Tag: Keith Rothfus

All the latest House polls in one place.

IL-09: Magellan for Joel Pollak (10/12, likely voters):

Jan Schakowsky (D-inc): 48

Joel Pollak (R): 30

(MoE: ±3%)

IL-10: We Ask America (10/15, likely voters):

Dan Seals (D): 39

Bob Dold (R): 50

Undecided: 11

(MoE: ±2.9%)

ME-01, ME-02: Critical Insights (10/10-11, likely voters, 9/27 in parens):

Chellie Pingree (D-inc): 48 (54)

Dean Scontras (R): 33 (36)

Mike Michaud (D-inc): 43 (44)

Jason Levesque (R): 30 (32)

(MoE: ±5.7%)

MN-01: SurveyUSA (10/12-14, likely voters):

Tim Walz (D-inc): 47

Randy Demmer (R): 42

Steven Wilson (IP): 4

Lars Johnson (I): 2

Undecided: 5

(MoE: ±4.1%)

MO-05: Pulse/Rasmussen for Jacob Turk (10/5, likely voters):

Emanuel Cleaver (D-inc): 52

Jacob Turk (R): 43

(MoE: ±4%)

NH-01, NH-02: University of New Hampshire (10/7-12, likely voters, September in parens):

Carol Shea-Porter (D-inc): 36 (39)

Frank Guinta (R): 48 (49)

(MoE: ±5.3%)

Ann McLane Kuster (D-inc): 43 (38)

Charlie Bass (R): 36 (43)

(MoE: ±5.1%)

PA-04: Public Opinion Strategies for Keith Rothfus (10/6-7, likely voters):

Jason Altmire (D-inc): 47

Keith Rothfus (R): 36

(MoE: ±5.7%)

PA-07: Franklin & Marshall College (10/5-11, likely voters):

Bryan Lentz (D): 31

Pat Meehan (R): 34

(MoE: ±4.9%)

PA-08: Monmouth University (10/11-13, likely voters):

Patrick Murphy (D-inc): 46

Mike Fitzpatrick (R): 51

(MoE: ±3.9%)

PA-10, PA-11: Critical Insights for the Times Leader (dates unspecified, likely voters):

Chris Carney (D-inc): 38

Tom Marino (R): 44

Paul Kanjorski (D-inc): 41

Lou Barletta (R): 43

(MoE: ±4.9%)

RI-01: Quest (10/4-6, likely voters, 9/15-17 in parens):

David Cicilline (D): 47 (49)

John Loughlin (R): 36 (26)

Undecided: 13 (25)

(MoE: ±6.2%)

SC-02: Anzalone Liszt Research (10/7-10, likely voters, 5/3-6 in parens):

Rob Miller (D): 39 (34)

Joe Wilson (R-inc): 46 (49)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

TN-04: Public Opinion Strategies for Scott DesJarlais (10/12 & 14, likely voters, 9/27-28 in parens):

Lincoln Davis (D-inc): 40 (42)

Scott DesJarlais (R): 45 (42)

(MoE: ±5.7%)

VA-09: SurveyUSA (10/11-13, likely voters, 9/27-29 in parens):

Rick Boucher (D-inc): 51 (53)

Morgan Griffith (R): 41 (38)

Jeremiah Heaton (I): 4 (5)

Undecided: 4 (4)

(MoE: ±4%)

WA-03: SurveyUSA (10/10-12, likely voters, 9/12-14 in parens):

Denny Heck (D): 42 (43)

Jaime Herrera (R): 53 (52)

Undecided: 6 (4)

(MoE: ±4.1%)

• AK-Sen: It’s never a dull moment with Joe Miller in the race. Hot on the heels of the news that he believes that federal unemployment insurance is unconstitutional, today comes the news that his wife went on unemployment after leaving a job in 2004, and that Miller did not disown his wife for betraying the Founding Fathers. But wait, it just gets more interesting: the job Miller’s wife left was working for… Miller himself. He hired his wife as a part-time clerk when he was working for several years as a magistrate judge for the federal district court (y’know, for the federal government he just hates so much). Local gadfly (and Lisa Murkowski ally) Andrew Halcro is, in fact, suggesting that Miller was forced to fire his wife because the blatant nepotism may have been a violation of court policies. (Of course, Miller’s response was that Murkowski’s not one to talk about nepotism.)

And on top of that, now it’s come out that Miller is a full-on Seventeenther. In other words, part of the new crop of right-wingers who want you to vote for him so he can take away your rights to vote for him in the future.

• HI-Sen: Term-limited GOP Gov. Linda Lingle is saying she’ll “take a look” at a Senate bid in 2012. That seat’s current occupant, Dan Akaka, is 86 years old, so it’s not clear whether he’ll run for another term or not. Lingle is probably the only Republican on the bench in Hawaii with enough juice to make a Senate race, especially an open seat one, competitive.

• IL-Sen, IL-Gov: Mark Kirk is out with an internal poll (from Fulcrum), giving him a much larger lead than, well, anyone else, considering that most pollsters have seen this within a point or two either way. His poll says he leads Alexi Giannoulias 42-33, with 2 for the Green Party’s LeAlan Jones. (The same poll also shows Bill Brady leading Pat Quinn 39-27 in the Governor’s race.) Sitting on a big cash advantage, Kirk has reserved most of his entire kitty ($5.2 million) on ad buys for the remaining month.

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold seems determined to follow Nancy Boyda down the path of integrity/obscurity. He’s telling the DSCC (who haven’t advertised yet on his behalf) to back off and let him fight the election himself. Says Feingold: “I consider it to be outside help of a kind that is uncontrolled and tends to believe in a philosophy of slash-and-burn politics. That’s frankly not who I am. I don’t want to win that way.”

• NH-Gov: Univ. of New Hampshire (9/23-29, likely voters, July in parentheses):

John Lynch (D-inc): 51 (54)

John Stephen (R): 34 (29)

(MoE: ±4.3%)

Considering that UNH’s sample had Paul Hodes down by 15 and Carol Shea-Porter losing too, it’s pleasantly surprising to see John Lynch hanging in there with little trouble (in contrast to several other recent polls, such as UNH’s in-state rival for weird results, ARG).

• WV-Gov: I guess the 2010 election is over already? Because the conversation today already seems to be changing to 2012. Republican state Sen. Clark Barnes (whom you might remember for briefly getting in and then getting out of the field in WV-01 last year) says he’ll run for governor two years from now.

• NY-20: Finding himself on the very wrong end of both a Siena poll and a Scott Murphy internal, Chris Gibson offers up a POS internal of his own, taken 9/27-28, showing that he’s still within striking distance. He says he trails Murphy 42-38.

• VA-05: Here’s one more Dem poll from the 5th that shows Tom Perriello is narrowly trailing, but not officially dead yet. Rob Hurt leads Perriello 44-43 in a poll sponsored by the League of Conservation Voters and the SEIU (no word on who the pollster is, though). (UPDATE: The pollster is David Dougherty, and the memo is here. The sample was taken 9/20-23 with a 4.4% MoE.)

• American Crossroads: Remember back when we all laughed at American Crossroads for not raising any money, apparently because they were waiting for the million-dollar checks from their half-a-dozen billionaire donors to clear? Ha ha, boy, those were simpler times. Anyway, Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center are going to the IRS to ask for an investigation of Crossroads GPS, one tentacle of the group that’s organized as a non-profit “social welfare organization” or 501(c)(4). The larger Crossroads is a PAC, but GPS itself isn’t supposed to participate in campaigns. Rather than take it up with the FEC, which has fallen into chaotic uselessness because of empty seats on the commission, they’re going straight to the IRS, alleging tax law violations instead.

• Fundraising:

• MO-Sen: Roy Blunt raised $2 million in 3Q, no CoH given

• PA-07: Pat Meehan raised $725K, giving him $1.5 million CoH

• SSP TV:

• AK-Sen: Two different ads, one a coordinated spot between the Joe Miller camp and the NRSC that’s a bio spot for Miller, the other a Tea Party Express one-minute extravaganza that calls Lisa Murkowski a liar, a fraud, and various other things

• IN-Sen: Here’s a link to that Brad Ellsworth ad we mentioned yesterday, where he literally calls Dan Coats a sellout over that all-covers album he released outsourcing

• KY-Sen: The DSCC rolls out an ad hitting Rand Paul on his proposed $2,000 Medicare deductible, while Paul’s newest ad returns to the Jack Conway=Obama theme

• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan goes back to the theme of Roy Blunt’s cozy DC insider relationships

• NY-Sen-B: Joe DioGuardi’s first ad is an intro spot, as well as bemoaning the dwindling American Dream

• WA-Sen: The DSCC revisits Dino Rossi’s days as a state Senator, including support for cutting unemployment benefits and the minimum wage

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold takes the GOP to task for prematurely celebrating short of the end zone

• WV-Sen: John Raese follows the NRSC’s lead with his own ad doing the Joe Manchin=Obama thing

• FL-Gov: The DGA’s out with a Florida ad with various law enforcement officials bashing Rick Scott’s Medicare fraud

• NH-Gov: Here’s the ad of the day: John Lynch leaps out of the gate and punches John Stephen in the nose over scandals at New Hampshire’s HHS Dept.

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland, bedecked in camo, reminds the state’s hunters who got the NRA’s backing

• PA-Gov: Well, at least Tom Corbett isn’t saying Dan Onorato = Obama, but he is saying Onorato = Ed Rendell

• RI-Gov: The DGA hits Lincoln Chafee from the right? Their new ad says that vulnerable Rhode Islanders can’t afford all the new taxes Chafee wants

• FL-24: Suzanne Kosmas hits Sandy Adams over the Paul Ryan roadmap

• PA-04: Oh, good… more kids complaining about how their allowance isn’t big enough to cover all the debt they’re going to have to pay off, courtesy of Keith Rothfus

• Rasmussen:

• AZ-Sen: Rodney Glassman (D) 33%, John McCain (R-inc) 54%

• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 49%, Carly Fiorina (R) 45%

• CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 43%, Dan Maes (R) 16%, Tom Tancredo (C) 35%

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 45%, Ken Buck (R) 50%

• Rasmussen (appearing as Fox/Pulse):

• CT-Gov: Dan Malloy (D) 47%, Tom Foley (R) 41%

• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal (D) 52%, Linda McMahon (R) 42%

• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan (D) 42%, Roy Blunt (R) 50%

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 46%, Sharron Angle (R) 49%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 43%, John Kasich (R) 49%

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 37%, Rob Portman (R) 53%

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 43%, John Raese (R) 48%

DE-Sen: Christine O’Donnell has decided to go the J.D. Salinger route: She told Sean Hannity that she’s doing no more interviews, ever. Okay, well, at least as far as the national media are concerned. But it’s nothing to get upset over, sports fans: Thanks to the advent of the Internet, we will hear about all her gaffes and insanities even if she’s only talking to the Kent County Evening Bugle-Reporter-Sentinel. In that same interview with Hannity, she also managed to tell some nice lies about Chris Coons, claiming that he “made some very anti-American statements, apologizing for America and calling himself a bearded Marxist.” Of course, the “bearded Marxist” line was a joke, though undoubtedly O’Donnell is too dense to grasp that.

CO-Gov: You know, as we were getting to know Christine O’Donnell, I had a feeling that she was so low-rent, she’d make even Dan Maes look good. Well, that appears to be all but fucking impossible, even for O’Donnell. Maes raised just $14K in the first two weeks of September and currently has $24K in the bank. Not sure there’s a sack big enough fit that much sad.

MI-Gov: WLNS-TV could have saved themselves some money by just reading the Swing State Project, but they went ahead and commissioned a poll of the gubernatorial race anyway. Anyhow, the Marketing Resource Group shows exactly what you’d expect: Rick Snyder beating Virg Bernero 49-31.

AL-02: The NRA’s infiltration of the Democratic Party continues apace, this time with an endorsement for Bobby Bright.

AZ-07: This smells fishy to me. A Republican operative is saying he’s seen internal polls showing Some Dude Ruth McClung in a dead heat with Rep. Raul Grijalva in this 57% Obama district. But local Dem and GOP pols say they’ve seen nothing of the kind. McClung has only $15K on hand, but this ain’t good: Grijalva, after spending half a mil so far this cycle, has just $77K in the bank.

IA-02: Evidently Mariannette Miller-Meeks did not get the Club For Growth’s memo: She’s now saying she opposes privatizing Social Security, ostensibly because she thinks its finances are rickety. But isn’t the whole reason conservative douchewads want to private Social Security is because that’s how they think they can “save” it? I’m confused!

ID-01: Heh – fucker couldn’t buy a break even if Ron Popiel was selling `em. Even though the NRA gave Raul Labrador a better grade than Walt Minnick, they declined to endorse either candidate. Suckaaaaa.

WATN?: Remember this story? Last cycle, Chris Shays’ former campaign manager, Michael Sohn, stole a quarter million dollars from his boss’s election accounts. Now, Sohn has been sentenced to 37 months in prison. Shays must go to sleep every night wondering if that extra $250K would have meant the difference between winning and losing….

SSP TV (by James L.):

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist’s new ad hits Rubio for all the pork-laden bills that he sent to the Governor’s desk while serving as Speaker of the Florida House
• KY-Sen: Conservative group American Crossroads spending $235K against Jack Conway (D) – no copy of ad yet
• NH-Sen: Paul Hodes’ new ad is a folksy spot on fiscal conservatism, including chiding Kelly Ayotte for supporting tax cuts for the rich
• CO-07: Ryan Frazier wields some kind of laser pen while reciting a bunch of B.S. GOP boilerplate
• FL-22: Allen West says that Ron Klein is no moderate
• FL-24: Suzanne Kosmas would like you to know that she’s never gonna give you up, never gonna let you down
• MO-04: Ike Skelton issues a fierce but vague attack on GOPer Vicky Hartzler’s support for veterans, from the mouths of veterans
• NY-20: Chris Gibson says that we have to let market forces drive healthcare costs down. Yeah, like that worked the first time, moron.
• PA-03: Mike Kelly and the NRCC team up to hit Kathy Dahlkemper on SPENDING OUR CHILDREN’S FUTURE INTO OBLIVION!!!!11!
• PA-04: Keith Rothfus’ new ad takes the ice cream sandwich approach: two layers of delicious cookie crunch surrounding a mid-section of negative ice cream. I realize that makes no sense, but… God, I’m hungry.
• PA-10: Tom Marino’s first ad plays defense against Chris Carney’s hard-hitting ads against his sleazy record

Independent Expenditures (all from the DCCC today):

• AL-02: $82K media buy
• HI-01: $53K media buy
• IA-03: $71K media buy/production
• IL-14: $19K on direct mail
• MI-01: $24K media buy
• MI-07: $67K media buy
• MS-01: $49K media buy/production
• NC-08: $200K media buy/production
• NY-24: $27K media buy/production
• OH-13: $232K media buy/production
• OH-16: $26K media buy/production
• WI-07: $61K media buy
• VA-02: $86K media buy/production

In any effort to fight fire with fire, the DCCC has released their internal polls from five House races as part of a push-back effort against a recent wave of GOP-sponsored polling that’s been flooding the zone. We only have top lines – no innards – so take these with the appropriate grain of salt:

AL-02: Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (8/23-26, likely voters):

Bobby Bright (D-inc): 52

Martha Roby (R): 43

(MoE: ±4.9%)

NC-08: Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (8/25-29, likely voters):

Larry Kissell (D-inc): 48

Harold Johnnson (R): 36

Thomas Hill (L): 6

(MoE: ±4.9%)

NY-24: Benenson Strategy Group (8/29-31, likely voters):

Mike Arcuri (D-inc): 50

Richard Hanna (R): 37

(MoE: ±4.9%)

SD-AL: Anzalone Liszt (8/31-9/2, likely voters):

Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-inc): 50

Kristi Noem (R): 39

B. Thomas Marking (I): 4

(MoE: ±4.9%)

VA-05: Global Strategy Group (8/24-26, likely voters):

Tom Perriello (D-inc): 42

Rob Hurt (R): 44

Jeff Clark (I): 6

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Meanwhile, the campaigns of three Democrats have coughed up their own polls:

IL-10: Anzalone Liszt for Dan Seals (8/30-9/2, likely voters, May in parens):

Dan Seals (D): 49 (46)

Bob Dold (R): 36 (38)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

MS-01: Anzalone Liszt for Travis Childers (8/30-9/1, likely voters):

Travis Childers (D-inc): 46

Alan Nunnelee (R): 41

(MoE: ±4.9%)

PA-04: Anzalone Liszt for Jason Altmire (8/30-9/2, likely voters):

Jason Altmire (D-inc): 51

Keith Rothfus (R): 24

(MoE: ±4.9%)

UPDATE: We have one more!

KS-04: Gerstein | Agne for Raj Goyle (8/10-11, likely voters):

Raj Goyle (D): 47

Mike Pompeo (R): 50

(MoE: ±4.4%)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Rasmussen:

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

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

• AK-Sen: Moose man endorses Some Dude. That’s SSP shorthand for: Todd Palin just endorsed Joe Miller, the right-wing lawyer who’s taking on Lisa Murkowski in the Republican Senate primary. Recall that Mr. Palin has had some fairly fringey politics in the past (as with his membership in the Alaskan Independence Party), so I wonder if this was done with his wife’s approval (or, given her busy schedule these days, whether he was even able to block out some time with her to get her say-so). Given her rumored brief interest in taking on Murkowski in the primary herself (back when she was still Governor rather than itinerant book-selling motivational-speaking grifter), and her long-standing beef with all things Murkowksi, I’d suppose yes.

• CA-Sen: Carly Fiorina, trying to make up last-minute ground in the GOP primary against Tom Campbell, has thrown $1.1 million of her own money into her campaign. On top of previous loans to her campaign, that brings her total self-contributions to $3.6 million. Meg Whitman and Steve Poizner were both heard scoffing loudly.

• CT-Sen: Chalk this one up to bad, bad timing. Linda McMahon just sent out a mailer proposing to “put Connecticut back to work” by “increasing offshore drilling and production” (um, in Long Island Sound?). The mailer features a large, lovely picture of a (non-burning) offshore oil rig.

• NH-Sen: Has Kelly Ayotte just given up on any pretense of trying to look moderate? She’s appearing at a Susan B. Anthony List (the anti-abortion group) fundraiser today, headlined by Sarah Palin, along with a supporting cast like Rep. Steve King. I know that she still needs to survive her GOP primary, but her main opposition these days is looking like moderate Bill Binnie, not right-wing Ovide Lamontagne.

• NV-Sen: Steve Kornacki looks at the Nevada Senate race and the “what if” scenario if Sharron Angle somehow wins the primary. History indicates that Harry Reid can’t pin too many hopes on winning just because the GOP puts forth its most extreme candidate… maybe the biggest case in point, the Carter camp’s hopes that wacko Ronald Reagan would make it out of the GOP primary in 1980.

• NY-Sen: Wow, there’s actually going to be a GOP primary for the right to get mulched by Chuck Schumer! Nassau County Comptroller George Maragos, who’s only been on the job half a year, is already looking to move up. He’ll still have to get past political consultant Jay Townsend in the primary.

• UT-Sen: She stopped short of a formal endorsement, but fringey activist Cherilyn Eagar, who finished fourth at the GOP convention, said that Tim Bridgewater would be “an excellent senator” and complimented him on a “clean, honest race.” Eagar is back to her day job fighting the menace posed by gnomes.

• AL-Gov: I’m losing track of all the weird outside groups popping up to play dirty pool in the Alabama governor’s race. Today’s entrant is the mysterious New Sons of Liberty, whose main agenda seems to be Barack Obama’s birth certificate. They’ve reserved $1.1 million in TV airtime, although it’s unclear what they’ll be advertising about or on behalf of whom. The leader of a group, Basics Project, affiliated with the New Sons is mystified at where they would have gotten that kind of money, so it seems like they’re being used as a conduit for… well, somebody.

There’s also a new poll out of the Republican primary, by Republican pollster Baselice (on behalf of local PR firm Public Strategy Associates… there’s no word on whether any of the candidates are their client). They find Bradley Byrne barely leading Tim James 24-23. Roy Moore, who many thought would be the man to beat, is lagging at 18, with Robert Bentley at 12 and Bill Johnson at 2. The juicier numbers might be down in the AG race, where GOP incumbent Troy King is in all kinds of trouble. He’s losing 50-25 to challenger Luther Strange. There are three Dems in the AG field, most prominently James Anderson, ready to try to exploit the cat-fud fight.

• AR-Gov: One thing we didn’t mention in our writeup of Research 2000’s AR-Sen poll from yesterday is that they were the first pollster to throw the Arkansas Governor’s race into the mix. Incumbent Dem Mike Beebe routinely sports some of the highest favorables of any politician (64/24 here), and he seems immune from Arkansas’ reddish trend and the nation’s overall anti-incumbent fervor. He leads Republican former state Sen. Jim Keet, 62-19.

• CT-Gov: Former Stamford mayor Dan Malloy picked up another potentially useful endorsement today as we make our way toward Connecticut’s endorsing conventions. He got the nod from Rep. John Larson, the #4 man on the House totem pole. UPDATE: On the GOP side, ex-Rep. Chris Shays has an endorsement of his own: Lt. Gov. Michael Fedele.

• NY-Gov: It’s kind of more meta than we’d like, to report on an announcement about an announcement (about an announcement), but it sounds like we’re getting closer to pinning down a date from Andrew Cuomo. It’s being reported that he’ll announce his gubernatorial candidacy on or around May 25, the start of the state Democratic convention.

• AL-05: Rep. Parker Griffith is already up with a negative ad hitting one of his Republican primary opponents, Madison Co. Commissioner Mo Brooks, calling him a “career politician” and “big spender.” Brooks observed, perhaps correctly (although the Alabama primary is fast approaching), that an incumbent attacking a challenger is a big-time sign of weakness.

• GA-09: Former state Rep. Tom Graves, in the runoff for the special election in this seat against fellow Republican Lee Hawkins, got the endorsement from nearby Rep. Lynn “Uppity” Westmoreland. In a district this red, that may actually be a plus.

• MN-06: An unaffiliated independent, Troy Freihammer, may appear on the ballot, in addition to Independence Party nominee Bob Anderson. He needs 1,000 signatures by month’s end, though, so he may not make that hurdle. Getting him on might be a net plus for the Dems, as his website makes pretty clear he’s a Tenther and he’s only likely to take votes away from Michele Bachmann.

• OR-01: SurveyUSA is way down in the weeds here (although that’s because the poll where they get paid to do so, in this case by local TV affiliate KATU), with a look at the primaries in the 1st. In a four-way field on the GOP side, the NRCC’s preferred candidate, sports-industry consultant Rob Cornilles, leads at 31, beating mortgage broker John Kuzmanich at 19. The other guy whose name you hear in connection with this race, Stephan Brodhead (mostly because he somehow summoned up $298K CoH) is polling at all of 3, probably because his main campaign activity seems to be trolling the online comment sections of local newspapers and people have ascertained thusly that he’s a wackjob. Rep. David Wu is at 75% against token opposition on the Dem side.

• PA-04: What was supposed to be a victory lap for former US Attorney and loyal Bushie Mary Beth Buchanan has turned into a real dogfight with attorney Keith Rothfus, seemingly helped along by her apparent ineptitude at electoral politics. She’s currently drawing fire for a “deceitful” mailer which uses the National Rifle Association logo without its permission. Things have actually been going badly enough on the message-control front that improbable rumors have her dropping out of the race (with days to go), although her camp is saying her “major political announcement” is just a press conference to go on the offensive against Rothfus.

• Census: An interesting article from Stateline looks at what various states are doing to amp up Census participation. The real interest, here, is a neat map they’ve put together rating the states not on their overall participation percentages, but on the overall shifts in participation percentage from 2000 to 2010. Intriguingly, the biggest improvements in participation were clustered in the Deep South (especially North and South Carolina, both of which are on the cusp of adding another seat), while the Mountain West states suffered the most. California also seemed to fall off a bit, as budget limitations kept them from doing much outreach this time around, which could conceivably hurt their hopes of staying at 53 seats.

• AR-Sen: The SEIU is turning their amps up to 11 in a final effort to beat Blanche Lincoln in the Democratic primary. They’re ponying up another $1 million for a new TV ad blitz, focusing on Lincoln’s support for NAFTA, CAFTA, and sundry other free-trade deals.

• FL-Sen: Looks like the “Help wanted” sign is going out at Charlie Crists’s office. As expected, much of his top-tier staff evacuated en masse; he lost communications director Andrea Saul, spokesperson Amanda Hennenberg, and campaign counsel Ben Ginsberg (all Beltway types left over from when Crist was the NRSC’s prize pony, who just headed back to the GOP’s mothership). Also former Crist marionette George LeMieux severed his strings: the seat-warming Senator says he won’t support Crist’s independent bid.

• NV-Sen: Imagine that… a Democrat actually taking to the airwaves to explain the benefits of the broadly-misunderstood (or just plain not-understood-at-all) health care reform bill and not just ceding the discursive arena to right-wing radio and astroturfers? Better late than never, I guess. Harry Reid is forging ahead with that, launching three different new TV ads featuring stories from actual Nevadans actually benefiting from HCR.

• OH-Sen (pdf): There’s one more poll of the Democratic Senate primary in Ohio, from Suffolk this time. They find an even bigger edge for Lee Fisher over Jennifer Brunner than did PPP; in fact, Suffolk has Fisher doubling up on her, 55-27. Voters may be thinking strategically: they also find that respondents feel Fisher has a better chance of beating Rob Portman than does Brunner, by a lop-sided 55-15 margin. Brunner voters report that, if Fisher wins the election, 74% will vote for Fisher and 8% for Portman.

• AZ-Gov: PPP has one more installment in its Arizona sample today: the Republican primary in the gubernatorial race. As other pollsters have found, once-wobbly incumbent Jan Brewer has strengthened her primary position (while destabilized her general election position) by signing off on Arizona’s new racial profiling law. Brewer leads the pack at 38, over fractured opposition led by NRA board member Owen Buz Mills at 19, state Treasurer Dean Martin at 16, and former university regent John Munger at 3. (In PPP’s last poll here, from September, Brewer was losing a head-to-head against Martin 37-26.) PPP also did a fantasy-baseball poll that included Maricopa Co. Sheriff Joe Arpaio, who, as he does every four years, has been expressing interest in the race but not moving forward in it. Arpaio wins that version of the primary, taking 33%, with 25 for Brewer, 15 for Martin, 11 for Mills, and 1 for Munger.

• MN-Gov: With the Republican endorsing convention in Minnesota already underway, most media accounts are focusing on Sarah Palin’s last-minute endorsement of state Rep. Tom Emmer, but there’s a more important endorsement at work here in terms of potentially moving some delegates: Norm Coleman is now also backing Emmer and privately making calls to delegates on Emmer’s behalf. The GOPers have already endorsed in some of the downballot races, maybe most notably the Auditor’s race, where they endorsed former Auditor Pat Anderson (who had been running for Governor for a while, until she decided to drop down and try to get her old job back instead).

• UT-Gov: Mason-Dixon, on behalf of the Salt Lake Tribune, took another look at the general election in the Utah governor’s race, which is definitely looking like a heavy lift for Salt Lake County mayor Peter Corroon. The Democrat trails GOP incumbent Gary Herbert 61-30, an even better showing than Herbert’s 55-30 result in January.

• FL-16: Whew. After making some noises about a possible comeback attempt, ex-Rep. Tim Mahoney decided on filing day that he wouldn’t run to get his seat back. He still took a parting shot at Rep. Tom Rooney, saying he’s part of the GOP’s move to the “radical right.” Some Dudes Jim Horn and Ed Tautiva are all the Dems have on the ballot in this R+5 district, unless something changes in the next few hours.

• HI-01: The Republicans continue to very subtly funnel money into the 1st, somewhat mirroring their stealth strategy on how they got similarly-blue MA-Sen off the ground. Rather than the NRCC charging in with both barrels blazing, instead there’s a push for individual House GOP members to contribute directly to Charles Djou; about 40 have done so already.

• IN-02: The National Rifle Association slammed GOP candidate Jackie Walorski. No, that’s not because the right-wing Walorski suddenly had a change of heart on the gun issue; instead, it was because she was claiming the NRA’s endorsement. That was only for her 2008 legislative bid, the NRA said, and she has not been endorsed yet for this year for the different office.

• IN-03: Looks like Rep. Mark Souder isn’t going to be in the House much longer, regardless of how next week’s primary plays out. Brian Howey says Souder has been telling him that he’d already been contemplating retirement in 2012, and the stress of trying to win his unexpectedly-tough primary election has “sealed it” for him.

• PA-04: Here’s a last-minute sign of life for Keith Rothfus, who’d been the leading GOP contender here up until the moment when former US Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan announced (although Rothfus beat Buchanan at fundraising last quarter). He got the endorsement today of Glen Meakem, a wealthy businessman and part-time talk radio host who’s something of a behind-the-scenes power in Republican circles in western Pennsylvania and who had briefly considered a Senate bid last year.

• SC-04: Rep. Bob Inglis’s main threat this year is in the GOP primary, not the general, and he launched two different ads reminding voters that he’s actually pretty conservative. One ad touts his NRA endorsement, while the other runs down the litany of things he opposed (health care reform, stimulus, cap-and-trade, auto industry bailout).

• NY-St. Sen.: A long-time Republican stalwart in the New York state Senate is retiring: Dale Volker (in office since 1975). Democrats looking to pad their narrow majority in the Senate may need to look elsewhere, though; this district in the Buffalo suburbs and surrounding rural counties is one of the most conservative in the state, with a 79K-to-65K GOP registration advantage, and won 54-40 by John McCain.

• Arizona: Arizona has been doing all kinds of weird things lately, and here’s one more to add to the list. One of the few states to not have a Lt. Governor (the SoS is 2nd in line of succession, which is how Jan Brewer became Governor), Arizona is planning to have a Lt. Governor… but only because they would eliminate the SoS position and give all those duties to the LG. What’s even weirder is that they’d start doing what Illinois just decided to stop doing because the results were so uniformly terrible: the Governor and LG candidates will run separately in the primary, but be joined together on one ticket via shotgun wedding for the general election. The idea cleared the legislature, but because it’s a constitutional amendment, the idea has to pass a voter referendum before it becomes law.

• Puerto Rico: The House approved allowing Puerto Rico to hold a plebiscite on its grey-area status (the last one was in 1998, where they decided to remain a commonwealth). It’ll be a two-step vote, where the first vote will ask whether it should remain a commonwealth or not. If the answer is “no,” the second vote will ask whether it should become independent, a U.S. state, still remain a commonwealth, or enter some other sovereign-but-connected-to-the-U.S. status. If it voted for statehood, Congress would still have to approve making it a state. Of course, this has to pass the Senate as well before the vote could happen, so it may get kicked down the road for a while.

• OFA: Nathan Gonzales has a thorough look at the Obama campaign’s state directors, and how they’re part of OFA’s pivot to focus on turning out the same voters for the 2010 midterms. Here’s a handy table of what all the directors are up to these days.

• History: Rhodes Cook has an interesting column that’s been getting linked all over the place in the last couple days: a much more apt comparison for what the Democrats are getting themselves this year, rather than 1994, is 1966. The parallels are that the Democrats were facing some inevitable snap-back after overperforming in the 1964 election (winning nearly 2/3s majorities in each chamber), and the GOP quickly got back up off the mat after the Dems pushed the limits in passing a variety of Great Society legislation (most notably Medicare). Of course, the Democrats still took a bath, losing 47 in the House and 3 in the Senate, so it’s still not really something the Democrats should aspire towards.

• NH-Sen: ARG, mateys! The New Hampshire-based pollsters find that Republican AG Kelly Ayotte is keelhauling Democratic Rep. Paul Hodes in the Senate race, although with lots of undecideds: 41-34. This is their first look at the Ayotte/Hodes matchup. (UPDATE: Oh, come on… I just noticed that ARG also has Barack Obama’s NH approval at 34/57 and even Gov. John Lynch at 37/40. So take this poll with a mighty hunk o’ pirate salt.) Also today, Ayotte’s primary opposition is lining up. Businessman Jim Bender says he’s forming an exploratory committee, and Ovide Lamontagne is setting up a testing-the-waters 527 to raise funds.

• NV-Sen: Former state GOP chair, former one-term state Senator, former co-owner of the Sahara casino, and former Miss New Jersey 1973 Sue Lowden (and former Reid donor, back in the 1980s) is officially in the race against Harry Reid. Democrats are pointing to her close ties to John Ensign, while even tradmed pundits like Chris Cillizza are left wondering if her resume is “somewhat thin” for the task of going against Reid.

• VT-Gov: Lt. Gov. Brian Dubie announced today that he will run for the Republican nomination for the open gubernatorial race in Vermont. His previous silence on the issue since Jim Douglas’s retirement announcement had suggested he wasn’t going to run, but now apparently he’s all in. Dubie is socially conservative (at least by Vermont standards), so if he’s the standard bearer (and this probably means that recent party-switching Auditor Tom Salmon, who said he wouldn’t run if Dubie ran, won’t run now) that may improve Dem odds at picking up the seat. Of course, Dem odds mostly turn on what the Progressive Party does.

• GA-12: Two developments in the 12th, where Rep. John Barrow is already facing two Republicans (doctor and self-proclaimed top recruit Wayne Mosely, and Thunderbolt Fire Chief Carl Smith). A third GOPer, Savannah party activist Jeanne Seaver, is also getting into the field. And on Barrow’s left, former state Sen. Regina Thomas is considering another primary run. Although Blue Dog Barrow should theoretically be vulnerable to a challenge from an African-American Democrat in this almost half-black district, Thomas pulled in only 24% of the primary vote in a seemingly underfunded and underplanned challenge last year. (H/t TheUnknown285.)

• NC-11: This might be a slightly more imposing challenge to Rep. Heath Shuler than the guy who promised to serve only one term: Jeff Miller, a Hendersonville businessman who received a Presidential Citizens Medal for his work taking WWII veterans to Washington DC to see the WWII war memorial. Miller is “contemplating” the race.

• OR-05: Sad to say, it looks like we won’t have Mike Erickson to make fun of again next year; the GOP found a somewhat more viable challenger to freshman Rep. Kurt Schrader. State Rep. Scott Bruun says he’ll run; he says he has a “moderate middle sensibility” (which plays well in his wealthy corner of the Clackamas County suburbs, but may subject him to a primary challenge from elsewhere). Bruun ran in 1996 against Earl Blumenauer in the dark-blue 3rd and lost by a wide margin. Getting down into the weeds, his departure also opens up HD 37, the kind of suburban district that Democrats in the state legislature have been vacuuming up in the last few cycles.

• PA-04: Disregard what I said yesterday; don’t quite count out state House minority whip Mike Turzai yet. Despite the entry of lawyer Keith Rothfus to the GOP field yesterday, Turzai notified the media that he’s still considering a run against Rep. Jason Altmire, but is currently preoccupied by the budget stalemate in Harrisburg and will decide later.

• NH-Sen: Joe Biden will be on duty to help Paul Hodes (who hasn’t set the world on fire with his fundraising so far) at a DC fundraiser on Oct. 5.

• SC-Sen: Democrats appear to have a candidate with some financial heft to take on Sen. Jim DeMint next year. The Indigo Journal writes that Rock Hill attorney Chad McGowan recently told local Democrats that he’ll be running full-time for the Senate nomination beginning in early October. (J)

• CA-Gov: Looks like the period of meditation on the Governor’s race that Jerry Brown promised us didn’t take very long: he’s opening his exploratory committee today. Meanwhile, Meg Whitman managed to poach another member of the Steve Poizner camp; former state GOP chair and former Assembly minority leader Bob Naylor dropped his Poizner endorsement and switched to Whitman.

• NJ-Gov: Yet another pollster sees the same story developing in New Jersey (this time it’s Quinnipiac). The race is tightening to within the margin of error, but it’s not because Jon Corzine is getting much better (he’s still not breaking 40); instead, Chris Christie is slowly deflating, while moderate independent Chris Daggett gains. Today’s poll has Christie up 43-39-12, a definite improvement over last month’s 47-37-9.

• VA-Gov: Creigh Deeds is finally playing one of his aces in the hole: Sen. Mark Warner, who generally polls as by far the most popular political figure in the state, cut an ad for Deeds and will be campaiging for him on weekends. Deeds also got an endorsement which, superficially, seems like a big coup, but isn’t, really: former GOP governor Linwood Holton. (The moderate Holton is father-in-law to Tim Kaine and endorsed Barack Obama in 2008.)

• NH-02: It looks like ex-Rep. Charlie Bass is getting off the fence and moving closer to an effort to reclaim his old seat, which he lost to Paul Hodes in 2006 but will be an open seat in 2010. He’ll be opening his exploratory committee tomorrow. (Although — maybe this is a possible sign of ambivalence — he says he’s opening the committee because he needs somewhere by quarter’s end to put all the unsolicited checks he’s received lately, or else he’ll have to return them.) He’ll probably still face a primary against the more conservative 2008 candidate, Jennifer Horn, assuming he runs.

• NY-23: As expected, Gov. Paterson has set Nov. 3rd for the NY-23 special election, the same day as other elections in the state (such as the NYC mayoral race), and of course the gubernatorial races in NJ and VA. GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava also got an endorsement that falls into the “as expected” category: from the Main Street Partnership, the ideological caucus for the dwindling ranks of moderate House Republicans.

• PA-04, 08: Two sophomore Democrats in Pennsylvania both got Republican challengers. In the Pittsburgh suburbs’ R+6 4th, Keith Rothfus, a Republican lawyer and former Dept. of Homeland Security official, will challenge Rep. Jason Altmire. (Apparently the NRCC’s top recruit, state House minority whip Mike Turzai, has been balking so far.) Meanwhile, in the less challenging 8th in the Philly burbs, computer consultant Jeffrey Schott is slated to run against Rep. Patrick Murphy.