Tag: DSCC

• AK-Sen: Wasn’t that Lisa Murkowski announcement about whether she was going to pursue a write-in bid supposed to be yesterday? It never materialized, but we did get some statements from local gadfly and Murkowski ally Andrew Halcro that make it sound pretty likely.

“It’s going to be the kind of campaign you should have seen in the primary,” said Andrew Halcro, an Alaska political consultant who is a longtime friend of the senator. “It’s going to be no-holds-barred, pedal-to-the-metal stuff.”

• DE-Sen: After putting out a public wish for real Sarah Palin backing instead of just a cryptic retweet, Christine O’Donnell finally got her wish yesterday. O’Donnell got added to the gigantic list of Mama Grizzlies yesterday during a Palin appearance on Sean Hannity’s show. The real question, though, is it too little too late? It might help raise some funds this weekend, but it smells a little like Palin’s 5 pm-on-Tuesday endorsement of “Angela McGowen.” Meanwhile, O’Donnell seems to be doing everything she can to dance right up to the edge of calling Castle gay without going over it: she just blasted his campaign tactics as “unmanly” and also telling him “get your man-pants on.”

• ME-Sen: PPP’s poll of Maine has some buried details that should lead to some soul-searching for Olympia Snowe, who could be headed down Arlen Specter Boulevard if the right-wing decides to wade into her 2012 GOP primary. (Or she might take the opportunity to retire.) Overall, she’s fairly popular at 50/40, but that’s based on 59/29 among Democrats. She’s only at 40/51 among Republicans, and by a 50-37 margin, Republicans say she really should be a Democrat. Susan Collins sports similar numbers, although she has until 2014 to deal with that, by which point the Tea Party thing may be a footnote in AP US History textbooks. PPP says they’ll have 2012 hypothetical Senate matchups out on Monday. (One other note: they find opinions on gay marriage basically unchanged since last November’s referendum: 43 in favor, 49 against.)

• NH-Sen: Once he got the Manchester Union-Leader’s backing, that led to a lot of speculation that Ovide Lamontagne (as he did in the 1996 GOP gubernatorial primary) would close fast. It looks like that’s happening: he’s out with an internal poll showing himself only 10 points behind Kelly Ayotte. He trails Ayotte 34-24, with Bill Binnie (considered the real threat to Ayotte until the last couple weeks) tied at 12 with Jim Bender. It’s very close to the Magellan poll that came out last week giving Ayotte a 13-point lead. I wonder if Lamontagne would actually be able to pull out the upset if the Tea Party Express had decided to weigh in here for Lamontagne, instead of in their likely-futile efforts in Delaware?

• NV-Sen: Ralston smash! The intrepid political reporter is on a rampage across the twittersphere today, after Sharron Angle previously said on Jon Ralston’s TV program “Face to Face” that she wanted to debate Harry Reid there, then arranged the debate, and then yesterday abruptly canceled the Oct. 21 shindig. The two will still meet in an Oct. 14 debate, which should be one of the most popcorn-worthy events of the year.

• OH-Sen: Who let the Big Dog out? Bill Clinton, who’ll be in Ohio soon shoring up Ted Strickland’s gubernatorial bid, will also hold a fundraiser on behalf of another long-time ally, Lee Fisher.

• MI-Gov: Another day, another poll showing the Michigan gubernatorial race looking DOA. The newest poll by the Glengariff Group for the Detroit News gives Republican Rick Snyder a 56-36 lead over Virg Bernero.

• VT-Gov: With the numbers having barely budged after the recount in the Democratic primary (the gap between Peter Shumlin and runner-up Doug Racine widened by 6 votes, all the way up to a whopping 203-vote margin), Racine conceded today. Shumlin, the state Senate president pro tem, will face GOP Lt. Governor Brian Dubie in the general.

• CO-04: I’m tempted to put this in the “good news” file, inasmuch as she isn’t getting blown out as conventional wisdom would assume: the Betsy Markey campaign rolled out an internal poll, from Bennett, Petts, and Normington, that shows her in a 38-38 tie with Republican Cory Gardner (with 7% going to assorted third-party candidates). However, feeling like you need to release your own internal that’s a tie doesn’t exactly seem like a big sign of confidence…

• IA-01, IA-02, IA-03: On the other hand, here’s a poll, considering the source, that’s pretty clear “good news” for Leonard Boswell. A poll for the conservative American Future Fund (who commissioned that avalanche of Whit Ayers polls), this time by Voter/Consumer Research, found Boswell leading Brad Zaun 48-39. That’s a complete reversal from Zaun’s couple of internals. Still, they have numbers from the 1st and 2nd that show that we need to keep at least one wary eye on these sleepy races: Bruce Braley leads Ben Lange 50-39 in the 1st, while David Loebsack leads Mariannette Miller-Meeks 47-39 in the 2nd (not far off from the one internal that MMM leaked).

• NH-01: This is interesting: the state Democratic party is out with two different mailers in the 1st, attacking Sean Mahoney. There’s just one catch… Mahoney isn’t the GOP nominee yet, and we won’t know if he is or not until Tuesday, when he faces off with ex-Manchester mayor Frank Guinta. It’s unclear whether they have info leading them to believe Mahoney has the nomination locked down, or if they’d trying to sandbag Mahoney pre-primary so that the heavily-baggage-laden Guinta (about whom the ads write themselves) wins.

• NY-13: With a lot of people in local GOP circles still holding ex-Rep. Vito Fossella in high esteem (despite his boo-hoo-funny fall from grace), this is one endorsement that may carry a lot of weight as we race toward the conclusion of the GOP primary in the 13th. Fossella gave his backing to Michael Allegretti. That sets up a showdown with the other big power behind the throne in this district: Staten Island borough president Guy Molinari is backing Michael Grimm.

• OK-02: If we have to worry about this race, geez, better start making camel reservations for our 40 years in the desert. On the other hand, it’s pretty clear that we don’t have to worry about this race. Dan Boren is out with an internal poll, via Myers Research, that gives a jumbo-sized 34-point lead over little-known GOPer Charles Thompson: 65-31.

• Mayors: In sharp contrast to yesterday’s We Ask America poll of the Chicago mayoral race, today’s Sun-Times poll finds Rahm Emanuel just one of the crowd, in high single digits. This poll finds Cook Co. Sheriff Tom Dart leading at 12, with state Sen. James Meeks at 10. Luis Gutierrez is at 9, Jesse Jackson Jr. is at 8, and Emanuel is at 7. “Don’t know” led the way at 35.

• DSCC: Jeremy Jacobs, the man who always seems to know the Size Of The Buy, is out with a helpful breakdown of where the DSCC has made its $18 million worth of reservations so far. Right now, it’s $1.6 million in Kentucky, $5.1 million in Missouri, $5.2 million in Pennsylvania, $4 million in Colorado, and $2 million in Washington.

• NRCC: The NRCC, currently only running independent expenditures ads in one district (IN-02), rolled out a list of ten more districts where it’ll start paying for ads. They’re staying on the air there, plus adding AL-02, AZ-01, CA-11, FL-02, KY-06, MS-01, TN-08, TX-17, VA-05, and WI-07. (The only “surprise,” inasmuch as it wasn’t on the NRCC’s big list of 40 districts from last month, is AZ-01.)

• SSP TV:

• IL-Sen: Not one but two ads from Mark Kirk, one touting his independence and the other attacking Alexi Giannoulias on taxes, but maybe more importantly, trying to lash him to the increasingly-anchor-like Pat Quinn

• CA-Gov: Meg Whitman’s new anti-Jerry Brown ad cleverly lets Bill Clinton do most of the talking, with highlights from the 1992 Democratic presidential primary campaign

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett, who’s been fairly modest so far about having gotten badly beaten while intervening in a domestic dispute last year, is finally playing the “hero card” with his new ad

• NM-01: Anti-Martin Heinrich ad from American Future Fund, focusing on the Pelosi boogeyman; it’s the first IE in the district and a $250K buy for four weeks

• TN-08: Dueling ads in the 8th, with two Roy Herron ads out (one a positive bio spot, the other an anti-Stephen Fincher spot aimed at his campaign finance disclosure foibles… together they’re a “six-figure” buy for the next week), and an anti-Herron ad from the 60 Plus Association (the AARP’s anti-HCR doppelganger), who’re spending $500K on the buy.

• IE tracker:

• DE-Sen: Tea Party Express spending $72K on media buys, direct mail, and e-mail blast for Christine O’Donnell

• MO-Sen: AFSCME spending $43K on anti-Roy Blunt mailer

• NV-Sen: Patriot Majority spending $309K on new ad against Sharron Angle

• NV-Sen: Patriot Majority spending another $49K on another anti-Sharron Angle ad titled “Oye, Sharron” (a Spanish-language market ad, maybe?)

• Rasmussen:

• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal (D) 53%, Linda McMahon (R) 44%

• NC-Sen: Elaine Marshall (D) 38%, Richard Burr (R-inc) 54%

• OR-Gov: John Kitzhaber (D) 44%, Chris Dudley (R) 49%

• SD-AL: Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-inc) 47%, Kristi Noem (R) 45%

• DE-Sen: Despite all the hullabaloo about the late-breaking surge by Christine O’Donnell (which, if you look at fundraising and ad spending, seems like it might not have been that much of a surge at all), both parties seem to be reconciled to a Chris Coons/Mike Castle race, according to CQ. O’Donnell seems to be hanging her hopes on a last-minute Sarah Palin endorsement, which, according to intense semantic analysis by Twitterologists, didn’t really happen with her recent retweety-hashtaggy thing.

• HI-Gov: Hawaii’s the last primary in the nation, and that also means it’s the last for pre-primary financial reporting. Neil Abercrombie, who’d been lagging Mufi Hannemann on the fundraising front previously, shot ahead for the months of July and August. Abercrombie raised $768K while Hannemann raised $330K. Hannemann still has the CoH edge, $792K to $275K.

• NM-Gov: GOPer Susana Martinez has led narrowly in most polls here, but the RGA isn’t taking this race for granted: they’re moving $500K to the Martinez campaign. The DGA is also continuing to fight here, and they seem to think they have something here with their own little Bonusgate story here (where Martinez allegedly spent border security money on staff bonuses instead); they’re running their second attack ad here, and it (like the first ad) focuses on the bonuses.

• RI-Gov: There had been rumors of this way, way back, but the RNC is revisiting them today, saying that Democratic candidate Frank Caprio talked to them about a possible party switch in February (back when he was still facing the more-liberal Patrick Lynch in the Dem primary). It’s unclear what the GOP’s angle is in releasing this now… their chances are pretty much DOA, so are they just hoping to deny the DGA a victory here (for post-election talking points purposes) by driving Caprio votes to Lincoln Chafee (the indie who seems to be running, for the most part, to Caprio’s left)?

• VT-Gov: The recount has begun for the ultra-close Democratic primary in the Vermont gubernatorial race, but instead of lobbing grenades at each other, 197-vote leader Peter Shumlin and runner-up Doug Racine are touring the state together in an RV, stumping along with the other three candidates. In fact, Racine is urging his donors to get behind Shumlin, despite having requested the recount. (So far, Shumlin’s lead has edged up by 9, with 10 of the state’s 14 counties having completed the recanvass.)

• WI-Gov: Here’s a good development, that a lot of other outgoing Dem incumbents might take a lesson from: Jim Doyle, with $1.8 million sitting around in his campaign funds as he ends his gubernatorial run, is transferring $1 million of that money to the Greater Wisconsin Committee, which has aired both anti-Scott Walker and anti-Mark Neumann ads.

• CT-05: Here’s one House GOP internal that’s getting a little stale, but somehow eluded us until just now: Sam Caligiuri put out a late-August internal from National Research showing him right on Chris Murphy’s heels, trailing 40-39.

• Committees: Jim Doyle’s not the only guy with money to burn who’s emptying out the piggy banks. Barack Obama will be transferring $4.5 million from his campaign fund, divvying it up three ways with $1.5 million each to the DCCC, DSCC, and DNC.

• Mayors (pdf): Two mayoral polls are out today. One is more timely, with the DC primary only days away: Clarus finds Vincent Gray ready to oust incumbent Adrian Fenty in the Dem primary, 45-38. We Ask America also pounces on the Chicago mayor question, despite a thoroughly unclear field, and finds Rahm Emanuel would be starting in the pole position out of 10 names they gave. Emanuel’s at 30, followed by Tom Dart at 14, and both Luis Gutierrez and Jesse Jackson Jr. at 13.

• Massachusetts: Here’s an interesting set of numbers out of the Bay State: despite the election of Scott Brown and running a competitive gubernatorial race, Republicans have actually lost ground lately in terms of registration. The GOP has lost more than 9,000 voters over the last two years, and are down to 11% of all registrations. Dems held almost even at 37%, while the ranks of the unenrolled grew (by 187K since 2006), up to 51% of the electorate.

• SSP TV:

• IN-Sen: The Chamber of Commerce is out with an anti-Brad Ellsworth ad hitting the usual “trillions of government spending” points

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin’s first TV ad attacks John Raese for running attack ads

• OH-Gov: The SEIU attacks John Kasich on his Wall Street days, with a “significant six-figure” buy

• PA-Gov: Dan Onorato’s first TV ad of the general is a 60-second extravaganza focusing on the revitalization of Pittsburgh

• IL-14: Randy Hultgren talks jobs

• MI-01: Gary McDowell’s first ad has testimonials from locals saying he’s just like them, only “better dressed”

• OH-18: Americans for Job Security is out with four anti-Dem House ads, in IN-08, PA-04, and PA-07 as well as the 18th… and we have actual numbers ($124K in OH-18, $415K in PA-04, $293 in PA-07, and $318K in IN-08)

• SC-05: John Spratt’s first TV ad of the cycle focuses, unsurprisingly, on his constituent service reputation and attention to local issues

• Rasmussen:

• AZ-Sen: Rodney Glassman (D) 37%, John McCain (R-inc) 51%

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 34%, Mark Kirk (R) 37%, LeAlan Jones (G) 12%

• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan (D) 43%, Roy Blunt (R) 53%

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 50%, John Raese (R) 45%

AK-Sen: The NRSC is coughing up money for Joe Miller; they just cut him a $42,600 check and say they’ll be spending $170,000 in coordinated expenditures on his behalf, which CQ reports represents “the maximum allowed under the law”. I’m not sure how that’s possible, though, as the FEC has a $87,000 limit on coordinated party expenditures for Senate races in Alaska. What I do know is that Democrat Scott McAdams is already making the GOP sweat (although, Joe Miller’s balls-out insanity may have a little something to do with that). You see that thermometer on the top right corner of this page? You know what you have to do.

FL-Sen: Libertarian Alex Snitker has popped up to remind the world that he’s actually in this race… by announcing that he won’t be dropping out of the race, despite pressure in the form of “numerous e-mails and Facebook messages” from Republicans urging him to get out of Marco Rubio’s way.

NC-Sen: Normally, I’d bunch this bullet down in the ad section, but Richard Burr’s latest spot deserves some special attention. The ad, entitled “Front Porch”, resurrects the highly-acclaimed “rocking chair” actors employed by the DSCC in their extremely effective ads against Elizabeth Dole in 2008. Only this time, they’re singing Richard Burr’s praises and railing against the national debt. At least, I think those are the same actors; if not, they’re dead ringers for the originals. (To see what I mean, click here.) I’ve gotta say – pretty damned clever move on Burr’s part.

WA-Sen: The DSCC has reserved $2 million worth of ad time to help protect Patty Murray against Dino Rossi. The DSCC’s ads will begin on October 5th.

CO-Gov: Democrat John Hickenlooper doubled up on American Constitution Party candidate Tom Tancredo in August fundraising, bringing in just over $400K to Tancredo’s $200K. Tancredo, in turn, quadrupled up on Republican flag-bearer Dan Maes, who raised $50K, nearly half of which was spent on legal fees and campaign finance penalties. Meanwhile, downballot Republicans are doing their best to rally around Tancredo, the only guy with the money and semblance of cred to run a real campaign. More than 20 elected GOPers in Colorado came out in support of Tanc. RGA chair Haley Barbour sounds about ready to throw in the towel, though.

AZ-01, AZ-05: Here’s a pair of fresh GOP internal polls from Arizona for your consumption: In AZ-01, rogue dentist Paul Gosar is tied with Dem Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick at 43-43 in a Moore Information poll conducted at the end of August. In AZ-05, National Research, Inc. has David Schweikert up on Dem Harry Mitchell by 46-38.

FL-02: Blue Dog Allen Boyd rolled out the endorsement of the Chamber of Commerce yesterday.

KS-04: By all indications, Republicans are set to have a very good year at the polls, but they would be foolish to consider a race like the open seat battle to replace Todd Tiahrt in the bag. Not only has Democratic state Rep. Raj Goyle been fundraising strongly and polling competitively in this GOP-friendly district against dickbag Republican Mike Pompeo, it looks like there’s a very real chance that there could be some serious vote-splitting on the right. Mega-wealthy businessman Wink Hartman, who lost to Pompeo in the Republican primary, is interested in running as a Libertarian, and Kansas Libertarian Party Chairman Andrew Gray said the chances of that happening are “very favorable”. Hartman, who spent over $1.5 million on Republican campaign, had a phone interview with the Libertarians on Tuesday, and they apparently loved what they had to hear. Hartman would be taking the place of David Moffett on the Libertarian ballot, who pulled his name last week after citing personal health reasons. Republicans, of course, are crying foul, but the KS SoS has already denied one objection to the withdrawal.

D-bags: Add NRCC tool Andy Sere to the list. Just click the link.

SSP TV:

DE-Sen: Chris Coons is out with his first ad, a spot touting his record as New Castle County Executive. NWOTSOTB, but it’s a statewide cable buy that the campaign decided to roll out earlier than planned in order to take advantage of the cat fud fight between Christine O’Donnell and Mike Castle.

AR-01: Chad Causey’s first ad of the general election is a spot that’s mostly biographical, but one that ends with a left hook on Republican Rick Crawford for his support for the bad kind of SSP.

AZ-08: Gabrielle Giffords is out with a solid hit on tea-flavored douchebag Jesse Kelly, hitting him with his own words on his plan to “privatize” and “phase out” Social Security, which, along with Medicare, are apparently the “biggest Ponzi schemes in history”. Hey, Jesse: thank you for being a moron.

CA-45: Mary Bono Mack’s first ad touts her efforts to support the “magic” of the doctor-patient relationship. Or something.

IL-11: Republican Adam Kinzinger is up with his first ad, an autobiographical piece which touts his Air Force service and his intervention in a knife attack on a woman back home.

IL-17: Phil Hare is out with his first ad in four years, hitting Republican Bobby Schilling on his support of “a bad trade deal with Korea”.

IN-02: GOPer Jackie Walorski has the right issue (the economy), but the wrong remedy (trickle down nonsense).

IN-08: Republican Larry Buschon’s first spot hits Democrats on, you guessed it, spending – and also on the curious notion that food grows in grocery stores.

MD-01: Frank Kratovil Reads The Bills. (The ad will run “on broadcast stations in the Baltimore and Salisbury markets”.)

MI-09: Gary Peters flips the bird to Wall Street.

NE-02: Dem Tom White hits Lee Terry on the national debt, citing his vote for TARP.

NJ-12: Rush Holt’s first ad is half-negative, hitting hedge fund kingpin Scott Sipprelle for his supply-side economics, and half-positive, touting Holt’s support of the middle class.

TN-08: Dem Roy Herron comes out against drug dealers, predatory lenders, and Wall Street. This one seems like it could use more of an emotional punch, though.

SSP IE Tracker:

Longtime fans of SSP will remember the House Independent Expenditure tracker that we updated on a regular basis two years ago. As much as I’d like to resurrect that project this year, the time constraints of law school prevent me from investing that kind of time. However, we’ll still try to keep you in the loop on noteworthy independent expenditure reports here in the Daily Digest.

NH-Sen: CULAC the PAC files a $66K radio ad buy on behalf of conservative Republican Ovide Lamontagne

IN-02: The NRCC files $95K in ads and polls against Joe Donnelly

MA-09: The SEIU is spending $190K on phonebanks and radio ads in support of Mac D’Alessandro in his primary fight against Stephen Lynch

MI-01: The DCCC buys $48K in ads against Dan Benishek

WI-07: The DCCC has re-upped their ad buy against Sean Duffy by another $50K.

Mark Begich has been a serious mensch, doing everything in his power to help Scott McAdams in his unlikely campaign for senator from Alaska. Now he’s trying to work the folks who can open up some serious spigots:

“I’m putting the pressure on,” Begich told The Hill. “We’re working the DSCC and others right now because I think it’s a good investment.”

Begich is right – this race is a good investment, which is why we’re asking the SSP community to dig deep and come up with $2,400 for McAdams. But we can’t wait for the DSCC to get its act together. And McAdams isn’t waiting, either:

“The DSCC and the national Democratic Party doesn’t even know my name. And that’s fine by me,” he said. “I love the Alaskan Democratic Party, they’ve been behind me 100 percent, Sen. Mark Begich has been behind me 100 percent, and that’s just fine by me.”

I love that McAdams is turning that DNC hack’s flub (remember the guy who couldn’t even ID Big Mac after he won the primary?) into a serious positive. No one can accuse him of being a D.C. Dem after that incident! And it’s one of the many reasons I think McAdams, whose pedigree is pure Alaska, will compare well to Miller, who was raised and received his degrees outside the state. (And is also creepily out-of-touch with anything resembling Alaskan values. But that’s the subject for another post or seven.)

One thing I will say: If we do want big players like the DSCC to get involved, demonstrating serious grassroots enthusiasm for McAdams is the way to do it. So please help us reach our goal of $2,400 – the equivalent of one maximum federal donation – for Scott McAdams as quickly as possible.

AR-Sen, AR-01: Bill Clinton is heading back home to Arkansas to do events for Blanche Lincoln (probably not a good use of resources) and Chad Causey (better use of resources). Incidentally, Politico notes that Causey’s primary opponent, Tim Wooldridge, still has yet to endorse him. Jeez.

DE-Sen: It’s official: The Tea Party Express has spooked Mike Castle into going up on the air before the primary, to a six-figure tune. In fact, the Hotline’s Jeremy Jacobs has an unusual level of detail on the nature of the buy, noting that “Castle has purchased $113K worth of airtime for Aug. 31 to Sept. 6 in the Salisbury, MD, media market,” as well as “$26K worth of time on cable in New Castle County and $42K on radio.”

NH-Sen: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is throwing down for a big buy against Paul Hodes. As the Hotline notes, the Chamber’s FEC filing says they’re spending $1 million, but apparently the buy is for less – a spokesbot will only say that it’s “sizable.” You can see their ad at the link.

AK-Gov: Republican Bill Walker, who held Gov. Sean Parnell to just 50% in the GOP primary while taking 33% himself, is talking to the Alaska Independence Party about filling their ballot line, since the AIP’s nominee, Don Wright, has withdrawn from the race. Remember that in 1994, Dem Tony Knowles very narrowly won the gubernatorial race because an AIP candidate split the right-wing vote, taking 13%.

FL-Gov: I’m not sure whether these are new names or not, but Alex Sink is trying to stick it to Rick Scott by putting out a list of ten Republican elected officials in central and south Florida who have endorsed her campaign. Speaking of Scott, he’s reportedly going to tap state Rep. Jennifer Carroll, an African American legislator from the Jacksonville area, to be his running mate.

NM-Gov: Local blog New Mexico FBIHOP has two new ads, one each from Republican Susana Martinez and Dem Diane Denish. NWOTSOTB in either case.

AZ-03: Dem Jon Hulburd is hitting noted d-bag Ben Quayle where it hurts: on Christian radio. Politico has the audio of the ad, which of course references TheDirty.com, but NWOTSOTB.

CA-47: Ya know, usually when we do an Obama Alert! or a Biden Alert! we’re at least a little bit excited at the prospect that the (V)POTUS is doing an event for some Dem or other. But once in a while, it just makes me nervous. This is one of those occasions. Joe Biden is headlining a fundraiser for Rep. Loretta Sanchez in DC on Sept. 15th. I’m thinking a rating change might be in order here soon.

MD-01: Dem Frank Kratovil is up with his first ad of the season. NWOTSOTB.

NJ-12: The so-called “Emergency Committee for Israel,” led by jerkass extraordinaire Michael Goldfarb and backed by lunatics like Bill Kristol and Gary Bauer, is now targeting Rep. Rush Holt with their latest bullshit. Holt, for his part, is fighting back, calling the ads “blatant lies” and trying to convince cable companies to pull them.

ND-AL: A break for Rep. Earl Pomeroy: The House’s Office of Congressional Ethics said earlier this week that they were dropping an investigation into Pomeroy’s fundraising practices.

NY-01: If anything saves Tim Bishop’s bacon, it might be the fact that the Republican primary has been a festering pit of raw sewage, with outraged attacks traded among Bishop’s GOP rivals daily – or more often. In fact, the three-way nature of the race seems to have tripled the likelihood of open warfare at any given moment – and it also makes things damn confusing at times. Anyhow, it looks like Chris Cox is hitting Randy Altschuler for failing to show up to a debate… but then the third dude, George Demos, also had a staffer show up at Altschuler’s offices and catch him on camera, right when the debate was supposed to start. Meanwhile, Cox also won a court ruling allowing him to fight Altschuler for the Conservative Party nomination, but he’ll have to run as a write-in.

NY-13: Another nasty New York primary also continues to get nastier. Local establishment fave Michael Allegretti keeps piling on attacks against Mike Grimm, the golden boy of national GOP figures like Rudy Giuliani and John McCain. Among other things, Allegretti is pointing out that Grimm has never voted in a single Republican primary in the 13th CD.

OH-17: Jim Traficant got beamed back on to the ballot yesterday, running as an independent. He’ll face Dem Rep. Tim Ryan and Republican Jim Graham, who has raised bupkes.

PA-15: PA2010 is reporting that Dem John Callahan is going up on the air with his first ad, perhaps as early as today. NWOTSOTB, and we also don’t have a link to the ad yet, but we’ll try to bring it to you once it’s public.

TX-23: Republican Quico Canseco is refusing to meet with the editorial board of the San Antonio Express-News, claiming they have an “inherent bias” in favor of Dem Rep. Ciro Rodriguez. Only problem: The paper endorsed the last two Republicans who ran against Ciro.

WI-07: Republican Sean Duffy is finally scrambling on to the air with a positive bio spot. Dem Julie Lassa was up with her first ad last week, and the DCCC made its first independent expenditure (anywhere in the nation) here earlier this week. NWOTSOTB, though CQ notes the ad will air “in the Wausau-Rhinelander, Duluth-Superior, Minneapolis-St. Paul and LaCrosse-Eau Claire markets”.

WV-03: Republican Spike Maynard is out with a new ad (watch it here) in which he says he wants to “stop the Obama-Rahall-Pelosi war on coal.” That a serious mouthful, dude. (James Hell sez: “He should add Rand Paul to the list!”) Anyhow, props to the Charleston Daily Mail for these details: “The ad is the first of two ads that will be released by Maynard’s campaign as part of a $100,000 ad buy in the Beckley-Bluefield and Charleston-Huntington TV markets.”

For Nick Rahall’s part, he’s apparently going to go on the radio with biographical spots to “familiarize folks with the congressman and his record.” Uh, the guy has been in office since before I was born. The paper also reports that Rahall “is expected to run TV ads starting in late September.” Can’t say I love that pace.

Cat Fud: Think Progress has carefully stacked up an entire pallet’s worth of cat fud tins in one of those lovely supermarket displays. They’ve assembled a long list of Republican primary losers who have refused to endorse the winners. I can think of two more off the top of my head: Pamela Gorman, who didn’t want to catch Ben Quayle’s cooties in AZ-03, and of course Lisa Murkowski, who maybe kinda sorta doesn’t feel all that warmly about the guy who just called her a whore (or a john, take your pick) before the ballot counting was even over. Recall any others?

DSCC/DCCC: This is actually the same link that I got all emo about in that CA-47 item up above, but anyhow, uh, Obama Alert! The POTUS will be in NYC on September 22nd to do a joint event for the two congressional party committees.

• DE-Sen: Wow, the mounting establishment/teabagger war in the GOP Delaware primary is actually getting physically violent. A Christine O’Donnell supporter got into a scuffle with a tracker from the state GOP party who was videotaping O’Donnell at a candidate forum

• IL-Sen: The Constitution Party is still trying to get back on the ballot in Illinois, maybe most notably in the close Senate race where Randy Stufflebeam would be their candidate. They’re going to court to get back on the ballot after the state Board of Elections kicked them off for not having enough valid signatures.

• NV-Sen: School’s out for the summer/ school’s out… forever! The latest daily nugget of crazy from Sharron Angle is her recounting last week of her struggles back in the state legislature in 2003 against a supplemental budget bill that would have paid for emergency funding to make sure that the state’s public schools could actually open at the start of the school year. Meanwhile, Harry Reid is continuing his apparently successful advertising strategy of letting Angle say the usual things she says, and just turning them straight into his own ads against her, as with his newest ad launched this week.

• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov: Despite the utter lack of drama in the big races in the Empire State, Quinnipiac just keeps polling it. (I guess that’s OK; we’ll take good news where we can get it.) In the governor’s race, Andrew Cuomo beats Rick Lazio 57-25 and Carl Paladino 60-23. (Unfortunately, there aren’t GOP primary numbers, as it’d be interesting to see, as other pollsters have seen, whether Paladino might actually be able to overtake the insufficiently-crazy Lazio for the nomination.) In the Senate race, Kirsten Gillibrand beats Bruce Blakeman 44-26, David Malpass 45-24, and Joe DioGuardi 43-28.

• CO-Gov: If either Dan Maes or Tom Tancredo is going to drop out and stop their tragic pas de deux, it’d better be soon. Friday, it turns out, is the last day before the November ballot printing is finalized. Meanwhile, here’s the kind of headline you don’t want to see when you’re already fighting public perception that you’re a bit of a paranoid wackjob who thinks that bicycles are a United Nations plot:

GOP gubernatorial candidate Maes backs off claims of undercover police work

• KY-Gov: The establishment slate for Kentucky Republicans for the off-year gubernatorial race (only a year from now!) seems like it’s officially coalesced. David Williams, the state Senate president, will run for Governor, and Agriculture Commissioner Richie Farmer (who’d been a rumored governor candidate himself) will run for Lt. Governor. They’ll still have to get past businessman Phil Moffet, running under the teabagger banner, in the GOP primary before facing Steve Beshear, who’ll be seeking re-election. A recent poll had Farmer and Beshear neck-and-neck, but there hasn’t been any Beshear/Williams polling yet.

• MA-09: Mac d’Allesandro’s against Stephen Lynch in the Dem primary in the 9th is raising some decent cash in the late innings. Since July 1st, the SEIU, MoveOn, and Act Blue have raised $178K for d’Allesandro.

• PA-06: DNC DGA head Tim Kaine heads to Philly to fundraise on Manan Trivedi’s behalf, as part of a tour on behalf of Asian-American Dem candidates. Trivedi’s also had help on the stump this week from Bob Casey and Debbie Wasserman Schultz.

• RGA: Good thing the RGA already has an unprecedented amount of money squirreled away… because they’re going to have to give a decent chunk of it to Chris Bell, the ex-Rep. who was the 2006 Dem gubernatorial candidate in Texas. A Travis County judge ordered the RGA to pay Chris Bell a cosmic $2 million because of campaign finance violations in the ’06 election (where the RGA gave an undisclosed $1 million to Texans for Rick Perry).

• WATN?: This isn’t really FL-Sen anymore, but Jeff Greene is insisting on staying in the limelight even as his vomit-covered yacht sails into the sunset. In fact, the phrase “vomit-covered yacht” is really what’s at stake here; he says he’s following through with a libel suit against the St. Petersburg Times and Miami Herald over their reporting of his many foibles. Good luck proving actual malice!

• Maps: They’re rapidly scrolling their way down the front page, so if you haven’t had a chance to check out jeffmd’s maps of Alaskan elections past, do it now. Begich/Stevens, Murkowski/Miller, and Young/Parnell all played out in similar ways, geographically, so if you’re wondering what Scott McAdam’s path to a win might look like, check it out.

• Ads:

• NH-Sen: We told you a few days ago that Ovide Lamontagne was finally going on the air; his first ad is a talk-to-the-camera introductory spot.

• PA-Sen: The DSCC is out with another ad, attacking Pat Toomey on the derivatives trading issue.

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold’s new ad is testimonials from a variety of (as C. Montgomery Burns would say) Joe Lunchpails and Sally Housecoats.

• IN-02: Jackie Walorski is out with an introductory bio spot.

• NE-02: Tom White is also out with an introductory bio spot, carefully steering clear of anything Democratic-sounding.

• NJ-03: John Adler may actually win the advertising day today, with a negative spot that slams Jon Runyan for his tax break for his “farm” (a.k.a. McMansion plus one donkey).

• NV-03: Dina Titus hits Joe Heck for comments that “it’s not Congress’s role to create jobs.” (This comes on top of the AFSCME’s huge buy of anti-Heck ads.)

• Rasmussen:

• LA-Sen: Charlie Melancon (D) 33%, David Vitter (R-inc) 54%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 39%, John Kasich (R) 47%

• PA-Gov: Dan Onorato (D) 37%, Tom Corbett (R) 50%  

FL-Sen: Charlie Crist is still refusing to say whether he’ll caucus with the Dems or the GOP if he wins, a position which looks increasingly untenable as we get down to crunchtime.

LA-Sen: It looks like TPM got tipped to an interesting story: David Vitter’s campaign has been sending letters to Louisiana newspaper editors pressuring them about their coverage of Brent Furer, the former Vitter aide responsible for women’s issues – who also attacked his girlfriend with a knife. TPM’s characterization is that Vitter is “trying to intimidate newspapers into giving Furer what he considers fair coverage.”

MO-Sen: The DSCC, which has reserved $4 million in ad time in Missouri, is out with its first ad of the race, attacking Roy Blunt.

NV-Sen: For a while it looked like Harry Reid might get the NRA’s endorsement, but it turns out that the group won’t be backing him this cycle (though they aren’t getting behind Sharron Angle, either).

CO-Gov: LOL – Tom Tancredo picked a running mate, a former state representative named Pat Miller who served a single term twenty years ago. She sounds just as batshit as he is. I’d love to know why her tenure in the state lege was so illustrious.

CT-Gov: A nice bump for Dan Malloy: He just collected $6 million in public financing for his gubernatorial run, the most anyone’s been awarded in Connecticut history. But Republican Tom Foley is ultra-rich – he’s already given his campaign $3 million, and as the CT Mirror puts it:

Foley, who owns a 100-foot yacht, an airplane and a waterfront Greenwich estate, laughed and stammered when asked how could much he afford to spend.

“Well, I, …,” Foley began, then he paused and said, “Could I afford to match him? Yeah.”

NH-Gov: Dem Gov. John Lynch has reported raising $1.3 million to date (though that includes a half-million dollar personal loan), and has $750K on hand. His Republican opponent, John Stephen, has raised just under a million bucks and has $800K left.

OH-Gov: God, if John Kasich loses, it’ll be for two reasons: First, Ted Strickland has run a good campaign. Second, he has Chronic Acute Goofball Disease, an incurable condition which causes you to do shit like… propose a regulatory overhaul plan that is basically identical to one your opponent already enacted two years ago. Kasich even ganked the name, dubbing his plan “Common Sense Initiative Ohio” (CSI Ohio – does that even make sense?), while Teddy Ballgame’s was “Common Sense Business Regulation Executive Order.”

TX-Gov: Wow, what a horror: Nearly all of Harris County, TX’s voting machines were destroyed in a fire, and the cause is still unknown. Election officials are putting on a brave face, but this is obviously a major nightmare for this fall’s elections. What’s more (and this is why we’re filing it under “TX-Gov”), Harris County is home to Houston, the largest city in Texas and, of course, where Dem nominee Bill White served as mayor for eight years. Not good.

AR-03: I’m not sure whether to laugh or to cry. A Talk Business Research/Hendrix College poll has Republican Steve Womack up 55-31 against Dem David Whitaker in this ultra-red district, the most Republican (by far) in Arkansas. Why am I going schizo? Well, these numbers are very similar to Talk Business’s surveys of AR-01 and AR-02, districts where we’re supposed to have a much better chance this fall (or at least the 1st CD). So either AR-01 is as bad as AR-03, or one of these polls is wrong. I’m not betting on good news for us.

GA-12: Regina Thomas’s secret plan to run as a write-in, despite Georgia law pretty clearly barring that option, has been thwarted. She won’t be eligible this November in any way, shape, or form – and she’s also refusing to endorse the Dem primary winner, Rep. John Barrow.

MO-08: Dem Tommy Sowers is up with his first negative ad of the season, once again touting his “combat bible,” and attacking Rep. Jo Ann Emerson as a bailout supporter. (There’s also a gratuitous shot of him firing a gun at the end.) The campaign says it will spend “at least $100,000 to air the spot on broadcast and cable stations throughout” the district. More interestingly, though, is the fact that Emerson is also out with a negative spot – not something you’d expect would be necessary given the lopsided polling, the super-red nature of the district, and the fact that it’s 2010. NWOTSOTB. You can find links to both ads at the link.

NE-02: Dem Tom White unveiled his first ad, which is “set to air on broadcast and cable channels in the Omaha area” this week. (NWOTSOTB though.)

OH-01: Dem Rep. Steve Driehaus is up with his first ad, a spot which attempts to draw distinctions between his record and that of former Rep. Steve Chabot, who is making a comeback bid. Interestingly (and I think this is a wise move), Driehaus is making the argument that his vote for the stimulus was a vote for tax cuts – which in fact it was. The ad really strikes me as lacking any emotional punch, though. NWOTSOTB, though the ad (which you can view here) is reportedly airing on “Cincinnati’s four local affiliates and cable.”

VA-02: Maybe it sounds like rapprochement to you, but to me, it sounds like “Either your brains or your signature will be on this pledge.” Teabaggers in Virginia’s second CD, long hostile to Republican nominee Scott Rigell, have compelled him to sign a seven-part pledge endorsing several of their favorite platforms – but even so, they aren’t endorsing Rigell in return. Still, one teabag leader seems to finally be playing realpolitik, claiming she wants to isolate indie Kenny Golden, so maybe a right-wing split will be averted here (sadly).

DCCC: Not sure how much Politico (as is their wont) is over-reading Chris Van Hollen’s remarks, but they make it sound like CVH is threatening to cut off under-performing Democratic candidates if they don’t get their acts together. Nothing like some threats of triage to get the troops motivated, huh?

• KY-Sen: The online “moneybomb” technique seemed to help Rand Paul get a lot of traction in the early months of the Republican primary, but his latest few scheduled moneybombs have been fizzles. Yesterday’s was a case in point: $258K is still a lot of dough for two days, but it was far short of the planned $400K. (And every penny counts: Paul reported only $319K CoH at the end of June.) Are Paulists feeling tapped out these days, or are his early-adopting libertarian-minded nationwide fans chafing that he’s increasingly parting ways with his dad and becoming more of an NRSC sock puppet? (As seen just today with their divergence over Cordoba House.)

• PA-Sen: Two pieces of good news in Pennsylvania: first, Joe Sestak is rolling out an endorsement from Chuck Hagel, the former GOP Senator from Nebraska who was on the short list for an Obama cabinet position. Not that Hagel is probably a household name in the Keystone State, but it certainly burnishes Sestak’s bipartisan (and military) cred. Also, the DSCC is planning to spend even more on this race, letting Sestak, presumably, keep marshaling his resources for a big late push (the kind that helped him shoot past Arlen Specter in the closing weeks in the primary). They’re spending $546K on broadcast media this week, on top of $494K last week; the DSCC’s total spending and reservations so far in this race amount to $4.4 million.

• WI-Sen: Hmmm, maybe all that sunspot and Greenland stuff actually started to stick. Republican wingnut candidate Ron Johnson is trying to undo the crazy on his various climate change comments, offering the usual last refuge of the pathetic walkback, that his remarks were “taken out context.” Johnson is also trying to walk back his previous support for elimination of the home mortgage interest deduction, about as popular a provision of the tax code as there is. If you wanted to simultaneously set back both the entire real estate business and the middle class by several decades, eliminating the home mortgage interest deduction would be a good way to do it.  

• IL-Gov: The exodus from the field of broken dreams that is the Pat Quinn camp just continues. Today, the departee is CoS Jerry Stermer, and while it isn’t a rancorous departure (as was the case with Quinn breaking it off with David Axelrod’s media firm last week), he is resigning to avoid being a distraction with an ethics investigation (over whether he sent political e-mails from his government account) hanging overhead. With Quinn seemingly circling the drain, that ain’t gonna help.

• AZ-05: In the “ooops, spoke too soon” department, presumed Republican primary frontrunner David Schweikert opted for a last-minute ad buy for $14K on cable, apparently worried that he was losing momentum going into tomorrow’s primary. Last week, his camp had said he was so far ahead they were just going to go dark and start saving money for the general. Meanwhile, next door in AZ-03, Steve Moak, the only candidate who rivals Ben Quayle on the money front, is out with a new ad hitting Quayle over his pseudonymous tenure writing for the website that was the precursor to TheDirty.com.

• FL-24: Wow, Craig Miller actually went there: he sent out a last-minute mailer going after the widely-known, but not yet broached in the campaign context, issue of GOP primary opponent Karen Diebel’s mental stability. Maybe he’d been planning to do a last-minute boom-lowering all along, but it seems kind of strange, as Miller’s millions have seemed to have the race locked down, not requiring him to get his hands dirty. Was there a last minute Diebel surge (she’s been attacking him on being too soft on immigration)?

• TX-23: Republican challenger Quico Canseco is out with an internal poll, via OnMessage, giving him a small lead over incumbent Dem Rep. Ciro Rodriguez. The poll gives Canseco a 43-37 lead, a turnaround from Rodriguez’s lead of 48-45 in a Canseco poll from June.

• Ads: Bobby Bright’s out with his first ad, in AL-02. SSP southern correspondent Trent Thompson’s description of the ad says it all, so I’ll just quote him: “”Bobby” voted against everything Obama. Also, he kisses a baby.” Ben Chandler is also out with an ad in KY-06, touting his saving the local VA Hospital. Finally, Rick Boucher’s GOP opponent, Morgan Griffith, is also out with a new TV spot, reminding you that he’s a conservative. (As an interesting ethno-linguistic observation, one clear indicator that VA-09 is an Appalachian district, not a Southern district, is that Griffith cites “Warshington” as being the source of all our problems.) NWOTSOTB, in all three cases.

• We Ask America: The quirky little Republican-linked pollster that could, We Ask America, is out with an array of polls in Illinois (the state where they’re based). They find Mark Kirk leading Alexi Giannoulias 39-33, but they also look at three House races. In fact, they looked at these races back in March, so we now have trendlines. In IL-11, they find Adam Kinzinger leading Debbie Halvorson 52-32 (down from an already bad 42-30); in IL-14, they have Randy Hultgren leading Bill Foster 44-37 (also down, from 38-36). The good news: they have Dan Seals leading Bob Dold! in IL-10, 43-40 (Seals led 40-37 in March, so he’s holding his own). We’ve also discovered a few recent WAA odds and ends that we didn’t cover earlier: they also see Roy Blunt leading Robin Carnahan 47-43 in MO-Sen, and see Sean Duffy leading 42-33 over Julie Lassa in WI-07.

• Rasmussen:

• AL-Sen: William Barnes (D) 28%, Richard Shelby (R-inc) 60%

• AR-Gov: Mike Beebe (D-inc) 53%, Jim Keet (R) 33%

• MD-Sen: Barbara Mikulski (D-inc) 55%, Eric Wargotz (R) 39%

• TX-Gov: Bill White (D) 41%, Rick Perry (R-inc) 49%

Someday I’ll have me a penthouse, stacks and stacks of folding green… Here are the July fundraising numbers for the six major party committees (June numbers are here):

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist has to be feeling good about having limited this damage: few major Republican donors have switched over from Crist to Marco Rubio, after his switch to an independent campaign. Only five of Crist’s donors who gave more than $200 pre-switch have given similar amounts to Rubio since then, totalling only $6,340.

• LA-Sen: Clarus Research, on behalf of local TV station WWL, finds a somewhat closer Senate race in Louisiana than other pollster have; they see David Vitter leading Charlie Melancon 48-36 (with Vitter sporting a 51/37 approval). Vitter’s also in solid shape in his primary (suggesting that Chet Traylor internal was pretty thoroughly ginned-up with “informed ballot” questions); Vitter leads Traylor 74-5, with 3 for Nick Accardo.

• MO-Sen: The Missouri Senate race, not the recipient of much national attention until just recently, is now at the epicenter of ad spending. The DSCC is plowing $4 million into ads here (along with $1.3 million in KY-Sen), while Karl Rove-linked American Crossroads is also launching a new ad in Missouri, as well as one in NV-Sen. The combined buy is for $2 million (no word on how it breaks down between the states); maybe not coincidentally, Crossroads raised $2 million in July, almost all of which came from exactly two donors (prominent conservative donors Harold Simmons and Jerry Perenchio).

• WA-Sen: Maybe that usual calculus of adding Dino Rossi and Clint Didier votes in the primary to see if they add up to the Patty Murray votes shouldn’t apply… Didier just held a press conference today to announce that he’s not endorsing Rossi (at least not yet). He said he’d back Rossi if he promised to pledge to support no new taxes, sponsor an anti-abortion bill, and… get this… never vote for anything that would “increase the federal budget.” We’ll have to see if Rossi even bothers dignifying that with a response.

• WV-Sen, WV-Gov: A new “MindField Poll” (yes, that’s what they call it) by local pollster R.L. Repass finds an unsurprisingly large lead for Gov. Joe Manchin in the Senate special election; he leads GOPer John Raese 54-32, and is sitting on a 65% approval. They also look at the gubernatorial election in 2012 in the post-Manchin world, and find GOP Rep. Shelly Capito in the best shape. She beats all Democrats mentioned: Senate President (and Governor, if Manchin quits) Earl Ray Tomblin (43-29), state House Speaker Rick Thompson (44-29), Treasurer John Perdue (44-32), and SoS Natalie Tennant (40-37). Former Republican SoS Betty Ireland was also polled, but loses to all the Democrats (by margins as large as 44-24 to Tennant).

• CO-Gov: On what seems like a quest to be the first ever major party candidate to get 0% in a gubernatorial race, Dan Maes is busy pissing off his one remaining clutch of supporters, the teabaggers, with his choice of the somewhat centrist Tambor Williams as his running mate. She was a supporter of anti-TABOR Referenda C and D, but more aggravating to Maes backers is that although she says she’s anti-abortion, she’s taken some notably pro-choice votes in the leigslature. Maes hasn’t lost any major endorsers over it, but is running damage control on the right.

• IL-Gov: It seems like Pat Quinn may be racing Maes to the bottom, in terms of campaign woes. He and his media team — David Axelrod’s former firm, AKPD — parted ways, seemingly at Quinn’s decision. AKPD doesn’t seem to sad to be heading out the door; their terse statement about the parting of ways was, “We and the Quinn campaign agreed that our divergent approaches to disciplined, professional communications are incompatible. We wish Pat well.”

• FL-08: Daniel Webster is getting some last minute help on the stump in the closing days of the Florida primary campaign. Mike Huckabee (who endorsed Webster a long whiel ago) will appear with him this weekend.

• FL-22: Here’s a hilarious little piece on Allen West’s attempts to surround and conquer his district, rather than actually do anything in it: he just opened his new campaign office in West Palm Beach… in FL-23. He recently also held a town hall in FL-19, and perhaps most significantly, lives in Plantation, in FL-20. (It is worth noting the 22nd is one convoluted-looking district.)

• Mayors: That vaunted “anti-incumbent” year hasn’t panned out much in the primaries, but there is one other race coming up soon that looks like it’s on track for a loss by an incumbent. A new Clarus poll of the Washington, DC mayoral race finds Vincent Gray leading incumbent mayor Adrian Fenty, 39-36, in the Democratic primary.

• Rasmussen:

• AL-Gov: Ron Sparks (D) 34%, Robert Bentley (R) 58%

• AR-Sen: Blanche Lincoln (D-inc) 27%, John Boozman (R) 65%

• RI-Gov: Frank Caprio (D) 38%, John Robitaille (R) 20%, Lincoln Chafee (I) 32%

• RI-Gov: Frank Caprio (D) 40%, Victor Moffitt (R) 17%, Lincoln Chafee (I) 33%

• WY-Gov: Leslie Petersen (D) 24%, Matt Mead (R) 58%