Tag: CT-04

Senate:

• HI-Sen: Sen. Dan Inouye says in a new interview that he “will not take sides in the primary,” and Politico ads that his “top aides insist” he won’t be lending quiet, behind-the-scenes support to any candidates either. I hope that’s true, since I was concerned Ed Case might have mended things with Inouye to the point that the latter might get behind the former. But without some special help, I think Case will have a hard time. Also, SMS Research took the most useless poll imaginable, pitting Case against former Honolulu Mayor Mufi Hannemann in a primary… and absolutely no one else. Whatevs.

• ME-Sen: Olympia Snowe said she raised over $877K in Q1 and has over $2 million on hand.

• OH-Sen: Sherrod Brown said he raised $1.3 million in Q1 and has $2.5 million on hand.

• VA-Sen: George Allen said he raised $1.5 million in Q1 and has $1.25 million on hand.

Gubernatorial:

• KY-Gov: TX Gov. Rick Perry, current chair of the RGA, says his organization won’t decide how heavily it’ll get involved in Kentucky’s gubernatorial race until after the May 17th primary. He also declined to endorse frontrunner (and establishment choice) David Williams, saying he’s “got a really good feeling about all the men and women who are running.”

House:

• CO-04: Republican Rep. Corey Gardner apparently raised over $300K in Q1.

• CT-04: Dem Rep. Jim Himes estimates he took in over $300K in Q1.

• IN-06, IN-05: Luke Messer, a former official with the state GOP who nearly beat Rep. Dan Burton in a primary last year, now finds himself living just outside Burton’s 5th CD, according to new maps proposed by Republicans in charge of the state lege. Messer is now in the 6th, which is likely to be vacated by Mike Pence, who everyone thinks will run for governor. Messer says he’s buddies with Pence and will consider running to replace him if Pence makes the leap for the statehouse, but he wouldn’t rule out a rematch against Burton (though he says he wouldn’t move in order to do so).

• MN-08: This is pretty wild: Former Rep. Rick Nolan (D) says he’s thinking about staging a comeback. It’s wild because Nolan left office in 1981 and is now 68 years old. It’s also rather strange because Nolan represented what was then the 6th CD, which is accurately represented in the map Joe Bodell presents. (His reader update is incorrect.) At the time, Nolan’s district covered the southwestern and central portions of the state; today’s 8th is in the northeastern corner (though they share one county in common, Mille Lacs). And to cap it all off, Nolan was touting himself at a Dem meeting in Bemidji, which is in the 7th CD. Actually, no – the real capper is that Nolan was a practitioner of the ’60s & ’70s fad of “Transcendental Meditation” (whose practitioners claimed they could levitate) and earned a mention in Time Magazine for it.

• MO-03: Not going gently… or padding the warchest for a different race, or perhaps something else down the line? Russ Carnahan raised $333K in Q1, his best first quarter ever, and has $286K on hand. Dave Catanese notes that Lacy Clay raised just $17K (though he has $222K in the bank). Would Carnahan really go up against Clay in a primary? What do you think?

• MS-02: Greenville Mayor Heather McTeer Hudson said she plans to challenge veteran Rep. Bennie Thompson in the Democratic primary next year. She also announced she’s hiring pollster Celinda Lake. Hudson had previously said she wouldn’t seek re-election to her current post. Thompson, meanwhile, ended last year with $1.7 million on hand and has warded off primary challengers before (most recently in 2006, in the form of Chuck Espy, son of former Rep. Mike Espy).

• SD-AL: Though it seems all but certain that ex-Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin won’t seek a rematch this cycle (among other things, she just accepted a teaching position at South Dakota State University, where she once worked), she did say she’s open to the possibility of seeking office again at some point in the future. She didn’t specify what post, so you can mentally flag this item as something other than just SD-AL if you like. Speaking of SD-AL, Rep. Kristi Noem (the woman who beat Sandlin) announced she took in $396K in Q1.

Other Races:

• LA-AG: Former Rep. Joe Cao says he plans to challenge Dem-cum-Republican AG Buddy Caldwell this fall. Cao specifically cited Caldwell’s party switch (which only happened in February) and questioned his Republican bona fides – sort of an unusual move in a state where party switching has been very common. We’ll see if he Cao actually has the chops to make a race of it. (Side note: A proud moment in SSP in-the-weeds history: Live-blogging the LA-AG runoff in 2007, when control of the state House was also at stake.)

• MS-AG: A rare bright spot for Mississippi Dems: Attorney General Jim Hood leads Republican Steve Simpson by 49-32 margin in PPP’s latest poll.

• Special Elections: From Johnny L-T:

Two of the three elections last night were landslides; in South Carolina’s SD-16, Republican Greg Gregory trounced Democrat Keith Brann and Libertarian Stan Smith by a 77-18-5 margin, while in Minnesota’s SD-66, DFLer Mary Jo McGuire beat Republican Greg Copeland 80-20. In Connecticut’s HD-128, Democrat Dan Fox won with 39%, while Republican Charles Pia (not Antonacci, my mistake) came in second with 24%. Independents John Mallozzi and Monique Thomas both made strong showings, pulling in 23% and 13%, respectively, and Green Rolf Maurer brought up the rear with about 1%. Note that Mallozzi failed to win the Democratic nomination, so he petitioned his way onto the ballot.

Remainders:

• Pay-to-Play: MaryNYC, the First Lady of the Swing State Project (aka my wife), has an interesting backgrounder on the SEC’s new regulations which attempt to curtail Wall Street from engaging in “pay-to-play” with elected officials. What’s interesting about the rules is that they make it very difficult for employees of financial firms to donate to state and local officeholders who have a stake in municipal investment decisions, but generally speaking doesn’t affect donations to federal officeholders. So, in a hypothetical example, New Mexico state Auditor Hector Balderas, who is weighing a run for Senate, might find Wall Street’s doors shut, while Rep. Martin Heinrich, who is already in the race, would face no such problems.

Redistricting Roundup:

• Indiana: We’ll have a lengthier redistricting-only digest later today, but I wanted to bring you this information ASAP. A source involved in Indiana politics informs me that these are the Obama percentages for each CD in the new map proposed by Republicans in the state lege:

IN-01: 63.2

IN-02: 49.4

IN-03: 42.9

IN-04: 44.4

IN-05: 46.5

IN-06: 43.5

IN-07: 66.3

IN-08: 48.0

IN-09: 46.1

• FL-Sen: A group of Holocaust survivors – now very elderly, of course – plan to protest Sen. Bill Nelson’s fundraiser with Barack Obama this week. The survivors say that Nelson promised to push legislation which would allow them to directly sue insurance companies who have withheld payments on life insurance policies sold before World War II. Nelson claims he only promised to hold a hearing on such a bill (which has been introduced in the House in the past).

• MA-Sen: I really have to believe Deval Patrick just shot his mouth off in that National Journal interview, and has probably earned himself a few glares from would-be Democratic challengers to Sen. Scott Brown the next time they see him. Now Alan Khazei, whom Patrick said was “for sure” in the race, is – like Newton Mayor Setti Warren – saying that he’s merely “looking at it carefully” but hasn’t made a decision yet. Meanwhile, Salem Mayor Kim Driscoll tells the Boston Phoenix that she is at least several weeks away from a decision, and that a Warren entry wouldn’t impact her.

And speaking of another Warren, some top Republicans have been saying kinder things about Elizabeth Warren’s chances of becoming the permanent director of the Consumer Financial Protection Board. Of course, House Financial Services chair Spencer Bachus doesn’t get a vote, but he thinks that “the Senate may approve” a Warren nomination (if one were to be made). If this came to pass, it would almost certainly remove Warren from any possibility of running for the senate.

• ND-Sen, ND-AL:  Freshman Rep. Rick Berg hasn’t ruled out a run for Kent Conrad’s now-open senate seat, and Eric Cantor seems to think he might make the leap. The House’s no. 2 Republican said of Berg: ” “I’m trying to convince him to make sure he stays in the House right now.”

• NM-Sen: From the horse’s mouth – which is where I prefer to get my news: Dem state Auditor Hector Balderas confirmed reports that he is looking at Jeff Bingaman’s open senate seat, saying he’s been talking to the DSCC and is “strongly considering entering” the race.

• VA-Sen: Prince William County Board of Supervisors Chairman Corey Stewart (god that is a mouthful) sounds like he’s dialing himself out of any possible senate run. He says he’s going to seek re-election to his current post this fall, and will “possibly” make a decision on whether to seek Jim Webb’s open seat “early next year.” He’s seriously going to enter a competitive primary against Felix Allen no earlier than January of 2012? Shah.

• NC-Gov: Tom Jensen tells me something I always love to hear: an establishment Republican might have tea-related problems. In particular, PPP’s latest poll has 43% of GOPers saying they’d prefer someone more conservative than former Charlotte Mayor Pat McCrory, while 29% firmly support him. Of course, I think probably 20% of Republicans would say they want someone more conservative than Republican Jesus. But McCrory does have something of a libruhl track record (like I’ve said, it’s hard to be a super-conservative mayor), including support for socialist, freedom-destroying light rail for his hometown. Tom points out that McCrory won his 2008 primary with less than 50% of the vote “against a weak field” – but this time around, no one’s really emerged from the woodwork to challenge him. Yet.

• WI-Gov: Tom also has the rest of the goods on PPP’s WI-Gov poll, which consistently shows small pro-labor margins on a variety of unions vs. Walker questions (and larger margins on questions of general collective bargaining rights). On the question of recall, it’s an exact 48-48 split.

• AZ-06: We missed the news a couple of weeks ago that former GOP state senate majority leader Chuck Gray said he was entering the race to succeed Jeff Flake (who of course is running to succeed Jon Kyl). One other Republican name considering the race is the current Speaker of the state House, Kirk Adams.

• CA-36: AFSCME’s California political arm, called “California PEOPLE,” is endorsing Janice Hahn, making them the latest in a string of labor unions to do so. Meanwhile, Debra Bowen tweeted that she could fit into her daughter’s jeans.

• IL-01: Roll Call takes a detailed look at the personal finances of Rep. Bobby Rush, who has been the defendant in nearly two dozen mostly debt-related lawsuits since the 1980s – and who has somewhat questionably left off all of these cases and debts from the financial disclosure forms he’s obligated to file as a member of Congress. While this isn’t the first time the media has examined Rush’s finances, this strikes me as the sort of thing that could make the incumbent vulnerable to a primary challenge, especially since his district will have to take on a bunch of new territory to compensate for population loss.

• NY-10: The New York Observer offers an interesting profile of Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries, who hasn’t ruled out a primary challenge to Rep. Ed Towns (D), and who apparently has been ramping up his political activity of late.

• OR-01: Steny Hoyer (still the no. 2 Dem in the House) says it’s “premature” to talk about a David Wu resignation. But surely he wants this problem to go away, right? Also of note, The Hill observes that Wu only had $7,500 in campaign cash at the start of the year, versus $61K in debt. Can’t imagine he’s finding a lot of willing donors these days.

• PA-04: PA state Dem chair Jim Burn says he thinks Rep. Jason Altmire could face a primary challenge from the left next year, but admits he hasn’t heard of any actual, you know, names being circulated. Anyhow, who even knows what this district will look like.

• Las Vegas Mayor: Jon Ralston has obtained a poll taken for a group of realtors showing Carolyn Goodman (I) at 30%, Larry Brown (D) at 17%, and Chris Giuchigliani (D) at 11%, with other candidates in the single digits. Note that this poll asked a TON of issue-y questions before finally getting to the horserace in Q15. Also, as Ralston pointed out on the Tweeter, this poll was taken a few weeks ago, before the TV air wars were joined.

Census: Couple of cool census-related mapping widgets. The Journal Star of Nebraska lets you drill down to see population change by county for each state where data’s been released so far. The Chicago Tribune offers a Google Maps-based interface which lets you drill down to see individual census blocks across the entire state of Illinois.

• Crossroads: Announcing fundraising goals is easy, which is why I usually don’t remark on them. But when Crossroads GPS/American Crossroads, the satanic spawn of Karl Rove, says it plans to raise $120 million to destroy America, I pay attention – and I worry, because they probably really, really mean it.

Votes: There’ve been a couple of interesting votes with Republican outliers in the House recently. One was the stopgap spending bill that cut $4 billion in spending over the next two weeks; six Republicans defected on that one, including freshman teabagger Justin Amash, Michele Bachmann, and a few other true believers. (Walter Jones was probably the exception there.) On the flipside, seven GOPers voted against denying funding for Planned Parenthood – click the link for the list.

On the same topic, Politico has an interesting-looking vote study out on the GOP freshman, seeing how often they vote together as a group. Unfortunately, as per usual with the likes of Politico and similar organizations, I can’t see that they’ve posted the full list anywhere – they just offer a few tidbits. (Why go to all that trouble if you don’t even want to share all your numbers?) Anyhow, the aforementioned Justin Amash, who I guess really wants to take teabagging to new heights, has voted against his class more often than anyone else, 30% of the time. But the next three guys on the list are all semi-moderate New Yorkers – Chris Gibson, Mike Grimm, and Richard Hanna.

• WATN?: Sometimes I just need to channel my inner Holden Caulfield and declare: what a phony. After flatly saying the one thing he wouldn’t be doing after retiring from the senate was lobbying, ex-Sen. Chris Dodd just took a job as… a lobbyist, for everyone’s second-favorite intellectual property goliath, the MPAA. (I’m gonna assume the RIAA is still first.) Anyhow, check out the amusing Twitter hashtag #ChrisDoddMovies for some lulz.

• Polltopia: Go tell PPP where to poll. Don’t let the Paultards win!

• Redistricting: A Columbia Law School class is trying to create “an internet depository for nonpartisan congressional maps for the entire country.” I thought the SSP diaries section already was one! Anyhow, click the link if you are interested in submitting your work.

• NJ-12: I have seen the last, best hope of mankind, and his name is Rush Holt. In a major blow against Skynet Watson, the rocket scientist-turned-congressman defeated the Jeopardy-playing robot by a score of $8,600 to $6,200. The losing contestant, Rep. Jim Himes, was seen being turned into fuel to power the Matrix.

• AK-Sen: Everyone’s watching Joe Miller’s next move, as tomorrow is the day he has to decide whether or not to appeal a trial court decision in order to keep fighting his largely-hopeless fight with Lisa Murkowski. On Friday afternoon, a state superior court judge ruled against Miller’s lawsuit, and in pretty withering fashion, saying he presented no evidence of fraud or malfeasance, only “hearsay, speculation, and… sarcasm.” This comes on top of other comments on Friday by state elections director Gail Fenumiai strongly disputing one of Miller’s cornerstone issues, that there was a strange sudden influx of felons voting in the state.

• CT-Sen, CT-04: Rep. Jim Himes confirms that he isn’t going to run for Senate in 2012 against Joe Lieberman (if Lieberman even decides to stick around). It’s also pretty clear confirmation that Rep. Chris Murphy is ready to run on the Dem line, as Himes said he’s deferring to his slightly-more-senior colleague and might consider running if Murphy changed his mind. (The article also mentions that Rep. Joe Courtney is “considering” the race. Ex-SoS Susan Bysiewicz’s interest is well-known as well, although I doubt she’ll be able to manage to file her candidacy papers successfully.)

• HI-Sen: Sometimes the Beltway media’s parsing of every innocent word from a potential candidate gets a little maddening, but this throw-away line from Linda Lingle’s website flagged by David Catanese is actually pretty suggestive of a future run (probably against Dan Akaka in 2012): the site is titled “Looking Back, and Forward,” and her first blog post is “Continuing the Journey.”

• MD-Sen: Contrast that with Bob Ehrlich, who seems ripe to fall into the Dino Rossi trap but has just made it pretty clear that he won’t be running for anything else again. He says a Senate run would be “very highly unlikely.”

• ME-Sen: The only story that seems to be here is that the viable Tea Party candidate that has been promised to emerge to take on Olympia Snowe is starting to look like more of a mirage. A must-read (for sheer hubris and wtf?ness) interview with the state’s self-appointed head teabagger, Andrew Ian Dodge, makes it sound like the candidate that Dodge is allegedly talking to is either imaginary, or else is Dodge himself (seeing as how he’s from southern Maine and has his own money).

• MI-Sen: PPP includes a GOP primary portion in their Michigan Senate poll, and like a lot of other polls this far out, name rec seems to rule the day. Ex-Gov. John Engler, despite eight years out of the picture, has the lead (in fact, that may be good news, as the general electorate doesn’t remember him fondly; he underperforms Debbie Stabenow, losing by 7, compared with Peter Hoekstra, who loses by 1). It’s Engler 31, Hoekstra 24, with 12 for ex-AG Mike Cox, Terri Lynn Land (who may be interested in this race after all) at 7, Candice Miller at 5, Mike Rogers at 4, Thad McCotter at 3, and Tim Leuliette (the most-interested candidate so far) at 0.

• NJ-Sen: The Hill has an article that’s mostly about how no GOPers are stepping up to express their interest in an uphill fight against Bob Menendez, but it does include the obligatory list of possible contenders. Top of the list is a rematch from state Sen. (and gubernatorial progeny) Tom Kean Jr., but also mentioned are Lt. Gov. Kim Guadagno, state Sen. Joe Kyrillos, Anna Little (a small-town mayor who was competitive against Rep. Frank Pallone this year), state Sen. Jennifer Beck, former state Sen. Bill Baroni, and state GOP chair Jay Webber if all else fails.

• NY-Sen: Rep. Peter King does some coulda-woulda-shoulda in a recent interview, saying he definitely would have run in 2010 had Caroline Kennedy been the appointee. As for a run in 2012 against Kirsten Gillibrand (when she’s up for election for her first full term), he’s only “keeping his options open,” apparently leery of her fundraising prowess.

• PA-Sen: Rep. Charlie Dent is usually at the top of the list for Senate race speculation, but a recent interview has him sounding rather un-candidate-ish: he’s about to land a plum spot on Appropriations, and speaks of it in terms of “one never rules anything out,” which to my ear sounds a few steps down the Beltway-ese totem pole from “considering” it. One other interesting rumor bubbling up is that ex-Gov. Mark Schweiker is being courted to run. The question is whether anybody even remembers Schweiker; he spent less than two years on the job in the early 00s after getting promoted after Tom Ridge moved to the Bush administration, and declined to run for his own full term.

• VT-Sen: Could Bernie Sanders see a real opponent? While he isn’t specifically threatening to run yet, State Auditor Tom Salmon is taking to Facebook to attack Sanders over his anti-tax deal agitating (including attacking Sanders for being a socialist, which doesn’t quite have the same effective power with Sanders as with most Dems since he’s likely just to say “guilty as charged”). At any rate, going after the entrenched Sanders seems like an odd move if it comes to pass, as Peter Shumlin, who narrowly won the open gubernatorial race, seems like a much easier target in a blue state that’s willing to elect Republican governors but has sworn them off at the national level.

• CA-Gov: Steve Poizner sounds likely to make another run at the governor’s mansion in 2014, publicly telling various people that he would have made a much better candidate than Meg Whitman. Poizner will have to step it up on the financial situation next time, though; self-funding only to the tune of eight digits, instead of nine, was pretty weak sauce.

• IN-Gov: With Evan Bayh apparently out of the gubernatorial sweepstakes, Brad Ellsworth seems to be jockeying to the front of the line today, although with some of the requisite hedging. The other main contender, of course, is Evansville mayor Jonathan Weinzapfel, although the impact of redistricting changes (at the hand of the now-GOP-held legislature) could drive Reps. Joe Donnelly or Baron Hill into the race. Two lesser Dem names who’ve been bandied about, Hammond mayor Thomas McDermott and former state House speaker John Gregg, are already taking their names off the table, lining up behind others for now: McDermott backing Ellsworth and Gregg backing Weinzapfel. One final new Dem name to keep an eye on: Lake County Sheriff Roy Dominguez.

• MS-Gov: For now, the Democratic side on the Mississippi governor’s race seems to be between two men: Hattiesburg mayor Johnny DuPree (that city’s first African-American mayor) and businessman Bill Luckett, who has his own money (and the backing of Morgan Freeman… apparently for real, unlike with NC-04’s B.J. Lawson).

• WA-Gov: Here’s a good take from Joel Connolly (dean of the local press corps) on the 2012 gubernatorial election in Washington state, which the Beltway press seems to treat like an open book but everyone local knows is going to be between Rep. Jay Inslee and AG Rob McKenna, who’s probably the best shot the GOP has had in decades of winning the governor’s race. (Chris Gregoire can, by law, run for a third term, but, in practice, that would be unheard of even if she weren’t already too unpopular to do so feasibly.)

• NY-15: Is the Charles Rangel era actually coming to a close? He’s not ruling out another run in 2012 but saying he’ll have to think about retirement. And in public comments he is actively pointing to a generation of successors, citing state Sens. Adriano Espaillat and Robert Rodriguez, and state Assemblyman Keith Wright. (Although Harlem is the core of the district, it now has more Hispanics than it does African-Americans… and the wild card is that the fastest growing group in this district is white regentrifiers.)

• LA-St. Leg.: The hemorrhaging of Dem state legislators to the GOP in Louisiana continues apace, with one of its most prominent state Reps., the mellifluously-named Noble Ellington, sounding about ready to pull the trigger on a switch. He’d follow two state Sens., John Alario and John Smith, who also recently crossed the aisle.

• Philly mayor: You’d think that at age 80, you’d want to think about retirement, but not if you’re Arlen Specter, apparently. There’s word of a poll making the rounds (from Apex Research, with no mention of who paid for it or why) that not only links the outgoing Senator to a mayoral run (in the city where he got his start generations ago as the DA) but actually has him in the lead. The poll has Specter at 28, with incumbent Michael Nutter at 19, Sam Katz at 9, Anthony Hardy Williams at 8, Tom Knox at 7, Bob Brady at 6, and Alan Butkovitz (anybody care to let me know who he is?) at 6.

• WATN?: Try as he may, Artur Davis just can’t get the douchiness out of his system. On his way to the private sector, he’s still taking the pox-on-both-your-houses approach on his way out the door, writing an op-ed calling for an independent party as the solution to all of Alabama’s woes. Meanwhile, Mariannette Miller-Meeks has landed on her feet, after losing a second run in IA-02 in a rare setback for the Ophthalmologists (who elected at least two more of their own to Congress this year): Terry Branstad just named her head of Iowa’s Dept. of Public Health.

• Census: Finally, this may be the most exciting news of the day: we have a reporting date for the first real batch of 2010 Census data. Dec. 21 will be the day the Census Bureau releases its state population counts, which also includes reapportionment data (i.e. how many House seats each state will get… at least prior to the inevitable litigation process among the most closely-bunched states).

• IL-Gov: The DGA is sending ’round a press release congratulating Pat Quinn on his who’da-thunk-it re-election victory. No official call yet, but the trendlines in the count (with a margin now of 20,000 votes) make it pretty clear what’s happening. Bill Brady says he isn’t ready to concede… yet. UPDATE: CNN has called it.

• CT-Gov: More vacillation in the Connecticut count, this time with Dan Malloy back on top by about 6,000 votes. This doesn’t seem to have anything to do with actual counting, but simply with the AP getting its facts straight (it seemed to be missing a large slab of urban and assumedly heavily Democratic votes, mostly from New Haven). Final tallies remain unknown because we’re still waiting on Bridgeport (another Dem stronghold), although SoS Susan Bysiewicz has promised results by the end of the day. (Doesn’t seem like she’ll make it, though.) Relatedly, Dan Debicella in CT-04 is “waiting and seeing” what the Bridgeport situation is before conceding, although that race has already been called against him.

• FL-Gov: This was pretty well decided yesterday, but Alex Sink officially conceded, finalizing the transaction on Rick Scott’s self-financed purchase of the gubernatorial election.

• NE-Sen: Ben Nelson says he won’t switch parties. (Why the heck would he want to, considering that the Dems still have a Lieberman-proof majority in the Senate, that he’s part of? He’d just get teabagged to death in the 2012 GOP primary a la poor Parker Griffith.) It’s worth wondering, though, if any House Dems are considering a switch… but, with the possible exception of Dan Boren, all of the most likely suspects have already lost, saving us the trouble of such speculation. UPDATE: Although here’s an interesting post-script to the Nelson story: GOP Gov. Dave Heineman, who’s led a few hypothetical polls against Nelson for 2012, has already announced that he won’t run for the Senate in two years.

• NV-Sen: The one major race where the polls really seemed off was Nevada, where Harry Reid’s 4-pt average deficit turned into a 5-point victory and in retrospect, that’s easy to explain: pollsters weren’t reaching Latinos. Exit polls suggest that Latinos did turn out well in Nevada (thanks in no doubt to the Reid-friendly hotel unions in Las Vegas). Nate Silver graphs the variance in other states with large Latino populations: it may also have played a role in Colorado, although the poll variance wasn’t as bad there, though it was enough to predict a Ken Buck victory… and Latino turnout didn’t seem to work in Texas, where Rick Perry exceeded polling predictions (and which explains the sudden and probably brief appearance of Rep. Blake Farenthold).

• KY-06: Here’s a race that’s definitely going to recount. Andy Barr, trailing Ben Chandler by about 600 votes, has formally requested a “routine recanvass.”

• NC-02: Here’s one more race where we’re not quite dead yet. Bob Etheridge hasn’t conceded, it turns out, nor should he: he’s down only 1,646 votes, after cutting his deficit against Renee Elmers by more than 500 in late counting yesterday.

• NC-11: When Heath Shuler announced that he’d challenge Nancy Pelosi for Speaker, the proper response was laughter, although my main question at the time was whether he planned to challenge her for minority leader. It sounds like, yes, he does still plan to go through with his kooky gambit (made all the kookier because there aren’t any core Blue Dogs left besides him who need to follow through on their promises to not vote for Pelosi). Anyway, the scuttlebutt seems to be leaning toward a voluntary sword-falling and a painless transition to Steny Hoyer, in which case the Shuler challenge would be even more pointless.

• WV-01: After maintaining for most of yesterday that he wasn’t dead yet (given the narrow margin, currently 1,357), Mike Oliverio did wind up conceding eventually late yesterday.

• Redistricting: As much as the mess in the state legislatures really messes up hopes of wresting an advantage out of the redistricting process, here’s some good news: Amendment 6 in Florida surprisingly passed, clearing the super-high 60% hurdle at 63%. This doesn’t create a commission, but it does impose requirements that redistricting be done without political consideration (but without violating federal law, namely the Voting Rights Act). However, two U.S. Reps… probably the two in Florida who have the most to lose from having less friendly districts drawn for them… Corrine Brown and Mario Diaz-Balart, are challenging the law in court. With the passage of Proposition 20 in California, though, which creates an independent redistricting commission there, it’s all kind of a wash, as a less-bad Florida map is balanced out by not being able to aggressively redistrict California. (Similarly, while it takes some sting out of Alex Sink’s narrow loss, it also deflates the impact of Jerry Brown’s victory.)

AK-Sen: Right now, write-ins account for 41% of the vote in Alaska, while Joe Miller has 34% and Scott McAdams 24%. State election officials have bumped up the start of the write-in count to Nov. 10th (from Nov. 18th). Murkowski is one of 160 declared write-in candidates, but obviously quite a few write-ins ballots would have to be spoiled, or for other candidates, for her to lose.

WA-Sen: Patty Murray’s lead widened to 1.6% as votes were counted in the populous Democratic stronghold of King County. The trends look poor for Dino Rossi, who took 40% here in 2004 (when he almost tied Christine Gregoire in the gubernatorial race), but is now at 37% this year.

CT-Gov: Yikes – the AP withdrew its call for Dem Dan Malloy. This one could get seriously topsy-turvy. Whatever the hell is going on here might also impact Jim Himes (vs. Dan Debicella) in CT-04. Not good.

MN-Gov: With 100% of precincts reporting, Dem Mark Dayton holds an 8,854-vote lead over Republican Tom Emmer, within the half-percent margin which would prompt an automatic recount. No recount can start until after Nov. 23rd, when the vote is certified. Note that Norm Coleman’s election-day lead was just 725 votes in 2008. So even though GOP lawyers are already laying in a supply of amphetamines, it’s possible the Republicans will abandon what looks like a futile effort.

IL-Gov: Man, did anyone dig a mangier rabbit out of a shabbier hat than Pat Quinn? After a day of counting more votes in Cook County (Chicago), Quinn’s lead has expanded to 19,000 votes, and Republicans are getting ready to throw in the towel on behalf of Bill Brady. Pretty amazing, for a guy who seemed DOA just a couple of months ago.

OR-Gov: As we noted yesterday, various media sources have called the race for Dem John Kitzhaber over Chris Dudley.

AZ-07: As we noted yesterday, Dem Rep. Raul Grijalva has declared victory over Ruth McClung, with a 3% lead. A Grijalva spokesman said that the remaining ballots are in Pima County, which favors Dems.

AZ-08: Dem Rep. Gabby Giffords leads by 2,349 votes over Jesse Kelly, but again, Pima – they have some 47,000 votes still outstanding. Pima was one of only four counties to go for Kerry – and for Obama, too.

CA-11: With an unclear number of votes left to be counted, Dem Rep. Jerry McNerney has inched into a 121-vote lead over David Harmer. It’ll take four weeks for the vote to get certified, at which point the loser can seek a recount (at his own expense).

CA-20: Dem Rep. Jim Costa trails Andy Vidak by almost 2,000 votes, but there may be something like 30,000 uncounted ballots from Fresno County, which Costa won on e-night by a 2-to-1 margin. So maybe we’ll get lucky here.

IL-08: With 100% of the vote in, Dem Rep. Melissa Bean is trailing in a shocker to Jim Walsh by 553 votes. She isn’t conceding yet, though.

KY-06: With 100% of votes counted, Dem Rep. Ben Chandler has a 619 vote lead over Andy Barr. Barr has until next Tuesday to request a “recanvass,” which would be completed by Nov. 12th. Barr could then ask for a formal recount, but he’d have to foot the bill.

NY-25: Really barfy: As we noted yesterday, Republican Ann Marie Buerkle has moved into the lead, after late results from Wayne County came in. She’s now up by 659 votes. Some 8,300 absentee ballots have been returned so far (out of 11,600 requested), though more are trickling in. Maffei would have to pull in something like 54% or so out of the absentees to pull this one out.

TX-27: It’s looking pretty bad for Dem Rep. Solomon Oritz, who trails Blake Farenthold by 799 votes with 100% in. Farenthold has declared victory, but Ortiz claims his legal team is conducting a review and that he may seek a recount – which he would have to pay for (unless it changes the final results). And check out how far the apple has fallen from the tree:

Farenthold is grandson of Frances “Sissy” Farenthold, a Democrat who served two terms in the state House and ran unsuccessfully for governor in 1972. That same year, she finished second in balloting to become George McGovern’s vice presidential candidate at the Democratic convention.

VA-11: With 100% of precincts reporting, Dem Rep. Gerry Connolly leads Keith Fimian 111,621 to 110,696. The vote will get certified on Nov. 22nd, at which time Fimian can seek a recount if the margin remains less than half a percent (recounts are not automatic).

WA-02, WA-09: As we noted yesterday, a number of media outlets have called the 9th CD race for Dem Rep. Adam Smith over Dick Muri. Meanwhile, Rick Larsen has taken his first lead over John Koster, albeit a narrow one (30% of votes remain to be counted).

• AK-Sen: The elections officials in Alaska are out with some further guidance on just how stringent they’ll be about misspellings of Lisa Murkowski’s name: “Murkowsky,” for instance, will probably be OK, but misspellings of “Lisa” (hard to misspell, but anything’s possible in a state that elected Sarah Palin, I guess) won’t. Also, are MurkStrong bracelets on the horizon? They’ve said it’s acceptable for voters to wear wristbands with Murkowski’s name printed on them into the ballot booth, as long as they don’t show them to other people.

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias offers up an internal poll from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, taken Oct. 10-12, giving him a 44-41 lead over Mark Kirk (with 4 for LeAlan Jones and 3 for Mike Labno). I don’t know how much confidence to get filled with here (especially in view of Nate Silver’s seeming ratification of the +5 rule on internal polls, in fact saying it’s more like a +6)… but with most public pollsters, even Rasmussen, showing this race to be a game of inches, maybe this is truly worth something.

• NV-Sen: Here’s a clear illustration of burn rate, especially when your fundraising strategy is centered around direct mail appeals to small donors (including me… I just got another Sharron Angle snail-mail pitch yesterday). Despite her $14 million 3Q haul, her CoH is $4.1 million. That’s almost exactly the CoH that Harry Reid just announced ($4 mil, based on raising $2.3 mil in 3Q).

• FL-Gov: Wow, the next Alex Sink attack ad writes itself. It turns out that Rick Scott was actually sued by the state of Florida (the same state, of course, that he’s vying to lead) in the late 90s for insider trading at the same time that the FBI was investigating assorted malfeasance at Columbia/HCA. (The case never went to trial, getting subsumed into the larger federal case.)

• RI-Gov: This is pretty late in the game to fall into this state of disarray: Lincoln Chafee’s campaign manager, J.R. Pagliarini just resigned. It wasn’t over any sort of disagreement (or, Tim Cahill-style, over the candidate’s hopelessness), though, but rather because of the impropriety of having received unemployment benefits at the same time as working on the Chafee campaign (which he attributes to a payroll snafu). With or without Pagliarini, though, there’s already a cloud of disarray hanging overhead, as seen by how little attention the Chafee camp seems to have drummed up surrounding their own internal poll giving them a 34-30 lead over Frank Caprio (with John Robitaille at 15).

• CA-11: It was just yesterday that I was pointing out how clownish OR-04 candidate Art Robinson was a big proponent of eliminating public education altogether. Well, now it’s turned out that David Harmer, certainly a “serious” candidate by standard media definitions, is of essentially the same mind, having made the same argument in a 2000 op-ed article in the widely-read San Francisco Chronicle.

• FL-02: At this point I don’t expect to see Allen Boyd back in Congress next year, but this poll seems weird even if you feel the same. It’s from someone called P.M.I. Inc., only mentioned in a rather sketchily-reported article from the right-leaning Sunshine State News site (complete with a tasteless headline that sounds like something I would write) that doesn’t make it clear whether this is an independent poll or taken on someone’s behalf (and doesn’t include dates or MoE). It shows Steve Southerland leading Allen Boyd 56-30, with two independent conservative candidates pulling in an additional 14 percent of the vote.

• GA-02: With Mike Keown having released a poll showing him trailing Sanford Bishop by only 1, Bishop is rather predictably out with a poll of his own today. The Oct. 7-10 poll from Lester & Assocs. gives Bishop a 50-40 lead. (Keown’s poll was taken several weeks earlier, before the DCCC started running ads here.)

• MN-07: Here’s one more race where there were “rumors” (without an actual piece of paper) about a competitive race, where the incumbent Dem whipped out an internal to quash that. This is one of the more lopsided polls we’ve seen lately: Collin Peterson leads Lee Byberg 54-20 in the Sept. 28 poll from Global Strategy Group.

• NY-17: And here’s one more mystery poll (expect to see lots more of these bubble up in the coming weeks): it shows Eliot Engel at 31 but leading his split opponents: Conservative York Kleinhandler at 25 and Republican Tony Mele at 23. The poll is from somebody called “YGSBS.” Considering that “YG” is the initials of the proprietor of the blog where this poll first emerged (yossigestetner.com), and the “forthcoming” crosstabs still don’t seem to have arrived, color me a little suspicious.

• WV-03: Yet another internal poll in the why-are-we-still-talking-about-it WV-03 race: Dem Nick Rahall leads Spike Maynard by 19, in an Anzalone-Liszt poll from Oct. 10-12.

• Fundraising: Here are some fundraising tidbits: via e-mail press release, Taryl Clark just announced $1.8 million last quarter, giving her $1 million CoH. (In any other House race, that’d be huge, but she’s up against Michele Bachmann.) Two other fundraising machines who are sort of the polarizing ideological bookends of Florida also reported: Alan Grayson reports $967K last quarter while Allen West reports $1.6 mil (although no CoH numbers, important as his campaign relies heavily on direct-mail churn). Finally, CQ has some assorted other numbers, including $626K for Rick Boucher in VA-09, $700K for Dan Debicella in super-expensive CT-04, and $507K for Andy Harris in MD-01.

• RGA: And here’s the biggest number of all: yesterday the RGA reported $31 million in the 3rd quarter, which gives them a lot of leverage in the closing weeks in the tight races. (Bear in mind, of course, that a lot of that would have gone to the RNC instead in a more competent year.)

• Polltopia: Nate Silver adds some thoughts on the cellphone debate, reignited by new Pew findings that we discussed yesterday. His main takeaway, one that I agree with whole-heartedly, is don’t just go start adding 5 points in the Dem direction on every poll you see, simply because the cellphone effect isn’t likely to apply uniformly in every population and in every pollster’s method.

• SSP TV:

• AK-Sen: Lisa Murkowski finally, as promised, rolls out Ted Stevens dancing with a vacuum cleaner endorsing her from beyond the grave, in a one-minute ad

• KY-Sen: The NRSC is still pouring money into Kentucky (consider that good news), with another boilerplate Conway = Obama ad

• NV-Sen: The Harry Reid team must have spent all last night in the editing suite, as they’re already using Sharron Angle’s words from last night’s debate, on health insurance coverage exemptions, against her

• PA-Sen: If internal polling and press release content are any indication, they’ve finally something that works against Pat Toomey: China, and outsourcing more in general (which explains why the DSCC is out with another ad on the topic, and also pointing out that in Toomey’s last ad that, during the period where he was being a “small businessman” by owning a restaurant, he was really an absentee owner while being a large businessman in Hong Kong)

• WA-Sen: Ditto the DSCC’s new ad in Washington, up against Dino Rossi (which, I’ll admit, is a strange tack in Washington, one of the most pro-trade states you’ll see, and where Patty Murray is a regular vote in favor of trade agreements)

• MO-04: Vicky Hartzler’s ace in the hole? She has an ad up with footage of Ike Skelton telling fellow Rep. Todd Akin where to stick it, with repeated obscenities bleeped out (hmmm, that would just make me want to vote for Skelton more)

• NRA: The NRA is out with a planned $6.75 million buy in a number of statewide races, including a few of their Dem friends, but mostly on behalf of GOPers; you can see a variety of their TV ad offerings at the link

• Rasmussen:

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 50%, Meg Whitman (R) 44%

• CO-Gov: John Hickelooper (D) 42%, Dan Maes (R) 12%, Tom Tancredo (C) 38%

• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal (D) 51%, Linda McMahon (R) 46%

• DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 51%, Christine O’Donnell (R) 40%

• HI-Gov: Neil Abercrombie (D) 49%, Duke Aiona (R) 47%

• NV-Gov: Rory Reid (D) 40%, Brian Sandoval (R) 55%

• PA-Gov: Dan Onorato (D) 40%, Tom Corbett (R) 54%

FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek, sensing that time is running out, decided to reject the endorsement of the Sierra Club. Why? Because they wanted to co-endorse Charlie Crist, and Meek needs to do anything he can to differentiate himself from the governor, since they’re largely drawing from the same pool of voters these days. Meek tried to cast this as a principled stance, saying “The Sierra Club has chosen to stand with a governor who stood on stage applauding as Sarah Palin chanted, ‘Drill, Baby, Drill.'”

MO-Sen: The Smart Media Group is saying that the DSCC has cancelled two weeks worth of ad buys in Missouri. Given how often the tea-leaf reading has been wrong with all this ad stuff, I’d like to see further confirmation before making up my mind about what this means. (And guys, I don’t think you’re using cutesy hashtags properly.)

DE-Sen: The Cliff Claven of American politics:

If Barack Obama vetoes that the year before his re-election, he’s setting himself up to be very vulnerable and I’ve seen many Hillary for President ads running.

Christine O’Donnell, what color is the sky in your world?

AL-05: Oh god, this is NOT good:

Congressional candidate and veteran political consultant Steve Raby once ran four north Alabama political action committees that authorities say were used to route $200,000 from a Dothan casino owner to a state senator in a vote-buying scheme. Raby says he relinquished control of the PACs weeks before the money transfers.

And this is just not a headline you ever want to see in your own race:

Raby: I have not been accused of doing anything wrong

AR-04: Here’s a race that’s not on a lot of folks’ radars but probably should be, just because of the nature of the year & state. Republican Beth Anne Rankin is out with a one-day robopoll from Diamond State Consulting Group that shows Rep. Mike Ross leading by just a 44-41 margin, with 5% going to Green Party candidate Josh Drake. A poll from July had Ross up 55-33. But does Rankin have the resources to take down the Lord Satrap of the Blue Dogs? Ross had $1.1 million on hand as of June 30; Rankin, just $70K.

CT-04: Believe it or not, Merriman River Group is a Democratic pollster. But they sure have been putting out all kinds of numbers this week which are at odds with… well, everyone else’s numbers, particularly in CT-Sen and CT-05. In their most recent effort, they have Rep. Jim Himes at 49 and Republican Dan Debicella at 47, so I’ll be really curious to see if internals bear this one out. There are at least two things I don’t like about this poll: First off, they report numbers to decimal places, which is a bad practice because it gives a false sense of accuracy. Secondly, they refer to Himes’s opponent as “Dan DeBicella” throughout. C’mon, guys.

CT-05: Speaking of CT-05, here’s another poll from Chris Murphy (courtesy the Gotham Research Group), showing him up 48-34 over Sam Caligiuri. Murph’s last poll had a similar 50-38 margin. The only thing I don’t like here is the weak swipe at robopollsters (like Merriman) in the press release: “An automated computer survey can’t tell who is actually picking up the phone – a registered voter in the Fifth District, or a voter’s 10 year old cousin visiting from South Carolina.” Chris – we love you, man, but we know you can do better.

ID-01: In response to some rumor-mongering that showed up the other day in Roll Call, Walt Minnick said he “has no intention of changing parties.” I think the Parker Griffith party switch actually was a very good thing for us, as it demonstrated what is likely to happen to any other Dems who follow suit – you’ll get teabagged to death.

KS-01: In the race to succeed Rep. Jerry Moran (who is running for Senate), Republican Tim Huelskamp leads Democrat Alan Jilka by a 63-26 margin, according to SurveyUSA.

KY-06: Dueling internals in Eastern Kentucky. First up is Ben Chandler, whose poll from the Mellman group has him up 52-40 over Andy Barr. That’s actually a decline from his numbers a few weeks ago which had him up 53-33, but Barr’s gain seems pretty understandable – and importantly, Chandler hasn’t slipped. (These numbers are also backed up by a recent Braun poll.) Meanwhile, Barr’s survey has it 48-47 in favor of the Republican, which are the best numbers we’ve seen from his camp all cycle.

TX-17: Chet Edwards also has an internal poll out, from Bennett, Petts and Normington. It’s not particularly good news: Bill Flores leads 46-42. Still, it’s better than the most recent Flores own-poll, which had him up 55-36.

VA-05: Jesus, what is with this guy? Teabagger Jeff Clark has been pulling the Hamlet act more melodramatically than anyone since Mario Cuomo. Now he’s claiming he might drop out of the race because he’s being excluded from a series of debates between Rep. Tom Perriello and Republican Rob Hurt. Some of his backers say they might file a legal challenge, but that seems dubious.

SSP TV:

• NH-Sen: Even though Democrats on the Hill were too fucking stupid to schedule a vote on the Obama tax cuts which would have given them great campaign fodder, props to Paul Hodes for cutting an ad on the issue regardless. Hodes says he supports extending middle class tax cuts, but is very explicit that he wants to let tax breaks for the wealthiest expire – unlike Kelly Ayotte
• NV-Sen: Hah, if this works, I’ll be impressed: Sharron Angle’s ad hits Reid on a few votes (like the stimulus), and also includes this gem: Reid’s vote against Tom Coburn’s retarded “no Viagra for sex offenders” poison-pill amendment to the healthcare reform bill
• NY-Gov: There is no fucking way I am watching this whole thing. The best summary: “Danny Devito’s version of the Checkers speech“
• PA-Sen: Another fucking gong ad, this time from Joe Sestak, hitting the same themes as the DSCC ad from the other day. Do we seriously need to emulate Sixteen Candles?
• MA-10: The DCCC hits Jeffrey Perry – and hits him hard – for his role as supervising officer when two teenage girls were strip-searched by a cop under his command in the 90s
• DCCC: The D-Trip has a nice map where you can click around to see ads they’re running in key races. You can also check out their YouTube channel

A fire hose blast of recent polls from around the nation…

GA-Gov, Sen: Insider Advantage (9/27, likely voters, 8/18 in parens):

Roy Barnes (D): 37 (41)

Nathan Deal (R): 45 (45)

John Monds (L): 5 (5)

Undecided: 13 (9)

Michael Thurmond (D): 29 (34)

Johnny Isakson (R-inc): 61 (52)

Chuck Donovan (L): 3 (5)

Undecided: 7 (9)

(MoE: ±5%)

NH-Sen, NH-01, NH-02 (PDF): UNH for WMUR (9/23-29, likely voters, July in parens):

Paul Hodes (D): 35 (37)

Kelly Ayotte (R): 50 (45)

Other: 2 (1)

Undecided: 12 (17)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Carol Shea-Porter (D-inc): 39 (44)

Frank Guinta (R): 49 (39)

Other: 3 (1)

Undecided: 9 (16)

(MoE: ±6%)

Ann McLane Kuster (D): 38 (29)

Charlie Bass (R): 43 (47)

Other: 3 (1)

Undecided: 16 (23)

(MoE: ±6.1%)

AZ-07: American Political Consulting (R) for Ruth McClung (9/25-26, voter screen unspecified, no trendlines):

Raul Grijalva (D-inc): 42

Ruth McClung (R): 35

Undecided: 23

(MoE: ±4.3%)

CT-04: National Research (R) for Dan Debicella (9/27-28, likely voters, 8/17-18 in parens):

Jim Himes (D-inc): 42 (42)

Dan Debicella (R): 42 (38)

(MoE: ±5.7%)

NJ-03 (PDF): Monmouth (9/24-28, likely voters, no trendlines)

John Adler (D-inc): 42

Jon Runyan (R): 39

Pete DeStefano (T): 4

Other: 2

Undecided: 13

(MoE: ±4.9%)

NY-13: Global Strategy Group (D) for Rep. Mike McMahon (9/19-22, likely voters, no trendlines):

Mike McMahon (D-inc): 51

Mike Grimm: 33

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Barry Zeplowitz & Associates (R) for the NRCC (9/22-23, likely voters, no trendlines):

Mike McMahon (D-inc): 46

Mike Grimm: 38

(MoE: ±4.9%)

RI-01, RI-02: Fleming & Associates for WPRI-TV & WNAC-TV (9/22-26, likely voters, no trendlines):

David Cicilline (D): 48

John Loughlin (R): 29

Undecided: 22

Jim Langevin (D-inc): 54

Mark Zaccaria (R): 24

Undecided: 22

(MoE: ±6.2%)

VA-09: SurveyUSA for WDBJ-TV (9/27-29, likely voters, 8/31-9/2 in parens):

Rick Boucher (D-inc): 53 (50)

Morgan Griffith (R): 38 (40)

Jeremiah Heaton (I): 5 (5)

Undecided: 4 (4)

(MoE: ±4%)

• AR-Sen: Mason-Dixon takes another look at the Arkansas Senate race, on behalf of Arkansas News Bureau. Blanche Lincoln hasn’t gotten any deader than she was before: she trails John Boozman 51-34, with 4 for other minor candidates (no real change from the last time they polled, back in May pre-primary, where Boozman led 52-35). Lincoln’s faves have improved a smidge: now 30/47, instead of 28/53.

• DE-Sen: Whooo, where even to begin? The national media is just starting to dig into Christine O’Donnell’s gigantic and eminently mineable opposition file, with NPR and ABC detailing her history of getting fired from right-wing think tanks and her suing for discrimination in response, of IRS audits that she blamed on “thug politics” and liens that she blamed on “computer errors,” of failure to pay for her college, and of using her campaign money to pay the rent on her house as it’s also her campaign headquarters. We also know about her stance on AIDS prevention, thanks to helpful tipsters in the comments. At least O’Donnell’s faring well in the fundraising department, raising $1 million since her victory (with Chris Coons raising only $125K, showing the harmful effects of a short-of-the-endzone victory dance). Not leaving things to chance, reports are coming in that Joe Biden will campaign for Coons “next week” and that the DSCC is starting to put money into Delaware, starting with an $85K buy in the Salisbury market.

The establishment isn’t budging much on her: the state’s virulently anti-O’Donnell GOP chair, Tom Ross, is staying in place (though calling for “unity”), and Karl Rove, although he sorta backed down in the face of a Rush Limbaugh broadside, is still challenging O’Donnell to be “honest” to voters about her difficulties… and again running through the list of all those difficulties in his media appearances. Meanwhile, O’Donnell strips…. her website, perhaps at the urging of the NRSC; after her nomination, all issues stuff vanished and it just became a donation ask. Still, Harry Reid seems to be doing all he can to fuck this up, issuing a strange quote that should play right into the whole “Obama/Reid/Pelosi agenda!!1!” messaging, expressing enthusiasm for Chris Coons but calling him his “pet.”

• NV-Sen, NV-Gov (pdf): Part of the CNN/Time onslaught yesterday was polls of Nevada (which we’re relegating to the digest, as this state, as we’ve complained before, is veering rapidly into over-polled territory). This raised some eyebrows for showing a Sharron Angle lead over Harry Reid (42-41, with 5 for Scott Ashjian) among LVs, but that’s only a point or three off from the narrow band of results that Mason-Dixon and Rasmussen have been consistently generating. (Reid leads 42-34-7 among RVs.) Many people (starting with Jon Ralston) also seemed surprised by some crosstabs weirdness, showing the race a dead heat in Democratic-favorable Clark County but giving Reid a big lead in swingy Washoe County. Brian Sandoval leads Rory Reid 58-31 in the Gov race.

• CA-Gov: It’s official: Meg Whitman is now the biggest self-funder in political history, having shown that piker Michael Bloomberg how it’s done. She gave her campaign another $15 million, which brings her personal spending on the race to $118 million overall.

• CO-Gov: Dan Maes just picked up Scott McInnis’s former campaign manager, George Culpepper, so it seems like the local GOP establishment isn’t totally abandoning him. The Colorado Independent has an in-depth piece, though, with a more nuanced look, based on interviews with at least a dozen county GOP chairs. Some of them fully back Maes, some grudgingly do so, some back Tom Tancredo, and some are still in a state of shock.

• GA-Gov: After doing some pushback yesterday, Nathan “Let’s Make a” Deal had to admit today that, yes, he is in some personally dire financial straits, saying his debts are even bigger than the $2.3 million loan that’s outstanding… but also saying that he isn’t releasing any more financial records to the press. It also turns out that he never disclosed that loan to the state Ethics Commission on his financial disclosure form, which he’s now scrambling to update.

• MI-Gov: EPIC-MRA’s out with yet another poll of the Michigan gubernatorial race; I think we can start relegating their frequent polls of this pretty-much-out-of-reach race to the digest, too. They give Rick Snyder a 53-29 lead over Virg Bernero (a slight improvement for Snyder over 51-29 three weeks ago).

• UT-Gov: OK, what kind of a world is it when we’re faring better in the Utah governor’s race than we are in Michigan? Not like this is a competitive race either, but it could be a good dress rehearsal for a 2012 rematch (remember that this 2010 race is a special election). Dem Peter Corroon trails Gary Herbert by “only” 21 points, 52-31, in a poll taken by Dan Jones & Associates for the Deseret News and KSL. The numbers haven’t really changed since their previous poll in April (where Herbert led by 20).

• CA-11: As with 2008, Jerry McNerney rolled out endorsements from some local elected Republicans, as part of a list of 16 county supervisors and mayors who are backing him. Maybe most notable is the backing from the mayor of Manteca (or, in Spanish, Lard), Willie Weatherford, who had previously backed GOP primary loser Brad Goehring.

• CO-03: Here’s a boost for John Salazar, in a suddenly-tough race in this rural western district against Republican Scott Tipton: he got the backing of the National Rifle Association, with an “A” rating.

• IA-02: Another warning sign for David Loebsack: the Mariannette Miller-Meeks campaign is out with another internal poll, showing her creeping closer than her previous one. The Tarrance Group poll has her trailing Loebsack by only 1 point: 41-40 (with 6 for a Libertarian). She could do some damage her with more money.

• LA-02: Lawyer Ron Austin dropped out of the LA-02 race today, where he was an independent candidate. This is really the first I’d ever heard of him, so I can’t imagine he’d have been much of a factor here; I can’t glean whether he was running on the left or the right, but he is African-American, so that in itself may shift at least a handful of votes in Cedric Richmond’s direction in what may yet turn out to be a close race. Two other no-name indies remain.

• MD-01: One other internal poll got leaked to the Fix today, too, and this one’s a pleasant surprise for the Dems. Frank Kratovil is still claiming a lead over Andy Harris, who just won the GOP nod for a rematch. Kratovil’s poll by Garin-Hart-Yang gives him a 45-39 lead. (When I say “still,” Kratovil released an earlier internal with a 5-point lead. Harris has released two internals of his own giving him a lead.)

• MO-04: Here’s the good news: Ike Skelton got a shared endorsement from Missouri Right to Life, along with GOP challenger Vicky Hartzler. The bad news is: Skelton has generally had that endorsement to himself in the past.

• NY-14: Give Reshma Saujani credit for one thing: she’s persistent. She’s already announced that she’ll try again in 2012 to unseat Carolyn Maloney in the NY-14 Dem primary.

• NY-23: Local teabaggers (or at least one of them) sound pretty upset with Conservative nominee (and GOP primary loser) Doug Hoffman, meaning that he, rather than the GOP nominee, may find himself in the third-wheel position this time around. Mark Barie, chairman of a local Tea Party organization criticized Hoffman for a listless campaign run by outsiders with little familiarity with the district. He threw his support behind Matt Doheny, who appears to have narrowly won the GOP primary despite a late close by Hoffman in late counting.

• CfG: The Club for Growth launched a five-state buy in Senate races, to a total tune of $1.5 million (no word on specific allocation). The states under assault are Colorado, Florida, Nevada, Pennsylvania, and Wisconsin.

• NRCC: Two different rounds of TV ad buys came from the NRCC today. The first one was in WA-03 ($900K) and NM-01 ($300K), and a second one covers PA-10 ($595K), NH-01 ($1 mil), NH-02 ($1 mil), FL-08 ($817K), FL-24 ($817K), and VA-09 ($?).

• SSP TV:

• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer goes negative against Carly Fiorina in a new spot, hitting her on (what else?) her failed tenure at HP

• MO-Sen: A new spot against Roy Blunt from Dem group Commonsense Ten (never heard of ’em, either) hits his consummate insider credentials

• PA-Sen: Yet another ad from Pat Toomey, this one featuring an oppressed doctor who doesn’t like HCR (who just happens to be a big Republican activist too, not the ad says that)

• WA-Sen: Dino Rossi’s first negative ad features him personally narrating an attack on Patty Murray (instead of using the off-camera voice of doom); he calls her “part of the problem”

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid’s newest TV spot, by way of fighting back against Angle’s attacks on immigration issues, just goes ahead and says it: it calls Sharron Angle “crazy”

• NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo doesn’t want to leave anything to chance despite his big lead (he has the money to burn, at any rate), and he’s out with a new bio ad (not that he needs much introduction)

• PA-Gov: Dan Onorato tries introducing himself to Pennsylvania again, this time with a shorter 30-second ad that helpfully lets people know how to pronounce his name

• TX-Gov: Even Rick Perry’s going negative: three different ads go after Bill White, two trying to tie him to Barack Obama and one attacking his handling of Hurricane Rita

• VT-Gov: The RGA wades into Vermont with a negative ad against Peter Shumlin, hitting him on taxes

• CT-04: Jim Himes has not one but two new ads, stressing his independence and debt hawkishness

• KS-03: Stephene Moore’s first ad plays up her day job as a nurse

• ND-AL: Earl Pomeroy has two different anti-Rick Berg ads, one of which focuses on his crazy plans to drill for oil in Theodore Roosevelt National Park

• NH-02: Ann McLane Kuster (who’s now rebranded herself as “Annie Kuster”) goes negative on Charlie Bass in her first ad, framing him as failed retread

• NY-20: Scott Murphy’s newest spot focuses on his own personal record of job creation as businessman before entering Congress

• TX-17: Chet Edwards is out with a positive ad, touting his work on veteran’s issues like VA health care

• WA-02: John Koster tries to cram both a negative ad and a positive ad into a discordant 30 seconds

• WI-07: Sean Duffy plays up his lumberjack credentials, saying he’ll “take an ax” to Washington (I’ll admit, that’s kinda clever)

• Rasmussen:

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 45%, Ken Buck (R) 49%

• DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 53%, Christine O’Donnell (R) 42%

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

• NV-Gov: Rory Reid (D) 39%, Brian Sandoval (R) 52%

• PA-Gov: Dan Onorato (D) 39%, Tom Corbett (R) 49%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 51%, Dino Rossi (R) 46%

AK-Sen: Man, we are seriously close! Just $195 away from our goal of raising $2,400 for Dem Scott McAdams in the topsy-turvy Alaska senate race. We have 64 contributors right now – I’d love to see us get to 70 before all is said and done. And if we hit our target now, you get to stop seeing nags from me!

DE-Sen: One final (?) independent expenditure report from the Tea Party Express, good for another $20K of media on Christine O’Donnell’s behalf. Damn this one ought to be exciting tonight.

CA-Gov: Gah, this is just unspinnably bad. Meg Whitman releases an ad featuring footage of Bill Clinton attacking Jerry Brown in the 1992 presidential primary, so what does Brown do? He calls Clinton a liar – and manages to make a crack about Monica freakin’ Lewinsky. (Talk about stuck in a time warp.) After a day, Brown finally apologized.

FL-Gov: Alex Sink secured endorsed from two top law enforcement groups: the Fraternal Order of Police and the Police Benevolent Association. Her campaign says it’s the first time in two decades both orgs have endorsed a Dem (the FOP hasn’t does so in 16 years).

KS-Gov: Live by the bailout, die by the bailout. Dem Tom Holland smacked Republican Sam Brownback during a recent debate for supporting a $200 billion bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac – leaving Brownback to sputter that he voted against the bailout. Well, yeah, he voted against the infamous TARP. But Holland had him dead-to-rights on a separate vote, from July of 2008, which did in fact provide money to prop up the two government-sponsored mortgage enterprises.

ME-Gov: Watch GOP nominee Paul LePage get seriously testy when reporters ask him about the fact that his wife received homestead tax exemptions for properties in both Maine and Florida in 2009. (More details here.)

FL-02: Hah! This is why it pays to keep good records! Republican Steve Southerland claimed on a radio show that he had never donated money to Allen Boyd – so Boyd’s campaign dug up a $100 check from 1997 (!) that Southerland had made out to Boyd. Nice work!

FL-08: Tea Party candidate Peg Dunmire is out with her first TV ad of the cycle – notable, of course, because you don’t often see third-party candidates on the air (especially two months out from election day), and also because Dunmire has claimed she plans to put $250,000 of her own cash into the race.

IL-14: Idiot: GOPer Randy Hultgren made two separate contributions (totaling $2,000) to his federal campaign committee… from his state campaign committee. That, my friends, is not allowed (and which is why Hultgren is returning the money).

MI-01 (PDF): Republican Dan Benishek is touting an internal poll from TargetPoint Consulting, showing him with a 54-31 lead over Dem Gary McDowell. The polling memo is written in a pretty grossly sycophantic way, and my spidey sense is twigged enough for me to wonder if the ballot test was asked up top, or after some axe-grindy “issue” questions.

TN-04: Republican Scott DesJarlais is touting an internal poll from Public Opinion Strategies, showing him four points behind Dem Rep. Lincoln Davis, 45-41. Note to TargetPoint Consulting: This is how a polling memorandum should look.

DCCC: Reid Wilson has a detailed report on the D-Trip shifting ad money around, but really, it doesn’t sound very good to me. In the waning days of WWII, my dad (in Poland) would tune in to Nazi-censored radio reports about the German troops “consolidating their positions” or “shifting to more strategically advantageous territory,” etc. It was all bullshit-speak code for “we’re retreating.” So you tell me if you think the DCCC is reducing its ad buys in Arizona because vulnerable Dems there “are running stronger than expected campaigns,” or if that, too, is bullshit. Similarly, should we be happy that the Dems are cancelling buys in North Dakota? Of course, those radio broadcasts my dad listened to were in fact good news….

Chicago-Mayor: I don’t know if we’ll be able to keep up with what I’m sure will be an avalanche of candidacy announcements, but former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun says she’s throwing her hat in the ring for the Chicago mayor’s race.

SSP-TV (written by James L.):

AL-02: The DCCC, as part of its huge $1.2 million ad reservation on behalf of Dem Bobby Bright, is hitting Martha Roby for being funded by “special interests working to privatize Medicare.” The ad is no longer publicly available on YouTube, though.

AZ-01: Rogue dentist Paul Gosar hits Democrat Ann Kirkpatrick over spending in irritatingly-produced ad

AZ-05: David Schweikert attacks Harry Mitchell on taxes, bailouts, the stimulus, and (ironically) negative ads

AZ-08: Republican Jesse Kelly dubiously claims that he’s running to protect Social Security (despite last year saying: “I would love to eliminate the program.”)

CT-04: Dan Debicella goes after sophomore Dem Rep. Jim Himes on the usual GOP complaints

FL-22: Allen West hides the crazy in his new ad, instead hitting Dem Rep. Ron Klein on the economy

HI-01: Democrat Colleen Hanabusa reintroduces herself to voters

IA-03: GOPer Brad Zaun calls fans of government shrinkage to join his campaign

IL-10: Bob Dold! points the finger at Cap and Trade and Healthcare Reform for economic malaise

NM-02: Steve Pearce says he’ll create jobs somehow

MI-07: Mark Schauer gets a bunch of angry seniors to berate ex-Rep. Tim Walberg over his scary views on Social Security. I like this one.

MO-03: Republican Ed Martin airs his first ad touting his efforts to save jobs

OH-01: Dem Steve Driehaus says that Steve Chabot won’t stand up to the Tea Party

SC-02: Joe Wilson, via a retired General, hits Democrat Rob Miller on receiving fundraising assistance from MoveOn.org. His second ad touts his job platform. On a related note, Joe Wilson has a startlingly robotic voice – he sounds like something a Macintosh LC 630’s speech synthesizer would be spitting out in 1994.

UT-02: Republican Morgan Philpot urges change in his first spot, and says that he’s gonna “wear this sucker out” in ad #2

WI-08: Roofing contractor Reid Ribble touts his record of teaching high school volleyball

NRCC ads: AL-02, AZ-01, CA-11, FL-02, KY-06, MS-01, TX-17, VA-05, WI-07