Tag: Tom Corbett

Ipsos for Reuters (8/27-28, likely voters, no trendlines):

Joe Sestak (D): 37

Pat Toomey (R): 47

Undecided: 15

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Ipsos strikes in another state with another of their interesting both-LV-and-RV polls. The enthusiasm gap seems as big here in Pennsylvania as it does anywhere: the LV model spells certain doom for Dems, with Joe Sestak falling into a double-digit deficit against Pat Toomey, while the RV model (MoE 4%) says this is still a perfectly salvageable race, with Toomey leading Sestak 40-37. (Unfortunately, the LV model is the one that counts in the end.) Any remaining Arlen Specter fans won’t feel vindicated by this poll: if Specter were running against Toomey, he’d be losing just as widely, 52-40.

Maybe realizing that the strategy he used so effectively and efficiently against Specter in the primary (wait, wait, wait some more, and then unleash a massive, expertly targeted salvo in the closing weeks) won’t work if he gets himself in too deep of a hole beforehand, Joe Sestak is breaking open the piggybank and going on TV. His first ad is anti-Toomey spot, working the Wall Street angle (already thoroughly explored by the DSCC). It’s a buy through Sept. 6th, for a total of $111K, with ads running in the Pittsburgh, Johnstown, Harrisburg, and Wilkes-Barre markets (not Philly, where presumably he’s better known).

Dan Onorato (D): 34

Tom Corbett (R): 49

Undecided: 16

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Same deal with the gubernatorial race: the LV model yields a 15-point lead for GOP AG Tom Corbett over Dem Dan Onorato. Switch over to a registered voter model, and it’s only a not-bad 43-37 advantage for Corbett. Again, plans of getting all those RVs to magically show up aren’t really hopes you should hang your hat on, at this point in the game, though.

• AZ-Sen: Bad news! For John McCain! J.D. Hayworth still hasn’t conceded. He’s still waiting for those late-breaking absentee ballots to help him make up that oh-so-narrow 56-32 margin, apparently.

• CT-Sen: This doesn’t seem like it’ll end well for Linda McMahon, whose stance on WWE has been that it’s harmless soap opera. Harley McNaught, the father of recently-deceased pro wrestler Lance Cade (who died of heart failure at age 29 in the wake of painkiller addiction), is going on the offense against McMahon in response to her comments that she “might have met him once.” McNaught said that he’d been to several functions with his son where they’d met McMahon and she’d known him by name, and also ripped the company’s “Wellness Program,” which he says was more about PR than about helping employees.

• DE-Sen: There’s no third-party fallback option for teabagger Christine O’Donnell, challenging Mike Castle for the GOP Senate nomination. The Constitution Party had nominated O’Donnell for its ballot line, but didn’t even receive a ballot line after its membership dwindled to 287(!) members. (That’s less than something called the “Blue Enigma Party,” which still qualified for the ballot.) O’Donnell still can mount a write-in campaign after losing the primary to Castle (which she already did in the 2006 race after losing the primary to Jan Ting).

• KY-Sen: Our James L. summed this up pithily: “Douche Day Afternoon.” Losing Dem Senate candidate Dan Mongiardo’s latest statement of semi-support for Jack Conway was that Conway was “not the best” but that “he’s a heck of a lot better” than Rand Paul, whose “scare[s him].”

• PA-Sen, PA-Gov (pdf): The newest Franklin & Marshall poll is another one of their choose-your-own-adventure specials, which shows the dimensions of the enthusiasm gap the Dems are facing, especially in the Keystone State. In the Senate race, Pat Toomey leads Joe Sestak 40-31 among likely voters, but only 31-28 among registered voters, which isn’t much different from where we left off with their last general election poll in May. And in the gubernatorial race, it’s similar, with Tom Corbett leading Dan Onorato 38-27 among LVs, but only 29-28 (probably the best showing I’ve seen in a head-to-head in this race) among RVs.

• FL-Gov: With Hayworth and Murkowski already mentioned today, it’s just turning out to be the big day of GOP disunity and sour grapes all around. While figures like Jeb Bush and state party chair John Thrasher have gotten behind Rick Scott without any major hedging, Bill McCollum is continuing his sulk, flat-out not endorsing Scott.  

• KY-Gov: The aptly-named Republican Agriculture Commissioner, Richie Farmer (I guess “Rich Farmer” was a little too overly descriptive), is still mulling over a run for Governor in next year’s off-year election against Dem incumbent Steve Beshear, where early polling has shown he’d be competitive. He’s also been linked to a possible Lt. Gov. bid, as running mate to state Senate president David Williams.

• SC-Gov: In another sign that a chunk of the local political establishment prefers Dem Vincent Sheheen to GOPer Nikki Haley, Sheheen just got the endorsement of 30 mayors around South Carolina. Most of these mayors are in nonpartisan elected positions, although one, Greer mayor Rick Danner, said he was a two-time voter for Mark Sanford.

• VT-Gov: Faced with the unenviable task of certifying her own gubernatorial primary loss, SoS Deb Markowitz says that the final certification of the super-close race in Vermont will be done on next Tuesday. All five candidates appeared amicably at a unity rally yesterday, but only shortly after Doug Racine’s campaign manager called Peter Shumlin’s declaration of victory premature, saying to wait until Tuesday. Shumlin currently leads Racine by 192 votes.

• AL-02: Rep. Bobby Bright caused some hyperventilating today when it came out that, in meeting with constituents, had punted on the issue of whether or not he’d be voting for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker next session. He did so by listing a number of reasons why that might not be an issue, including the decidedly morbid “heck, she might even get sick and die.”

• CA-18: I don’t know who looks worse in this situation, Mike Berryhill (the Republican launching an uphill, but generally credible, challenge to Rep. Dennis Cardoza), or his former campaign consultant John Villareal. Apparently they parted ways in unpleasant fashion, as Villareal blasted Berryhill’s campaign as a lost cause… but did it in the form of a somewhat unhinged-sounding, 25-minute long rant posted to YouTube.

• OH-17: Jim Traficant may still yet be able to beam himself back into Congress. He just got an extension from Jennifer Brunner, giving him more time to prove that he did collect enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot as an independent. He previously got bounced for the ballot for not having enough valid signatures.

• OR-05: Hot on the heels of a too-good-to-be-true internal from Scott Bruun giving him a small lead a few days ago, Rep. Kurt Schrader hauled out his own internal from Lake Research giving him a pretty comfortable lead: 46-35. The poll’s from late July, though, so one wonders if there’s a more recent one that he’s not sharing.

• PA-08: The ubiquitous POS is out with an internal poll on behalf of ex-Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, giving him a 7-point lead (48-41) over Democratic sophomore Rep. Patrick Murphy. Murphy hasn’t been one of the Dems’ top worries in Pennsylvania, but as we’ve seen in recent weeks, the Dem brand in Pennsylvania seems to be waning particularly quickly.

• VA-05: Tom Perriello, in an interesting bit of distancing from national Dems that’s ambiguous enough that it works from both right and left, called for the replacement of Treasury Sec. Timothy Geithner, at a local town hall. He didn’t say who his preferred replacement would be (Robert Reich, anyone?).

• Ads: Lead-off ad of the day is from Alan Grayson in FL-08; the Hotline actually says it makes Grayson look “angelic” and they refer to it as the most positive ad they’ve seen so far from anyone. That Grayson… always zigging when everyone else is zagging. Other Dems out with their first TV ads for themselves today include Kathy Dahlkemper in PA-03, Julie Lassa in WI-07, and Tom Hayhurst in IN-03.

All the GOP ads today are anti-Dem ads being run by third party groups: America’s Future Fund running against Bruce Braley in IA-01, the Heritage Foundation’s lobbying arm against Mike McIntyre in NC-07, and Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity running against Gabrielle Giffords in AZ-08 and a weird two-fer (aimed at the Phoenix market, I guess) attacking both Anne Kirkpatrick and Harry Mitchell in AZ-01 and AZ-05. NWOTSOTB, on any of the ads.

• Rasmussen:

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 40%, Meg Whitman (R) 48%

• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek (D) 21%, Marco Rubio (R) 40%, Charlie Crist (I) 30%

• UT-Gov: Peter Corroon (D) 29%, Gary Herbert (R-inc) 60%

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

Public Policy Polling (8/14-16, likely voters, 6/19-21 in parens):

Dan Onorato (D): 35 (35)

Tom Corbett (R): 48 (45)

Undecided: 17 (20)

(MoE: ±4.1%)

In the other half of the Pennsylvania sample that saw a big drop in Joe Sestak’s numbers against Pat Toomey because of PPP’s inevitable jump from a registered to likely voter model, the news isn’t quite as bad for Dan Onorato… but that’s mostly because he wasn’t doing very well to begin with. He loses only three points’ worth of ground, compared to Sestak’s nine. We’re getting to the point where we can’t blame Onorato’s failure to close within single digits on his unknownness, as this sample has about the same number of no-opinions for him (30/28 favorables) as it does for Corbett (33/23); it seems to have more to do with the anti-Dem nature of the year (which seems disproportionately strong in Pennsylvania), as well as the downdraft eminating from Ed Rendell (current approvals of 27/63).

One other point of serious concern for Pennsylvania Democrats: PPP did a generic House ballot test within the state, and it has a 48-39 advantage for the GOP. (That contrasts with a generic House ballot with a 46-40 Democratic advantage in Illinois, also from this week’s PPP sample.) With a lot of the state’s Democrats concentrated in just a few districts in Philly and Pittsburgh, that points to serious potential trouble for more than just the most vulnerable seats (the open seat in PA-07, Paul Kanjorski in PA-11) to some of the other ones too. While a statewide generic ballot isn’t of much more predictive value than a nationwide generic ballot, it certainly suggests that, say, Kathy Dahlkemper and Patrick Murphy need to be at the top of their games this cycle.

• AK-Sen: Joe Miller has two things going for him in the Alaska GOP Senate primary: the endorsements of Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee. On the other hand, Lisa Murkowski has the backing of about 1.9 million dead presidents behind her. That’s her cash on hand, based on $300K raised in July and early August. Miller raised only $68K in that span and now has $84K CoH.

• KS-Sen, KS-Gov: SurveyUSA, no stranger to Republican-friendly samples lately, comes up with quite the GOP wipeout in Kansas. They find Republican Rep. Jerry Moran leading Lisa Johnston in the Senate race, 69-23, and find Sam Brownback leading state Sen. Tom Holland in the gubernatorial race, 67-25. They even find several Dem incumbents losing to GOP challengers in downballot races. It may be worth, noting, however, the disparity in self-described ideology between this sample and the 2008 exit polls: this poll is 49 conservative, 37 moderate, 9 liberal, compared with 2008’s 45 moderate, 38 conservative, 16 liberal.

• NV-Sen: With her endorsement percentage starting to trend steeply downward (with last night’s losses by Rita Meyer and Clint Didier), Sarah Palin’s trying out a new angle, literally. She’s backing Sharron Angle in Nevada, saying she’ll “actively help” her and that Angle “is putting up with more crap than she deserves.” Palin avoided getting involved in the primary, probably in large part because of other family members’ support for Danny Tarkanian.

• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov (pdf): Siena’s out with another look at the big-ticket races in New York, finding the same-old same-old. Kirsten Gillibrand leads Bruce Blakeman 55-28, Joe DioGuardi 54-29, and David Malpass 55-27. DioGuardi is on track to win the GOP Senate primary, leading Blakeman and Malpass 19-8-5. And Andrew Cuomo is even more dominant, leading Rick Lazio 60-26 and Carl Paladino 60-27. Lazio leads Paladino 43-30 in the GOP primary, much closer than previous months. Further down the ballot, they find incumbent Dem comptroller Tom DiNapoli leading Harry Wilson 46-28, and Dems leading a generic ballot-type question about the state legislature, 33-27.

• CO-Gov: Dan Maes picked his running mate: former state Rep. and former Dept. of Regulatory Agencies head Tambor Williams. Williams seems to actually be something of a moderate by today’s GOP standards, which is an interesting act of ticket-balancing by the wackadoodle Maes (although you have to wonder how “moderate” someone willing to be joined at the hip to Maes can be). Meanwhile, Tom Tancredo is focusing most of his fire on Maes, not on John Hickenlooper, attacking Maes’, well, utter lack of qualifications. Tancredo seems to realize that the only path to viability in this election as an indie is reducing Maes to the Alan Schlesinger-style single-digits role. And guess who’s throwing up their hands and walking away? The RGA, which according to several local Republicans, has confirmed it won’t be spending money in Colorado.

• ID-Gov, ID-01: We’ve gotten an inkling that the Idaho gubernatorial race (where GOP incumbent Butch Otter was elected with lackluster numbers in 2006) was possibly a real race, and these poll numbers seem to confirm it. I don’t know whether to call this a Republican poll (it’s taken by a local pollster who usually works for Republicans, Greg Strimple, on behalf of the Idaho Hospital Association) or an independent one, but either way, it’s not good news for the GOP. Otter leads Dem Keith Allred by only 47-36. Also good news: that Raul Labrador internal poll that had him losing by double digits was actually pretty optimistic, on his part. This sample sees Dem Walt Minnick beating Labrador by a startling 52-29 margin. Maybe all that chatter about the NRCC moving to write off this seat has some real roots.

• VT-Gov: Lone Republican Brian Dubie is the fundraising leader in the decidedly small-dollar gubernatorial race in Vermont. Dubie has raised the most over the course of the campaign (slightly more than $1 million). (Maybe if Meg Whitman can’t win in California, she should consider moving to Vermont and buying the gubernatorial race here. In fact, maybe she should just consider buying the entire state of Vermont, which would still be cheaper than buying the gubernatorial race in California.) The Dems are all closely bunched, with Peter Shumlin and Deb Markowitz more or less tied for most raised. But all five major Dems are low on cash, each reporting less than $100K CoH (Matt Dunne has the most, at $83K). For some reason, the article doesn’t tell us Dubie’s CoH.

• GA-08: GOP state Rep. Austin Scott (following hot on the heels of fellow legislator and GA-02 candidate Mike Keown’s internal poll release) is out with an internal showing a competitive race against Rep. Jim Marshall. Marshall leads Scott 44-39 in the poll conducted in late July by American Viewpoint.

• MI-01: This has the potential to mightily reshuffle things in the open seat race in the 1st… or it could turn out to be so much wind in sails, as promises of massive self-funding usually are. Random teabagger and indie candidate Glenn Wilson is promising to spend $2 million of his own money in order to defeat Gary McDowell and Dan Benishek, the Dem and GOP nominees. In this rural seat with dirt-cheap media markets, that could go a long way toward blanketing the airwaves… but without the organizational backing that the party apparatuses provide, that seems like it still might not translate into actual votes.

• TN-08: Humble farmer/gospel singer and, in his spare time, director of Fight Club, Stephen Fincher is out with an internal poll from the Tarrance Group that gives him a lead over Democratic state Sen. Roy Herron in this open seat race. He claims a 47-37 lead, with conservative indie Donn James at 5, in a poll taken immediately post-primary. Herron, who avoided much trouble in the primary and was able to bank a lot of money, is already hitting Fincher with TV ads, though.

• RGA: One nice thing about the post-Citizens United universe is that it lets us see everything in the open that we’ve only just suspected in the past. Case in point: Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. (the Fox News and WSJ parent corporation) just gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association. Insert obvious snarky comment about “Fair and Balanced” here.

• Rasmussen:

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway (D) 40%, Rand Paul (R) 49%

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

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 40%, John Kasich (R) 48%

• PA-Gov: Dan Onorato (D) 38%, Tom Corbett (R) 48%

• AK-Sen: Wow, now we’ve got Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin working in harmony in at least one place: Huckabee just endorsed Joe Miller, the little-known right-wing challenger to Lisa Murkowski in the GOP Senate primary.

• AZ-Sen: J.D. Hayworth is out with a new ad in a last-ditch effort to make up some ground on John McCain, and he’s relying on time-honored tradition of pulling a few of his opponents’ words out of context. In this case, he swipes the passage “I chose lying” from McCain’s 2002 audiobook, although in the book it was talking about the South Carolina confederate flag controversy, and Hayworth just slaps it down in an ad about immigration. The ad buy is for $365K.

• CA-Sen: This isn’t a surprise in terms of which of the candidates they endorsed, but it might be interesting that the Chamber of Commerce decided there was enough of a shot in this race for them to weigh in. They’re backing Carly Fiorina in the California Senate race, based on, y’know, her long track record of success at Hewlett-Packard.

• FL-Sen: A Mason-Dixon poll released late last week gives some hope to Kendrick Meek, who other polls had shown had fallen behind billionaire weirdo Jeff Greene in the Democratic primary. Their poll (conducted for “Leadership Florida and the Florida Press Association”) gives Meek a 33-29 lead. Greene’s main problem seems to be that the press keeps on doing stories about, well, all those things that Greene has been doing for the last couple decades; yesterday the St. Petersburg Times looked at Greene’s involvement in a California condo deal that belies his claims that he was a high-level investor and not involved in any of the myriad ground-level predatory lending transactions that, when all added together, helped create the real estate asset bubble. Greene’s defense? “I don’t follow what happens after the sale…. All I care about is that I get my money.” Finally, whether Greene or Meek wins the primary, one more problem they’ll have to deal with is the movement of prominent Democratic money to indie Charlie Crist. Pollster Mark Penn hasn’t been anyone’s image of a reliable or useful Democrat lately, but he is at least a prominent Democrat; he’s now raising for Crist.

• KY-Sen: Will “I worship you, Aqua Buddha” become the newest political catchphrase that sweeps the nation? GQ has a hilarious (if somewhat disturbing) look back at Rand Paul’s hellraising days at an undergrad at Baylor (a school from which, by the way, he doesn’t have a bachelor’s degree). It’ll be interesting to see if this actually creates any blowback for Paul.

• WA-Sen: Interesting: another endorsement for the once-moderate Dino Rossi from another celebrity on the right in the Senate. Unlike Jim DeMint (whose backing he got last week), who has something of a fundraising network that comes with his endorsement, Tom Coburn (who just announced his support) just has cachet with right-wing fanboys. More evidence that Rossi, while publicly pretending to be focused only on the general, is scrambling to shore up his right flank before the Top 2 primary where he faces competition from various teabaggers, most significantly Sarah Palin-backed Clint Didier.

• FL-Gov: That Mason-Dixon poll had a Republican gubernatorial portion as well, and they do provide some confirmation for the sense that Bill McCollum is worming his way back into this thing, with not much time left on the clock. Rick Scott leads McCollum only 37-31. Worth noting: it doesn’t seem to have anything to do with people taking notice of Scott’s legacy of Medicare fraud at Columbia/HCA, but rather, McCollum consolidating the Republican Hispanic vote (where he leads 3-1), probably thanks to Scott’s demagoguery on the immigration issue and McCollum’s more even-handed stance. Meanwhile, not that Bud Chiles was gaining much momentum, but explaining this could be a big distraction: his former leadership of innocuous-sounding charity HOPE Worldwide, which it turns out is an arm of the cultish International Churches of Christ.

• IA-Gov: Social conservative activist Bob Vander Plaats ran a surprisingly close race against Terry Branstad in the GOP gubernatorial primary and then threatened an independent run when he didn’t receive the proper amount of fealty post-primary. However, he announced last Friday that he won’t attempt a third-party bid (which would probably give the advantage in the race back to Chet Culver). He’ll focus his energies on defeating members of the Iowa Supreme Court, in retaliation for its gay marriage ruling.

• MN-Gov: If there’s one campaign out there in need of a shakeup, it’s Tom Emmer’s, as polls have made clear that the GOP gubernatorial nominee’s trajectory post-nomination has been aimed almost straight down. Old campaign manager Tom Mason departed for a farm upstate, replaced by former ’08 Norm Coleman CM Cullen Sheehan.

• PA-Gov: Remember Sam Rohrer, the socially conservative state Rep. who persisted in the GOP primary against AG Tom Corbett (and lost big)? His supporters still haven’t given up hope, and, although Pennsylvania law prohibits him from a ballot line in November, are now launching an independent write-in campaign for Rohrer. (Rohrer hasn’t endorsed the idea, but isn’t dissuading them either.) The write-in campaign is a particularly difficult beast, though, meaning that it’s likely that Rohrer wouldn’t pick up more than a couple percent, and the race would have to get closer than it currently is for that to harm Corbett’s odds against Dem Dan Onorato.

• RI-Gov: Brown University is out with a poll on the Rhode Island gubernatorial race, and one thing is clear: no current Republican is going to win the race. Democratic state Treasurer Frank Caprio leads independent ex-Republican ex-Sen. Lincoln Chafee, by a bare 28-27 margin. For some reason, they seemed to poll the two Republicans jungle-style, but it really doesn’t matter as both are non-factors: former Don Carcieri communications director John Robitaille is at 7 and ex-state Rep. Victor Moffitt is at 2.

• FL-08: Jeb! backs Web! Ex-gov. Jeb Bush cut an ad in support of ex-state Sen. Daniel Webster, who, with his dithering, managed to blow his early shot at consolidating GOP establishment support in the primary. Instead, he’s one of many guys stuffed in the clown car, fighting for the right to oppose Rep. Alan Grayson.

• ID-01: The omission of Raul Labrador from the NRCC’s Young Guns, which seems to admit any Republican who has enough opposable digits to successfully operate a telephone and call donors, seemed like it was becoming too embarrassing for even the NRCC’s skilled writers to spin away. Labrador says he “changed his mind” and is now willing to join the entourage. Labrador, who has $69K, is only entering at the “On the Radar” level, though, the bottom of the pyramid.

• IL-14: State Sen. Randy Hultgren thought he struck some electoral gold when he found a contribution to Rep. Bill Foster from fellow Dem Maxine Waters for $1,000, which then demanded Foster give back. Unfortunately, there’s something to be said for basic reading skills: the contribution wasn’t to Bill Foster, but rather to former music industry exec Gary Foster, who’s now head of a charitable org called Upliftment Jamaica. Naturally, the Hultgren camp blamed the FEC for forcing them to screw up.

• LA-02: Sen. Mary Landrieu announced her backing for state Rep. Cedric Richmond in the Dem primary in the 2nd, more evidence that the Dem establishment is trying to unite behind Richmond and put the squeeze on primary rival state Rep. Juan LaFonta.

• MI-09: As part of the transition from primary to general election, one item that’s high on GOP nominee Rocky Raczkowski’s to-do list is to walk back his previous birtherism. After telling Politico in a post-primary interview that he’d “love” to see Obama’s birth certificate, he’s now out with a statement that Politico took his out of context… without, of course, explaining what context such a comment should be taken in.

• OH-18: Stop the presses! (And hide the women!) Bill Clinton adviser turned Fox News talking head Dick Morris has announced he’ll be making appearances on behalf of at least 40 Republican candidates this year. That includes a fundraiser for Rep. Zack Space’s opponent, state Sen. Bob Gibbs, later this month.

• RI-01, RI-02: That Brown gubernatorial poll also looked at the Democratic primaries in the 1st and 2nd, although the margin of error is terribly high (7.4% in RI-01). In the 1st, Providence mayor David Cicilline is in command of the Dem field, leading former state party chair William Lynch 32-11 15, with 11 for businessman Anthony Gemma and 5 for state Rep. David Segal (who just got the local SEIU‘s backing, by the way). In the 2nd, Rep. Jim Langevin looks likely to weather his primary challenge with ease; he leads state Rep. Elizabeth Dennigan 55-12.

• SBA List: Anti-abortion group the Susan B. Anthony List has come out with polls of one open Senate race and three House races featuring Dem incumbents (where the common thread seems that all the Dems are anti-abortion), courtesy of that Republican pollster with the oh-so-creative name, The Polling Company. They find Dan Coats leading Brad Ellsworth 50-35 in the Indiana Senate race. The House races are an interesting mix of the good, the bad, and the so-so. For the good, Rep. Joe Donnelly seems to start on solid ground in IN-02, where he leads state Rep. Jackie Walorski 52-35. For the bad, Rep. Steve Driehaus may just be the most DOA of any House Democrat, as this is one more poll giving him a double-digit deficit against ex-Rep. Steve Chabot (51-41). And for the so-so, Rep. Kathy Dahlkemper (last seen losing in a too-good-to-be-true internal from GOP opponent Mike Kelly) is leading Kelly by a pretty plausible 46-42.

• Blue Dogs: The Blue Dogs handed out a load of endorsements to Dem candidates, looking to replenish their soon-to-be-depleted ranks (thanks to a number of retirements, as well as many of their members being in many of the nation’s most competitive races). Endorsees are Steve Raby in AL-05, Chad Causey in AR-01, Roy Herron in TN-08, Trent van Haaften in IN-08, and Stephene Moore in KS-03.

• Rasmussen:

• DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 37%, Mike Castle (R) 49%

• DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 46%, Christine O’Donnell (R) 36%

• IA-Gov: Chet Culver (D-inc) 36%, Terry Branstad (R) 52%

• KS-Gov: Tom Holland (D) 34%, Sam Brownback (R) 57%

• NH-Sen: Paul Hodes (D) 38%, Kelly Ayotte (R) 51%

• NH-Sen: Paul Hodes (D) 40%, Bill Binnie (R) 46%

• SD-Gov: Scott Heidepriem (D) 27%, Dennis Daugaard (R) 59%

• SD-AL: Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-inc) 42%, Kristi Noem (R) 51%

• WA-Sen: I’m not sure how this will work, practically speaking, but the two Tea Partiers in the race, rancher Clint Didier and fastener mogul Paul Akers, are “joining forces.” They’ll be doing joint ads and joint online forums for the remaining few weeks. They can’t, of course, be jointly voted-for, so I don’t know what the endgame is, but it probably doesn’t matter, as both have been polling in the single digits in polls of the jungle primary. Apparently, it does give them a better venue for airing their grievances with the GOP establishment’s selection of Dino Rossi as standard-bearer; maybe this way, Akers can distract the ref while Didier puts Rossi in a sleeper hold.

Also on the weird timing front, Washington’s Republican SoS, Sam Reed, is just out with a new book on the 2004 gubernatorial election and the protracted recount and court challenges he oversaw. Relations between Reed and the rest of the state Republicans were severely tested during the recount, seeing as how the scrupulous Reed wanted to, y’know, follow the rules. While the book doesn’t seem to paint Rossi in a terribly unfavorable light, it can’t help but remind everyone of his “perennial candidate” status.

• AZ-Gov: You might recall that NRA board member Owen Buz Mills recently ended his GOP primary campaign against the once-endangered, now-all-powerful Jan Brewer several weeks ago. Well, he’s not quite done, his spokesperson is now saying: he’s going to enter a Rob Simmons-style state of electoral limbo. Mills won’t be spending any more money on the race, but he will leave his name on the ballot. (Other dropouts Dean Martin and John Munger have filed papers of formal withdrawal from the race.)

• OR-Gov, OR-05: Now that Oregon has opted to join New York in the weird world of fusion voting, now it even has its own Independent Party trying to quirkily play it down the middle. Based on its online straw poll of members (with a vote total of a whopping 2,290), the IP gave its backing to Democrat John Kitzhaber in the gubernatorial race, but to Republican state Rep. Scott Bruun in OR-05 (instead of incumbent Dem Kurt Schrader).

• TX-Gov: A number of prominent Dallas business leaders have signed on to a letter announcing their support for Bill White in the gubernatorial race. About half of the signatories, a mix of moderate Republicans and independents, are, in fact, former Kay Bailey Hutchison supporters.

• WY-Gov: I think this trumps her earlier Wilford Brimley endorsement. State auditor Rita Meyer (the only woman in the four-way GOP primary field) got added to Sarah Palin’s stable of Mama Grizzlies late last week.

• AL-02, AL-05: The “generally conservative” Alabama Farmer’s Federation handed out helpful endorsements to two Dems today: not just to Rep. Bobby Bright (who seems to fit their profile well) but also to Steve Raby, running in the 5th. Raby seems well connected with the agriculture world through his former work for ex-Sen. Howell Heflin.

• MI-02, MI-03: A poll for the Grand Rapids Press, taken by Practical Political Consulting, looks at the GOP primaries in the two western Michigan open seats. In the 2nd (Peter Hoekstra’s seat), former NFL player and Family Research Council executive Jay Riemersma has a small lead at 22, followed by former state Rep. Bill Huizenga and teabagging businessman Bill Cooper, both at 15, and state Sen. Wayne Kuipers at 13. In the 3rd (Vern Ehlers’ seat), state Rep. Justin Amash (anointed as chosen one by the DeVos family) leads at 28, followed by African-American state Sen. Bill Hardiman at 23 and ex-Kent Co. Commissioner Steve Heacock (the moderate in the field, and Ehlers’ endorsee) at 17.

• FL-12: We keep mentally writing this race off due to Lori Edwards’ paltry fundraising, and then polling evidence to the contrary shows up. For the second time, the Edwards camp has released an internal poll giving them a lead in this R+6 open seat. Edwards leads GOP ex-state Rep. Dennis Ross 35-32 in a poll taken by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner. The catch here is one of the most legitimate Tea Party candidates anywhere is here: Randy Wilkinson, a Polk Co. Commissioner who briefly sought the GOP nomination before deciding to go the third-party route. Wilkinson polls at 20%, although we’ll have to see if the near-broke Wilkinson can keep those numbers up through November.

• TN-03: Newt Gingrich handed out a last-minute seal of approval in the GOP primary in the 3rd. He’s backing the more-or-less establishment candidate, former state GOP chair Robin Smith. Smith’s main opponent is Chuck Fleischmann, a partly-self-funding attorney who seems tighter with the Mike Huckabee crowd than the teabaggers.

• WA-03: The Beltway media seems to take it as an article of faith that GOP state Rep. Jaime Herrera is going to be Denny Heck’s opponent in November, but David Castillo shouldn’t be counted out. Not being on the ground, they wouldn’t pick up on the general sense of underwhelmingness that seems to surround Herrera, but it seems like they would, at some point, have noticed that nearly all the endorsements of consequence in the district have gone to Castillo. He got endorsements from the newspapers in Vancouver, Longview, and Centralia, as well as the out-of-district Seattle Times. AG Rob McKenna, probably the state’s best-liked Republican, had endorsed Castillo before Rep. Brian Baird’s retirement and Herrera’s entry, but he’s been pointedly sticking by his endorsement, hosting a Castillo fundraiser last week.

• House: Nate Silver’s out with a new toy that SSPers will certainly be interested in: having found that Democratic House candidates tend to overperform vis-à-vis presidential numbers in districts with lower median household income, he’s created a new index that’s a mashup of prez numbers and income, called the Partisan Propensity Index. (He looked at only results in open seat races, which eliminates the main problem with trying to fit House numbers on top of prez numbers, which is the overwhelming staying power of incumbents.) At the end of the day, it’s still not too different from PVI, inasmuch as Chet Edwards has the worst district of any Dem and Joe Cao has the worst district of any GOPer, but it does reflect the reality that suburban Sun Belt districts that are truly swingy at the presidential level are a harder nut for Dems to crack at the House level than rural Appalachian districts that are red at the presidential level.

• Rasmussen:

• NV-Gov: Rory Reid (D) 40%, Brian Sandoval (R) 50%

• OK-Gov: Jari Askins (D) 36%, Mary Fallin (R) 57%

• PA-Gov: Dan Onorato (D) 39%, Tom Corbett (R) 50%

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 39%, Pat Toomey (R) 45%

• SC-Gov: Vincent Sheheen (D) 35%, Nikki Haley (R) 49%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 49%, Dino Rossi (R) 47%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 48%, Clint Didier (R) 45%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 48%, Paul Akers (R) 42%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 45%, Mark Neumann (R) 44%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 43%, Scott Walker (R) 50%

• CT-Sen: Quinnipiac (7/8, registered voters, likely Republican primary voters, 6/2-8 in parentheses):

Richard Blumenthal (D): 54 (55)

Linda McMahon (R): 37 (35)

Undecided: 7 (8)

Richard Blumenthal (D): 55 (54)

Rob Simmons (R): 35 (33)

Undecided: 9 (10)

Richard Blumenthal (D): 58 (56)

Peter Schiff (R): 31 (29)

Undecided: 9 (12)

(MoE: ±2.7%)

Linda McMahon (R): 52

Rob Simmons (R): 25

Peter Schiff (R) : 13

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±3.4%)

Not much change in the Nutmeg State. And it looks like Rob Simmons might have some pretty serious disincentive to not get back into the Senate primary again, as he briefly threatened.

• FL-Sen: Marco Rubio’s $4.4 million haul blew a lot of people away, but what’s equally impressive (and didn’t get any coverage at the time) is his burn rate. It turns out that, even though he no longer has a primary to worry about, he spent almost all ($4 million) of what he made.

• NY-Sen-B: You might remember that there was some uncertainty as to whether Joe DioGuardi, who has the Conservative line for November, would even make it into the Republican primary thanks to his poor finish at the GOP state convention. Well, after gathering enough signatures, he has now successfully petitioned his way onto the primary ballot. He has consistently led polls of the GOP primary, although generally in the low 20s. (H/t andyroo312.)

• WI-Sen, WI-Gov (pdf): Apparently, voters in Wisconsin are dimly aware that something called an “election” may be transpiring at some point in the future, as more than half of all those surveyed not having decided yet on a Senate pick, at least according to Univ. of Wisconsin’s Badger Poll. The likely voters in Wisconsin are currently going for Russ Feingold at 33 and Ron Johnson 28. RVs are Feingold 27, Johnson 21, and Wisconsin residents are Feingold 25, Johnson 19. In a remarkable contrast with Rasmussen (who’d have thunk?), nobody knows who Johnson is: he has 12/8 favorables among likely voters. They also look at the even-more-disinteresting gubernatorial race, finding Tom Barrett losing to both Scott Walker and Mark Neumann by the same margin of 32-15 (!). (UPDATE (DavidNYC): Here’s another good reason to mistrust this poll: It was in the field for a month. What the…?)

• WV-Sen: The West Virginia legislature is still busy tinkering with their state’s election laws today as part of the preparations for the special election to succeed Robert Byrd. Perhaps most significantly, it sounds like they are planning special primaries (tentatively set for fast-approaching Aug. 28), rather than a jungle-style election in November. They threw out a Joe Manchin proposal, however, that would scrap the special primaries if only one candidate from each party decided to run.

• AZ-Gov: We reported yesterday on the Rocky Mountain Poll (by the ominously-named Behavior Research Council), and it looks like they also have general election numbers. GOP incumbent Jan Brewer leads Democratic AG Terry Goddard 45-25, a surprisingly large margin since most non-Rasmussen pollsters have seen a close race (although that was mostly before SB 1070-mania hit).

• CO-Gov: SurveyUSA, on behalf of the Denver Post, is out with a snap poll on the subject of Scott McInnis, post-plagiarism-scandal. It turns out that this scandal does have a lot of resonance — there’s a lot less semantic ambiguity here than with Richard Blumenthal or even Mark Kirk… either you wrote it or you didn’t (and then tried to pass the blame on an octogenarian ally). 20% of Republicans now say they’ll vote for someone else, but 39% say they’ll still vote for him. Looking ahead to a replacement, the poll also asked who “the strongest Republican” would be, and the number one pick was… you guessed it… Tom Tancredo, at 29. McInnis followed at 19, with primary opponent Dan Maes at 13. Jane Norton (a possible switchover, given her dwindling Senate campaign) was at 11, former candidate and state Sen. Josh Penry was at 7, and Univ. of Colorado Bruce Benson was at 3. (In other polling news, note that even Rasmussen can’t find a way to polish this turd, as seen in a poll (see below) taken last night.)

If you’re wondering who Benson is, he’s now the subject of perhaps the most speculation as the GOP’s preferred fill-in. Another name getting tossed around is long-ago former Sen. Hank Brown, who more recently served as president of Univ. of Northern Colorado. The Post also was apparently set to do its regularly-scheduled endorsement for the primary this week, and they said that prior to this week, they would have endorsed McInnis; now they can’t endorse anyone at all (which is quite the slap at Maes).

• GA-Gov: Not that he seems to need a lot of help at this point, but Roy Barnes is getting the endorsement of Atlanta’s new mayor, Kasim Reed. Turnabout’s fair play, as Barnes gave Reed a late endorsement in last year’s election.

• NY-Gov: Well, this race is effectively over: Andrew Cuomo reported raising $9.2 million in the last six months for a total of $23.6 million CoH. (You think he could redirect a little of that to the DGA? Of the nation’s 10 most populous states, 9 have gubernatorial races, and of those 9, New York is the lone one that isn’t highly competitive.) Rick Lazio, by comparison, raised $1.4 million in that period, and has $689K CoH, which might make him competitive in an upstate House race. GOP primary rival Carl Paladino reported raising $1.7 million during the same period… but $1.6 million of that came out of his own pocket.

• TN-Gov: We normally don’t report on Mitt Romney’s many endorsements, as he seems to hand out low-four-figures sums of money to any Republican with a pulse who survived a primary. Here’s one that’s a big race though and where the decisive primary hasn’t happened yet. Romney backed Bill Haslam, the establishment and most moderate of the three GOPers in the primary.

• TX-Gov: With full information available from Rick Perry, we know now that Bill White won each fundraising category. White outraised Perry $7.4 million to $7.1 million in the post-primary period, and White leads in CoH by a $9 million to $5.8 million margin. And here’s an interesting tidbit: the White campaign says it’s raised more than $1 million from former Kay Bailey Hutchison contributors.

• CO-04: EMILY’s List is weighing into the 4th with a big independent expenditure. They’ll be spending $300K on TV advertising on behalf of Betsy Markey over the next three weeks; the ad’s a negative spot hitting Corey Gardner, including on health care issues.

• FL-17: The Miami Herald has some helpful background on the largely-forgotten Democratic primary in the open seat 17th, which is where all the action will be in this dark-blue district. (This seat, long held by the Meek family, hasn’t had a competitive primary in decades.) They look at state Sen. Frederica Wilson as frontrunner, and they cite an AFL-CIO poll from March (the first I’ve seen of it) that had Wilson at 34, with 12 for Miami Gardens mayor Shirley Gibson and 10 for North Miami city councilor Scott Galvin. The race’s rapidly emerging wild card, though, seems to be physician Rudolph Moise, by virtue of having over $900K CoH, at least six times what anyone else has. Some of that is self-funded, but he seems to have raised the most from other donors too, and he plans to start an advertising blitz soon.

• GA-12: Rep. John Barrow’s been burning cash fast lately: he raised $204K last quarter but spent $374K in that period, leaving him with $655 CoH. But that’s probably because his big challenge this year is in the Democratic primary (next week), not in the general, where his possible GOP opponents are all pretty weak. Of course, Regina Thomas doesn’t present that much challenge to him, either, if her financials are any indication: she raised $2,400 last quarter and had $6,600 CoH. But hey, at least she managed to file her FEC report on time this year.

• ID-01: Here’s another way that Raul Labrador is an unconventional candidate: he thinks that following that unspoken rule that you release your internal polls only when they have good news for you is for pussies. He’s out with an internal, by Moore Insight, that gives Rep. Walt Minnick — in theory one of the most vulnerable freshmen by virtue of his district and narrow win last time — a 37-27 lead. Minnick’s re-elect is only 38/40, though, which I guess is worth something. Reid Wilson also has more detail on Labrador today, slamming Kevin McCarthy’s efforts to reach out to citizens for help on creating a new Contract with America-type-thing. (The democracy-hating Labrador, no fan of the 17th Amendment either, thinks House leadership should impose the agenda top-down.) Also, were you wondering why Labrador didn’t loudly tout his fundraising haul from last quarter? Well, that’s because he raised $101K in the post-primary period of May and June, and is sitting on all of $69K CoH with $30K debt.

• MI-01: Is this the smallest sample size ever? Another Inside Michigan Politics poll of a House primary is out, this time in the Republican field in the open seat race to replace Bart Stupak, and it’s got a whopping n of 140. State Sen. Jason Allen and physician Dan Benishek (who was the lone GOPer before Stupak’s retirement announcement) are tied at the top with 20 each. There’s also a handful of no-names polling in the low single digits, one of whom, Linda Goldthorpe, just dropped out yesterday. (H/t TheGradyDem.)

• Caucuses: Well, it was only a matter of time before this happened. Michele Bachmann is taking out the paperwork to create a whole new caucus in the House: the Tea Party Caucus. Hmmm… I thought that already existed, and it was called the RSC.

• NY-St. Sen.: Here’s an interesting piece on the fundraising and infrastructure collapse behind the scenes for the GOP in the New York State Senate (who may, via GOP-held open seats, actually manage to lose further seats in November despite the nature of the year). Case in point: the race to replace retiring Senator Vincent Leibell in the Hudson Valley, where there’s cat fud a-flyin’ between establishment pick Mary Beth Murphy and teabaggish Greg Ball (who you may recall from briefly making a splashy entry in the NY-19 field).

• Rasmussen:

• CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 45%, Scott McInnis (R) 43%

• DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 36%, Mike Castle (R) 47%

• DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 39%, Christine O’Donnell (R) 41%

• GA-Gov (D): Roy Barnes (D) 59%, Thurbert Baker (D) 16%, Dubose Porter 5%, David Poythress 5%

• PA-Gov: Dan Onorato (D) 38%, Tom Corbett (R) 48%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D) 45%, Dino Rossi (R) 48%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D) 45%, Clint Didier (R) 48%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D) 46%, Paul Akers (R) 41%

Quinnipiac (7/6-11, registered voters, 5/4-10 in parens):

Joe Sestak (D): 43 (40)

Pat Toomey (R): 43 (42)

Undecided: 12 (16)

(MoE: 2.7%)

Considering that every poll released by Quinnipiac since May of last year has shown Sestak trailing Toomey, I think we can consider this to be a dose of good news. (Yes, according to Pollster.com, Toomey held leads of varying degrees in six consecutive Q-polls.) Nearly half of voters haven’t heard enough about either candidate to form a solid opinion about them, though, so this race has plenty of room for movement. One danger sign for Sestak is that Barack Obama is losing to a generic Republican opponent by 41-40 in a 2012 match-up. It could be worse, but that’s a major fade for a state that supported Obama by double digits in ’08.

Meanwhile, Toomey has considerable edge in fundraising, bringing in $3.1 million in the second quarter and holding $4.65 million in the bank. Sestak, who’s replenishing his reserves after spending big on his primary win over Arlen Specter, raised $2 million in the last three months and has the same amount on-hand. Toomey is already flexing his financial advantage with new ads, but, as usual, NWOTSOTB (no word on the size of the buy).

And, finally, the gubernatorial numbers:

Dan Onorato (D): 37 (37)

Tom Corbett (R): 44 (43)

Undecided: 18 (19)

(MoE: 2.7%)

This is actually one of the better polling results we’ve seen for Allegheny Co. Executive Dan Onorato, but the numbers also illustrate just how challenging this race will be for a Democrat to win. By a 55-32 margin, voters want the next Governor to discontinue Ed Rendell’s policies, meaning that Onorato will have to walk a delicate line if he attempts to cast himself as a reformer.

• CO-Sen: Isn’t this the second time this has happened in about a month? Tom Tancredo says something ridiculous, Republican candidate with an eye on the general repudiates the statement, then walks back the repudiation once he realizes that the teabaggers’ widdle feewings might get hurt. This time it was Ken Buck (on whose behalf Tancredo called Barack Obama the “greatest threat to the United States today” last week); he might have been helped along in his flip-flopping after Jane Norton, who’s losing the primary because Buck outflanked her on the right, started going on about how she agreed with Tancredo,.

• FL-Sen: Marco Rubio’s having a good day so far: he rolled out a ridiculously big fundraising number for the second quarter: $4.5 million raised. No mention of his CoH, though. (All eyes turn to Charlie Crist, though, for his first report after switching to an indie bid, to see whether that shrank or expanded his pool of donors.) Rubio’s second bit of good news is an endorsement from Crist’s former right-hand-man, temporary Sen. George LeMieux. (Since LeMieux reportedly has designs on Bill Nelson’s seat, and he seems to prefer running as a Republican and not on the Crist For Florida line, what else is he going to do, though?)

• NH-Sen: I know, I know, straw poll, terrible gauge of broad public support, take with salt, bla bla bla. Still, here’s a barometer of where the hardcore Live Free or Die crowd currently stands: Ovide Lamontagne dominated the straw poll at the Taxpayer Reunion Picnic, an annual gathering of those who were teabagging long before it was cool. He won 109 to 74 over Jim Bender, a rich guy who’s going the crazy viral ad route. Establishment candidate Kelly Ayotte and moderate outsider Bill Binnie were at 23 and 10.

• WA-Sen: Clint Didier, apparently aware of the stink lines of rank hypocrisy radiating off him, said that he’s swearing off farm subsidies in the future. (Seeing as how it made him look like the worst possible caricature of the teabaggers’ mantra of “I hate the gub’ment! Except when it’s giving me money for doing nothing!”) Apparently that was enough absolution for Rep. Ron Paul‘s satisfaction, as he threw his backing behind Didier this weekend.

• WV-Sen: Rep. Shelly Capito Moore is at least honest about being scared about running for Senate (almost certainly against highly popular Gov. Joe Manchin), although she isn’t couching it in terms of being afraid of Manchin per se, instead saying “I’m afraid to lose momentum that I think I provide for the state.” At any rate, she says she’ll make her (seeming unlikely) decision whether to run in the next few days, probably coinciding with the clarification on the election’s when and how, to be decided in a July 15 legislative special session.

• AZ-Gov: Ain’t that a kick in the head? State Treasurer Dean Martin, who was regarded as something of a frontrunner when he jumped into the GOP primary earlier this year, is suspending his campaign, ostensibly because he didn’t want to be a distraction to Gov. Jan Brewer as she fights lawsuits over SB 1070. In reality, Martin never really caught fire, first when rich self-funder Owen Buz Mills grabbed the not-Brewer mantle and then, mostly, when Brewer suddenly became belle of the right-wing ball when she signed SB 1070.

• FL-Gov: Bill McCollum apparently didn’t want to be touting his fundraising numbers, but they’re out anyway, thanks to a court filing pertaining to Rick Scott’s challenge to the state public financing system. At any rate, McCollum’s sitting on a paltry $800K in cash, a mere blip compared to what Scott can pull out of his own wallet. Of course, Scott could still pull defeat out of the jaws of victory, by antagonizing pretty much the entire RPOF by trying to hang ex-state party chair Jim Greer around McCollum’s neck… and by staking his pro-life credentials on a family who are loudly preferring that he shut up about them.

• GA-Gov: InsiderAdvantage, which offered its poll of the GOP primary last week, has a matching Dem poll today. The question for Dems isn’t whether Roy Barnes gets the most votes but whether he avoids a runoff, and they seem to err on the side of “no runoff:” Barnes is at 59, with Thurbert Baker at 15, and Dubose Porter and David Poythress both at 2, behind someone by the name of Bill Bolton (at 3). Meanwhile, on the GOP side, it seemed like something of an oversight that this endorsement hadn’t happened before, but Sarah Palin finally added Karen Handel to the ever-growing list of Mama Grizzlies. UPDATE: Thurbert Baker just got a top-tier endorsement, from Bill Clinton. It may be too late for that to matter much, though, because at this point Baker needs to not only win all the undecideds but peel away a significant number of Barnes voters. (H/t TheUnknown285.)

• MI-Gov: Motor City endorsements aplenty in the Democratic gubernatorial primary in Michigan: Andy Dillon got the backing of former Detroit mayor Dennis Archer, who many observers thought would have made the strongest candidate had he run. Virg Bernero got endorsements from Detroit’s two House members, John Conyers and Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick.

• MN-Gov: Republican nominee Tom Emmer seems to have dug a large hole for himself with his proposal to start including tips toward restaurant servers’ minimum wage requirement (which has the effect of slashing their hourly base pay); he’s planning on doing a “listening tour” with servers as atonement. Also adding to Emmer’s worries is blowback from his Sarah Palin endorsement, which helped him upset Marty Seifert at the GOP convention but is now already being used as a cudgel in general election advertising (courtesy of Matt Entenza). Meanwhile, Entenza’s Democratic rival Margaret Anderson Kelliher is running her first TV spot; the total buy is for only about $50K, though.

• NE-Gov: Democrats in Nebraska seem to be actively considering just punting the ball, rather than trying to find a replacement candidate for nominee Mark Lakers. On the plus side, that would free up local Democratic money for other ventures (like the race in NE-02), in what was destined to be a thorough loss even with Lakers in the race. On the other hand, Tom White’s challenge to Lee Terry would probably benefit from having, well, something at the top of the ballot.

• PA-Gov: If Tom Corbett is trying to position himself as a moderate for the general election, well, this isn’t the way. He’s publicly using the Sharron Angle line of argumentation that unemployment benefits cause more unemployment, because, naturally, people would rather live on their meager checks than go out and get one of those many abundant jobs that are out there. The ads write themselves… presuming the Democrats ever get around to actually writing them.

• TN-Gov: A mysterious 527 (is there any other kind?) has emerged to pour money into the Tennessee GOP primary. There’s no word on who’s the power behind the throne for Tennesseans for a Better Tomorrow, but they’ll be advertising on behalf of Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey, who’s back in third in the polls and needs a surrogate to do the dirty work of negative advertising against Bill Haslam.

• AZ-03: Jon Hulburd’s fundraising (and self-funding ability) is the main thing keeping this red-district open seat race at least somewhat on the map for the Dems; he’s announcing $250K raised last quarter. (No word on CoH.)

• CO-04: Freshman Rep. Betsy Markey had a strong quarter, raising $530K and sitting on $1.5 million CoH. In this Republican-leaning district, she’ll need every penny of it to get through this year.

• KS-04: Democratic State Rep. Raj Goyle, whose fundraising skills have put this dark-red open seat onto the map, is out with an introductory TV spot. Seems a little earlier for that, doesn’t it? We’d guess that he’s concerned about the primary (remember that there was a SurveyUSA poll a few weeks back that showed him not that far ahead of Some Dude with, well, a more ‘Merican sounding name) and not wanting to go the route of historical footnote Vic Rawl.

• MO-08: Tommy Sowers, if nothing else, is showing a lot of hustle in his long-shot bid against GOP Rep. Jo Ann Emerson in this dark-red rural district. He says he’s passed the $1 million mark for funds raised over the total cycle (nothing specific on 2Q or CoH, though).

• NJ-03: Democratic freshman Rep. John Adler seems to be putting some fundraising distance between himself and Jon Runyan. Adler raised $415K in 2Q to break the $2 million mark for CoH, while Runyan has about $500K in cash.

• NY-01: Randy Altschuler’s got a whole lotta cash: he’s reporting $1.8 million CoH. A lot of that is coming right of the Altschuler family piggy bank, though. He raised a decent $257K last quarter, but loaned himself another $500K on top of that.

• OH-16: Yikes! GOP nominee Jim Renacci must have some deep-pocketed connections from the high-stakes world of Arena Football, because he’s reporting $725K raised last quarter. (No word on CoH.)

• PA-04: This is kind of a small haul to be touting (touting may not be the right word, actually, when even your own campaign adviser calls it “not half bad”), but maybe it’s a good amount when you weren’t even supposed to have won the primary in the first place. Keith Rothfus, who blasted establishment fave Mary Beth Buchanan in the GOP primary, says he has $200K CoH (up from $157K in his pre-primary report … no word on what he actually raised).

• VA-05: Finally, here’s the delicious cherry on top of the shit sundae of fundraising reports: Tom Perriello announces that he raised $660K last quarter, giving him $1.7 million CoH. No word yet from Robert Hurt, but with $121K on hand in his May 19 pre-primary report, I can imagine it’s not in Perriello’s ballpark. The Richmond Times-Dispatch has an interesting compare-and-contrast enterprise in how Perriello and fellow vulnerable freshman Dem Glenn Nye are approaching their re-elections (Perriello emphasizing his base, Nye emphasizing his independence); clearly, based on these numbers, playing to the base can pay off, at least at the bank.

• CA-LG (pdf): We’re still sweeping up from that last installment of the Field Poll. In the Lt. Governor’s race, there’s surprisingly good news for Dems, with Gavin Newsom looking solid against appointed GOPer Abel Maldonado, leading 43-34. The Attorney General results aren’t that surprising: Republican Los Angeles Co. DA Steve Cooley has a narrow edge over SF DA Kamala Harris, 37-34.

• Illinois: It looks like we’ll never have another Scott Lee Cohen scenario again (or for that matter, probably not even another Jason Plummer scenario). Pat Quinn signed into law new legislation requiring, from now on, that Governor and Lt. Governor tickets are joined together before the primary, not after.

• Rasmussen:

• IN-Sen: Brad Ellsworth (D) 30%, Dan Coats (R) 51%

• MD-Gov: Martin O’Malley (D-inc) 46%, Bob Ehrlich (R) 47%

PPP (pdf) (6/19-21, Pennsylvania voters, 3/29-4/1 in parens):

Dan Onorato (D): 35 (32)

Tom Corbett (R): 45 (45)

Undecided: 20 (23)

(MoE: ±4%)

Yesterday’s release from PPP of their gubernatorial numbers aren’t quite the good news that their Senate numbers were (which saw Joe Sestak consolidating Democrats post-primary, and shooting up into a tie with Pat Toomey). While Republican AG Tom Corbett is flat, Democrat Dan Onorato (the Allegheny Co. Executive) didn’t seem to capture as much of the unity bounce as did Sestak; he only rose three points. (Bear in mind that this is the same sample that broke 48 McCain/47 Obama.)

If there’s good news here, it’s that Democrats and liberals are noticeably more heavily undecided than Republicans and conservatives. Dems are 22% undecided (and breaking 57-21 for Onorato) while GOPers are 14% undecided (and breaking 74-12 for Corbett). But we’re getting to the point where Onorato needs to not just nail down the undecided Dems but also flip some of the Dems who are going for Corbett. As I’ve bemoaned before, though, he’s up against two problems; one is his near-Some Dude-ness in the face of Corbett’s high profile (not just because of his statewide office but because of his Bonusgate prosecutions), and two is Pennsylvania’s clockwork eight-year alternation between parties for Governor.