volunteers on the phones and field organizers at work planning walks and other events. Even while we may be freaking out over poll numbers and White House rumors and lobbyist chatter online, they’re laying the essential groundwork for any kind of Democratic win here in November. And most importantly, the base is busy at work here.
Now don’t get me wrong, we can’t take anything for granted here. Times are turbulent, people are restless, and there’s still so much more to do to get our state and our country back on track.
However, I feel a sense of zen calm when I think about what might happen in November. I listen to what my neighbors have to say at our “poolside chats”. (Yes, I’m fortunate enough to have two lovely pools in my suburban gated community in Henderson.) I always let them start the discussion, and they tell me about how Sharron Angle scares them or how Dina Titus had a card table outside the grocery store or how Harry Reid brought home more funds for UNLV. As long as they, and all the other sane folks here vote, we’ll win. 😉
• AK-Sen: It seems like Lisa Murkowski’s meetings with the Libertarian Party didn’t lead to anything conclusive (while David Haase sounded amenable, the state party sounds opposed), as the signals she’s putting out now seem to point more toward a write-in campaign, if anything. According to Roll Call, she’s “strongly considering it” and will have an announcement as early as tomorrow. In case you’re wondering about TX-22-style hilarity ensuing, the Alaska Division of Elections confirms that a voter can spell her name incorrectly and still have the vote count, which makes the prospect of a write-in campaign for Linda Mukrosky somewhat more doable.
• CO-Sen: Ken Buck may have dirty boots, but he’s been busy scrubbing his website sparkly clean. The Michael Bennet camp has been observing lots of minor changes to Buck’s website to make it more mainstream-y, with softer-sounding rewrites on his issues page on Afghanistan, stem cell research, and immigration.
• DE-Sen: In another sign that the GOP primary between Mike Castle and Christine O’Donnell isn’t dialing down, both Castle and the Tea Party Express (on behalf of O’Donnell) are both extending their previous ad buys, starting today and running through next Tuesday’s election. Again, kudos to Hotline’s Jeremy Jacobs, who knows not only the Size Of The Buy but the complete breakdown (Castle, for instance, spent $75K in the Salisbury broadcast market, $27K on statewide cable, and $43K on radio, while the TPX spent $32K on cable only). He also susses out that at the current trajectory, the TPX will reach only slightly past the halfway point on its promise to spend $250K on O’Donnell, unless they want to blow a lot of money at the last minute in the pricey Philadelphia market. Meanwhile, TPM checks out how TPX’s ongoing moneybomb for O’Donnell has been going, who has raised $89K since TPX got involved. Despite O’Donnell’s frequent attacks on Castle’s use of out-of-state money to power his campaign, they highlighted their $250+ donors, and a grand total of one (of 56) was a Delawarean.
• FL-Sen, FL-25: Biden alert! With Kendrick Meek having raised some bucks at a New York appearance with Bill Clinton last night, now he turns his attention to an upcoming fundraiser with the VPOTUS. (Expect to see the usual GOP carping about “Big Hollywood,” seeing as how the fundraiser is in Hollywood. Hollywood, Florida, that is.) 25th District candidate Joe Garcia will also be a beneficiary.
• PA-Sen: The Philadelphia Inquirer has a rundown of Pat Toomey’s past history of earmarks, in of course blatant contradiction with the pledges of austerity that define his current campaign… yet another Republican example of government largesse for me, but not for thee. In his first term in PA-15, Toomey won $9 million in earmarks, including $3 million for one company (Air Products & Chemicals) that then became his single biggest campaign contributor.
• CA-Gov: Steve Poizner seems to have finally gotten the message, if a few months on the late (and tepid) side. The Republican primary loser gave his endorsement to Meg Whitman yesterday… via press release.
• MI-Gov: Local pollster Mitchell Research is out with what appears to be their first poll of the general election in the Michigan gubernatorial race; like most pollsters, they find Republican Rick Snyder with a solid lead. He’s ahead of Democrat Virg Bernero 53-26.
• OH-Gov: Bill Clinton will be in Ohio on behalf of (Hillary endorser) Ted Strickland on the 14th, also the day of his first debate with John Kasich. Clinton will stump for Strickland in both Cleveland and Columbus.
• NC-08: With the DCCC having rolled out a GQR internal poll yesterday giving Larry Kissell a decent lead (48-36) in the 8th (on top of Kissell releasing his own internal in late August with a 49-32 lead), GOP rival Harold Johnson offered up his own poll today to show he’s still in this thing. His poll from POS finds Kissell still leading, but by a more surmountable margin: 39-34.
• NV-03: Politico has details on EMILY’s List weighing into the 3rd, with a two-week TV ad blitz going after Joe Heck on women’s health issues (like his vote against mandated insurance coverage for the HPV vaccine). While the article doesn’t have a link to the ad, let alone the Size Of The Buy, it does have a very interesting look at the advanced micro-targeting they’re using, focusing on very specific TV shows as well as Hulu and Facebook users.
• OH-16: Someone get Jim Renacci a high school history textbook, stat! When asked at the candidates’ first debate what he’d like to do about civil rights, the Republican challenger to John Boccieri retreated to Rand Paul-style teabagger boilerplate, saying “We need to get our federal government out of the way,” and that it was better dealt with as “local issues.” Yeah, because local and state governments in the 50s and 60s were the paragons of tolerance and virtue during the civil rights movement, and that federal government just came in and screwed everything up…
• DGA: If you’ve been wondering what they’re up to at the DGA, they’re out with a strategy memo that outlines the next few months. Wisely, they’re most concerned with the states with the greatest population and hence greatest redistricting impact, meaning that the smaller states with Dem-held open seats (Kansas, Wyoming, etc.) have already probably been on the losing end of their triage decisions.
• TX-St. House: We at SSP have been remiss in focusing on state legislatures in the last few months (for the same reason everyone else has — it’s hard to get good intelligence on them, and there’s too dang much to focus on just at the national level alone), but Burnt Orange Report has done a bang-up job profiling the race for the Texas state House, one of the few legislatures where the Dems are on the offensive and have a slim but legitimate shot at a flip. They’ve written up summaries of the 21 hottest races, all helpfully collected in one place at the link.
• SSP TV:
• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias ad rolling out his biggest gun: backing from Barack Obama
• PA-Sen: Not one but two ads from Pat Toomey ads with pretzel logic about how his time on Wall Street tells him that one shouldn’t bail out Wall Street
• WI-Sen: Ron Johnson ad hits Russ Feingold again for being a career politician
AK-Sen: Joe Miller sure sounds like he’s measuring the drapes here, doesn’t he, with his talk about how much he’d “love” to serve on the Judiciary and Armed Services committees? Donate to Scott McAdams and help make sure we force Joe Miller to make a humiliating, droopy-dog run back to Neiman Marcus to return those curtains.
DE-Sen: Oh, I’m afraid the Tea Party Express will be QUITE operational by the time Mike Castle arrives! The NYT reports that the TPX is going up with five different ads (two TV and three radio) on behalf of Christine O’Donnell, and they have a rough cut of one of the TV spots (check the link). As for how big a buy we’re talking, the TPX just filed its first independent expenditure report, for $46K. Their usual practice is to dribble things out in smallish reports one at a time – but don’t worry, it’ll snowball.
FL-Sen: Charlie Crist is spending over half a million on a new TV buy. We don’t know what ads he’ll be running, but the St. Petersburg Times has some pretty good info on where they’ll appear (notably in Dem-leaning markets). Check the link for full details.
WI-Sen: GOPer Ron Johnson raised $1.2 million between July 1 and Aug. 25th, while Sen. Russ Feingold took in $920K. Johnson also loaned his campaign another $2.9 million out of his own coffers (which of course have been greatly bolstered over the years by government loans and grants to his plastics company). RonJo has been outspending Feingold, though, and has $1.6 mil in the bank compared to the senator’s $3.1 mil.
FL-Gov: Alex Sink has a new ad, touching on the oil spill and calling for a diversification of Florida’s economy. NWOTSOTB, but the spot is apparently airing in Florida’s panhandle.
GA-Gov: Nathan Deal just performed a classic document dump – and not one that’s likely to help him. He made public 28 years of his personal income tax returns, but none of this has anything to do with his auto salvage business which was the focus of a probe by the Office of Congressional Ethics.
CO-04: The House Race Hotline reports that the NRCC has reserved over $1 million in air time in the 4th CD. Let’s see if they actually come through with all that scrilla, though.
FL-08: Put away your can openers – no cat fud here. All six of Dan Webster’s Republican primary rivals have endorsed him, including teabagger Patricia Sullivan. However, Peg Dunmire is still in the race, on the actual Tea Party line.
IN-02: Joe Donnelly has a new spot out (NWOTSOTB), hitting Jackie Walorski for her support of a 23% national sales tax (as well as her desire to eliminate the home mortgage interest deduction). This issue is one that helped sink GOPer Tim Burns in the PA-12 special, so it has potency. I know that sometimes when Dems sink their teeth into this one, weenie liberals like to whine that what Republicans really mean is that they want to replace other taxes with this one. You know what? Let them make that argument. You don’t need to make it for them.
IN-09: Republican Todd Young has a new ad out, featuring footage of Baron Hill imperiously telling a journalism student that she couldn’t videotape a town hall. NWOTSOTB, but CQ notes that the spot is “currently airing only in the Louisville, Ky. market.”
LA-02: With Al Franken acting, you know, senatorial, it looks like Joe Cao has decided to take up the mantle of Stuart Smalley. Sayeth Cao: “I love the president, and I believe he truly likes me.” What a wiener.
MA-09: Labor activist Mac D’Alessandro scored the endorsement of NARAL in his primary bid against anti-choice incumbent Rep. Stephen Lynch. D’Alessandro raised $178K in the pre-primary period (7/1-8/25) and had $158K on hand for the stretch run. Lynch took in only $66K but had a million bucks in the bank.
NJ-03: Dem Rep. John Adler received the endorsement of the Veterans of Foreign Wars, which did not back anyone in the race two years ago. They also say they’ll provide financial help. (The Courier Post notes that the district includes Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst.) Adler’s also got a second negative spot out, hitting Republican Jon Runyan for his minimalist voting record. NWOTSOTB, and get a load of this stonewalling: “Campaign manager Geoff Mackler would not disclose the size of the buy, where the ads were committed to air or for how long they would air, saying he does not discuss strategy with reporters.” But I don’t think that should be the end of the story for a journalist. Hell, one of my jobs on a campaign I worked on in the 90s was to track down enemy ad buys. Reporters can do it, too. (And BTW, if you haven’t seen Adler’s first ad, I highly recommend you do so.)
NH-01, NH-02: John DiStaso has an asburd wealth of updates on New Hampshire’s two House races, including word that Charlie Bass is set to release his first ad (watch it here), a $40,000 buy on New Hampshire TV. There’s also news of a GOP primary poll in the 1st CD, taken by Cross Target on behalf of the right-wing group Americans for Prosperity. Sean Mahoney is at 33, Frank Guinta at 26, Rich Ashooh at 10, and Bob Bestani at 5. Mahoney’s been out with a positive/negative ad comparing his record to Guinta’s, making it clear that he thinks this poll is right about who the real contenders are. Guinta apparently has a new response ad coming this week.
NY-24: Mike Arcuri is up with a new ad, a positive bio spot. NWOTSOTB, though he has two slightly different versions, one of which is airing in Utica, the other Syracuse (see both here).
PA-07: A nice break for Dem Bryan Lentz: After a series of adverse rulings, Pat Meehan’s campaign withdrew its legal challenge to the candidacy of Jim Schneller, a teabagger who petitioned his way on to the ballot… thanks to a lot of help from Lentz supporters.
PA-10: Interesting: Back when he was a US Attorney, Tom Marino served as a reference for a casino application for a man his office was investigating. In fact, the news was so explosive it led to the DOJ transferring the investigation to another office – and to Marino’s resignation as USA. Back in May, though, Marino told a radio host that the DOJ had given him written permission to provide that reference, but he hasn’t produced it (yet). Dem Chris Carney is hitting him for this, asking, “Where’s the letter?”
WI-08: Steve Kagen is up with his first ad, and it’s a good one. Among other things, he touts the fact that he has refused congressional health coverage until everyone in America has health insurance. He also refers to himself as “Dr. Steve Kagen,” which is probably a helpful alternative to “Congressman” these days.
Enthusiasm Gap: Tom Jensen takes a look at a painful “what if” – as in, what if there were no enthusiasm gap between Democrats and Republicans this year? Among other things, he thinks Alex Sink would have a double-digit lead and that Elaine Marshall would be running slightly ahead of Richard Burr. But check out his full chart.
Dumping Ground: We’ve brought up some serious methodological issues in the past that we have with those zone-flooding American Action Fund House race polls, so it’s best if we just confine the following to their own quarantine zone. (Those issues, by the way, included extremely aged samples and the fact that the GOP pollster, Ayres McHenry, asked respondents about their opinion of the healthcare bill right before diving into the topline match-ups.)
AZ-01: Ann Kirkpatrick (D-inc) 41%, Paul Gosar (R) 47%
AZ-05: Harry Mitchell (D-inc) 44%, David Schweikert (R) 50%
AZ-08: Gabby Giffords (D-inc) 46%, Jesse Kelly (R) 46%
CA-11: Jerry McNerney (D-inc) 44%, David Harmer (R) 45%
CA-47: Loretta Sanchez (D-inc) 45%, Van Tran (R) 43%
• DE-Sen: Wow, the mounting establishment/teabagger war in the GOP Delaware primary is actually getting physically violent. A Christine O’Donnell supporter got into a scuffle with a tracker from the state GOP party who was videotaping O’Donnell at a candidate forum
• IL-Sen: The Constitution Party is still trying to get back on the ballot in Illinois, maybe most notably in the close Senate race where Randy Stufflebeam would be their candidate. They’re going to court to get back on the ballot after the state Board of Elections kicked them off for not having enough valid signatures.
• NV-Sen: School’s out for the summer/ school’s out… forever! The latest daily nugget of crazy from Sharron Angle is her recounting last week of her struggles back in the state legislature in 2003 against a supplemental budget bill that would have paid for emergency funding to make sure that the state’s public schools could actually open at the start of the school year. Meanwhile, Harry Reid is continuing his apparently successful advertising strategy of letting Angle say the usual things she says, and just turning them straight into his own ads against her, as with his newest ad launched this week.
• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov: Despite the utter lack of drama in the big races in the Empire State, Quinnipiac just keeps polling it. (I guess that’s OK; we’ll take good news where we can get it.) In the governor’s race, Andrew Cuomo beats Rick Lazio 57-25 and Carl Paladino 60-23. (Unfortunately, there aren’t GOP primary numbers, as it’d be interesting to see, as other pollsters have seen, whether Paladino might actually be able to overtake the insufficiently-crazy Lazio for the nomination.) In the Senate race, Kirsten Gillibrand beats Bruce Blakeman 44-26, David Malpass 45-24, and Joe DioGuardi 43-28.
• CO-Gov: If either Dan Maes or Tom Tancredo is going to drop out and stop their tragic pas de deux, it’d better be soon. Friday, it turns out, is the last day before the November ballot printing is finalized. Meanwhile, here’s the kind of headline you don’t want to see when you’re already fighting public perception that you’re a bit of a paranoid wackjob who thinks that bicycles are a United Nations plot:
GOP gubernatorial candidate Maes backs off claims of undercover police work
• KY-Gov: The establishment slate for Kentucky Republicans for the off-year gubernatorial race (only a year from now!) seems like it’s officially coalesced. David Williams, the state Senate president, will run for Governor, and Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer (who’d been a rumored governor candidate himself) will run for Lt. Governor. They’ll still have to get past businessman Phil Moffet, running under the teabagger banner, in the GOP primary before facing Steve Beshear, who’ll be seeking re-election. A recent poll had Farmer and Beshear neck-and-neck, but there hasn’t been any Beshear/Williams polling yet.
• MA-09: Mac d’Allesandro’s against Stephen Lynch in the Dem primary in the 9th is raising some decent cash in the late innings. Since July 1st, the SEIU, MoveOn, and Act Blue have raised $178K for d’Allesandro.
• PA-06: DNC DGA head Tim Kaine heads to Philly to fundraise on Manan Trivedi’s behalf, as part of a tour on behalf of Asian-American Dem candidates. Trivedi’s also had help on the stump this week from Bob Casey and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.
• RGA: Good thing the RGA already has an unprecedented amount of money squirreled away… because they’re going to have to give a decent chunk of it to Chris Bell, the ex-Rep. who was the 2006 Dem gubernatorial candidate in Texas. A Travis County judge ordered the RGA to pay Chris Bell a cosmic $2 million because of campaign finance violations in the ’06 election (where the RGA gave an undisclosed $1 million to Texans for Rick Perry).
• WATN?: This isn’t really FL-Sen anymore, but Jeff Greene is insisting on staying in the limelight even as his vomit-covered yacht sails into the sunset. In fact, the phrase “vomit-covered yacht” is really what’s at stake here; he says he’s following through with a libel suit against the St. Petersburg Times and Miami Herald over their reporting of his many foibles. Good luck proving actual malice!
• Maps: They’re rapidly scrolling their way down the front page, so if you haven’t had a chance to check out jeffmd’s maps of Alaskan elections past, do it now. Begich/Stevens, Murkowski/Miller, and Young/Parnell all played out in similar ways, geographically, so if you’re wondering what Scott McAdam’s path to a win might look like, check it out.
• Ads:
• NH-Sen: We told you a few days ago that Ovide Lamontagne was finally going on the air; his first ad is a talk-to-the-camera introductory spot.
• PA-Sen: The DSCC is out with another ad, attacking Pat Toomey on the derivatives trading issue.
• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold’s new ad is testimonials from a variety of (as C. Montgomery Burns would say) Joe Lunchpails and Sally Housecoats.
• IN-02: Jackie Walorski is out with an introductory bio spot.
• NE-02: Tom White is also out with an introductory bio spot, carefully steering clear of anything Democratic-sounding.
• NJ-03: John Adler may actually win the advertising day today, with a negative spot that slams Jon Runyan for his tax break for his “farm” (a.k.a. McMansion plus one donkey).
• NV-03: Dina Titus hits Joe Heck for comments that “it’s not Congress’s role to create jobs.” (This comes on top of the AFSCME’s huge buy of anti-Heck ads.)
• Rasmussen:
• LA-Sen: Charlie Melancon (D) 33%, David Vitter (R-inc) 54%
• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 39%, John Kasich (R) 47%
• PA-Gov: Dan Onorato (D) 37%, Tom Corbett (R) 50%
AK-Sen: Lulz. Ex-state Rep. Andrew Halcro is still carrying the torch for a Murkowski Libertarian bid, despite the fact that the Alaska Libertarian Party voted to reject having Murkowski on their ticket over the weekend. Halcro is telling The Hill (and anyone else willing to listen, apparently), that he thinks the Libertarians would be willing to reconsider, as long as Murkowski is the one who reaches out directly. And maybe he’s actually got something there, as the state Libertarian chair, Scott Kohlhass, said yesterday that “as a sitting senator, we’d always be open to sitting down and talking to Lisa Murkowski.” This is the same guy who, we remind you, previously announced that Murkowski was unwelcome on their ticket due to “fundamental differences”. Make up your minds already!
It’s also worth noting that Murkowski didn’t sound all that interested in carrying this fight on to the general election in her concession speech last night. While she didn’t endorse Miller, she spoke of her plans for the future, saying that she was looking forward to “coming home” at the end of her term. I don’t think a Libertarian bid, or a write-in campaign, is in the cards.
Meanwhile, the NRSC has been busy trying to convince the world that Joe Miller has this shit locked. On Monday, they released a Basswood Research poll (8/28-29, likely voters) showing Miller leading Sitka Mayor Scott McAdams by 52-36. PPP tested the race around the same time and found Miller ahead by only 47-39.
FL-Gov: The St. Pete Times is hearing “considerable buzz” that Bud Chiles, the son of legendary former Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles, will pull the plug on his independent gubernatorial candidacy. Chiles, who seemed to be having a net-neutral impact on the race due to his support from Dixiecrat-flavored voters, reportedly was spotted having lunch with Democrat Alex Sink in Miami yesterday. Is an endorsement on tap?
WI-Gov: Jesus. Are these the kind of headlines that you really want to be generating?
Wis. cand. runs fighting ad aimed at attack victim
Scott Walker is up with a new ad in which he dons boxing gloves and vows to “go the distance” against Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. Barrett, as you may recall, was brutally attacked while intervening in a domestic violence incident at the Wisconsin State Fairgrounds last summer, sustaining injuries from which he may never fully recover. Talk about not thinking through all the angles…
CT-05: GOP state Sen. Sam Caligiuri won the endorsement of the Independent Party of Connecticut yesterday, meaning that he’ll appear on the ballot against SSP hero Chris Murphy on both the Republican and Independent lines.
IA-03: Dem Rep. Leonard Boswell rolled out an endorsement Monday from architect Mark Rees… who was most recently seen losing the Republican primary for the nomination to challenge Boswell back in June. Rees, who drew 4% in the GOP primary, says that he’s backing Boswell because the Republican nominee, state Sen. Brad Zaun, is too far to the right “on all the issues”.
NV-03: AFSCME shelled out $750K for attack ads on GOPer Joe Heck, and they’re out with their second ad in the series, a thirty-second spot on the topic of Social Security privatization.
NY-24: Here’s a double-dose of bad news for Mike Arcuri. First, the New York Board of Elections recommended that Libertarian Ernest Logan Bell be removed from the ballot after coming up short on valid ballot signatures. (Never fear, fans of liberty, Bell’s encouraging his supporters to write-in his name in November.) Next, it seems that Arcuri’s “NY Moderates” Party line is in jeopardy. Republicans in the district pointed out the existence of a state statute that says that ballot lines aren’t allowed to include the words “New York.” Election officials say that may cause Arcuri’s indie line to go up in smoke, but are putting off a final decision on the matter until September 16th. Arcuri’s attorney, for what it’s worth, says that the party name will merely change to “Moderates”. Good luck with that.
VA-09: Benenson Strategy Group (8/18-22, likely voters) for Rick Boucher:
Rick Boucher (D-inc): 55
Morgan Griffith (R): 32
Is that too optimistic for Boucher? Perhaps, but it’s not entirely far-fetched, either. A July poll by SurveyUSA — not the most Dem-friendly pollster this cycle — had Boucher up by 52-39. Despite the bottom falling out for so many Democratic incumbents in tough districts, Boucher appears to have more staying power than some of his colleagues.
WI-07: At SSP, we always try to give you the Size Of The Buy where possible. We reported yesterday that the DCCC was hitting the airwaves with their first independent expenditure ad of the cycle against ex-Real World star Sean Duffy. Turns out the buy is for $36,500 — not breaking the bank by any means, but House party committees rarely saturate the airwaves in August.