Tag: TX-Gov

• CO-Sen: This probably doesn’t count as an October Surprise since it made a big media impression five years ago, but it’s suddenly popped back into view, and making things dicier for Ken Buck, already on the wrong end of a sizable gender gap in the polls. Buck refused to prosecute a rape case as Weld Co. DA five years ago (despite the police having recommended charges), and the alleged victim is now back in the news. She has a taped recording of their meeting (transcript available at the link) in which he seems to blame the victim and suggest that the case wouldn’t pass muster with a jury.

• FL-Sen: Mason-Dixon (10/4-6, likely voters, 9/20-22 in parens):

Kendrick Meek (D): 21 (23)

Marco Rubio (R): 42 (40)

Charlie Crist (I): 27 (28)

(MoE: ±4%)

With Marco Rubio way ahead, it looks like a Kendrick Meek dropout (rumored on Friday) and a cobbling-together of some sort of Meek/Crist hybrid cyborg would be the only way for the non-Rubio forces to get an advantage in this race. However, Meek’s definitely not acting like a man who’s dropping out, if getting the president of the United States to cut a radio ad for you is any indication.

• WV-Sen: Remember that “hicky” ad that the NRSC ran, and then promptly got apologetic over, once the casting call instructions got leaked? (I know, that was last week, a lifetime ago in politics…) Now it sounds like it just kept running anyway, through last Friday for several days after the story broke, despite promises to take it down.

• NM-Gov: Yep, this is definitely the most over-polled, or at least over-internal-poll-leaked, race around. Today it’s Diane Denish’s turn to retaliate, and she’s out with another poll from one of her apparently two pollsters, Third Eye Strategies, with a 46-46 tie (a little stale, taken 9/21-23). I think we get the general idea, already: Denish sees a tie, Susana Martinez sees a high-single-digits lead for herself, public pollsters see something in between. (UPDATE: That’s odd… we reported this poll several weeks ago. Not sure why it’s back in the news today.)

• CA-47: This is the kind of unity that Loretta Sanchez (last seen alienating her district’s small but politically active Vietnamese community with an ill-advised remark) probably doesn’t like to see: apparently there was a major rift with the Vietnamese Republican community that just got sealed up, as long-time Van Tran rival Janet Nguyen (an Orange County councilor) gave a late-game endorsement to Tran.

• CT-02, CT-03: Merriman River Group hits the quinella in Connecticut, with polls of the two House races in the Nutmeg State that aren’t interesting. In the 2nd, despite getting some touting when she got in the race, GOPer Janet Peckinpaugh is making little impression against Joe Courtney, trailing 55-41. And in the 3rd, Rosa DeLauro is the state’s safest Dem, leading Jerry Labriola 58-37.

• FL-22: Endorsements from primary challengers, especially at this stage in the game, are interesting only when they go to the guy from the other party. But that’s what’s happening in the 22nd, where the guy who lost to Allen West, David Brady, gave his backing to Democratic incumbent Ron Klein today. (So too did several minor-league local elected GOPers, including Palm Beach mayor Jack McDonald.) Says Brady, apparently from the sane wing of the GOP (to the extent that the Palm Beach Post endorsed him in the primary): “I ran against Allen West. I debated him and I can tell you: Allen West is too extreme for this community.”

• MS-04: Dueling polls in the 4th, where everything still averages out to a Democratic lean but unfortunately this is looking like one more real race. GOP state Rep. Steven Palazzo offered a poll a few weeks ago saying incumbent Gene Taylor led by only 4, and now Taylor says, no, he’s leading by 8 (without giving us any other useful information, like the toplines, let alone the pollster or dates). Hmmm, that’s only a difference of four points, so why show your hand, especially in such haphazard fashion? Somehow I don’t think Taylor would be a very good poker player.

• NY-22, NY-25: Bill Clinton showing up in upstate New York to stump on behalf of Dan Maffei, that’s not a surprise, as this race seems to be competitive. But also Maurice Hinchey in the 22nd? We haven’t gotten any smoke signals out of that district before, but that’s an indication that something may bubbling under here. (It’s a D+6 district, and Hinchey barely won in ’94.)

• OH-01: One more unfortunate though unsurprising triage decision to report: Steve Driehaus seems to have run out of time at the DCCC, who are canceling their remaining ad buy in the Cincinnati market for the next two weeks. The deadline for reservations cancellations is coming up soon, so we’ll soon know who else gets the shortest straw drawn for them.

• PA-10: After seeing a incumbent Chris Carney up by single digits in a recent public poll from Lycoming, GOP challenger Tom Marino rummaged around in his poll drawer and pulled out one from the Tarrance Group giving him a 47-42 lead on Carney. (No word from the Fix on the dates, though.)

• TN-04: One last GOP internal to throw into the mix: a POS survey (from 9/27-28) on behalf of Scott DesJarlais shows him tied with Dem incumbent Lincoln Davis, 42-42. We haven’t seen any public polling of this race (and may not, as the NRCC doesn’t seem to be pushing this one hard, maybe on the off chance that it’s the kind of district that’ll flip in a wave regardless of what they do), but Davis claimed an 11-point lead in a late August internal.

• House: If you’re thinking that it seems like there are a lot more races in the “Tossup” and “Lean” categories this year, you’re not alone. Nate Silver quantifies various ways in which there are way more competitive races this year than in other recent cycles, including number of races where there are polls within single-digits, where there are polls period, and where there are major financial contributions.

• Redistricting: This is an interesting, if counterintuitive, piece from HuffPo on redistricting, which proposes that we’ll be in better shape in 2010 redistricting than 2000 redistricting because (based on projected gubernatorial and state legislative outcomes) we’ll have more control over the process in more important states: oddly he leaves out California, but also including Florida, Illinois, Michigan, and Virginia (all states where there was a GOP trifecta last time), and Minnesota and New York (where we might get the trifecta this time)… while the states where the GOP will improve its position aren’t as large (Alabama, Indiana, Tennessee… with Georgia the most significant one). The article also gets into the nitty-gritty of where the population growth within the fast-growing states has occurred (i.e. among minorities).

• Polltopia: You might have noticed that Political Wire briefly had some Senate polls up today from somebody I’ve never heard of before, called “TCJ Research.” Those polls mysteriously vanished after Nate Silver, vanquisher of bogus pollsters, showed up on the scene with a simple tweet:

A WordPress blog getting ~500 hits a day on posts like “October Giveaway: 32 Gigabyte Apple iPad!” suddenly commissions 5 polls? Not likely.

• SSP TV:

• IL-Sen: Two different ads from the DSCC attacking Mark Kirk, hitting him for his House voting record and also revisiting Kirk’s misrememberment of his military record

• NC-Sen: Elaine Marshall’s finally out with a TV spot, going after Richard Burr for helping to break the economy

• WV-Sen: While John Raese nods to the ‘hick’ ad semi-apologetically before changing the subject back to Washington Dems, Joe Manchin seems to be trying to out-hick the hick ad by touting his pro-gun and anti-environment credentials in one fell swoop by (I kid you not) shooting a copy of the cap-and-trade bill

• IL-Gov: The most famous Illinoisian, Barack Obama, cuts a radio spot on behalf of Pat Quinn

• RI-Gov: The DGA pounds Lincoln Chafee one more time from the right, accusing him of being a tax-hiking hippy

• FL-22: Ron Klein moves past the boring fixation on Allen West’s tax liens and onto the really juicy stuff about 2nd Amendment remedies

• MN-06: Taryl Clark hits Michele Bachmann on Social Security

• PA-03: Kathy Dahlkemper touts her pro-life credentials in her new ad, explaining her siding with the Stupak bloc on health care reform

• VA-02: The DCCC’s IE unit points the “hypocrite” arrow at Scott Rigell, for making hundreds of thousands of dollars off “Cash for Clunkers”

• WI-08: Ditto the DCCC ad in the 8th, where they hit Reid Ribble for making hundreds of thousands of dollars for his roofing business off stimulus projects

• Rasmussen:

• CT-Gov: Dan Malloy (D) 49%, Tom Foley (R) 44%

• FL-Gov: Alex Sink (D) 47%, Rick Scott (R) 50%

• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek (D) 19%, Marco Rubio (R) 50%, Charlie Crist (I) 25%

• GA-Gov: Roy Barnes (D) 41%, Nathan Deal (R) 50%

• GA-Sen: Michael Thurmond (D) 38%, Johnny Isakson (R-inc) 53%

• MN-Gov: Mark Dayton (D) 40%, Tom Emmer (R) 38%, Tom Horner (I) 15%

• NE-Gov: Mike Meister (D) 24%, Dave Heineman (R-inc) 66%

• NH-Sen: Paul Hodes (D) 44%, Kelly Ayotte (R) 51%

• NM-Gov: Diane Denish (D) 43%, Susana Martinez (R) 52%

• NV-Gov: Rory Reid (D) 40%, Brian Sandoval (R) 53%

• OR-Gov: John Kitzhaber (D) 48%, Chris Dudley (R) 46%

• SD-Gov: Scott Heidepriem (D) 33%, Dennis Daugaard (R) 57%

• TX-Gov: Bill White (D) 42%, Rick Perry (R-inc) 53%

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

• Angus-Reid: Some of you might have gotten excited about the California numbers offered up today by Angus-Reid (a well-established Canadian pollster, but apparently making their first foray into the States). Well, don’t, because they’re using an RV model, and more importantly, it’s an Internet sample. (Now presumably there’s some scientific selection behind it, not just a “click here!” banner ad, but we’re highly skeptical nonetheless, especially since that seemed to produce notably pro-Dem results in California.)

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 53%, Meg Whitman (R) 41%

• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 55%, Carly Fiorina (R) 39%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 46%, John Kasich (R) 48%

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 42%, Rob Portman (R) 53%

Continuing with today’s theme of throwing a random assortment of crap at you with little to no commentary…

FL-Sen, FL-Gov: Public Opinion Strategies for the Florida Chamber of Commerce (9/27-30, likely voters):

Alex Sink (D): 42

Rick Scott (R): 46

Kendrick Meek (D): 16

Charlie Crist (I): 33

Marco Rubio (R): 40

(MoE: ±3.5%)

Susquehanna (9/28-10/3, likely voters):

Alex Sink (D): 42

Rick Scott (R): 44

(MoE: ±3.1%)

UFMDC (9/23-30, likely voters):

Alex Sink (D): 46

Rick Scott (R): 52

Kendrick Meek (D): 26

Charlie Crist (I): 27

Marco Rubio (R): 46

(MoE: ±4.4%)

NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov: Public Policy Polling (Sen | Gov) (10/1-3, likely voters):

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 50

Joe DioGuardi (R): 40

Andrew Cuomo (D): 53

Carl Paladino (R): 38

(MoE: ±4%)

Siena (10/3-4, likely voters):

Andrew Cuomo (D): 56

Carl Paladino (R): 32

(MoE: ±3.9%)

PA-Sen, PA-Gov: Marist for McClatchy (9/26-28, likely voters):

Joe Sestak (D): 42

Pat Toomey (R): 51

Dan Onorato (D): 41

Tom Corbett (R): 53

(MoE: ±4.5%)

HI-Gov: Public Policy Polling for Daily Kos (10/2-3, likely voters):

Neil Abercrombie (D): 49

Duke Aiona (R): 47

(MoE: ±2.7%)

TX-Gov: Texas Lyceum (9/22-30, likely voters):

Bill White (D): 43

Rick Perry (R-inc): 48

Kathie Glass (L): 5

Deb Shafto (G): 1

(MoE: ±4.8%)

CT-05: Merriman River Group for the CT Capitol Report (10/3-5, likely voters):

Chris Murphy (D-inc): 44

Sam Caligiuri (R): 50

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Gotham Research Group for Chris Murphy (9/19-21, likely voters):

Chris Murphy (D-inc): 50

Sam Caligiuri (R): 37

(MoE: ±4.1%)

MI-07: Myers Research for Mark Schauer (10/3-4, likely voters, 9/21-22 in parens):

Mark Schauer (D-inc): 44 (45)

Tim Walberg (R): 40 (43)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

NC-08: SurveyUSA for Civitas (10/1-3, likely voters):

Larry Kissell (D-inc): 46

Harold Johnson (R): 45

(MoE: ±4.7%)

NJ-06: Monmouth (10/2-5, likely voters):

Frank Pallone (D-inc): 53

Anna Little (R): 41

(MoE: ±3.9%)

• CA-Gov: Another few weeks go by, and Meg Whitman keeps smashing the barriers on over-the-top self-funding: she’s spent $140 million out of pocket over the entire cycle now. Here’s the number that’s gotta suck for her, though: Jerry Brown, having spent all of $10 million so far this cycle, is sitting on $22 million in reserves for the remaining month, allowing him to compete on perhaps an even financial footing for the last month. Whitman’s cash reserves are $9 million, but even if she cuts herself the biggest check of all to re-up, there’s only a finite amount of TV time left for her to buy. Truly the story of the ant and the grasshopper.

• NM-Gov: The Diane Denish camp keeps up the onslaught of internal polls showing her behind but within arm’s length of Susana Martinez. This time, the poll is from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, and gives Martinez a 49-46 lead. That still feels kind of “meh” to me, but there’s an interesting kernel in the fine print: Martinez has fallen into net negative favorables for the first time (39/42, down from 42/31 in August), suggesting the ad war is having its effect.

• OH-Gov: I’m going to wait until I start seeing these kind of numbers in public polls before I start getting too optimistic about whether Ted Strickland’s comeback really has legs, but here’s another strong internal from his camp. The Feldman Group poll taken 10/3-5 gives Strickland a 46-42 lead over John Kasich, and finds Strickland with 47/40 favorables.

• CA-03: Ami Bera continues to be a fundraising force among Democratic challengers (not that he has much high-profile competition on that front); he raised $550K in 3Q, and $2.1 million raised over the cycle. He beat incumbent Dan Lungren yet again, who raised $480K for a $1.7 mil total.

• FL-02: We still haven’t seen any public polling of this race, but here’s a second GOP poll for challenger Steve Southerland giving him a double digit lead over Allen Boyd (the first one was an NRCC poll from the Tarrance Group way back in May, giving Southerland a 52-37 lead). This one’s from National Research (presumably on Southerland’s behalf?), taken 9/29-30, giving Southerland a 46-30 lead.

• VA-05: The US Chamber of Commerce gave its backing to Robert Hurt, not much of a surprise as he’s the kind of non-threatening establishment conservative that wing of the GOP tends to like. Tom Perriello picked that up and is using it as a cudgel that seems to combine various elements that have apparently polled well for Dems (outsourcing and Citizens United), saying that the endorsement means “foreign money” is pouring into the race now, citing companies in Bahrain, Russia, and China that give money to the US Chamber.

• DCCC: Here’s some more detail on the various ways in which the DCCC is, um, advancing in other directions (we told you about their pullout in AZ-08 last night, which probably has to do with Gabby Giffords having enough money to pull her own weight). They’ve also reduced buys for one week in a few other districts: a mix of ones where they seem genuinely hosed (CO-04, TX-17, FL-24, and the KS-03 and IN-08 open seats), one that seems a true tossup but where our guy has money (Harry Teague in NM-02), and one that’s looking like a pickup (LA-02). The DCCC will be using at least some of that money putting out a new brushfire that popped up in NY-23, where Doug Hoffman’s ceasing and desisting makes the race a tossup, and where they’re spending $500K.

• NRCC: Speaking of CO-04 and being hosed, here’s some additional evidence: the NRCC is taking $700K out of the 4th, and moving it next door to another race that’s looking decidedly tossup-ish: John Salazar’s CO-03.

• Redistricting: This may be the single best use of money anywhere by Dems this cycle: they’re finally putting some money into Florida’s redistricting amendments that purport to make the process less subject to gerrymandering. Over $1 million has flowed from Democratic groups to Fair Districts Florida, who are behind the measures. Fair Districts is ostensibly nonpartisan, but obviously the net effect of a less partisan map would be to dismantle one of the most effective Republican gerrymanders anywhere.

• Polltopia: With dramatically different results (especially in the generic ballot tests, but also in head-to-head polls) popping up that often seem to have very different definitions of “likely voter,” Mark Blumenthal looks at the various ways pollsters cobble together their LV models. There’s a marked difference between the way academic pollsters and partisan pollsters do it, revealing major disparities. If you haven’t seen it already, this should be required reading.

• Independent expenditures: The folks at Zata|3 have put together a very useful table, adding up and comparing DCCC and NRCC independent expenditures in all the districts where they’ve weighed in. (The NRCC has spent a lot more so far, despite their cash shortfall vs. the DCCC. The D-Trip seems to be saving up for a massive blast in the final weeks. Or maybe just saving up for 2012.) They also have charts for the DCCC and NRCC that break down each district’s expenditures by category (media buys, production, internet, etc.).

• SSP TV:

• CO-Sen: The DSCC hits Ken Buck for his enthusiasm for privatizing everything he can get his hands on

• CT-Sen: The Chamber of Commerce has a fairly boilerplate ad against Richard Blumenthal for being too anti-(big) business

• KY-Sen: There are six different ads embedded in this Inquirer article, several of which you’ve already seen (including the DSCC ad on Medicare deductibles), but including a new Rand Paul campaign ad on the “Conway = Obama” theme; separately, the NRSC has a new ad here on Conway waffling on extending Bush tax cuts

• MO-Sen: The DSCC has yet another ad about Roy Blunt and his lobbyist friends

• NY-Sen-B: Kirsten Gillibrand’s out with a second bio ad that seems specifically aimed at the upstate market, pointing out her roots in that part of the state

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak’s new ad points to what we junkies have long known, that Pat Toomey’s free market fundamentalism has given him aggregator ratings even more conservative than Rick Santorum

• WI-Sen: A second cookie-cutter ad from the Chamber of Commerce, this one targeting Russ Feingold

• KS-Gov: Tom Holland’s out with his first ad of the cycle, a comparison spot that’s half negative against Sam Brownback, half positive intro of Holland

• TX-Gov: Bill White’s newest ad rebuts some of Rick Perry’s claims about his mayoral leadership and lists his various commendations

• AZ-05: The National Education Association gets into the ad war in a big way, hitting David Schweikert for being anti-public education (this buy is part of a $15 million initiative on the NEA’s part, also including TV in OH-13 and mailers in NC-08)

• CO-04: EMILY’s List is still sticking around in the 4th, bolstering Betsy Markey with an anti-Cory Gardener spot that’s a mother of a child with autism addressing Gardener not wanting to require insurers to cover that

• Rasmussen:

• AZ-Gov: Terry Goddard (D) 39%, Jan Brewer (R-inc) 55%

• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal (D) 54%, Linda McMahon (R) 43%

• IL-Gov: Pat Quinn (D-inc) 38%, Bill Brady (R) 46%, Rich Whitney (G) 4%

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 41%, Mark Kirk (R) 45%, LeAlan Jones (G) 4%

• MD-Gov: Martin O’Malley (D-inc) 49%, Bob Ehrlich (R) 41%

• RI-Gov: Frank Caprio (D) 30%, John Robitaille (R) 22%, Lincoln Chafee (I) 33%

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 44%, John Raese (R) 50%

The polls are coming so fast and furious these days, we have no choice but to throw weird random assortments at you at all hours of the day.

IN-Sen: EPIC-MRA for WISH-TV (9/29-10/1, likely voters, no trendlines):

Brad Ellsworth (D): 33

Dan Coats (R): 51

Rebecca Sink-Burris (L): 5

(MoE: ±4.4%)

WI-Sen (PDF): Marist for McClatchy Newspapers (9/26-28, likely voters, no trendlines):

Russ Feingold (D-inc): 45

Ron Johnson (R): 52

Undecided: 3

(MoE: ±4.5%)

RI-Gov, RI-01: Brown University (9/27-29, registered voters, 6/27-30 in parens):

Frank Caprio (D): 30 (28)

John Robitaille (R): 14 (8)

Lincoln Chafee (I): 23 (27)

Undecided: 30 (32)

(MoE: ±4.1%)

David Cicilline (D): 39

John Loughlin (R): 21

Undecided: 31

(MoE: ±6%)

TX-Gov: Public Strategies for KENS 5 and Texas Belo TV (9/26-10/2, likely voters, no trendlines) (crosstabs – PDF):

Bill White (D): 36

Rick Perry (R-inc): 50

Undecided: 9

(MoE: ±3.7%)

Rankings are ‘Tilt’ (less than 5 point race), ‘Lean’ (5-10 point race) and ‘Favored ‘(10-20 point race). Anything beyond that is ‘Solid’ for either party.

August and September rankings at links.

http://www.swingstateproject.c…

http://www.swingstateproject.c…

SENATE

Dem Tilt

WV (Jury is out on wisdom of election this year.)

CT (People like Blumenthal and aren’t fussed about McMahon but closer than it should be.)

NV (Reid can’t pull away but surely Nevadans can’t elect that nut. Can they?)

Rep Tilt

IL (Hardest call to make. I’m still confident Alexi can get over the hump though.)

Dem Lean

NY (Kirsten’s problem was always that people don’t know her. First ads now helping with that.)

WA (Need to see polls not by Rasmussen to see if Rossi has bounced back.)

CA (Boxer isn’t out of the woods yet but the GOP have better targets.)

Rep Lean

WI (Shocked this has shifted so quickly and so convincingly.)

CO (Bennet doesn’t seem to be getting any traction.)

KY (The one remaining shot at a pickup but I suspect it will be another heartbreaker like ’04.)

PA (Sestak has left it too late this time I fear.)

MO (This will be close but doesn’t look good.)

NH (Independents leaning heavily Republican across the country so Hodes has little chance with them dominating the electorate here.)

Dem Favored

DE (Thanks Teabaggers!)

Rep Favored

OH (No Brunner fans she would not be doing better.)

FL (Crist is becoming a bit of a joke.)

NC (Marshall has no money so no contest.)

IN (In any other year I think Ellsworth wins. Want more polls.)

AR (Lincoln won’t lose as big as some think.)

AK (McAdams has great ads but think Dems will be strategic and help Murkowski.)

LA (Melancon ad hitting Vitter where it hurts in final bid but he was never winning this year if any.)

ND safely in the GOP column.

GOVERNORS

Dem Tilt  

CA (August as good as it gets for Whitman. As suspected Brown just had to go up on tv to get ahead. No blowout though.)

Rep Tilt

OH (Strickland running a great campaign but Kasich a tough opponent.)

IL (Quinn is clearly closing despite his problems. Not sure if it will be enough though.)

ME (LePage seems to be sinking but suspect he still leads. Just.)

VT (Need more polling to see if Shumlin has closed here.)

FL (Scott floods the airwaves and Floridians don’t seem to care how dodgy he is.)

OR (Kitzhaber surprisingly weak but still in with a good shout.)

Dem Lean

CT (Foley has skeletons and Malloy does not which in a blue state means a Dem gain.)

MN (Dayton isn’t perfect but split field means a Dem gain.)

MD (Blue state and decent O’Malley approvals mean no Ehrlich return.)

NH (Longevity and the cycle hurt Lynch but I think he’ll be fine.)

MA (Patrick’s job numbers have risen steadily. Suspect he wins even if Cahill drops out late.)

Rep Lean  

PA (Onorato seems to be closing a little but too little too late I fancy.)

TX (Great campaign from Bill White but afraid the state is just too red this year.)

GA (Cannot quite believe Deal is getting a pass here.)

NM (Martinez has a perfect resume for this year.)

WI (Seems to be moving away from Barrett.)

Dem Favored

CO (Hickenlooper breaks 50 on election day despite having two opponents.)

HI (Abercrombie will have to work for it but should be fine.)

RI (Caprio with the advantage but even if Chafee wins this is basically a Dem gain either way.)

NY (No longer a rout but I’m not worried.)

AR (Every incumbent Dem should be on this board!)

Rep Favored

SC (Latest poll looks dodgy but still expect this to tighten in the final weeks.)

NV (Possible Rory could make this close but I can’t see any way he wins.)

MI (Since a Republican was always likely to win Snyder isn’t half bad.)

AZ (Brewer’s debate debacle doesn’t seem to have hurt much.)

OK (I suspect no total blowout but a comfy margin all the same.)

IA (Culver might be toast even with a weaker Republican.)

TN (McWherter turns out to be a bit of dud.)

KS (Nobody seems to have much love for Brownback but even fewer love Dems this year.)

ID (Closer than expected but Otter will win.)

AK (Berkowitz is a decent nominee but I bet he wishes he had challenged Murkowski instead.)

WY safely in the GOP column.

Projection

SENATE – GOP +7

GOVERNORS – GOP +7

• CT-Sen: This might get swallowed up by Linda McMahon’s minimum wage comments, which are still dominating the coverage of this particular race, but here’s a new instance of McMahon getting tripped up by those annoying little facts. At a tea party rally in April, she fended off a question about lobbyists, saying “I have not spent lobbying dollars in Washington.” Disclosures show that WWE, between 2001 and 2008, spent $680K on lobbying expenses, including $340K in 2007-2008 during the period when Congress was investigating use of steroids in sports.

• DE-Sen: When asked about his plans for the Delaware race, John Cornyn (after having gotten goaded into giving Christine O’Donnell $42K post-primary) has returned to sounding disinterested: “We will be supporting Christine O’Donnell as appropriate if that race is competitive. Right now it looks like it is not as competitive as other places around the country.” (Counting down to another blast of anti-NRSC teabagger fury in 3… 2…) Meanwhile, travel back in time (for the future of mankind) to 2002, and check out this great photo of O’Donnell and friends (which ought to further alarm some of her more conservative supporters worried about her witchcraft past… did it involve bat-head biting too?). Is O’Donnell just Paranoid, or is she really riding the Crazy Train?

• AR-Gov: Here’s a poll from the one (count ’em, 1) gubernatorial race in the country where the incumbent Democrat is more or less safe. Hendrix College, on behalf of Talk Business, finds Mike Beebe leading Republican Jim Keet 49-35. That’s a bit of an improvement from their previous poll in July, where Beebe led 50-41.

• CA-Gov: Realizing that she’s on the wrong end of written evidence, Meg Whitman’s trying out a new tactic: blaming her husband (the soap-opera-named Dr. Griff Harsh). Whitman denied knowing about the letter, but now says she “suspects” that the handwriting on the letter regarding her housekeeper’s Social Security number is his. Meanwhile, here’s a link to that Spanish-language TV ad on the housekeeper issue that we mentioned yesterday, as part of the SEIU’s huge cash infusion to this race.

• FL-Gov: With a number of public polls this week showing Rick Scott having moved back into the lead, Alex Sink is leaking an internal poll. She’s leading, although by a much smaller margin than the Mason-Dixon poll from just last week that had her up 7. Instead, she’s up by only 1, 45-44, in the poll taken over Sept. 23-29 (no word on who the pollster is).

• IN-Gov: Retiring Sen. Evan Bayh, of the eight-digit war chest, just gave $500K to the Indiana Democratic Party (after having given $1 million earlier in the year). Presumably that’s to help with the three tight House races there, but many are interpreting it as a sign of goodwill oriented toward bolstering his shot at taking back over as Governor in 2012.

• MA-Gov: I’ll just quote DavidNYC on this: “I hope they sell sacks in XXXL size for Tim Cahill to put his sad into.” How craptacular is your campaign when not just your campaign manager but then your actual running mate bails on you and endorses your opponent? That’s what happened to indie candidate Tim Cahill, whose Lt. Gov. running mate, Republican state Rep. Paul Loscocco, announced that he’s leaving the ticket and backing Charlie Baker instead, perhaps realizing that Cahill’s presence is the main thing keeping Baker from a shot at winning. (Also recall that Loscocco had originally wanted to be Baker’s running mate but got snubbed for that, and accepted Cahill’s offer as something of a fallback.) Cahill, pretty much friendless at this point, just announced in a press conference that he’s staying in the race, though.

• NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo got an unusual endorsement today, from the always-unpredictable world of Staten Island politics. The Conservative borough president, James Molinaro, threw his backing to Cuomo. (Molinaro is a key ally of Michael Bloomberg. Don’t confuse him with ex-Rep. and county Conservative party chair Guy Molinari, who’s the real power behind the throne on Staten Island.) Also, the war between Carl Paladino (last seen going ballistic on the venerable Fred Dicker) and the Rupert Murdoch-owned New York Post seems to be intensifying, if the latest opus from editor-in-chief Col Allen is any indication (note the intentional use of plural form!). If you’re a Republican in New York and you’ve lost the Post, well, you’ve lost.

Mr. Caputo should check his facts before making charges against Post personnel. In addition, Mr. Paladino should not be surprised by the media’s interest in his families…

• OH-13: Now this is seems like it has some game-changing potential here: Tom Ganley, the moneybags car dealer who’s turned the Dem-leaning 13th into a real race, just got sued for sexual assault by a former enthusiastic supporter who says she met him at a Tea Party rally and tried to volunteer for his campaign. Ganley, she says, wanted her to volunteer for some rather different duties:

While she waited in Ganley’s office, the suit says, he made sexually suggestive comments and invited her to join him and his friends at a condominium he owns in Strongsville. Ganley gave her a $100 bill and told her to buy some lingerie and high-heeled shoes, according to the lawsuit.

Ganley told her he wanted her to dominate her, parade her on a leash and have sex with her in front of his “play friends,” the suit says. It accuses him of grabbing her from behind, wrapping his arms around her, kissing her and, despite her resistance, reaching into her pants.

Naturally, the Ganley camp is calling the suit “extortion” and politically motivated.

• PA-07: Now that primary season is over, we’ve pretty much stopped reporting on union endorsements, as they shouldn’t come as any surprise at this point… except when they endorse the Republican. That’s what happened in the 7th, though, as the United Aerospace Workers local gave its backing to Pat Meehan. (They’re a major presence in the district, given the large Boeing helicopter plant near the Philly airport.)

• Enthusiasm gap: PPP hasn’t been putting out very encouraging numbers lately, but they do offer some cause for optimism that may or may not pan out: with Republican unity pretty much maxed out, the enthusiasm gap can’t do anything but shrink. They point out that there are many more Democratic undecideds than Republican ones right now. They show that’s especially profound in the Illinois races (and that late coming-home may be what’s propelling Pat Quinn all of a sudden), and, although it’s not on their chart, I’d guess also in Pennsylvania, where the Dem undecideds have always been strangely high and we may be seeing some gap-closing beginning too.

• Money: If you’ve noticed that there’s a crapload of independent expenditures coming from billionaire-funded 527s and 501(c)(3)s in the last month, pretty much wiping out whatever cash advantage the Democratic congressional committees had over the GOP committees, you’re not alone in that realization. Bloomberg calculates that independent organizations have outspent the parties combined in trying to buy shape the election: $33 million from folks like American Crossroads and the Chamber of Commerce, compared with $20 million from all of the party committees.

• SSP TV:

• AK-Sen: Lisa Murkowski works fast to turn Joe Miller’s ill-advised drapes-measuring tweets against him, with a new radio ad

• IL-Sen: Here’s another ad with cute babies, this time from Mark Kirk, but this time not about abortion but how DEBT WILL CRUSH US ALL!!1!

• NH-Gov: Wow, the RGA must suddenly sense they have an opportunity here, and they have an ad up hitting John Lynch on spending

• TX-Gov: Rick Perry can’t coast to re-election this time and he’s up with another ad, this time hitting Bill White on one of his perceived strengths (emergency management during Hurricane Rita)

• FL-08: The NRCC hits back against Alan Grayson for his “Taliban Dan” ad against Dan Webster, calling Grayson “a national embarrassment”

• IL-10: The DCCC does a half-and-half ad, touting Dan Seals’ business background and hitting Bob Dold! on pro-life and tea party connections

• Rasmussen:

• FL-Gov: Alex Sink (D) 41%, Rick Scott (R) 46%

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 40%, Pat Toomey (R) 49%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 44%, Scott Walker (R) 50%

• AK-Sen: Daily Kos just added Scott McAdams to its Orange to Blue list, so if you’re still looking to throw some money in his direction, you can do so via Big Orange. Meanwhile, Lisa Murkowski is trying to gear up her write-in campaign, and with Ted Stevens having been laid to rest this week, she’s mulling whether to roll out those ads featuring Stevens that she had ready to go pre-primary but pulled because of his death. This can’t be good news for Murkowski, though: Rep. Don Young, more from the Murkowski/Stevens wing of the local GOP than the teabagger wing, is having a bout of self-preservation and is staying neutral, not endorsing anyone in the race. Finally, here’s one more page in Joe Miller’s ongoing saga of milking the system that he hates so darn much: when new to Alaska (but after he’d bought his expensive house and started working as an attorney), he obtained an indigent hunting/fishing license that required an income of less than $8,200/yr.

• DE-Sen: Christine O’Donnell says she attended Oxford. Oh, no, wait, she took a course from something called the Phoenix Institute that “rented space from” Oxford. Why am I not surprised?

• FL-Sen: I always figured that the early love affair between the local teabaggery and Marco Rubio wouldn’t last; he seemed more from the mainstream Jeb Bush camp and it seemed more a marriage of convenience based on his charisma but mostly on the fact that he wasn’t Charlie Crist. Anyway, he’s pretty much severed the relationship and making a break for the establishment with his latest revelation, that he decided several months ago against privatizing Social Security after concluding the idea “doesn’t work.” (If Ken Buck gets elected, I wonder how long it’ll take him to make the same move?)

• IL-Sen: The DSCC is keeping on pouring money into the Land of Lincoln, bolstering Alexi Giannoulias. They’re adding another $400K to the pile, for another week on the air.

• KY-Sen: The NRSC is taking the opposite tack, engaging in a little advertisus interruptus and pulling out for a week from Kentucky. (They claim they’re doing so from a position of strength, naturally.) Meanwhile, this is kind of small ball ($1,400 in contributions from three guys), but it’s still the kind of headline you probably don’t want to see if you’re Rand Paul, especially once you’ve made your feelings on the Civil Rights Act clear:

Conway camp calls on Paul to return money from white separatists

• NY-Sen-B: Marist (9/19-22, likely voters, 5/3-5 in parentheses):

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 52 (50)

Joe DioGuardi (R): 41 (30)

Undecided: 7 (20)

(MoE: ±4%)

Marist gives you a buffet of different numbers of choose from, as it’s 54-42 for Gillibrand when leaners are pushed, or it’s 55-36 when polling just registered voters (meaning there’s an enthusiasm gap worth 8 points here). They also find Chuck Schumer having no problems in the other Senate race, leading Jay Townsend 58-37 among LVs (and 63-32 among RVs).

• WI-Sen: Ron Johnson’s one act of political participation prior to this year — testifying before the state legislature in opposition to the bipartisan-supported Wisconsin Child Victims Act — is getting a second look in the press. His main interest in opposing the bill was that it could lead to corporations or other business entities being held liable for acts of employees, worried about the “economic havoc” it would create (and worried that those meddling “trial lawyers” would benefit). Think Progress has video of the testimony.

• WV-Sen: This seems like a new one to me… John Raese is actually paying people to write letters to the editor on his behalf. Not just offering them McCain Bucks that can’t be redeemed for anything in the real world, but running an actual contest giving money to people who get the most letters published. Also, I’ll give John Raese credit for being himself even when he’s being followed around by reporters. Here’s his reaction to finding out that the NRA endorsement went to Joe Manchin:

Raese speaks angrily into the phone, his words full of threat: “Tell them that I have an A plus rating with them, and that if they are fair they should include that. Tell them about the polling. Tell them I’m riding an elephant.” Raese pulls the cell phone away from his ear,  hands it back to Patrick the driver, and says “That has made it a lot harder.”

• CT-Gov: Little known fact: did you know that Jodi Rell still hasn’t endorsed Tom Foley yet, despite only weeks to go? Foley’s camp is saying it’s imminent, but it looks like Rell has summoned up even less enthusiasm in the general as she did for her Lt. Gov., Michael Fedele, in the GOP primary.

• FL-Gov: Here’s an interesting endorsement for Alex Sink: she got the backing of term-limited Republican state Sen. Alex Villalobos. Villalobos is also backing Charlie Crist (and even Dan Gelber in the AG race), so this exactly a sign of the Republican edifice collapsing, though.

• IA-Gov, SD-AL: Add one more to the long list of Dems who are getting a nice NRA endorsement as their box-of-Rice-a-Roni-and-can-of-Turtle-Wax-style parting gift on their way out the studio door. Chet Culver just got the backing of the gun lobby. (One state to the north, they also just backed Stephanie Herseth Sandlin today.)

• CA-44: PPP for Democrats.com (9/24-26, likely voters, no trendlines):

Bill Hedrick (D): 38

Ken Calvert (R-inc): 49

Undecided: 13

(n=760)

Despite being woefully underfunded, Bill Hedrick’s keeping the race competitive in his rematch against Ken Calvert (recall that he almost won, out of nowhere, in 2008). How he makes up that last 12 points in this climate, though, I’m not sure.

• FL-22: Harstad Research Group for Project New West (9/20-22, likely voters, no trendlines):

Ron Klein (D): 48

Allen West (R): 43

Undecided: 9

(n=504)

There’s lots of back-and-forth in the polling of the 22nd, with each side sporting their own internal with a lead in the last week. Dem pollster Harstad weighs in with another one going in Ron Klein’s column.

• KS-03: Moore money, Moore problems? Retiring Rep. Dennis Moore is still busy emptying out his campaign coffers, transferring $100K more to the Kansas Democratic party (on top of a previous $100K in June). That’s probably with the understanding that the money will be used to pay for their newest mailer in support of Stephene Moore, running to succeed her husband.

• NH-01, NH-02: American Research Group (9/22-26, likely voters, no trendlines):

Carol Shea-Porter (D-inc): 40

Frank Guinta (R): 50

Undecided: 8

Ann McLane Kuster (D): 36

Charlie Bass (R): 38

Undecided: 21

(MoE: ±5%)

Here are some unusual results from ARG! (although should we expect anything else?): they find Carol Shea-Porter getting keelhauled in the 1st, while the open seat battle in the 2nd is a swashbuckling battle (contrary to other polls we’ve seem of these races, where the 1st has been a tossup or a narrow CSP advantage while the 2nd has looked bad).

• PA-08: I’ve been patiently waiting here for actual toplines for more than a day, but it seems like they aren’t forthcoming… so I’ll just let you know there’s a Harstad Research Group poll (on behalf of SEIU and VoteVets, not the Patrick Murphy campaign) out in the 8th that gives Murphy a 3-point lead over Mike Fitzpatrick and an 8-point lead among voters who voted in 2006. It was taken Sept. 20-22.

• WI-07: Garin Hart Yang for Julie Lassa (9/26-27, likely voters, in parentheses):

Julie Lassa (D): 41

Sean Duffy (R): 42

Gary Kauther (I): 7

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±4.4%)

I don’t know how good a sign this is, releasing an internal where you’re still trailing in a Democratic-leaning district. Lassa needs to let the donors know she’s still in this, I suppose.

• WV-03: Global Strategy Group for DCCC (9/23-26, likely voters, no trendlines):

Nick Rahall (D-inc): 55

Spike Maynard (R): 37

Undecided: 8

(MoE: ±4.8%)

Well, here’s one district where all the polls (even the one from AFF) are consistent in showing a nearly-20 point edge for long-time Dem Nick Rahall.

• NY-St. Sen.: Four polls from Siena of key New York State Senate races have, on the balance, bad news for the Democrats: Darrell Aubertine, the first Democrat in several geological epochs to hold SD-48 in the North Country, is trailing GOP opponent Pattie Ritchie for re-election, 48-45. Brian Foley, in Long Island-based SD-4, is also in a tough race, leading Lee Zeldin 44-43. Meanwhile, two Republican incumbents are looking fairly safe: Frank Padavan, who barely survived 2008 in Dem-leaning Queens-based SD-11, leads ex-city councilor Tony Avella 56-32, while in SD-44, Hugh Farley leads Susan Savage 55-37. (I’d rather see them poll the open seat races; that’s where the Republicans are at more risk.)

• Mayors: There aren’t a lot of big-city mayoral races where the decisive vote is in November (most were wrapped up in the primaries), but one interesting one is Louisville, where the longtime Dem incumbent Jerry Abramson is leaving in order to run for LG next year. Dem Greg Fischer (who you may remember from the 2008 Senate primary) is beating Republican city councilor Hal Heiner 48-42, according to SurveyUSA.

• DLCC: You probably saw yesterday that the DLCC is out with a first round of 20 “essential races” for controlling key state legislative chambers. Well, over in diaries, now they’re soliciting suggestions for further additions to the list, so please add some suggestions from races that are near and dear to your own hearts.

• SSP TV:

• CA-Sen: The Chamber of Commerce, trying to salvage this dwindling race, tries to hang the “career politician” tag on Barbara Boxer

• CO-Sen: The DSCC goes after Ken Buck on Social Security again

• CO-Sen: The NRSC runs an anti-Michael Bennet ad, hitting him on his support for health care reform

• DE-Sen: The DSCC crams as much Christine O’Donnell insanity as it can into 30 seconds

• IL-Sen: Mark Kirk goes back to where he began, with another bio spot of small town boy made good

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak’s newest ad keeps on trying to tie Pat Toomey to Wall Street

• WV-Sen: The DSCC goes after John Raese for supporting eliminating the minimum wage and his own ooopses at his own company

• CT-Gov: The DGA hits Tom Foley on outsourcing in his former career as textile magnate

• MI-Gov: The RGA hits Virg Bernero on spending as mayor (OMG! he spent $1,277 on pencils!)

• NM-Gov: Another Susana Martinez attack ad hits Diane Denish for some bungled solar power thingamajig

• TX-Gov: Here’s a mindblowing stat: the DGA has never paid for advertising in Texas… until now. They’re out with an attack on Rick Perry, calling him what nobody wants to be called this cycle (“career politican”)

• KY-03: Todd Lally’s out with two ads, one a bio spot, the other a pretty funny attack on John Yarmuth using the K-Tel greatest hits album motif

• MI-07: Tim Walberg has to call on his mom for help: not to do any polling on his behalf, just to appear in an ad about Social Security

• NC-02: This was probably inevitable… AJS weighs into the 2nd with an ad using Bob Etheridge going apeshit on a poor innocent little tracker

• NC-11: Repent now or Jeff Miller will forever cast you into the fiery pits of Nancy Pelosi’s hell!

• ND-AL: Earl Pomeroy touts how well he cooperated with George W. Bush! (on Medicare Part D, though, which probably plays well among North Dakota’s aging population)

• PA-08: Outsourcing must be polling well for the Dems these days, as Patrick Murphy hits Mike Fitzpatrick on that

• VA-05: Indie candidate Jeff Clark scrounged up enough money to advertise? And he’s attacking GOPer Robert Hurt? That’s good enough for me

• Rasmussen:

• CT-Gov: Dan Malloy (D) 50%, Tom Foley (R) 40%

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 46%, John Raese (R) 48%

• Fox/Pulse (aka Rasmussen):

• CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 44%, Dan Maes (R) 15%, Tom Tancredo (C) 34%

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 43%, Ken Buck (R) 47%

• IL-Gov: Pat Quinn (D-inc) 36%, Bill Brady (R) 46%, Rich Whitney (G) 8%

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 40%, Mark Kirk (R) 42%, LeAlan Jones (G) 7%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 43%, John Kasich (R) 45%

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 37%, Rob Portman (R) 50%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 48%, Dino Rossi (R) 47%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 45%, Scott Walker (R) 49%

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold (D-inc) 44%, Ron Johnson (R) 52%

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

Roxanne Conlin (D): 30 (30)

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

Undecided: 6 (10)

(MoE: ±4.2%)

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

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

Paul Hodes (D): 32 (36)

Kelly Ayotte (R): 46 (43)

Undecided: 20 (21)

John Lynch (D-inc): 42

John Stephen (R): 40

Undecided: 14

(MoE: ±3.5%)

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

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

Lee Fisher (D): 40 (47)

Rob Portman (R): 55 (46)

Undecided: 5 (6)

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

John Kasich (R): 49 (44)

Undecided: 6 (6)

(MoE: ±3.4%)

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

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

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

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

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

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

Diane Denish (D): 46

Susana Martinez (R): 46

Undecided: 7

(MoE: ±4.4%)

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

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

Bill White (D): 39 (37)

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

Kathie Glass (L): 4 (-)

Deb Shafto (G): 1 (-)

Undecided: 8 (13)

(MoE: ±3.9%)

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

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

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

Sandy Adams (R): 43 (49)

Undecided: 12 (9)

(MoE: ±3.7%)

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

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

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

Steven Palazzo (R): 41 (24)

(MoE: ± ?%)

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

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

Chris Carney (D-inc): 46

Tom Marino (R): 38

Undecided: 17

(MoE: ±4.9%)

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

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

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

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-inc): 51

Kristi Noem (R): 38

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±4.9%)

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

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

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

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

• SSP TV:

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

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

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

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

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

• Rasmussen:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• DE-Sen: One more Real World alum in the political news: that’s first-season vet Eric Neis debating Christine O’Donnell in this new 90s video that’s surfaced. Ooops, I’m burying the lede: the point of the video is that O’Donnell answers in the affirmative when asked if she wants to stop the whole country from having sex.

• KY-Sen: Benenson Strategy Group for DSCC (9/14-19, likely voters, early Sept. in parentheses):

Jack Conway (D): 42 (45)

Rand Paul (R): 45 (47)

Undecided: 13 (8)

(MoE: ±3.7%)

The newest Benenson poll from the DSCC shows things pretty stable in the Kentucky race, with Jack Conway hanging back within striking distance of Rand Paul. They also find Conway leading 48-45 among those who actually know both candidates (and find Paul with greater name recognition: 84%, to 72% for Conway).

• MO-Sen: The DSCC is also out with an internal poll in Missouri, one of the other races where they’d like you to know they’re still playing offense, courtesy of Garin Hart Yang (no mention of the dates, MoE, or any of that useful stuff, though… just a leak to the Fix). The poll has Robin Carnahan trailing Roy Blunt 45-41 (and only 41-40 without leaners). Roy Blunt, meanwhile, is engaging in typical frontrunner behavior, trying to limit debates (to avoid any grist for the negative ad mill); there will only be two debates, neither in a network TV setting.

• NC-Sen: National Research for Civitas (9/15-17, likely voters, 7/19-21 in parentheses):

Elaine Marshall (D): 29 (37)

Richard Burr (R-inc): 49 (44)

Mike Beitler (L): 3 (3)

Undecided: 17 (15)

(MoE: ±4%)

Thanks to a big lead with unaffiliateds (48-21), Richard Burr has a big lead in North Carolina. With a big financial disparity, unless there’s some outside assistance, that lead’s probably going to continue (although I’d be surprised if it’s actually a full 20 points). One other interesting note: Civitas hires out third-party pollsters, and this is their first poll since they switched to Republican internal pollster National Research.

• NV-Sen, NV-Gov: The only evidence we have of this poll is a Jon Ralston tweet, but apparently there’s a poll rumbling around behind the scenes from a reputable Republican pollster that gives a 5-point lead to Harry Reid, 42-37 (among RVs). That’s quite plausible; the real shock here, though, is that it also finds Rory Reid trailing only by 6 in the governor’s race.

• WV-Sen: The big news here is probably that the NRSC is plowing $1.2 million into this race, hoping for the upset (as this race seems to be increasingly taking the place of Washington and California) or at least to pull DSCC fire away from elsewhere. That’s just to run one new ad, tying Joe Manchin to Barack Obama; part of the expense is that the ad is running in the DC market, so it can reach the Panhandle. (You can see the IE filing here.)

One more plus, though, for Joe Manchin, is that he’s getting the NRA’s endorsement (one more in a seemingly endless parade of ConservaDems getting backed this week). Also, some details about John Raese are surfacing that may lead to ads that write themselves: photos of his marble-driveway Florida mansion, where it turns out his family lives full-time (presumably because of Florida’s big juicy homestead exemption, but also because of the schools, as he wants a school system he “believes in”)… and Raese’s own description, in a radio interview yesterday, of how hard he worked for his riches:

RAESE: I made my money the old-fashioned way, I inherited it. I think that’s a great thing to do. I hope more people in this country have that opportunity as soon as we abolish inheritance tax in this country, which is a key part of my program.

• AZ-Gov: Here’s a look at the financial situation in Arizona, where both gubernatorial candidates are relying on clean elections public financing in their bids. Dem Terry Goddard has about $1 million left to spend, while Jan Brewer has $860K left. Goddard also spent more in the last reporting period, spending $477K to Brewer’s $291K.

• MA-Gov: If you’re shedding your main campaign strategist with 40 days to go, that’s probably a sign that you’re not going to win. That’s what happened with the Tim Cahill camp, who said goodbye to John Weaver. Having seen Cahill’s share plunge into the single digits, Weaver said (in a parting shot) at this point, Cahill’s candidacy is just hurting Charlie Baker’s chances.

• NY-Gov: Marist (9/14-19, likely voters, no trendlines):

Andrew Cuomo (D): 53 (67)

Carl Paladino (R): 34 (22)

Rick Lazio (C) : 9 (NA)

Undecided: 6 (11)

(MoE: ±4%)

I don’t know if the Marist poll exactly qualifies as a tie-breaker in the New York gubernatorial race, but it’s a likely voter poll (instead of an RV poll, like Siena), and it doesn’t have that outlier-ish whiff that Quinnipiac had. Also adding to its potential credibility: it’s about halfway between the two, if erring somewhat on the side of Andrew Cuomo’s safety. (It looks like they’ll release Senate numbers later, separately.)

• CA-47: This is the first time I’ve ever used the scary all-caps to put words in the mouth of a Democratic candidate, but Loretta Sanchez just sent up the alarm that THE VIETNAMESE ARE COMING FOR HER SEAT!!!1!! Not just Van Tran, but apparently all of them!!! I suppose that’s a dog-whistle of sorts to her Latino base in this seat that has a Latino majority (though not a lot of actual voters among them) and a politically active Asian minority, where her Republican challenger is Vietnamese. Kind of a faceplant moment for Sanchez, who has had good outreach to the Vietnamese community in the past (up until now, I’d imagine) and has relied on their votes to stay in office.

• MI-01: Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for Gary McDowell (9/21-22, likely voters, no trendlines):

Gary McDowell (D): 38

Dan Benishek (R): 41

Glenn Wilson (I): 12

Undecided: 9

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Here are some not-bad numbers from an internal for Gary McDowell, showing this is one of the few Republican-leaning open seats where we’re still in fighting shape right now. McDowell’s offering some pushback against a Dan Benishek internal that gave Benishek a 39-25 lead in a race that also includes wealthy independent Glenn Wilson.

• MI-07: It’s a little late in the game for ex-Rep. Tim Walberg to be jumping on the birther train (that’s so 2009…) but he just said that he doesn’t know if Obama was born in the U.S. Meanwhile, his incumbent Dem opponent, Mark Schauer, is out with an internal poll in response to the Rossman Group poll that gave a 4-point lead to Walberg. Schauer’s poll, taken 9/21-22 by Myers Research, finds a mirror-image 4-point lead for Schauer, 49-45 (or if you’d prefer inclusion of all third-party candidates, he’s up 45-43).  

• NRCC: The NRCC is wading into six more districts that they haven’t been in before, with IE ad buys. Most (except for WA-03) of these districts feel like “Lean Dem” districts right now, but where the GOP thinks it can make some inroads: Ike Skelton’s MO-04, Chris Carney’s PA-10, Steve Kagen’s WI-08, Martin Heinrich’s NM-01, and the open seats in MA-10 and WA-03.

• AFF: The financially-disadvantaged NRCC can’t win this all on its own, so AFF is keeping up its IEs, too. They’re going on the air in four new districts, two of which overlap the above list. They’re hitting SD-AL ($360K), TX-17 ($117K), NM-01 ($290K), and WA-03 ($875K).

• SSP TV:

• CO-Sen: The softer side of Ken Buck? He’s out with a positive ad with testimonials from senior citizens

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist simultaneously hits both his opponents on corruption issues in one ad, hitting Kendrick Meek’s real estate dealing and Marco Rubio’s enthusiastic use of RPOF credit cards

• NC-Sen: It seemed to work well the first time for Richard Burr, so the rocking chair guys are back for another round

• NV-Sen: The newest ad from Harry Reid hits Sharron Angle for not supporting requiring health insurers to cover mammograms and colonoscopies

• NY-Sen-A: Chuck Schumer’s running his first ad of the cycle, a bio spot, on local cable

• PA-Sen: Pat Toomey’s newest ad is a hard negative one linking Joe Sestak to Barack Obama; interestingly, it’s not running in the Philadelphia market

• WA-Sen: Dem group Commonsense Ten is out with an anti-Dino Rossi ad throwing the kitchen sink at him, including the foreclosure seminars

• CA-Gov: The latest Meg Whitman opus attacks Jerry Brown over Oakland schools during his tenure as mayor

• CA-47: Loretta Sanchez launches a negative ad against Van Tran, featuring him asleep on the job (during an Assembly budget all-nighter)

• LA-03: Bet you’d forgotten there’s still one race where the field isn’t set? (There’s still a GOP runoff here.) Anyway, Hunt Downer is out with an ad full of adorable babies… to make the point that Jeff Landry is insufficiently pro-life

• PA-03: Kathy Dahlkemper engages in some fat-cat bashing, tying Mike Kelly to Wall Street

• Rasmussen:

• FL-Gov: Alex Sink (D) 44%, Rick Scott (R) 50%

• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek (D) 21%, Marco Rubio (R) 40%, Charlie Crist (I) 31%

• MN-Gov: Mark Dayton (D) 41%, Tom Emmer (R) 42%, Tom Horner (I) 9%

• OK-Gov: Jari Askins (D) 34%, Mary Fallin (R) 60%

• SC-Gov: Vincent Sheheen (D) 33%, Nikki Haley (R) 50%

• TX-Gov: Bill White (D) 42%, Rick Perry (R-inc) 48%

DE-Sen: Interesting – Mike Castle isn’t ruling out a write-in bid. If he does pull the trigger, let’s see if the NRSC and the Senate GOP caucus have the stomach to tell Castle to fuck off. It’d be a great test of their will – and their willingness to embrace Christine O’Donnell.

FL-Sen: Al Gore Alert! In a rare sighting on the campaign trail, Al Gore (still my president!) will headline a rally for Kendrick Meek in Tampa on September 30th. Have we seen Gore do events for any other candidates this cycle?

KY-Sen: Objectively pro-methamphetamine senate candidate Rand Paul keeps running into trouble over his views on drugs. Republican Clay County Sherriff Kevin Johnson endorsed Paul after Paul told him he supported Operation UNITE, a federally-funded anti-drug task force. Paul’s hostility to UNITE, though, is what’s gotten him into hot water in the first place – and amazingly enough, when asked to confirm his pledge to Johnson, Paul’s campaign refused to back it up! I had always hoped/prayed/expected that Rand Paul was such a hardcore libertarian that he’d rigidly – and publicly – cling to beliefs that halfway-competent politicians would be smart enough to elide, deny, or just plain hide. I just figured it would be something like the gold standard, not, you know, meth.

Surprisingly, Paul has smelled the glove belonging to a very different interest group, the neocons. They mistrust Paul’s views on Israel and probably just on the general concept of randomly invading countries and killing people.

AR-Gov: That Ipsos poll which showed Blanche Lincoln “only” 14 points into her political grave also has a gubernatorial component. Dem Gov. Mike Beebe is beating Republican Jim Keet by a 55-37 margin among LVs. You want an enthusiasm gap? Beebe wins 58-30 among RVs. (It was 57-35 among RVs back in July.)

CO-Gov: God, I love the smell of ratfucking in the morning. So, we all know about Scott McInnis’s now-legendary implosion thanks to his plagiarism/theft scandal, but Democrats had a big hand in consigning him to the dustbin of history. It turns out that a group called the Colorado Freedom Fund spent half a million bucks on ads blistering McInnis during the primary, in order to help bolster Dan Maes. The DGA was a big contributor to this effort, chipping in $150K, while unions and wealthy philanthropist Pat Stryker gave the rest. Excellent fucking work, guys.

MN-Gov: The RGA is funneling $428K to a pro-Tom Emmer group, while the DGA sent a quarter mil to an org helping Dem Mark Dayton.

TX-Gov: Rick Perry may not be the suckiest suck who ever sucked, but you’ll have to agree that he is pretty sucky. The Texas Farm Bureau finally agrees, too. Though they’ve always endorsed him in the past (and have always endorsed Republicans for governor), they’re giving up on his sorry ass this year and staying neutral in the race. (They previously endorsed Kay Bailey Hutchison against him in the primary.) It probably didn’t help that a Perry spokesman, in an attempt to bolster his boss’s teabagger/secessionista cred, derided the bureau as “an insurance company that supported the bailout.”

IL-14: We could call this the Hypocrisy State Project and still have tons to write about. The latest chapter in this never-ending saga is penned by Republican Randy Hultgren, who was responsible for marketing his investment firm’s funds. One of the firm’s offerings invested entirely in bailout-backed securities, which were described by one Wall Streeter as “an incredibly free lunch.” This is a two-fer, because this fund was also based in the Cayman Islands, to take advantage of lax tax laws, of course.

MA-10: Massachusetts, at least, is one place where Republicans still need to run away from their own party in order to be electable. So it’s no surprise to see Jeffrey Perry declare that he doesn’t want Sarah Palin showing up in his district. (Don’t worry, bud, I think you’re safe.) Of course, Perry isn’t exactly from the non-crazy wing of the Republican Party (to the extent there still is such a thing), since he has teabagger ties himself.

MI-07: Rossman Group/Team Telcom (9/20, likely voters, no trendlines):

Mark Schauer (D-inc): 38

Tim Walberg (R): 42

Undecided: 12

(MoE: ±5.6%)

NY-18: This interview with Jim Russell – remember him from yesterday? the guy whose writings have been favorably cited by the KKK? – is just brutal. He doesn’t disavow anything. So we’ve gotta ask: Why isn’t the press giving this guy the Alvin Greene treatment? After all, Greene’s weirdest idea was to sell bobblehead dolls. Russell thinks there are too many Jews. Anyhow, the Westchester GOP is trying to get Russell off the ballot through legal means, and they say if they can’t, they’ll run a write-in candidate.

NY-19: A judge ruled against a group trying to knock Nan Hayworth off the Independence Party line for a lack of valid signatures. Hayworth gets to keep the line, while incumbent John Hall has the Working Families line.

NY-23: With the vote count all but completed, it looks like Matt Doheny is (still) the winner of the Republican primary, but Doug Hoffman ain’t conceding yet. I guess he feels burned after what happened in the special election, where he tried to “un-concede” after some counting errors emerged (but still lost anyway). The vote count does not officially get certified until the 27th, but Doheny could declare victory (and/or Hoffman could concede) before then. Hoffman still hasn’t said anything about how vigorously (if at all) he plans to wage war from the Conservative Party line.

PA-10: Another day, another NRA endorsement for a Dem. Chris Carney is the latest in a string of mostly-conservative Democrats to rack up the group’s support, even though they labeled him a “true enemy” of guns just four years ago.

TN-09: Heh – the Memphis Flyer commissioned a poll by Yacoubian Research, which found Steve Cohen leading Charlotte Bergmann 66-23. There were only 205 respondents, and note that we previously flagged a Yacoubian poll of the primary for attempting to screen voters by asking them if they lived in the 9th CD – how many people actually know what district they live in, by number? But whatever, Steve Cohen ain’t losing.

VA-09: Rick Boucher successfully got an ad by Americans for Job Security pulled off the air for making a misleading statements. The ad said “Rick Boucher supports Nancy Pelosi 96 percent of the time,” but this claim was based on the Washington Post’s “party voting” score, which Boucher rightly argued does not measure “support for Pelosi.” (A good time to remind folks that it’s much, much easier to get third-party ads yanked because stations are liable for defamation when they run these ads. Media outlets are immune from liability for candidate ads.)

SSP TV (by James L.):

• LA-Sen: “Diaper” David Vitter hits Charlie Melancon for attending a fundraiser in Canada, of all places.
• AR-01: Chad Causey’s latest spot takes a shotgun approach to messaging, touting his heritage, his support for a balanced budget amendment and a paycut for Congress, while hitting Republican Rick Crawford over the bad kind of SSP and for his support of a 23% national sales tax
• FL-22: Allen West takes on Ron Klein over a Florida Democratic Party mailer that boneheadedly revealed West’s Social Security number
• GA-08: Dem Rep. Jim Marshall goes heavy negative on GOP state Rep. Austin Scott on immigration – not once, but twice
• MI-07: GOP douche Tim Walberg says that Dem Rep. Mark Schauer is spending America into ruin, and also makes the dubious claim that he “strongly supports” Social Security. The ad, a coordinated expenditure partially paid for by the RNC, is airing in the Lansing media market and cost $85,000.
• MI-15: John Dingell goes negative on Republican Rob Steele over his support from the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is Wall Street, while Steele has gone up with an ad of his own touting his record as a physician and poking Dingell over spending
• NC-02: Dem Rep. Bob Etheridge’s latest ad features the testimonials of locals who say that Etheridge saved their jobs
• OH-12: Dem Paula Brooks touts her record on the Franklin County Commission while spilling marbles all over her kitchen island
• OR-05: GOPer Scott Bruun will stop the spending… except when it comes to restoring Medicare cuts, apparently
• SC-02: Libruhl Rob Miller and libruhl Nancy Pelosi will liberally kill all your jobs; meanwhile, Joe Wilson still sounds like he uses a speech synthesizer instead of a functional set of vocal cords. Seriously, what a creepy-sounding asshole.
• VA-09: Republican Morgan Griffith plays a clip of Barack Obama saying “I love Rick Boucher” – four times in thirty seconds