Tag: Quinnipiac

Quinnipiac (6/2-8, likely voters, no trendlines):

Rick Scott (R): 44

Bill McCollum (R): 31

Undecided: 24

(MoE: ±3.4%)

Kendrick Meek (D): 29

Jeff Greene (D): 27

Maurice Ferre (D): 3

Undecided: 37

(MoE: ±3.5%)

Here’s a “holy crap!” moment from Quinnipiac: the two random sketchy ultra-wealthy guys, Rick Scott and Jeff Greene, whose entries into the GOP gubernatorial primary and Democratic Senate primary (respectively) initially seemed like go-nowhere vanity projects, are actually in serious contention thanks to lavish TV spending.

In particular, Rick Scott (former CEO for hospital corporation Columbia/HCA) has shot ahead of Bill McCollum. Scott’s favorables are a very high 40/12 among GOPers, indicating that McCollum’s (or Mary Cheney’s, really) attempts to point out that whole Medicare fraud thing on Scott’s part have gotten drowned out by the sheer volume of Scott’s advertising. Of course, it doesn’t look like McCollum has gotten too badly harmed by Rentboy; he’s also a 41/19 among GOPers, so he might be able to fight his way back if he can find his financial footing, ad-wise.

Jeff Greene, the derivatives pioneer who increased his fortune betting on an economic collapse caused in part by those same derivatives, isn’t leading, but is nipping at Kendrick Meek’s heels in the Democratic Senate primary. Meek has spent little on advertising so far, so despite his institutional frontrunner status, he isn’t particularly better-known than Greene right now.

Quinnipiac released its general election numbers separately:

Quinnipiac (6/2-8, registered voters, 4/8-13 in parentheses (Sen, Gov)):

Kendrick Meek (D): 17 (24)

Marco Rubio (R): 33 (30)

Charlie Crist (I): 37 (32)

Undecided: 11 (13)

Jeff Greene (D): 14

Marco Rubio (R): 33

Charlie Crist (I): 40

Undecided: 11

Alex Sink (D): 32

Rick Scott (R): 42

Undecided: 21

Alex Sink (D): 34 (36)

Bill McCollum (R): 42 (40)

Undecided: 19 (21)

(MoE: ±2.9%)

Alex Sink (D): 26

Rick Scott (R): 35

Bud Chiles (I) : 13

Undecided: 23

Alex Sink (D): 25

Bill McCollum (R): 33

Bud Chiles (I) : 19

Undecided: 19

(MoE: ±4.7%)

Charlie Crist may actually be able to thread the needle here (especially if he gets an assist from Jeff Greene, as Crist breaks off an extra 3% from the Dem column if it’s Greene instead of Meek); he leads Marco Rubio in both configurations, thanks to, if you believe the trendlines, eating up a further share of Dem votes.

Things aren’t looking so good for Alex Sink in the gubernatorial race, with similar underperformances against both Scott and McCollum. (Interestingly — and I don’t know if this is a trend or a blip — Rasmussen finds the Governor’s race a much better bet for the Dems right now than Quinnipiac does.)

It looks like Quinnipiac added a Bud Chiles option mid-sample once the indie candidate announced (as explained by the higher MoE on the three-ways). Despite his Democratic lineage, Chiles’ entry doesn’t seem to hurt Sink disproportionately, as he seems to have enough Dixiecrat appeal to draw equally from both column D and column R. The 8-to-9 point margins between the Rs and Sink remains unchanged with Chiles in the mix.

Quinnipiac (5/24-25, registered voters, 3/9-15 in parens):

Richard Blumenthal (D): 56 (61)

Linda McMahon (R): 31 (28)

Undecided: 10 (10)

Richard Blumenthal (D): 55 (62)

Rob Simmons (R): 28 (26)

Undecided: 13 (10)

Richard Blumenthal (D): 59 (64)

Peter Schiff (R): 25 (21)

Undecided: 13 (13)

(MoE: ±2.9%)

If Quinnipiac is to believed, it looks like Richard Blumenthal has weathered the storm of his Vietnam flap with remarkable ease, only losing a handful of points off of his ample margins from March. Indeed, Quinnipiac asked a number of specific questions on the issue, finding that, by a margin of 53-35, voters were satisfied with Blumenthal’s explanation of the matter, and that, by a 54-38 margin, voters believe he misspoke rather than lied. A full 61% say that the issue isn’t impacting their preferences in the race one way or the other, while 33% say that it’s made them less likely to vote for Blumenthal. While this flare-up has not been pleasant at all, it certainly starting to look like the weight of the issue has been overstated.

Meanwhile, Quinnipiac also polled the GOP primary. Keep in mind that half of this sample was polled before Simmons pulled the plug on his own campaign:

Rob Simmons (R): 23 (34)

Linda McMahon (R): 49 (44)

Peter Schiff (R): 11 (9)

Undecided: 15 (12)

(MoE: ±6.5%)

And we also have some gubernatorial primaries:

Ned Lamont (D): 41 (28)

Dan Malloy (D): 24 (18)

Undecided: 30 (44)

(MoE: ±5%)

Tom Foley (R): 37 (37)

Mike Fedele (R): 11 (13)

Oz Griebel (R): 5 (7)

(MoE: ±6.5%)

Quinnipiac (5/4-10, registered voters, 3/30-4/5 in parens):

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 40 (41)

Pat Toomey (R): 47 (46)

Undecided: 12 (12)

Joe Sestak (D): 40 (34)

Pat Toomey (R): 42 (42)

Undecided: 16 (22)

Dan Onorato (D): 37 (33)

Tom Corbett (R): 43 (45)

Undecided: 19 (21)

Jack Wagner (D): 28 (29)

Tom Corbett (R): 47 (48)

Undecided: 23 (21)

Joe Hoeffel (D): 26 (28)

Tom Corbett (R): 49 (50)

Undecided: 22 (21)

(MoE: 2.9%)

Quinnipiac released the general election half of its sample today (note that they still aren’t polling likely voters on November, despite their switch to LVs for the primary). Two big things leap out here: first, Joe Sestak has really turned the pro-Specter electability argument on its head. What seemed to hold him back earlier was his unknownness, which has changed now that he’s actually advertising and increasing his profile. Sestak has pulled within 2 of Toomey, up from an 8 point gap, while Specter has lost ground vs. Toomey, currently a 7-point gap instead of April’s 5. In addition, there are more persuadables left open in Sestak/Toomey. And second, while I’d just about written the gubernatorial race off for dead, it also seems like Dan Onorato is trying to make a race of this against Tom Corbett, as he too is getting better-known throughout the state. Onorato within 6 is the best result any pollster has seen so far.

Suffolk (5/4-10, likely voters, no trendlines):

Joe Sestak (D): 49

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 40

Undecided: 12

Dan Onorato (D): 46

Anthony Williams (D): 13

Jack Wagner (D): 9

Joe Hoeffel (D): 8

Undecided: 25

(MoE: 4.9%)

Suffolk weighs in with their first poll of the Pennsylvania race, and these are some attention-getting numbers: they find Joe Sestak up by 9 over Arlen Specter, by far the largest margin anyone has seen for him. They also have Dan Onorato at 46, which is the first time he’s broken into the 40s against his multiple opponents. (Suffolk, as you may remember, was bang-on in predicting their home state in MA-Sen, but whiffed pretty badly on NJ-Gov, so you can decide how much weight to give this one.) They also looked at the GOP primaries, and like everyone else, found nothing to see here: Tom Corbett beats Sam Rohrer 58-20 and Pat Toomey beats Peg Luksik 60-9.

Muhlenberg College for Allentown Morning Call (pdf) (5/9-12, likely voters, 5/8-11 in parentheses):

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 44 (45)

Joe Sestak (D): 44 (45)

Undecided: 12 (9)

Dan Onorato (D): 39 (37)

Anthony Williams (D): 14 (15)

Joe Hoeffel (D): 11 (8)

Jack Wagner (D): 9 (9)

Undecided: 27 (30)

^{(MoE: ±5%)}

There’s little to report in today’s Muhlenberg daily tracker. Specter and Sestak are still tied, although undecideds have ticked up a bit. Finally, at least one more poll is forthcoming: Research 2000 will have a poll out tomorrow, if not later tonight.

Quinnipiac (5/5-10, likely voters, 4/28-5/2 in parens):

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 44 (47)

Joe Sestak (D): 42 (39)

Undecided: 14 (14)

Dan Onorato (D): 38 (36)

Jack Wagner (D): 11 (8)

Anthony Williams (D): 10 (8)

Joe Hoeffel (D): 9 (9)

Undecided: 32 (37)

(MoE: 3.2%)

Quinnipiac is the first pollster out of many polls to find that Arlen Specter has a lead in the Democratic Senate primary (hard to believe, even a month ago, that I’d be saying those words). They’ve switched to a likely voter model, with May 18 fast approaching, but the main difference over the last few weeks is that Joe Sestak hit the airwaves hard, which seemed to upend this race. They also take a look at the sleepy GOP primaries, finding Tom Corbett beating Sam Rohrer 57-14 on the gubernatorial side and Pat Toomey beating Peg Luksik 60-9. (Remember when I thought that the squishy-on-abortion Toomey might face some trouble against single-issue pro-lifer Luksik, who was more of a force back in the 1990s, in the primary? Well, looks like I was wrong on that one.)

Franklin & Marshall (5/3-9, registered voters except likely voters for Dem Senate primary, 3/15-21 in parens):

Joe Sestak (D): 38 (12)

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 36 (32)

Undecided: 25 (52)

(MoE: 7.9%)

Joe Sestak (D): 28 (19)

Pat Toomey (R): 29 (27)

Undecided: 43 (49)

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 33 (29)

Pat Toomey (R): 35 (33)

Undecided: 26 (32)

(MoE: 3.3%)

Dan Onorato (D): 27 (11)

Jack Wagner (D): 5 (7)

Anthony Williams (D): 5 (4)

Joe Hoeffel (D): 4 (5)

Undecided: 57 (71)

(MoE: 4.9%)

Franklin & Marshall switches back to their choose-your-own-adventure approach, offering a choice of LV or RV numbers in the Democratic primary for the Senate. What’s happening in the Dem primary mirrors what they’ve previously found in the general: that Specter wins among all registered voters, but loses among those actually likely to vote. Among RVs, Specter leads Sestak 38-29. (Note the huge margin of error on their Dem LV sample. The RV sample, which was the only way Governor primary numbers were reported, is down in the normal range, though.) F&M’s numbers on the GOP primaries are Corbett 29, Rohrer 10, and Toomey 28, Luksik 1. (Yep, definitely not happening for Luksik this year.) They also include general election numbers, which show tightening vs. Toomey as the Dems are moving to front-of-mind thanks to their ad deluges.

Muhlenberg College for Allentown Morning Call (pdf) (5/8-11, likely voters, 5/7-10 in parentheses):

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 45 (43)

Joe Sestak (D): 45 (47)

Undecided: 9 (10)

Dan Onorato (D): 37 (33)

Anthony Williams (D): 15 (15)

Jack Wagner (D): 9 (9)

Joe Hoeffel (D): 8 (10)

Undecided: 30 (34)

^{(MoE: ±5%)}

Finally, is there some Arlen-mentum in the daily Muhlenberg tracker? After Sestak peaking with a 5-point lead, now the duo are back to a tie today. Taking all the data together, I don’t think you can call this anything but the deadest of dead heats.

• NH-Sen: I’m still hazy on the backstory here, but it’s never a good sign when Politico is running big headlines titled “Fraud case complicates Ayotte bid.” New Hampshire’s Bureau of Securities Regulation director, Mark Connelly, just resigned his job to become a whistleblower, alleging a cover-up by the AG’s office and state banking commission in a fraud case where Financial Resources Mortgage Inc. defrauded New Hampshire investors out of at least $80 million. Connelly was pushing for charges against FRM as early as 2006; the AG in question, of course, was Kelly Ayotte, who resigned her post in mid-2009. Discovery in the matter may be complicated because all of Ayotte’s e-mail and calendars were wiped from her computer after she left the AG’s office.

• PA-Sen, PA-Gov (pdf): It looks like Muhlenberg College (on behalf of the Morning Call) is actually going to be doing a daily tracker on the Democratic primary races in the next two weeks as we count down to May 18. Today they find an even narrower gap in the suddenly-closer Arlen Specter/Joe Sestak race: Specter leads Sestak 46-42. Dan Onorato’s numbers in the gubernatorial race aren’t quite as showy, but still dominant: he’s at 36, with Anthony Williams at 9, Joe Hoeffel at 8, and Jack Wagner at 8. Quinnipiac also has similar numbers out today: they also have Specter leading Sestak by only single digits, at 47-39 (down from 53-32 a month ago). In the governor’s race, Qpac finds Onorato at 36, Hoeffel at 9, Wagner at 8, and Williams at 8. The DSCC seems to be sensing some trouble here for their preferred candidate, and they’re dipping into their treasury to help Specter out: the DSCC chipped in for $300K in Specter’s last $407K TV ad buy. Sestak just kicked off TV advertising two weeks ago but is going all in, outspending Specter in the last two weeks, which obviously coincides with his late surge.

• AZ-Gov: That Behavior Research Center poll of AZ-Sen from a few weeks ago contained a Republican gubernatorial primary question as well. Their findings mirror the other most recent polls of the primary: vulnerable incumbent Jan Brewer strengthened her hand among GOP primary voters by signing Arizona’s immigration law into effect. She’s at 22, not a lock but well ahead of any opposition: Owen Buz Mills is at 13, Dean Martin is at 10, and John Munger is at 4. (If your calculator isn’t handy, that leaves 51% undecided.)

• NH-Gov (pdf): Univ. of New Hampshire is out with another look at New Hampshire’s gubernatorial race, where Democratic incumbent John Lynch is well in control but still facing a tougher race than the last few times. They find Lynch leads GOP challenger John Stephen 49-32, little changed from the February poll where Lynch led 50-30.

• WI-Gov: Ex-Rep. Mark Neumann is very much the underdog in the Republican primary in the gubernatorial race (as the DC and local establishments have both embraced Milwaukee Co. Executive Scott Walker instead). But he added a hard-right endorsement to his trophy cabinet today; he got the nod from Tom Coburn.

• GA-08: In a clear sign that state Rep. Austin Scott (who recently bailed out of a long-shot gubernatorial campaign) is the man to beat in the GOP primary in the 8th, Angela Hicks got out of the race, saying she didn’t want to hurt Scott’s chances. Local businesswoman Hicks seemed to be considered the frontrunner among the GOPers prior to Scott’s entry, more by virtue of being the least weak rather than the strongest.

• HI-01: Barack Obama recorded a robocall for Democratic voters in his hometown district. Despite reports that the White House is joining the DCCC is putting a finger on the scale in favor of Ed Case rather than Colleen Hanabusa in the screwy special election, Obama didn’t name names; he simply urged a vote for “a Democrat.”

• NH-02: The largely forgotten state Rep. John DeJoie, the third wheel in the Democratic primary to replace Paul Hodes, cut short his bid today. Despite generally being regarded as from the progressive side of the ledger, DeJoie threw his support to Katrina Swett. DeJoie’s departure, on the balance, may help Ann McLane Kuster, though, by not splitting the progressive vote.

• PA-12: I have no idea whether this is good strategy or not, but Mark Critz, hoping to replace former boss John Murtha, is clinging hard to Murtha’s legacy in his new TV ad, seeming to put a lot of faith in polling data showing Murtha still a very popular figure in the district. Critz blasts back at Tim Burns for his own TV spots focusing on Murtha’s ethical woes, telling Burns ungrammatically to stop attacking “someone not there to defend themselves.” Meanwhile, the fight’s on for Murtha’s money: $7K from Murtha’s PAC found its way into Democratic pockets (including $5K for Critz), but the bulk of Murtha’s leftover money is headed for a charitable foundation established by his widow.

• CA-St. Sen.: For fans of legislative special elections, it looks like the marquee event between now and November will be the fight for California’s SD-15, a Dem-leaning central coast district vacated by Republican now-Lt. Gov. Abel Maldonado. Republican Assemblyman Sam Blakeslee just got in the race, giving the GOP a solid contender to try and hold the seat as Dems try to push closer to the 2/3s mark in the Senate; he’ll face off against Democratic ex-Assemblyman John Laird in the June 22 election. (If neither candidate breaks 50%, there’ll be an Aug. 17 runoff.)

• Redistricting: Lots of redistricting-related action this week, going in two different directions. In Florida, the GOP-held legislature placed a redistricting measure on the November ballot that partially contradicts two citizen initiatives on the ballot that would prevent the legislature from drawing maps that favor one political party. The new proposal would still allow the legislature to take “communities of interest” into consideration when drawing maps. In Illinois, though, two attempts to change redistricting both failed, when the legislature couldn’t muster the votes to put it on the November ballot. Illinois’s arcane methods (which involve breaking ties by pulling a name out of a hat) will apparently still apply for the 2012 redistricting round.

• Deutschland: Our man in Cologne, SSPer micha.1976 has a hilarious and remarkable find from the streets of Germany. Remember the impeach-Obama Larouchie, Kesha Rogers, who won the Democratic nomination in TX-22? Her image is now being used on posters for a like-minded LaRouchie candidate in Germany! (J)

• AR-Sen: Barack Obama is cutting a radio ad in support of Blanche Lincoln as she faces a primary challenge from Lt. Gov. Bill Halter. Also on the ad front, here’s an ad that both Lincoln and Halter agree on. Both have condemned the anti-Halter ad from Americans for Job Security as racist; the ad uses Indian actors and backdrops to accuse Halter of having offshored jobs. AJS’s head says he sees nothing wrong with the ad and won’t be pulling it; it’s a big ad buy and scheduled to run for the next two weeks in the leadup to the primary.

• KY-Sen: Lots happening in Kentucky, most notably a strange switcheroo by Christian right leader James Dobson. He outright switched his endorsement from Trey Grayson to Rand Paul, blaming GOP insiders for feeding him misinformation about Paul (such as that he was pro-choice). Dobson’s endorsement is bound to help the Paul attract some social conservative voters uneasy about his libertarianism, and also helps paint Grayson as tool of the dread insiders. True to form, Grayson is touting a new endorsement that’s pretty insidery: from Rep. Hal Rogers, the low-profile, long-term Rep. from the state’s Appalachian southeast corner and a key pork-doling Appropriations member. Grayson is also touting his own internal poll, which shows Paul and Grayson deadlocked at 40-40, contrary to, well, every public poll of the race.

• LA-Sen, LA-LG: Here’s the first non-Rasmussen poll of Louisiana we’ve seen in a while, not that it has Charlie Melancon in a particularly better position.  It was conducted by Southern Media & Opinion Research on behalf of businessman Lane Grigsby (a wealthy meddler in Republican politics, last seen swaying LA-06 in 2008 with hundreds of thousands of IEs from his own pocket). Vitter leads Melancon 49-31, and Vitter has 55/36 favorables. It also seems to be the first poll to take a look at the Republican all-party jungle primary in the developing Lt. Governor’s race (created by Mitch Landrieu’s election as New Orleans mayor). State Treasurer John Kennedy (the ex-Dem and loser of the 2008 Senate race) leads the pack at 21, followed by SoS Jay Dardenne at 15, Public Service Commissioner Foster Campbell at 14, St. Tammany Parish President Kevin Davis at 6, and state GOP chair Roger Villere at 2. (Kennedy and Campbell, however, haven’t announced their candidacies yet.) (H/t Darth Jeff).

• NC-Sen: PPP has one last look at the Democratic primary in the Senate race, although this one may well be going into overtime (someone needs to break 40% to avoid a top-two runoff). They find Elaine Marshall leading Cal Cunningham 28-21 (a bigger spread than her 26-23 lead one week ago). Kenneth Lewis is at 9, with assorted others taking up another 9%. PPP also polls on the potential runoff, finding Marshall would beat Cunningham in a runoff 43-32 (as Lewis’s voters would break to Marshall by a 47-32 margin).

• NH-Sen: Kelly Ayotte seems to be leaving any “moderate” pretenses in the dust, as she just came out in favor of Arizona’s new anti-illegal immigrant law. (Of course, New Hampshire is one of the whitest and least Hispanic states in that nation, so it still may not wind up hurting her much.)

• NV-Sen: Research 2000, for Daily Kos, came out with a poll of the Nevada Senate race last Friday. Nothing unusual here, inasmuch as they find Harry Reid not looking as DOA as Rasmussen always does, though there are still lots of flies circling around him. Reid’s faves are 37/53, and he trails Sue Lowden 45-41 (with 4 for the Tea Party’s Scott Ashjian, 2 for “other,” and 2 for Nevada’s unique “None of the Above” line). He also trails Danny Tarkanian 43-41 and Sharron Angle 44-41. Despite Lowden getting low marks for her chicken bartering proposals (14/81 approval of that, including 27/68 among Republicans), she still has 42/34 favorables overall and is leading the way in the GOP primary, although perhaps by a narrowing margin: she’s at 38, to 28 for Tarkanian, 13 for Angle, and 12 for “other,” with 9 undecided.

• OH-Sen: One last poll sneaked under the finish line before tomorrow’s Democratic primary in the Ohio Senate race. Quinnipiac finds last-minute momentum for Lee Fisher (in the wake of actually spending some money on TV ads): he leads Jennifer Brunner 43-23. It pretty much seems to depend on name rec (which, in turns, depends on ads): Fisher has 44/8 favorables among likely primary voters, while Brunner is at 26/7 (with 65% having no opinion of her).

• AZ-Gov: I hadn’t been aware until today that controversial Maricopa Co. Sheriff Joe Arpaio was still seriously considering a run in the GOP gubernatorial primary (especially since, with Jan Brewer signing the anti-illegal immigrant law into effect, his main raison d’etre to challenge her was gone). At any rate, after making a big show of “major announcement today!” he then issued a brief press release saying that he wasn’t going to run.

• CA-Gov: Meg Whitman is treading carefully in the wake of the Arizona immigration law’s passage, probably mindful of the California GOP’s short-term gains but long-term ruin in the wake of Proposition 187. Meg Whitman came out against it (while primary opponent Steve Poizner supports it), perhaps an indication that she feels safe enough to start charting a moderate course for the general election.

• CT-Gov: Two interesting developments in Connecticut: one, former HartStamford mayor Dan Malloy, Ned Lamont’s main Democratic primary opposition, will qualify for public financing of his campaign. This will help Malloy compete on a somewhat more level playing field against Lamont, who can self-finance. Also, the Democratic field shrank a little, as one of the minor candidates in the field, Mary Glassman (the First Selectwoman of Simsbury) dropped out and signed on as Lamont’s Lt. Governor running mate instead.

• IL-Gov: Democratic running-mate-for-a-day Scott Lee Cohen followed through on earlier threats, and today announced his independent candidacy for Governor. His rationale? “I believe that the people of Illinois have forgiven me.”

• MN-Gov: Needless to say, I’m feeling better about our chances in Minnesota, as newly-anointed GOP nominee Tom Emmer is laying down markers way, way outside the Minnesota mainstream. Turns out he’s a full-on “Tenther,” having recently sponsored state legislation that would purport to nullify all federal laws that are not approved by a two-thirds supermajority in the Minnesota legislature. (He also recently said that the Arizona immigration law was a “wonderful first step.”)

• NY-Gov: We’re getting very mixed signals on the Steve Levy campaign for the GOP nomination. On the one hand, Levy is claiming that the RGA is ready to pony up $8 million to $10 million in support of his campaign. On the other hand, state GOP chair Ed Cox, the guy who arm-twisted Levy to get into the race in the first place, is privately expressing worries that Levy won’t get the 50% of county chairs’ endorsements to get the ballot line, and there are rumors that he’s now floating the idea of a Rick Lazio-Steve Levy ticket.    

• OH-Gov: Incumbent Dem Gov. Ted Strickland is going on the air starting on primary election day, with a major TV ad buy of 1,000 points each in Cleveland, Cincinnati, and Dayton. Strickland has $2 million more cash than John Kasich, so he probably figures now’s the time to use it.

• OR-Gov: A variety of polls have popped up of the primaries in Oregon, whose fast-approaching primary is kind of dwarfed by higher-profile affairs in Arkansas, Kentucky, and Pennsylvania on the same day, May 18. Tim Hibbitts (on behalf of Nike and Standard Insurance, in case there was any doubt that Oregon is, in fact, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Phil Knight) found John Kitzhaber firmly in control of the Dem primary, leading Bill Bradbury 50-21. Local TV affiliate KATU also commissioned a poll by SurveyUSA, which was taken in mid-April but they seem to have sat on the results until now. It’s apparently the first public poll of the Republican primary; they find Chris Dudley, who’s been spending heavily on TV time, leading the pack at 28. Allen Alley is at 13, under-indictment Bill Sizemore is at 11, John Lim is at 7, and assorted tea-bagging “others” add up to 8.

• UT-Gov: Looks like those rumors that Democratic candidate Peter Corroon was going to pick a Republican running mate were right. Corroon tapped state Rep. Sheryl Allen, one of the legislature’s leading moderate GOPers, as his number two.

• OH-17: Insert obligatory “beam me up” joke here! Ex-Rep. Jim Traficant, out of prison, is looking to get back in the game, and he’ll be taking on his former employee, Rep. Tim Ryan, by running as an independent in his old district, the 17th. While there had been rumors that Traficant was also going to file to run in the next-door 6th (as, bizarrely, you can run in multiple different districts in Ohio), but he decided against that. Bear in mind that Traficant already ran against Ryan in the 17th as an independent shortly after his 2002 conviction and House expulsion, but only got 15% in that race.

Quinnipiac (4/21-26, likely voters, 3/23-29 in parens):

Lee Fisher (D): 40 (41)

Rob Portman (R): 37 (37)

Undecided: 21 (21)

Jennifer Brunner (D): 40 (38)

Rob Portman (R): 36 (37)

Undecided: 21 (23)

(MoE: ±2.5%)

Ted Strickland (D-inc): 44 (43)

John Kasich (R): 38 (38)

Undecided: 17 (17)

(MoE: ±2.5%)

There’s been very little change in Ohio over the last month according to Quinnipiac; the needle barely budged in the Ted Strickland/John Kasich and Lee Fisher/Rob Portman races. Jennifer Brunner improved her position in the Senate race slightly, but if yesterday’s poll of the Democratic primary is any indication, that’ll be a moot point starting next week.

The most movement seemed to occur in Barack Obama’s approval, down to 45/50 from 47/48. It’s encouraging to see the local Dems slightly overperforming Obama’s so-so ratings, although, if anything, that may have to do with the mismatch between Kasich and Portman’s Wall Street leanings and the economic realities of hard-hit blue-collar Ohio.

Quinnipiac University Polling Institute (4/22-26, likely voters, 3/25-28 in parens):

Lee Fisher (D): 41 (33)

Jennifer Brunner (D): 24 (26)

Undecided: 34 (40)

(MoE: ±3.1%)

That’s the power of actually being able to spend banked cash, folks, as Lee Fisher has basically had the airwaves to himself over the past couple of weeks. Will Jennifer Brunner be able to keep things interesting on election night?

• FL-Sen: That bell is tolling pretty loudly for Charlie Crist right about now, although it’s unclear today whether it spells a switch to an independent Senate bid (keep your fingers crossed) or an exit (if only temporarily) from politics. Crist’s camp has pulled all of its GOP-primary-related ads from Florida television. Florida junior Senator/Crist errand boy George LeMieux is downplaying this, saying no switch is imminent, but the NRSC is leaning on Crist even more heavily than before, trying to disabuse their endorsee of the idea of an indie bid.

• IN-Sen: I wonder if this will boost John Hostettler with his fundraising by hooking him up with a national base, or if he’s going to be more Peter Schiff than Rand Paul in the end? The former Rep., in his run for the GOP nomination in Indiana, now has the endorsement of Rep. Ron Paul, bringing together two of the very few GOPers to vote against the Iraq War. Meanwhile, state Sen. Marlin Stutzman, the dark-horse third-wheel in the GOP derby, is hitting the TV airwaves with an introductory ad, banking much of his small warchest on getting his name rec out of the basement with the primary only weeks away.

• KS-Sen: Rep. Mike Pence weighed in on the GOP field in Kansas, endorsing Rep. Todd Tiahrt over fellow Rep. Jerry Moran. There’s something of a social/fiscal conservative split on this race, where social conservatives love Tiahrt but fiscal hawks don’t, based on his long career on the goodie-doling Appropriations Committee. If nothing else, it’s interesting to see Pence, who tries to have a foot in each camp, choose sides, as he gears up for a possible presidential bid. Meanwhile, Moran is going up with his first TV spot, with a big buy in the Kansas City market.

• KY-Sen: More tasty cat fud in Kentucky, where Rudy Giuliani just endorsed Trey Grayson and, in doing so, slammed the bejesus out of Rand Paul on the 9/11 front, saying that Grayson “is not part of the ‘blame America first’ crowd that wants to bestow the rights of U.S. citizens on terrorists and point fingers at America for somehow causing 9/11.” Just the kind of softening-up of Paul we need for the general election.

• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov: Siena’s latest poll of the Empire State doesn’t contain any big surprises; even David Paterson’s 17/83 job rating isn’t that surprising anymore. In their first look at the post-George Pataki Senate landscape, they find that Kirsten Gillibrand is cruising against all of her seemingly interchangeable third-tier opposition; she beats Joe DioGuardi 46-27, Bruce Blakeman 46-26, and David Malpass 46-24. DioGuardi, apparently with the name rec that comes with a celebrity daughter (or maybe it’s from the two terms in Congress in the 1980s), has the edge in a Pataki-free GOP primary, winning with 24 to 7 for Blakeman and 5 for Malpass. On the gubernatorial side, Andrew Cuomo fares even better than Gillibrand, beating Rick Lazio 61-24, Steve Levy 58-23, and Carl Paladino 64-19. Lazio still has the edge in the GOP primary, at 29 with 15 for Levy and 13 for Paladino.

• WA-Sen: Strange that it takes a foul-mouthed blogger to notice the clues that Dino Rossi isn’t running that the Beltway press seems oblivious to. Goldy notices that minor candidate Chris Widener, another personal friend of Rossi, is saying the same thing as state Sen. Don Benton: if he’s running, why the hell isn’t he doing me the favor of calling me up and telling me to get out of the way? (Well, maybe because he’s a jerk?) Even more telling is that another minor GOP candidate, former NFL player Clint Didier, has commercial real estate mogul Kemper Freeman (one of Rossi’s big-name donors and a major insider player in the state GOP), as his campaign chair.

• FL-Gov: I’m wondering if Bill McCollum’s lead role in the pursuit of the GOP AGs’ lawsuit over HCR is suddenly taking a toll on him (voters are opposed to the suit by a 54-40 margin), or if Quinnipiac got an unusually Dem-friendly sample (it’s the same one that found Kendrick Meek with 4 of Marco Rubio in a head-to-head, and Obama gets a 48/46 approval). Either way, Quinnipiac has the nicest numbers we’ve seen out of the Florida gubernatorial race in a while. McCollum leads Democratic state CFO Alex Sink by just 40-36. McCollum leads state Sen. Paula Dockery 56-7 in the GOP primary; Sink leads Dockery 37-28.

• MD-Gov: Usually when a heavyweight jumps into the field, the random odds and ends get out, but the opposite happened in Maryland. Shortly after Bob Ehrlich got in, little-known rich guy Brian Murphy just announced his candidacy today. Murphy will be running against Ehrlich from the right and has the support of former state GOP chair James Pelura. Murphy also got a vote of confidence from former state Del. Carmen Amedori, who dropped her long-shot bid against Barbara Mikulski to sign on as Murphy’s Lt. Governor running mate.

• CA-36: At the state convention, incumbent Rep. Jane Harman managed to ward off Marci Winograd’s attempts to deny Harman the state party’s endorsement. After a floor fight, Harman won the endorsement with a 599-417 vote. The two will still face off in the Democratic primary (in a rematch of 2006).

• GA-09: Here’s a problem for Georgia Dems: they lost their only candidate in the 9th, pastor Mike Freeman. His name will still remain on the ballot for the May 11 special election to replace Nathan Deal, but he leaves behind a hole for the general election. Not that the absence of a Dem in this R+28 district would be noticed much, though.

• MA-09: Rep. Stephen Lynch has dodged a primary challenge so far, following his vote against HCR, but it seems like organized labor has found a candidacy that might stick. Mac d’Alessandro, a regional director for the SEIU, says he’ll take a shot at Lynch in the Democratic primary, although he has only a couple weeks to round up the necessary 2,000 signatures.

• MN-01: The Republicans had their endorsement convention for the 1st District and gave their nod to state Rep. Randy Demmer. While Demmer is hardly anyone’s idea of a moderate, he’s less polarizing than his main rival, former state Rep. Allen Quist (a Michele Bachmann ally). Quist sounds like he’ll honor the endorsement and not run in the primary.

• MN-02: On the Dem side, though, former state Rep. Shelley Madore has decided to keep running in the primary even though the DFL endorsement went to Dan Powers.

• NH-01: In a surprise to almost no one, Sean Mahoney (who made a big show of quitting his committee position on the RNC recently, ostensibly to protest Michael Steele) announced that he’s going to run in the GOP primary in the 1st for the right to take on Rep. Carol Shea-Porter. The primary that looked like a victory lap for former Manchester mayor Frank Guinta last year is now a four-way bar brawl instead.

• NY-24: Rep. Mike Arcuri is, all of a sudden, sounding kind of Stupak-ish in the wake of his getting bruised by all ends of the spectrum after his ill-advised ‘yes’ to ‘no’ switch on HCR; he won’t commit to running for re-election just yet. Either he’s particularly thin-skinned and vindictive about getting his widdle feewings hurt, or he’s looking at some particularly unappetizing polling numbers, especially if the Working Families Party runs someone against him.

Quinnipiac (4/8-13, registered voters, 1/20-24 in parentheses):

Charlie Crist (R-inc): 33 (44)

Marco Rubio (R): 56 (47)

Undecided: 10 (8)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Kendrick Meek (D): 24

Marco Rubio (R): 30

Charlie Crist (I): 32

Undecided: 13

Kendrick Meek (D): 38 (35)

Marco Rubio (R): 42 (44)

Undecided: 17 (19)

Kendrick Meek (D): 34 (36)

Charlie Crist (R): 48 (48)

Undecided: 14 (12)

(MoE: ±2.8%)

A whole lot has happened in the last 24 hours since this poll from Quinnipiac came out. I’m not sure if seeing this poll was Crist’s “fuck it” moment, or if he’d already decided to act, but yesterday he took a sorta-bold step back on the path toward independence that he once walked: Crist vetoed legislation passed by Florida’s GOP-held legislature, near and dear to conservative hearts, that pushed merit pay and limited teacher tenure. His veto is a thumb in the eye to the local GOP establishment, and probably ends any remaining vestigial possibility of him winning the Senate primary against right-wing darling Marco Rubio.

The reaction from the rest of the state’s GOP was pretty swift: he lost endorsements from state legislators almost immediately, NRSC chair John Cornyn (who’d previously sheepishly stuck by his Crist endorsement) started warning Crist about getting any ideas about straying off the reservation, and by the end of the day, Crist had lost his campaign chair: Connie Mack (the former Sen., not the current Rep.).

Rumors were flying this morning that Crist advisers were now pivoting toward an independent run, or else dropping out altogether and moving toward a 2012 run against Bill Nelson. And just hours ago, despite having made a Shermanesque statement last week about an indie run, Crist said something that the media is running with as an indication that the indie bid is imminent: in response to questions about an indie bid, he said, “I’m not thinking about that today. We’ll look at that later on.” Not quite political oratory on the order of “We having nothing to fear but fear itself,” but certainly a provocative question mark. (Although with the filing deadline coming up within weeks, “later on” can’t be much later.)

In the event the indie bid happens, Quinnipiac shows that the GOP near-slam-dunk turns into a three-way frenzy where Crist, Rubio, or even Dem Kendrick Meek have a credible shot. Interestingly, Quinnipiac also finds that Meek has been gaining on Rubio in the head-to-head (down only 4), as Meek works his tail off under the radar (as seen with his unnecessary, but framework-building petition gathering scheme) while Rubio’s right-wing leanings may be getting more apparent to the casual viewer. So, whether or not this turns into a three-way race, the Dems need to watching this one closely.

UPDATE: I’m not sure if this was planned or the veto was the last straw, but Mitt Romney, about as establishment a GOP figure as you can get, just endorsed Marco Rubio in this race.