Tag: Tom Corbett

Senate:

• FL-Sen: Do you remember Craig Miller? I barely do. He’s the wealthy former steakhouse exec who was the Republican Plan C in the FL-24 primary last year… and in an amusing bit of synchronicity, came in third, behind now-Rep. Sandy Adams and the batshit nuts Karen Diebel. Hoping to fail upward, Miller is now looking at the Senate race and plans to decide “within the next few weeks.” I have no idea what he thinks he niche might be, and it’s not clear to me that he has the money to overwhelm the field.

• IN-Sen, IN-Gov: Former Rep. Tim Roemer says he’s stepping down as ambassador to India. Could this presage a return to Hoosier politics? I’m skeptical, as Dems already have legit candidates lining up for both marquee statewide races. (And for what it’s worth, an unnamed source told The Hill last month that Roemer wasn’t likely to run for Senate.)

• MA-Sen: This is just weird. Despite repeatedly saying he isn’t interested in running for Senate, Deval Patrick somehow keeps finding himself talking about the subject. This time, he said that he had talked with the President about other jobs, but wouldn’t say whether Obama had asked him to run against Scott Brown. Patrick again said he doesn’t want to run, and added: “I would say no to the president of the United States.”

• ND-Sen: When the Club for Growth takes aim at an otherwise top-tier Republican candidate, you know you have premium-grade cat fud ready to be served. Le Club’s target now is freshman Rep. Rick Berg, who went from a seemingly distant possibility to not-running-but-virtual-frontrunner status almost instantly a week ago. They’re accusing Berg of being insufficiently pro-dystopia, i.e., not supporting enough cuts to federal government spending. I really hope they can find a dog… er… cat for this fight.

• NV-Sen: Sometimes PPP deliberately polls for the lulz, and sometimes, the lulz find them. In this case, it’s the latter: Tom Jensen’s band of merry robodialers found Dean Heller beating Sharron Angle in a hypothetical GOP primary by a score of… LOL… 84-8. (“El Exigente, what more could you want?” “Their names.”) Meanwhile, on the Dem side, where there does appear to be an actual primary, Rep. Shelley Berkeley leads wealthy attorney Byron Georgiou by a 65-8 margin. Good times.

• PA-Sen: Apparently, there’s two things Quinnipiac won’t do: a) release sample compositions and b) test incumbents against hypothetical opponents whose names don’t start with “Generic.” Anyhow, Sen. Bob Casey has inched up to a 46-34 lead against “the Republican candidate.” He was 45-35 two months ago.

• UT-Sen: Speaking of the Club for Growth, they just put out their 2010 scorecard, and Orrin Hatch’s numbers really demonstrate the Club’s power. Despite a lifetime score of 74% (30th among Senators in office last year), Hatch managed to rack up a 97% rating last year, tying him with several other Republicans for third place. What a difference a sword of Damocles makes.

• VA-Sen: Hmm. Ultra-wingnut Del. Bob Marshall’s 2008 campaign manager just got hired by George Allen… and the dude didn’t even tell his old boss first. Marshall’s been looking at a possible Senate run, and I think he’s the best hope (albeit not a great hope) we have of knocking off Allen in the GOP primary, but it’s not clear what impact this will have on his plans. One positive tea-leaf: In response to the news, Marshall said, “You can tell who the candidates are not by where the consultants go, but where the volunteers go.”

Gubernatorial:

• PA-Gov: Uhh… did Gov. Tom Corbett just say that state universities sitting atop the Marcellus Shale should plug their budget gap by allowing exploitation of the natural gas reserves beneath them? Why yes he did. If you aren’t familiar with the deeply fraught issue of hydraulic fracturing (also known as “hydrofracking” or just “fracking”), this NYT piece is a good place to start. Fracking is a devastatingly poisonous method of extracting gas, and Pennsylvania is at the epicenter of the fracking debate. Indeed, the EPA is investigating a fracking spill that took place there just last week. UPDATE: Hah, sheez. Corbett literally lifted this idea from an episode of Saved by the Bell! NOT kidding! Click the link!

• WV-Gov: Former Republican SoS Betty Ireland is finally out with her first TV ad, which I think has a weird soundtrack, odd staccato pacing, and (at least in the version her campaign posted to YouTube) crappy audio quality. I think she could definitely lose.

House:

• AZ-06: Yesterday we noted that state House Speaker Kirk Adams was resigning his post. Later that day, he formally announced he was, as expected, running in the GOP primary in the open 6th CD. Retiring Sen. Jon Kyl immediately endorsed Adams, while Rep. Trent Franks endorsed Matt Salmon, who is also running for this post

• NV-02: Roll Call’s Kyle Trygstad does a nice job digging up some facts about a 1954 special election to replace Nevada Sen. Pat McCarran, who passed away in September of that year. (If you’ve ever flown to Vegas, that’s the guy the airport is named after.) There was some legal wrangling as to whether a special election was actually required, but once the state Supreme Court ruled yes, the parties selected their nominees by committee, not primary. That could possibly serve as precedent as SoS Ross Miller decides whether state law requires that parties choose their candidates, but Nevada’s current statutes were revised only a decade ago, so the McCarran case may not be applicable.

• NY-23: A few weeks ago, the NRCC mocked a batch of miniscule radio ad buys by the DCCC and said: “At what point does a campaign committee blush when launching a ‘paid advertising campaign?'” Apparently, that point must lie somewhere below $4,550, which is the amount the NRCC is spending on a tiny TV buy in Rep. Bill Owens’ district. (It’s some lame Pelosi-related attack.)

I’d also like to give some props to Steve Peoples of Roll Call for basically ignoring the contents of the ad and focusing on exactly what the NRCC is trying to accomplish here. I don’t know if he wrote the headline, but it can’t be what Republicans were hoping for: “NRCC Takes Turn With Small Ad Buy Targeting Earned Media.” And in referring a radio ad against Rep. Mike Ross that we noted the other day, Peoples used the kind of language you might find on SSP, saying that the NRCC “convinced a local paper to write a story about the radio buy but refused at the time to disclose the size of the investment.” (It turned out to be $2,550.) If you’re going to write up a story like this, this is how it should be written.

Other Races:

• IN-SoS: The GOP-held state legislature has backed off a bit on attempting to rewrite the law in order to get around the Charlie White mess. (If this is the first you’re hearing of the whole saga, I would suggest checking out our IN-SoS tag.) The proposed new law would give the governor the power to appoint replacement officers only on a prospective basis, so it won’t affect the White situation. However, the legislation will still prevent the GOP from losing their major-party status (which was keyed to the SoS race) if the worst happens.

• NJ-St. Sen.: The legal wrangling over Democrat Carl Lewis’s ballot eligibility has heated up quickly. Lewis has filed suits in both state and federal court, and a federal court judge has already ordered LG/SoS/Chris Christie goon Kim Guadagno to explain her decision booting Lewis from the ballot earlier this week. Lewis is still busy campaigning, and if he’s ultimately declared eligible, I think all this rigmarole might wind up helping him, given that it’s free media.

Redistricting:

• Colorado: I’m guessing that Republicans are wishing state Sen. Greg Brophy hadn’t cracked out of turn and admitted that proposed GOP maps had been deliberately “skewed to the right.” That certainly won’t help them when the entire matter winds up in court, which Republican state Rep. Don Coram acknowledged was inevitable anyway. In a bit worthy of Stephen Colbert, Lynn Bartels of the Denver Post writes: “Brophy said Republicans got nervous when they heard Democrats were pushing so-called competitive seats, which he said favor Democrats….” Ah, indeed, the facts do have a well-known liberal bias.

Connecticut: According to the Greenwich Time, Dem state House Speaker Christopher Donovan has his eye on Rep. Chris Murphy’s open 5th CD, and would very much like to have the blue stronghold of Bridgeport drawn into it. That would remove it from Rep. Jim Himes’s district, but if you look at a map, it’s rather hard to envision this happening without doing a lot of reshuffling. Of course, anything is possible, but given how minor CT’s population deviations are, a serious reconfiguration of the map would seem to be uncalled for.

• Indiana: The Hoosier State is poised to become the fourth to finalize a redistricting map. The Republican-held state legislature has given its approval to a new plan, which now goes to GOP Gov. Mitch Daniels for his signature.

• Massachusetts: A seemingly clever bit of politics by Scott Brown, but there’s a “but.” Brown sent a letter to the state legislature’s redistricting committee, advocating for a majority-minority congressional seat to be drawn in the Suffolk County region, and also to press for more maj-min districts in the state lege. Who knows whether the idiots in the legislature will listen to him, but Brown of course is simultaneously pushing for new district lines which will ultimately favor Republicans (by packing minorities) and, more importantly, he gets to look like he’s protecting minority interests, all at no cost to himself.

Here’s the “but”: Brown doesn’t seem to know what he’s talking about. Rep. Mike Capuano, who would be most affected by Brown’s proposal, fired back, saying his 8th CD already is majority-minority. It’s about 54.5% “white” according to the Census, but that includes Hispanics who also identify as white, so the non-Hispanic white %age is almost certainly below 50%. (Some 19% of 8th CD residents identify as Hispanic, of any race.) Oops.

• Nevada: I’m not going to get into this one in too much detail (my brain can only hold so much redistricting-related information), but Nevada Republicans are now bitterly split over new maps that GOPers in the state Senate drew for the state Assembly. Why didn’t the Assembly draw its own maps? They did, but the morons who drew them were advised not to release them because lawyers thought they didn’t comply with the VRA. Meanwhile, Dems in both chambers worked together to release a joint set of plans. However, they still haven’t released their congressional map. Anyhow, you can find more details under the “Related Documents” sections at both links.

• Oklahoma: Unsurprisingly, the map that the state House unanimously approved appears ready to sail through the state Senate, too. Shira Toeplitz suggested in her writeup (which is a few days old) that the new plan could be signed into law this week, but it hasn’t actually been voted on by the full Senate as of this writing.

• Texas: The cat fud is ready to fly in Texas redistricting, where ruthless Republican leaders are prepared to run roughshod over their own incumbents in the aims of preserving and maximizing their advantage to the greatest extent possible. In other words, they’re staying true to the spirit of Tom DeLay. In the abstract sense, it’s a ruthlessness I admire, and I wish Dems would adopt it. In any case, I wouldn’t be surprised if the final maps pass in spite of a lot of GOP defections – though maybe a few horse heads in a few beds will solve that problem.

• Virginia: I’m glad to see that Republicans in the state Senate are as happy to act like sheep as Democrats in the state House. The Democrats’ new map passed yesterday by a 32-5 margin. Reading the linked article really makes me feel like this whole thing has been a grand kabuki, with Gov. Bob McDonnell playing everyone – even members of his own party – like puppets. McDonnell simply had to show he could extract a price from Democrats, and so he has. However, I note that the congressional map is now completely untethered from the legislative maps. If Democrats agree to an 8-3 map now, well, fuck them. Once McDonnell signs the lege plans into law, there’s no going back, and there’s no reason at all not to force the courts to draw a federal map.

Senate:

• FL-Sen: George LeMieux is unsurprisingly trying to distance himself from the label “Charlie Crist Republican,” but all I can say is… good luck with that. The Miami Herald has a lengthy look at just how close the two men were, and while Crist himself won’t say a word against LeMieux, other former staffers are more than happy to detail just how tight their working relationship was.

• MA-Sen: Hey, Richie Neal: Shut the fuck up. Seriously. What is it with Democratic congressmen from Massachusetts who love to crack out of turn? First Barney Frank, and now this crap. And yeah, you’ll have to click the link if you want to know what I’m worked up about.

• TX-Sen: Over at Burnt Orange Report, Karl-Thomas Musselman, a long-time friend of SSP, has a good piece about Democrats’ flawed strategies in Texas statewide races over the last decade, and how Team Blue should approach things differently going forward.

Gubernatorial:

• IA-Gov: In a way, this might be the roughest “do-over” poll of all. Former Dem Gov. Chet Culver lost by double digits last fall, the worst performance of any incumbent governor, yet even he now beats Terry Branstad 48-46 in a hypothetical PPP rematch.

• PA-Gov: GOP Gov. Tom Corbett’s disapproval rating has soared in the past couple of months. He was at 39-11 in February, and is now at 39-37, according to Quinnipiac. I guess this means not a single new person in the state of PA grew to approve of Corbett in two months!

House:

• AZ-06, AZ-Sen: It’s getting hard to keep track of what Republican Russell Pearce’s plans are. The author of Arizona’s notorious immigration law supposedly was out of the running for the open Senate seat, was heavily talked up for the open 6th CD, then was talked down for it, and is now saying he’s leaving both doors open. He says he wants to stay on through the end of the 2012 legislative session, though, and Arizona has a resign-to-run law, so who knows.

On the other hand, House Speaker Kirk Adams just announced that he will resign from the legislature, which can only mean he’s gearing up for a run in the 6th. (We’ve mentioned his name a couple of times before as a possibility.) It’s going to be a crowded GOP primary, as the field already includes ex-Rep. Matt Salmon (who used to hold this seat, more or less) and former state Senate majority leader Chuck Gray.

• IA-04: These are statewide numbers, but still interesting: Steve King is the least-popular member of Iowa’s congressional delegation, with 27-34 favorables. Christie Vilsack, meanwhile, is at 38-23. Certainly these scores within the new fourth district would look different, but unless there is some wild base of support for King in northwest Iowa, I can’t see how you wouldn’t prefer to have Vilsack’s numbers.

• NC-11: Asheville City Councilman Cecil Bothwell says he’ll challenge Rep. Health Shuler in the Democratic primary next year. Shuler, thanks to his vote against healthcare reform, took just 61% in a primary last year against Aixa Wilson, who did not even file any FEC reports.

• ND-AL: With a Rick Berg run for Senate looking likely, people are starting to look at filling his at-large House seat. On the Republican side, state House Majority Leader Al Carlson said he’s considering a race.  Other possible names, according to the linked piece, are state Sen. Tony Grindberg and Tax Commissioner Cory Fong. I wonder if PSC Commish Brian Kalk might slide down from the Senate race, too.

• NV-02: Oh well, I can’t always be right! Sharron Angle shot down an unsourced rumor in the LVRJ that she’d run as an independent in the special election to replace Dean Heller if she isn’t chosen as the GOP nominee. (She won’t be.)

• NY-13: Now it’s Mike Grimm’s turn to tell his side of the story about his instantly notorious nightclub incident from 1999. Meanwhile, NYC Public Advocate Bill DeBlasio is calling on the NYPD and DoJ to release their records from their investigations of the matter. Not really sure why DeBlas, of all people, is inserting himself into this one, except perhaps to try to take a GOP scalp as he eyes the 2013 mayoral race.

• OR-01: Here’s another interesting bit of sub-text to the whole David Wu saga: Nike. The sneaker company has apparently never forgiven Wu for his vote against a bill that would have expanded trade with China back in 2000, and Nike’s chairman endorsed Republican Rob Cornilles last year. (The company also donated to him via their PAC.) It’ll probably be easier to get rid of Wu in the Democratic primary, though, so Nike may decide to get involved yet again.

Senate:

• FL-Sen, FL-Gov: Suffolk University does a little poking around in the Sunshine State and finds that Sen. Bill Nelson winds up with rather good 43-24 favorables (including strong 30-39 marks among Republicans). Rick Scott, though, not so good… he’s gasping at 32-47 overall. (President Obama stands at 48-44.) Suffolk also tested the GOP Senate primary (see Q.14 on p. 3), but no one scores higher than 7% in their kitchen sink head-to-head hypothetical, so I can’t say it’s worth very much.

• NE-Sen: Dem Sen. Ben Nelson says he raised over $1 million in Q1 and has $2.3 million on hand.

• NJ-Sen: Dem Sen. Bob Menendez apparently raised $1.6 million in Q1 and had about $4 million on hand.

• NV-Sen: Interesting: Aaron Blake is telling his WaPo colleague Felicia Sonmez that the DSCC is formally endorsing Rep. Shelley Berkley in her bid for Senate. This is probably a message to Byron Georgiou that he might want to think about finding something else to do.

• PA-Sen: Dem Sen. Bob Casey took in $1.1 million in Q1 and has over $2.1 million on hand.

Gubernatorial:

• PA-Gov: Tom Jensen loves the re-do polls, and so do we, of course. This time, it’s Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett, who would lose in a hypothetical rematch to Dan Onorato by a 49-44 margin. Corbett’s job approvals are at a sucky 34-44, which is interesting because unlikely the other Republican governors PPP’s been testing, Corbett hasn’t been caught at ground zero in labor-related disputes or (ala Rick Scott) in endless conflagrations with legislators in his own party.

• RI-Gov: Brand-new Gov. Lincoln Chafee says he might run as a Dem if he seeks re-election in 2014 – and also says he might not endorse President Obama for re-election. At first I imagined he was trying to preserver wankerish “moderate” credentials, but if you read the linked article, you’ll see he actually criticizes Obama from the left for giving away too much in the recent government shutdown showdown.

House:

• IA-03: Could the truly crazy Rep. Steve King really be scoping out a potential run in the proposed new 3rd CD? King, as you know, would be thrown into a new 4th CD with fellow Republican Tom Latham if Iowa’s new maps pass into law, as expected. That’s not a particularly appealing choice, but would a matchup with Dem Rep. Leonard Boswell in the new 3rd be any better? Blogger desmoinesdem, who lives in the 3rd, says she received a robocall from King asking if she supported a “total repeal of Obamacare.” Another commenter at Bleeding Heartland says he, too, received the same call – but he’s in the new 2nd, so it may just be that King is trying to raise money from Obama haters throughout the state. (The call included options for offering to donate to King.)

• LA-03, LA-07: With Louisiana’s new maps becoming law (see bullet below in Redistricting Roundup), the big issue now is what happens between Republican Reps. Charles Boustany and Jeff Landry. The CW has long been that Landry, a teabagger who beat an establishment GOPer for the seat, would be left out in the cold. But I’m starting to wonder if maybe the knives will be out for Boustany instead. Boustany, you’ll recall, very nearly derailed the entire redistricting process late in the day, prompting all five other Republican congressmen to ask that mapmaking be delayed for an entire year. An angry state legislature refused to entertain that possibility, but there was still a lot of ill will toward Boustany. Indeed, Rep. John Fleming said of Boustany last week: “I don’t feel like I can trust anything he says. Everything he told me, he reneged on.” In any event, Boustany says he raised a not-especially-impressive $230K in Q1. I’ll be very curious to see what Landry took in.

• MT-AL: Republican businessman Steve Daines announced he raised almost $200K and will report $330K on hand as he pursues Rep. Denny Rehberg’s open seat. Dem state Rep. Franke Wilmer said she’s only raised $10K so far, but adds that she hasn’t been able to fundraise as much as she’d like because she’s in the middle of the legislative session.

• NV-02: Now things are getting interesting. Retired USS Cole Commander Kirk Lippold officially announced his entrance into the race for Dean Heller’s open seat, making him the second Republican to get in. I say it’s interesting because we might soon have at least three serious (well, “serious”) candidates in the race, giving Sharron Angle a plausible shot of capturing her party’s nomination. (The other expected entrant is Lt. Gov. Brian Krolicki, who said he’ll wait until the legislative session ends in June to announce.)

• NY-26: Dem Kathy Hochul has a new ad up touting her leadership in the War on Tollbooths. It’s actually her third ad; her second is an attack ad, going after Republican Jane Corwin for being a phony on spending cuts. NWOTSOTB.

• PA-11, PA-17: Lackawanna County Commissioner Corey O’Brien, who staged a rather unsuccessful primary challenge to now-ex-Rep. Paul Kanjorski last year in PA-11, basically ruled out another run for Congress, and said he definitely won’t challenge Rep. Tim Holden in a primary if Lackawanna gets drawn into Holden’s 17th CD.

Grab Bag:

• DCCC, NRCC: Despite having gotten its ass kicked last year and having sixty fewer members to lean on for donations, the DCCC had a monster first quarter, raised $19.6 million and cutting its debt by more than half, from $17.3 million to just $8 mil. By comparison, the NRCC took in just $18.1 million and has the same amount of debt – but it started off with much less. Republicans have twice our cash-on-hand, though ($9 mil to $4.6 mil). We’ll bring you a full chart with all the committee numbers once they all report.

• VETO: I don’t really have a good place to put this, but you just gotta click the link and check out the pics of Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer vetoing a bunch of Republican legislation. Pure awesome.

Redistricting Roundup:

• Iowa: Both houses of the state lege have now approved Iowa’s new maps by very broad margins, and they go to Gov. Terry Branstad for his signature – or veto. He has three days to decide, but it would be quite the bombshell if he chose to nuke things at this stage, especially since he’s said he hasn’t heard a “compelling reason to reject” the plans. Also, a great data point from Greg Giroux:

Braley now reps 48% of population in proposed CD1, Loebsack 54% of CD2, Boswell 57% of CD3, Latham 50%/King 47% of CD4

• Louisiana: Gov. Bobby Jindal signed his state’s much-fought-over new maps into law yesterday, and now they go to the Dept. of Justice for pre-clearance. The Legislative Black Caucus says it will oppose the maps (citing problems with all three: state House, state Senate, and congressional) and ask the DoJ to deny approval. However, the chair of the Legislative Democratic Caucus says ” “Nothing jumps out at me and says [preclearance] will be a problem.” Needless to say, quite a lot of folks at SSP disagree! Once the maps are submitted (likely in the next few weeks), Justice has 60 days to make a decision.

• Missouri: New redistricting plans, crafted by the Republican-controlled legislature, are getting closer to Dem Gov. Jay Nixon’s desk, but he hasn’t yet said whether he’ll veto them. Republicans sound divided as to what they think Nixon will do. To over-ride a veto, they’d have to bring a few wayward members of their own team back into the fold, and buy off a couple of Dems. I suspect they can pull that off.

• Oklahoma: Just call it No Drama Oklahoma – so far, anyway. A state House committee passed a new map (PDF here), and the district lines for OK’s five CDs have barely changed. (Helpfully, the map shows both the old lines and the new boundaries, so you can see just how minimal the differences are. It’s still possible, though, that the Senate or the governor could try to push a plan which screws the state’s lone Dem, Dan Boren. But it seems like legislators are more concerned with re-doing their own maps.

• Texas: They might be our mortal enemies, but the folks who draw the lines in the Lonestar State share our penchant for ruthlessness when it comes to map-making. Like a mother eagle shoving her own babies out of her nest, Republicans in the legislature are dealing with the problem of unwanted teabaggers by drawing them out of their districts – and into districts with one another. Indeed, a plan by the chair of the state House redistricting committee would pit no fewer than 14 Republicans against one another, allowing the GOP to create a whole mess of new open seats in other areas. This isn’t cat fud so much as it is the cat stuffing her mangiest kittens into the dryer herself.

• Virginia: Bill Bartell of the Virginian-Pilot takes a detailed look at what the Democratic plan to turn the 4th CD into a majority-black district would mean, particularly for the seat’s current inhabitant, GOP Rep. Randy Forbes.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• SSP TV:

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

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

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

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

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

• Rasmussen:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• AL-Gov (Univ. of S. Alabama): Ron Sparks (D) 35%, Robert Bentley (R) 48%

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov (Suffolk): Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 52%, Carly Fiorina (R) 43%; Jerry Brown (D) 50%, Meg Whitman (R) 42%

(Bonus: Kamala Harris leads Steve Cooley 35-34 in the AG race, and “no” leads “yes” on Prop 19 55-40)

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov (SurveyUSA for KABC): Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 45%, Carly Fiorina (R) 40%; Jerry Brown (D) 46%, Meg Whitman (R) 38%

(Bonus: Gavin Newsom leads Abel Maldonado 42-34 for LG, and “no” leads “yes” on Prop 19 46-44)

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov (PPP): Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 52%, Carly Fiorina (R) 43%; Jerry Brown (D) 53%, Meg Whitman (R) 42%

(Bonus: “no” leads “yes” on Prop 19 45-48)

• CA-20 (SurveyUSA for KFSN): Jim Costa (D-inc) 42%, Andy Vidak (R) 52%

(note: this poll population is 37% Hispanic, compared with 67% in reality) (also, the DCCC responded with a poll giving Costa a 47-41 lead, although they neglected to leak the pollster’s name) (UPDATE: The pollster is Bennet Petts & Normington, with the sample over the same 10/21-24 period as SurveyUSA)

• CT-Sen, CT-Gov (Quinnipiac): Richard Blumenthal (D) 54% (54), Linda McMahon (R) 42% (43); Dan Malloy (D) 48% (49), Tom Foley (R) 43% (42)

• FL-08 (Susquehanna for Sunshine State News): Alan Grayson (D-inc) 41% (36), Daniel Webster (R) 48% (43), Peg Dunmire (T) 4%

• GA-Gov (InsiderAdvantage): Roy Barnes (D) 41%, Nathan Deal (R) 47%, John Monds (L) 5%

• ID-Gov, ID-Sen, ID-01, ID-02 (Mason-Dixon for Idaho newspapers): Keith Allred (D) 30%, Butch Otter (R-inc) 52%; Tom Sullivan (D) 20%, Mike Crapo (R-inc) 64%; Walt Minnick (D-inc) 44%, Raul Labrador (R) 41%; Mike Crawford (D) 17%, Mike Simpson (R-inc) 67%

• IA-Gov (Global Strategy Group for Chet Culver): Chet Culver (D-inc) 40%, Terry Branstad (R) 46%

• IL-Gov (MarketShares for Chicago Tribune): Pat Quinn (D-inc) 39% (39), Bill Brady (R) 43% (38), Scott Lee Cohen (I) 5%, Rich Whitney (G) 4%, Lex Green (L) 2%

• IL-Sen (Anzalone-Liszt for DSCC): Alexi Giannoulias (D) 38%, Mark Kirk (R) 36%, LeAlan Jones (G) 7%, Mike Labno (L) 4%

• KY-Sen (PPP): Jack Conway (D) 40%, Rand Paul (R) 53%

• KY-03 (RiverCity for Todd Lally): John Yarmuth (D-inc) 41%, Todd Lally (R) 37% (note: n = only 239, yet they claim MoE of 4.5%)

• LA-02 (Anzalone-Liszt): Cedric Richmond (D) 49%, Joe Cao (R-inc) 32%

• MD-Sen (Baltimore Sun): Barb Mikulski (D-inc) 59%, Eric Wargotz (R) 32%

• NC-Sen (SurveyUSA for WRAL): Elaine Marshall (D) 38%, Richard Burr (R-inc) 53%, Mike Beitler (L) 5%

• NC-Sen (Tel Opinion Research for Civitas): Elaine Marshall (D) 34%, Richard Burr (R-inc) 44%, Mike Beitler (L) 4%

• NJ-03 (Monmouth): John Adler (D-inc) 43% (42), Jon Runyan (R) 48% (39)

• NJ-03 (Eagleton/Rutgers): John Adler (D-inc) 44%, Jon Runyan (R) 44%, Peter DeStefano (I) 4%

• NJ-06 (Monmouth): Frank Pallone (D-inc) 52% (53), Anna Little (R) 45% (41)

• NM-Gov (POS for Susana Martinez): Diane Denish (D) 42%, Susana Martinez (R) 50%

• NM-Gov (Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for Diane Denish): Diane Denish (D) 45%, Susana Martinez (R) 46%

• NY-20 (Siena): Scott Murphy (D-inc) 42% (54), Chris Gibson (R) 51% (37)

(The Murphy camp leaked an internal from Global Strategy Group today, although only saying a 3-point lead without specific toplines)

• OH-Gov, OH-Sen (Quinnipiac): Ted Strickland (D-inc) 43% (41), John Kasich (R) 49% (51); Lee Fisher (D) 36% (34), Rob Portman (R) 53% (55)

• OH-Sen (Wilson Research, not apparently on anyone’s behalf): Lee Fisher (D) 38%, Rob Portman (R) 49%

• OH-Sen (Univ. of Cincinnati for Ohio newspapers): Lee Fisher (D) 39%, Rob Portman 58%

• PA-Sen, PA-Gov (Ipsos for Reuters): Joe Sestak (D) 46%, Pat Toomey (R) 46%; Dan Onorato (D) 43%, Tom Corbett (R) 49%

(Sestak leads 46-42 among RVs, and even Onorato leads 46-43 among RVs)

• PA-Sen, PA-Gov (Muhlenberg): Joe Sestak (D) 40% (42), Pat Toomey (R) 48% (47); Dan Onorato (D) 39% (41), Tom Corbett (R) 50% (49)

• PA-08 (POS for Mike Fitzpatrick): Patrick Murphy (D-inc) 40%, Mike Fitzpatrick (R) 50%

• PA-10 (Lycoming): Chris Carney (D-inc) 45%, Tom Marino (R) 39%

• SD-Gov (Neilson Brothers): Scott Heidepriem (D) 40%, Dennis Daugaard (R) 43%

• VA-09 (SurveyUSA for WDBJ): Rick Boucher (D-inc) 46%, Morgan Griffith (R) 47%

• WI-Gov (Mellman Group, not apparently on anyone’s behalf): Tom Barrett (D) 45%, Scott Walker (R) 47%

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• SSP TV:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Rasmussen:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Site News: Holy moly. We just passed ten million all-time visitors yesterday. Wow. Just really have to take a step back for a moment. When I started this site almost exactly seven years ago, I never, ever imagined we’d achieve anything like this. Just a huge thank you to every reader who has checked in since Oct. 19, 2003 to today – and beyond.

AR-Gov (Mason-Dixon): Mike Beebe (D-inc) 59, Jim Keet (R) 26

CA-Sen, CA-Gov (Greenberg Quinlan Rosner & American Viewpoint for the LA Times/USC): Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 50, Carly Fiorina (R) 42; Jerry Brown (D) 52, Meg Whitman (R) 39

CA-Gov (John McLaughlin & David Hill (R) for Meg Whitman): Jerry Brown (D) 46, Meg Whitman (R) 43

CO-Sen, CO-Gov (SurveyUSA for 9News/Denver Post): Michael Bennet (D-inc) 47, Ken Buck (R) 47; John Hickenlooper (D) 46, Dan Maes (R) 15, Tom Tancredo (ACP) 34

Bonus: SUSA also tested the state AG, SoS, and Treasurer races.

CO-Gov (Magellan): John Hickenlooper (D) 44, Dan Maes (R) 9, Tom Tancredo (ACP) 43

FL-Sen, FL-Gov (Ipsos for Florida media): Kendrick Meek (D) 20, Marco Rubio (R) 41, Charlie Crist (I) 26; Alex Sink (D) 41, Rick Scott (R) 44

Bonus: Ipsos also tested the AG, Ag Comm’r, and CFO races.

FL-Gov (Susquehanna for Sunshine State News): Alex Sink (D) 45, Rick Scott (R) 45

IL-Sen, IL-Gov (Mason-Dixon for St. Louis Post-Dispatch/KMOV-TV): Pat Quinn (D-inc) 40, Bill Brady (R) 44; Alexi Giannoulias (D) 41, Mark Kirk (R) 43

Note: The poll apparently asked respondents about “Alex Giannoulias.”

IL-Sen (Market Shares Corp. for the Chicago Tribune): Alexi Giannoulias (D) 41, Mark Kirk (R) 44

LA-Sen (Anzalone-Liszt (D) for Charlie Melancon): Charlie Melancon (D) 45, David Vitter (R-inc) 48

MA-Gov (Western New England College): Deval Patrick (D-inc) 44, Charlie Baker (R) 36, Tim Cahill (I) 8

MA-Gov (UNH): Deval Patrick (D-inc) 43, Charlie Baker (R) 39, Tim Cahill (I) 8

MD-Gov (OpinionWorks for the Baltimore Sun): Martin O’Malley (D-inc) 52, Bob Ehrlich (R) 38

ME-Gov (Critical Insights): Libby Mitchell (D) 20, Paul LePage (R) 32, Eliot Cutler 19

MN-Gov (Princeton Survey Research for the Minneapolis Star-Tribune): Mark Dayton (D) 41, Tom Emmer (R) 34, Tom Horner (I) 13

MO-Sen (Mason-Dixon for St. Louis Post-Dispatch/KMOV-TV): Robin Carnahan (D) 40, Roy Blunt (R) 49

NY-Gov (Marist): Andrew Cuomo (D) 60, Carl Paladino (R) 37

PA-Gov (Quinnipiac): Dan Onorato (D) 44, Tom Corbett (R) 49

WV-Sen (Global Strategy Group (D) for Joe Manchin): Joe Manchin (D) 48, John Raese (R) 43

Margins & Errors: On Sunday, Pat Toomey moved out to a 3-point lead in the Muhlenberg tracker, while Tom Corbett is +9… some sketchy details of IN-02 internals from Brian Howey: “Howard County Republican Chairman Craig Dunn said internal polling has shown Walorski chipping a 9-point Donnelly lead to “at the margin of error” around 4 percent.” … CNN sources tell them that Harry Reid’s internals have him up 6 over Sharron Angle in NV-Sen… PPP will have polls out for CA, CO, KY & WV this week

Quinnipiac (10/13-17, likely voters, 9/15-19 in parens):

Joe Sestak (D): 46 (43)

Pat Toomey (R): 48 (50)

Undecided 5 (7)

(MoE: ±3%)

While Quinnipiac doesn’t quite give us the hat trick of three polls in a row with a lead for Joe Sestak, it does show, similarly, significant movement in Sestak’s direction, not just from the undecided column but also directly out of Toomey’s share. While Quinnipiac doesn’t give registration or 2008-vote numbers, Barack Obama’s approval is 44/53, showing this is a similar-looking sample to Tuesday’s PPP poll. As with that poll, the difference is Dems finally consolidating around Sestak, who’s 89-7 among Dems. (Toomey leads 56-35 among indies here, which explains their slightly more favorable overall result for Toomey.) Also, worth noting: Quinnipiac’s survey period was ending at the same time that PPP’s was beginning (see below), so there may have been slightly less Sestak surge for them to measure at that point.

Public Policy Polling (10/17-18, likely voters, 8/14-16 in parens):

Dan Onorato (D): 46 (35)

Tom Corbett (R): 48 (48)

Undecided 6 (17)

(MoE: ±3.7%)

The gubernatorial race has gotten short shrift all cycle long — partly because it hasn’t been very interesting — and even as it’s been clear Sestak was making his move, there wasn’t any matching movement in the gubernatorial race… until now. Here’s the gubernatorial half of the PPP sample, and it’s the best result Dan Onorato has gotten all cycle. Republican Tom Corbett still has better favorables (47/34 to Onorato’s 45/39), and he hasn’t lost any ground in the toplines, but Onorato has closed the gap among indies (to the same 48-46 Corbett lead as the toplines).

Muhlenberg (10/17-20, likely voters, 10/16-19 in parens):

Joe Sestak (D): 43 (44)

Pat Toomey (R): 43 (41)

Undecided 14 (15)

Dan Onorato (D): 38 (40)

Tom Corbett (R): 49 (47)

Undecided 12 (14)

(MoE: ±5%)

Muhlenberg’s daily tracking poll splits the difference: they keep seeing a tossup race between Sestak and Toomey (although the tie is down a few points from yesterday’s results), but not seeing what PPP is seeing regarding the gubernatorial race.

Muhlenberg (pdf): for Allentown Morning Call (10/16-19, likely voters, 9/28-10/4 in parens):

Joe Sestak (D): 44 (38)

Pat Toomey (R): 41 (45)

Undecided: 15 (14)

Dan Onorato (D): 40 (37)

Tom Corbett (R): 47 (47)

Undecided: 14 (16)

(MoE: ±5%)

As you probably recall, yesterday PPP came out with a poll giving Joe Sestak a one-point lead over Pat Toomey, in marked contrast to, well, everyone else; at that point, it was too early to declare “game changer” without confirmation from someone else. Well, we didn’t have to wait very long at all: Muhlenberg is out with the first installment in what will be a daily tracker until the election, and it has Sestak leading by 3. (Which leads to the question: most effective poop-themed ad ever?) Remember that Muhlenberg’s tracker during the primary steadily showed Sestak emerging into view and overtaking Arlen Specter at the end. It looks like we’re seeing something remarkably similar.

Impressively, it’s still a pretty GOP-friendly sample, with respondents identifying as 46% Dem, 46% GOP, 8% indie (in a state with a sizable Dem registration advantage), and with 42/51 Barack Obama approvals. The gubernatorial race also shows some improvement, though not enough to cause anyone to rethink that race the way we’ll have to regarding the Senate race. Also importantly, there’s significant tightening on the House generic ballot in Pennsylvania: 44-39 for the GOP, down from 48-36 several weeks ago. If that keeps up, that probably makes the difference in terms of several House seats, in a state where we could potentially lose five or more.

AK-Sen: National Research, Inc. for the Club for Growth (10/8-9, likely voters):

Scott McAdams (D): 27

Lisa Murkowski (WI-inc): 31

Joe Miller (R): 33

(MoE: ±4.9%)

CA-Sen, CA-Gov, Prop 23: Ipsos for Reuters (10/12-14, likely voters, 10/2-4 in parens):

Barbara Boxer (D-inc): 46 (49)

Carly Fiorina (R): 45 (45)

Jerry Brown (D): 48 (50)

Meg Whitman (R): 44 (43)

Yes on 23: 35

No on 23: 46

(MoE: ±4.6%)

CT-Gov: Quinnipiac (10/7-11, likely voters, 9/21-26 in parens):

Dan Malloy (D): 49 (45)

Tom Foley (R): 42 (42)

(MoE: ±2.9%)

FL-Gov: Susquehanna for Sunshine State News (10/12-13, likely voters, 9/28-10/3 in parens):

Alex Sink (D): 48 (44)

Rick Scott (R): 44 (50)

(MoE: ±2.2%)

HI-Gov: Aloha Vote for Honolulu Civil Beat (10/11, likely voters):

Neil Abercrombie (D): 47

Duke Aiona (R): 44

(MoE: ±2.9%)

KS-Sen, KS-Gov: Survey USA for KWCH-TV (10/10-12, likely voters, 9/14-16 in parens):

Tom Holland (D): 32 (32)

Sam Brownback (R): 60 (59)

Andrew Gray (L): 3 (3)

Ken Cannon (Ref): 4 (4)

Lisa Johnston (D): 27 (24)

Jerry Moran (R): 67 (66)

Michael Dann (L): 2 (2)

Joe Bellis (Ref): 3 (5)

(MoE: ±4%)

For SoS, Dems trail 35-53; for State Treasurer, it’s 39-55. For Attorney General, appointed Dem Steve Six trails Derek Schmidt 40-48.

MA-Gov: Suffolk University (10/10-12, registered voters, 9/14-16 in parens):

Deval Patrick (D-inc): 46 (41)

Charlie Baker (R): 39 (34)

Tim Cahill (I): 10 (14)

Jill Stein (G): 1 (4)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

ME-Gov: Critical Insights for Maine Today Media (10/10-11, likely voters, 9/27 in parens):

Libby Mitchell (D): 29 (33)

Paul LePage (R): 34 (33)

Eliot Cutler (I): 13 (10)

Shawn Moody (I): 7 (6)

Kevin Scott (I): 1 (-)

(MoE: ±4.0%)

MN-Gov: SurveyUSA for KSTP-TV (10/11-13, likely voters, 9/12-14 in parens):

Mark Dayton (DFL): 42 (38)

Tom Emmer (R): 37 (36)

Tom Horner (IP): 14 (18)

Other: 3 (5)

(MoE: ±3.7%)

NH-Sen: University of New Hampshire (10/7-12, likely voters, 9/23-29 in parens):

Paul Hodes (D): 35 (35)

Kelly Ayotte (R): 50 (50)

Other: 3 (2)

(MoE: ±3.7%)

NV-Sen, NV-Gov: Mason–Dixon for the LVRJ (10/11-12, likely voters, 9/20-22 in parens):

Harry Reid (D-inc): 45 (43)

Sharron Angle (R): 47 (43)

Other: 2 (2)

NOTA: 2 (4)

Rory Reid (D): 37 (37)

Brian Sandoval (R): 52 (51)

Other: 2 (3)

NOTA: 1 (2)

(MoE: ±4%)

NV-Gov: Public Policy Polling (10/7-9, likely voters, July in parens):

Rory Reid (D): 43 (38)

Brian Sandoval (R): 52 (52)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

NV-Gov: Suffolk University (10/8-11, likely voters, in parens):

Rory Reid (D): 39

Brian Sandoval (R): 50

Other: 2

NOTA: 3

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Bonus findings: Incumbent LG Brian Krolicki (R) leads Dem Jessica Sferrazza 42-30, Dem SoS Ross Miller leads 40-24, Dem Treasurer Kate Marshall trails 33-38, and Dem Controller Kim Wallin leads 31-26.

NY-Gov, NY-Sen, NY-Sen-B: SurveyUSA for WABC-TV, WHEC-TV, and WNYT-TV (10/11-13, likely voters, in parens):

Andrew Cuomo (D): 59 (57)

Carl Paladino (R): 33 (34)

Other: 6 (5)

Chuck Schumer (D): 63 (60)

Jay Townsend (R): 30 (30)

Other: 4 (6)

Kirsten Gillibrand (D): 54 (54)

Joe DioGuardi (R): 36 (35)

Other: 7 (8)

(MoE: ±3.9%)

Bonus finding: Manhattan/Bronx state Senator Eric Schneiderman (D) leads Staten Island DA Dan Donovan (R) for Attorney General 44-40, down from 46-40 a week ago.

OH-Sen, OH-Gov: Univ. of Cincinnati for the Ohio Poll(10/8-13, likely voters, 9/16-20 in parens):

Lee Fisher (D): 36 (40)

Rob Portman (R): 58 (55)

Ted Strickland (D-inc): 43 (45)

John Kasich (R): 51 (49)

(MoE: ±3.7%)

OK-Sen: Sooner Poll (10/3-7, likely voters):

Jim Rogers (D): 22

Tom Coburn (R-inc): 62

Other: 2

(MoE: ±5.2%)

Other results here find the GOP leading for all statewide offices: 40-28 for LG, 50-30 for Attorney General, 41-35 for Insurance Commissioner, 45-31 for Treasurer, 35-32 for State Superintendent, 44-33 for Labor Commissioner, and 41-35 for Auditor/Inspector. Dems had held most of these offices, if you’ll recall.

OR-Gov, OR-Sen: SurveyUSA for KATU-TV (10/12-14, likely voters, 9/12-14 in parens):

John Kitzhaber (D): 46 (43)

Chris Dudley (R): 45 (49)

Greg Kord (C): 4 (3)

Wes Wagner (L): 3 (2)

Ron Wyden (D-inc): 56 (54)

Jim Huffman (R): 34 (38)

Bruce Cronk (WF): 2 (3)

Marc Delphine (L): 2 (1)

Rick Staggenborg (P): 2 (0)

(MoE: ±3.9%)

PA-Gov: Magellan (10/10, likely voters, 9/21 in parens):

Dan Onorato (D): 38 (38)

Tom Corbett (R): 48 (50)

(MoE: ±2.3%)

VT-Sen, VT-Gov, VT-AL: Mason-Dixon for Vermont Public Radio (10/11-13, registered voters):

Patrick Leahy (D-inc): 62

Len Britton (R): 27

Other: 4

Peter Shumlin (D): 43

Brian Dubie (R): 44

Other: 5

Peter Welch (D): 61

Paul Beaudry (R): 25

Other: 4

(MoE: ±4%)

WA-Sen: Washington Poll (10/5-14, registered voters, in parens):

Patty Murray (D-inc): 50

Dino Rossi (R): 42

(MoE: ±4.3%)

WA-Sen: SurveyUSA for KING-TV (10/11-14, likely voters, in parens):

Patty Murray (D-inc): 50 (50)

Dino Rossi (R): 47 (48)

(MoE: ±4.1%)