Tag: Mason-Dixon

Ipsos for Miami Herald and St. Petersburg Times (pdf) (8/6-10, registered voters, 7/9-11 in parens):

Alex Sink (D): 30 (31)

Bill McCollum (R): 26 (30)

Bud Chiles (I): 12 (12)

Undecided: 29 (24)

Alex Sink (D): 29 (31)

Rick Scott (R): 30 (34)

Bud Chiles (I): 14 (13)

Undecided: 26 (16)

(MoE: ±4%)

The newest Ipsos poll in Florida finds Alex Sink gaining a little ground over her Republican opponents since last month, as they’ve continued to turn each other even more radioactive in their battle. However, unlike Mason-Dixon‘s gubernatorial poll from this week, they find Rick Scott matching up better with Sink than does McCollum… recall that Mason-Dixon showed a competitive Sink/McCollum race, but Sink demolishing Scott as the Medicare fraud story finally seemed to sink in with voters.

GOP primary numbers, with trendlines from 5/14-18:

Rick Scott (R): 42 (22)

Bill McCollum (R): 32 (46)

Undecided: 23 (25)

(MoE: ±5.9%)

There’s also a big difference here between Ipsos and Mason-Dixon, in the GOP gubernatorial primary. Mason-Dixon found McCollum shooting back into the lead 34-30, but here Ipsos gives Scott a solid lead like nothing has happened. (You’ll note the trendlines make it look like Scott is surging, but those go all the way back to May when Scott was just getting started.)

For what it’s worth, though, there are two new Republican polls out in the last few days that suggest that Mason-Dixon is on the right track. Neither one is for the McCollum camp, although they’re both for McCollum allies. A Tarrance poll for the Florida Medical Association (taken 8/10-12) gives McCollum a 44-40 lead. And a McLaughlin & Associates poll for the Chamber of Commerce (taken 8/11-12) gives McCollum a pretty wide lead, at 45-33.

Ipsos Senate numbers, trendlines from 7/9-11:

Kendrick Meek (D): 17 (17)

Marco Rubio (R): 29 (28)

Charlie Crist (I): 33 (35)

Undecided: (20)

Jeff Greene (D): 19 (18)

Marco Rubio (R): 30 (29)

Charlie Crist (I): 32 (34)

Undecided: 19 (19)

(MoE: ±4%)

Last month’s Ipsos Senate numbers were pretty favorable to Charlie Crist, some of the best numbers he’d put up since his big switcheroo. There’s a little regression to the mean here this time, although he’s still in the lead in both Kendrick Meek and Jeff Greene matchups. Or is there some actual movement toward Marco Rubio going on? (See the Mason-Dixon poll below.)

Dem primary numbers, with trendlines from 5/14-18:

Jeff Greene (D): 35 (9)

Kendrick Meek (D): 31 (33)

Maurice Ferre (D): 4 (10)

Undecided: 30 (41)

(MoE: ±6.4%)

With the Dem primary fast approaching, Ipsos still sees a huge number of undecideds. They give Jeff Greene, of vomit-coated yacht fame, a small lead over Kendrick Meek. So Greene’s on track to win, right? Well, maybe not. (Again, see the Mason-Dixon numbers below.)

Mason-Dixon (pdf) (8/9-11, likely voters, 5/3-5 in parens):

Kendrick Meek (D): 18 (19)

Marco Rubio (R): 38 (32)

Charlie Crist (I): 33 (38)

Undecided: 11 (11)

Jeff Greene (D): 12 (NA)

Marco Rubio (R): 38 (NA)

Charlie Crist (I): 39 (NA)

Undecided: 11 (NA)

(MoE: ±4%)

We’ve already posted about the surprising gubernatorial results from Mason-Dixon, but these are also surprising, because they’re the first non-Rasmussen pollster in a while to give an edge to Marco Rubio (at least in a Kendrick Meek matchup). Of all pollsters, they seem to pick up on the biggest disparity in how Meek and Greene perform: and here, it’s Greene who underperforms dramatically (compared with Meek), enough to throw the election to Crist. Crist clearly understands the dynamics and is further hitching his hopes to the Democratic wagon, as seen with his announcement yesterday that he supports Barack Obama’s support for construction of the mosque near Ground Zero.

Dem primary numbers, with trendlines from 8/2-4:

Kendrick Meek (D): 40 (33)

Jeff Greene (D): 26 (29)

Maurice Ferre (D): 5 (5)

Undecided: 28 (31)

(MoE: ±5%)

As I alluded to above, we have a very different result here in the Dem primary from Mason-Dixon, who show Meek starting to run away with it. So, with the Florida primary only a little more than a week away, we have agreement between Ipsos and Mason-Dixon on… absolutely nothing.

Mason-Dixon (8/9-11, likely voters for primary and registered voters for general, 8/2-4 for primary trendlines, 5/3-5 for general election trendlines):

Bill McCollum (R): 34 (31)

Rick Scott (R): 30 (37)

(MoE: ±5%)

Alex Sink (D): 37 (36)

Bill McCollum (R): 35 (45)

Bud Chiles (I): 13 (NA)

Alex Sink (D): 40 (38)

Rick Scott (R): 24 (36)

Bud Chiles (I): 17 (NA)

(MoE: ±4%)

Some sort of dam has broken in Florida in the last week, apparently, and Rick Scott is the one who’s currently getting swamped. There has been a general sense in polling over the last few weeks that Bill McCollum was working his way back into contention in the GOP primary, and all of a sudden, in the latest Mason-Dixon poll, he’s broken back into the lead. What’s wrong with Scott? (Or: What gives, Cueball?)

Mason-Dixon’s Brad Coker offers three pretty good reasons: 1) the Medicare fraud thing is finally starting to gain some traction (you’d think it would have months ago, but I guess you have to hit people over the head repeatedly for stuff like that to sink in, and that’s what the latest round of McCollum ads have been doing), 2) Scott, a la Meg Whitman, shot past the point of diminshing returns on saturation advertising, and 3) Scott sucked at the debates he was in, and has been ducking another one this week.

There’s also some serious spillover for Scott into the general. Mason-Dixon’s general election trendlines go all the way back to May, so they don’t reflect the period where McCollum had been turned radioactive and Scott was polling much better vis-a-vis Alex Sink… but that’s totally turned around in the new poll. Sink narrowly leads McCollum, but now she demolishes Scott (with an assist from indie Bud Chiles, who seems to get a big bump in a Sink/Scott race too). The Sink/McCollum numbers are a definite improvement from their last poll, though, so even if McCollum does somehow pull it out in the primary, it seems like the damage from Scott’s self-aggrandizing kamikaze mission has already been done.

Mason-Dixon for Georgia Newspaper Partnership (8/2-4, likely voters, no trendlines):

Karen Handel (R): 47

Nathan Deal (R): 42

Undecided: 11

(MoE: ±4%)

InsiderAdvantage (8/5, likely voters, no trendlines):

Karen Handel (R): 46

Nathan Deal (R): 46

Undecided: 8

(MoE: ±4.6%)

Landmark (8/7, likely voters, 8/1 in parentheses):

Nathan Deal (R): 44 (37)

Karen Handel (R): 42 (46)

Undecided: 14 (17)

(MoE: ±3.9%)

Georgia’s GOP gubernatorial runoff is tomorrow, and as things reach a climax, no fewer than three pollsters are out today with their final look at the race. Karen Handel won the first round pretty easily, but it’s looking like Nathan Deal has finally consolidated a substantial amount of the conservative vote behind him that he’d previously shared with Eric Johnson and John Oxendine. (Which, of course, isn’t to say that the Sarah Palin-backed, let’s-repeal-the-state-income-tax Handel is some sort of moderate, just that stylistically she’s staking out somewhat less red-meat-intensive turf.)

If you average these polls out, you might think that Handel had a small advantage going into tomorrow, but the fine print seems to give Deal most of the momentum. The three polls here, arranged by chronological order in which they were taken, give successively better performances to Deal. And the one poll here with trendlines (Mason-Dixon and InsiderAdvantage have both polled this race repeatedly, but in each case this is their first post-primary pre-runoff poll), Republican pollster Landmark, actually switches from a significant Handel lead to a teeny Deal lead. Considering that Democratic ex-Gov. Roy Barnes would probably rather face Deal than Handel (and thus have the moderate turf all to himself, as well as the ethics cudgel), he might actually catch yet another break here.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Rasmussen:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mason-Dixon for St. Louis Post-Dispatch (pdf) (7/19-21, registered likely voters, no trendlines):

Robin Carnahan (D): 42

Roy Blunt (R): 48

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±4%)

Mason-Dixon takes its first look at the Missouri Senate race; they are not the bearers of good news, finding Robin Carnahan down 6 in the race against Roy Blunt to claim the retiring GOPer Kit Bond’s seat. The big problem here seems to be Barack Obama’s approvals in this reddish-tilting state, which are a terrible 34/57, and may be rubbing off on Carnahan. (It may be a rather Republican-heavy sample, though: check out this one detail from the crosstabs. People say they “generally support” the agenda of the Tea Party movement 44/39. I’ve never seen numbers like that out of a swing state before, and come to think of it, I don’t I’ve ever seen 80% of a population have an opinion of the Tea Party before.)

Here’s one other interesting aside: it looks like the St. Louis Post-Dispatch has gotten a new pollster, as this is their first pairing with Mason-Dixon. Anybody remember who their previous pollster was? (Discussion is already underway in liberalpragmatist‘s diary.)

UPDATE: They also did an oversample of likely primary voters, finding that the GOP field here is a pretty big case of teabagger fail. State Sen. Chuck Purgason — one far-right anti-establishment challenger who didn’t seem to ever catch fire — is trailing Blunt 62-13 in the primary. Also, they took a look at Proposition C, which is a statewide ballot measure that will be decided on primary election day, not in November, and will attempt (unconstitutionally, I would imagine, seeing as how there’s this little thing called the Commerce Clause) to say that Missouri voters are exempt from federal penalties starting 2014 for not carrying health insurance. For some convoluted reason, they don’t release an aggregate result, but predict passage based on its support from 27% of Democrats and 67% of Republicans.

Magellan Strategies: (7/18, likely Republican primary voters, 7/8 in parentheses):

Karen Handel: 38 (32)

Nathan Deal: 20 (18)

Eric Johnson: 17 (12)

John Oxendine: 12 (18)

Ray McBerry: 3 (3)

Jeff Chapman: 3 (3)

Otis Putnam: 0 (0)

Undecided: 7 (14)

(MoE: ±2.8%)

Mason-Dixon for Georgia Newspapers (7/15-16, likely Republican primary voters, 7/8-13 in parentheses):

Karen Handel: 29 (23)

John Oxendine: 22 (31)

Nathan Deal: 20 (18)

Eric Johnson: 13 (6)

Ray McBerry: 2 (2)

Jeff Chapman: 1 (1)

Undecided: 13 (19)

(MoE: ±5%)

InsiderAdvantage (7/14, likely Republican primary voters, 7/1 in parentheses):

Karen Handel: 24 (18)

Nathan Deal: 16 (12)

John Oxendine: 15 (18)

Eric Johnson: 13 (8)

Jeff Chapman: 6 (6)

Ray McBerry: 3 (3)

Otis Putnam: 1 (1)

Undecided: 22 (34)

(MoE: ±3.5%)

Three different polls are out today of the Republican gubernatorial primary (to be held tomorrow). If one thing’s certain, it’s that Karen Handel, the former SoS, is likely to be one of the participants in the runoff. There’s now a pitched battle for 2nd place, between Nathan Deal, John Oxendine (falling out of a solid first just weeks ago), and even state Sen. Eric Johnson (who went on a last-minute TV ad binge).

Handel’s recent success has lots to do with Sarah Palin and Jan Brewer endorsements, but also with a good ad strategy: branding herself the “reformer” and hitting her opponents’ corruption. With Deal having bailed out early from the House to avoid getting nailed on ethics problems, and now with allegations just emerging over the last few weeks regarding linkages between Oxendine‘s regulatory activities as insurance commissioner, and big payouts from those insurers he’s supposed to regulate, the ads wrote themselves.

Pollster.com’s regression lines paint a pretty clear picture of the last few weeks:

Mason-Dixon (7/12-14, likely voters, 6/1-3 in parens)

Rory Reid (D): 36 (37)

Brian Sandoval (R): 47 (51)

Other: 3 (1)

None of these: 7 (1)

Undecided: 7 (10)

(MoE: ±4%)

Sandoval’s lead is down from 14 points to 11, but it’s not like Rory’s made any kind of gain – rather, everyone’s favorite candidate, “none of these,” is the beneficiary of Sandoval’s drop. Still, there ain’t nothin’ wrong with winnin’ ugly, and if none-of-the-above helps Rory win what is still a major uphill battle, I’m sure he won’t be complaining.

NV-03 (4/5-7 in parens):

Dina Titus (D-inc): 42 (44)

Joe Heck (R): 40 (49)

Other: 5 (N/A)

None of these: 4 (N/A)

Undecided: 9 (7)

(MoE: ±5%)

That’s actually a pretty steep drop for Mighty Joe Heck, and there’s no clear explanation for it. Pollster Brad Coker claims Heck got a bounce last time around (which, you’ll note, was all the way back in April) thanks to Titus’s support for the just-passed healthcare reform bill. Color me skeptical. I’ll note that M-D seemed to alter its methodology in the interm, apparently prompting now for “other” and “none.” All of Heck’s shrinkage can be attributed to the appearance of these alternate options. Once again, it looks like Nevada’s quirky none-of-the-above feature might wind up doing Dems a big favor here.

Mason-Dixon for Las Vegas Review-Journal (7/12-14, likely voters, 6/1-3 in parens):

Harry Reid (D-inc): 44 (41)

Sharron Angle (R): 37 (44)

Other: 4 (3)

None of these: 5 (4)

Undecided: 10 (8)

(MoE: 4%)

I’d thought the Patriot Majority poll from a few days ago (that gave Harry Reid a 4-point lead) was a little optimistic, but along comes Mason-Dixon (on behalf of the Las Vegas Review-Journal, which Jon Ralston has described as “an anti-Harry Reid PAC”) with an even bigger lead in their first poll since the resolution of the GOP primary.

As in Kentucky, this looks like a race where the most conservative primary option got insufficient pre-primary scrutiny in the media, and then got hammered with it afterwards. Add in a big disparity in the effectiveness of advertising and general messaging right now — Reid touting his ability to save jobs for Nevada, and Angle, um, criticizing Reid for saving jobs while saying that job creation’s not a Senator’s job — and there’s a definite shift in momentum here. No doubt someone will point out that the incumbent is still way below 50%, but I have a feeling Harry Reid is OK with that… because this is going to be an election where “None of these” scores extremely well.

Worth noting: nobody but Rasmussen has seen an Angle lead since the GOP primary wrapped up. Here’s the state of the race in graphic form, courtesy of Pollster.com:

We’d had a pretty clear sense that this race was headed back to “Tossup” (from “Lean Republican”) as soon as Sharron Angle won the primary, but with today’s poll we can’t justify holding back any longer.

• CT-Sen: Rob Simmons may not be as revved up about jumping back into the GOP Senate primary as was reported last night (i.e. “I’m thinking about it.”). His former campaign manager told The Fix today that there’s no secret comeback bid and that “he has no plans to re-engage.” It’s probably wiser for Simmons to take that approach, to lay low and wait for the off chance that Linda McMahon implodes pre-primary, rather than drain himself in an uphill fight against her.

• KS-Sen: I don’t know what spooked Jerry Moran into coughing up another internal poll (I can’t imagine it was the backstabbing by Tom Tancredo, but who knows?), but at any rate, he released a new internal from POS giving him a 56-24 lead over Todd Tiahrt in the GOP Senate primary. Moran also continues to win the fundraising race, raising $538K last quarter with $2.3 million CoH. Tiahrt raised $451K last quarter and has $1.3 million CoH, although he has a big fundraising dinner scheduled soon hosted by former Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weis.

• NV-Sen: This news has to be, on the balance, good news for Harry Reid. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, while certainly not considering endorsing Reid, is moving toward sitting out the Nevada Senate race. It may be tempting to pin this down with increasing Chamber discontent with the teabagger wing of the party (as seen with their moves in SC-Gov and ID-01), but a lot of it may be that they’re less unhappy with Reid as Majority Leader than the alternatives (Chuck Schumer or Dick Durbin). Reid‘s also reporting, unsurprisingly, tons of money: he raised $2.4 million, although, after spending a lot on ads, he’s at $9 million CoH.

• NY-Sen, NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov (pdf): Siena released polls everyone and everything in the Empire State today, although there’s little suspense in any of these races anymore. In the gubernatorial race, Andrew Cuomo beats Rick Lazio 60-28, beats Carl Paladino 64-23, and beats Lazio and Paladino (with Paladino on a 3rd party line) 54-23-10. Lazio beats Paladino in the GOP primary 40-20. In the Senate special election, Kirsten Gillibrand leads Bruce Blakeman 51-28, beats Joe DioGuardi 51-29, and beats David Malpass 50-27. DioGuardi leads the GOP primary at 24, with 7 for Blakeman and 5 for Malpass. And in the other Senate race, Chuck Schumer beats both Gary Berntsen and Jay Townsend by an identical 63-26. Townsend tops Berntsen in the GOP primary 24-13. They even throw in the Comptroller’s race, where Dem incumbent Tom DiNapoli beats self-funded GOPer Harry Wilson 48-24.

• SC-Sen: The Charleston minor league baseball team has answered Alvin Greene’s call for economic stimulus in the form of Alvin Greene action figures: they’ll be giving out Greene figurines as a promotion at their Saturday game. (Although it sounds a little half-assed, as they’re just sticking Alvin Greene heads on unused Statues of Liberty.) Also, with the primary out of the way, local and Beltway Democrats alike are uniting behind Greene, filling his coffers with… um… $1,000? (At least that puts him ahead of Roland Burris.) That number was apparently volunteered by Greene; he won’t have to file with the FEC until he hits the $5,000 mark.

• WV-Sen: Plans are already afoot in Washington to swear in West Virginia’s new Senator by Tuesday so that the unemployment benefits extension can be voted on that same day. Who, though, is still an open question. Other Senator Jay Rockefeller says there’s some White House pressure and he thinks he knows who it’ll be, but he isn’t saying who. Ex-Gov. and current College Board President Gaston Caperton has suddenly reversed course and is now saying that he is interested, which certainly seems like a tea leaf to me. There are also reports that Bob Wise and Larry Puccio have removed themselves from consideration, and Nick Casey (awaiting a federal judgeship) is very unlikely.

The NRSC is already running anti-Joe Manchin ads (in print media only), but that may not provide that much encouragement to Shelly Moore Capito (the only Republican who can make this competitive) to get in: one little-noted fact is that one item that rather pointedly got left off the agenda for today’s legislative special session is whether or not an officeholder could run for two seats at the same time in the special election and the regularly-scheduled election (like in, oh let’s just say, WV-Sen and WV-02).  

• CO-Gov: Scott McInnis may be the last to know to know that he’s dropping out of the gubernatorial race. Tom Tancredo has been telling people that McInnis is going to drop out, although the McInnis camp is denying that, saying “we’re moving forward.” Tancredo is also the first state GOPer to publicly call for McInnis to get out, although I wonder if Tancredo is hoping he may get the chance to take his place (remember Tancredo had flirted with the race early last year). Tancredo doesn’t seem to be on the list of replacements that’s being bandied about by the local press, though: they include Josh Penry (whom Tancredo had backed, and who ran for a while before dropping out), former state Sen. Mark Hillman, and… get this… ex-Rep. Bob Schaffer, who badly lost the 2008 Senate race.

There’s also some speculation about the legalities of replacing McInnis: it doesn’t seem like the GOP could insert a hand-picked filler before the primary, unless both McInnis and Dan Maes dropped out (not out of the question, I suppose, considering that Maes’ campaign is currently belly-up). This may help McInnis’s decision along: the RGA is now saying that they’re abandoning him, pulling out of fundraisers they’d previously scheduled.

• GA-Gov: Mason-Dixon takes a look at the Georgia gubernatorial primaries. On the Republican side, they find John Oxendine at 31, Karen Handel at 23, Nathan Deal at 18, and Eric Johnson at 6. Compare that with Rasmussen (see below) and Magellan’s recent polls, which see possible Handel/Deal runoffs. Ed Kilgore also takes a look at the proxy war being fought in Georgia by Sarah Palin (backing Handel) and Newt Gingrich (backing Deal), which may be boosting those two’s fortunes at Oxendine’s expense. Mason-Dixon’s look at the Dem primary has comparatively less drama: Roy Barnes is out of runoff territory at 54, with Thurbert Baker at 20, David Poythress at 7, and Dubose Porter at 3.

• AZ-08: The Fix seems to be the leaking place of choice for the GOP for its internal polls, and they have word of another one with a GOPer with a (slight) lead. It’s in the 8th, where a Tarrance Group poll gives Jonathan Paton a 45-44 lead over Gabrielle Giffords. Paton, of course, still has to survive a primary against the more tea-flavored Jesse Kelly.

• KS-04: SurveyUSA’s new poll of the KS-04 primaries shows some interesting movement on the GOP side: both Mike Pompeo and Wink Hartman have declined by similar amounts (they’re currently at 32 and 31, respectively), with state Sen. Jean Schodorf making a late move up to 16, based on strength among women and moderates. Jim Anderson’s also at 9. There’s also a surprise on the Dem side: the DCCC-touted Raj Goyle is actually in danger of losing his primary to Some Dude, Robert Tillman. Tillman now leads, 40-36. Looks like we may have been right about Goyle’s reasons behind launching a TV buy now.

• House: We don’t usually like to link to this sort of meta about the state of the House, but it’s interesting to see the various blind men who are veterans of the DCCC and the NRCC in relatively close agreement about the size and shape of the elephant this year.

• Fundraising: AR-Sen | CA-Sen| CA-Sen | CT-Sen | DE-Sen | FL-Sen | IL-Sen | IN-Sen | MO-Sen | NH-Sen | OR-Sen | WI-Sen | IL-Gov | TX-Gov | CT-04 | DE-AL | FL-08 | GA-02 | NH-01 | OH-13 | PA-03 | PA-10 | RI-01 | WA-03

• Rasmussen:

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 46%, Meg Whitman (R) 47%

• GA-Gov (R): Nathan Deal (R) 25%, Karen Handel (R) 25%, John Oxendine (R) 20%, Eric Johnson (R) 13%

• TX-Gov: Bill White (D) 41%, Rick Perry (R-inc) 50%

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold (D-inc) 46%, Ron Johnson (R) 47%

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold (D-inc) 51%, Dave Westlake (R) 37%

Mason-Dixon for the Las Vegas Review-Journal (6/1-3, likely voters, 5/24-26 in parens):

Sharron Angle (R): 32 (29)

Danny Tarkanian (R): 24 (23)

Sue Lowden (R): 23 (30)

Other: 6 (7)

None: 2 (3)

Undecided: 13 (8)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Harry Reid (D-inc): 41 (42)

Sharron Angle (R): 44 (39)

Other: 3 (5)

None: 4 (4)

Undecided: 8 (10)

Harry Reid (D-inc): 42 (39)

Sue Lowden (R): 41 (42)

Other: 2 (3)

None: 6 (6)

Undecided: 9 (10)

Harry Reid (D-inc): 39 (41)

Danny Tarkanian (R): 46 (42)

Other: 2 (4)

None: 3 (3)

Undecided: 10 (10)

(MoE: ±4%)

In case there was any doubt that Sharron Angle’s surge in the GOP Senate primary in Nevada was complete, Mason-Dixon (for the LVRJ) weighs in with numbers very similar to Suffolk and R2K’s results from late last week. Mason-Dixon’s poll from the previous week had given a one-point lead to Sue Lowden, but she’s losing ground as fast as Angle is gaining it. Lowden has also lost ground vis-a-vis Harry Reid, now losing to Reid, while Angle is now a few points ahead of Reid instead of trailing. I’m not sure whether to attribute this movement in the primary more to Angle finally being rescued from obscurity by attracting the attention of the Club for Growth and Tea Party Express, or Lowden’s series of self-induced implosions; it’s all a rich tapestry.

Mason-Dixon for the Las Vegas Review-Journal (6/1-3, likely voters, 5/10-11 for primary trendlines, 4/5-7 for general trendlines):

Brian Sandoval (R): 47 (45)

Jim Gibbons (R-inc): 33 (27)

Mike Montandon (R): 6 (6)

Other: 1 (1)

None: 1 (NA)

Undecided: 12 (21)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Rory Reid (D): 37 [35]

Brian Sandoval (R): 51 [50]

Other: 1 [NA]

None: 1 [NA]

Undecided: 10 [15]

Rory Reid (D): 44 [42]

Jim Gibbons (R-inc): 38 [40]

Other: 2 [NA]

None: 5 [NA]

Undecided: 11 [18]

(MoE: ±4%)

Mason-Dixon has been a little inconsistent with when they poll what, so the trendlines for the primary don’t match the general election trendlines. At any rate, there’s not much change here, other than some last-minute progress for Jim Gibbons out of the “undecided” column that looks like too little, too late for the deeply unpopular governor. Brian Sandoval looks poised to win the GOP primary, which is bad news for Reid the Younger, who beats Gibbons almost as easily as he loses to Sandoval.