Tag: LA-Sen

Public Policy Polling (8/21-22, likely voters, 6/12-13 in parentheses)

Charlie Melancon (D): 41 (37)

David Vitter (R-inc): 51 (46)

Undecided: 8 (17)

Charlie Melancon (D): 40 (NA)

Chet Traylor (R): 39 (NA)

Undecided: 21 (NA)

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Hmmm, Chet Traylor’s bid in the GOP primary against David Vitter was supposedly powered by unnamed figures in the state’s Republican establishment worried about Vitter’s vulnerability to Dem Charlie Melancon (at the peak of the Brent Furer furor). It looks like that was a miscalculation, as Traylor actually manages to lose to Melancon while Vitter’s numbers against Melancon, while not overwhelming, are pretty stable, continuing PPP’s trend of seeing a race in the 10-point ballpark in Vitter’s favor. Vitter’s approvals among the full electorate are 53/41, although they do concede, by a 44-21 margin, that Vitter is “not a good Christian model.” (Also, amusingly, given the choice between whether the respondents’ daughters should be married to either Vitter or Melancon, 55% chose that their daughter shouldn’t be married to any politician.)

Primary numbers (8/21-22, likely voters)

David Vitter (R-inc): 81

Chet Traylor (R): 5

Nick Accardo (R): 4

Undecided: 9

(MoE: ±5.2%)

With the Louisiana primary coming up in a few days, these are the more important numbers right now. Former state supreme court justice Chet Traylor’s late-breaking bid against Vitter was very interesting for the first few days, but at this point we might as well just close the book on it: his fundraising never materialized, his “family values” turned out to be as suspect as Vitter’s, and somehow he manages to be upside-down on favorables among GOP voters. (Traylor’s faves among Republicans are 10/30, compared with Vitter’s 78/17.)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• Rasmussen:

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

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

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

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

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

• LA-Sen: That ginned-up internal poll that Chet Traylor released a few days ago (showing him within 12 of David Vitter) seems to have served its intended purpose, for what its worth: the contributions have started coming in at a much greater pace over the last few days. He pulled in $30K in three days, almost doubling up on the $42K he raised over the previous duration of his campaign (and most of which he blew on his new anti-Vitter radio ad). And this can’t please Vitter, either: a local paper is reporting to Vitter’s troublesome ex-aide, Brent Furer, traveled back from DC to Louisiana several times on the public’s dime, at points that just happened to coincide with his various trials on charges of drunk driving.

• NV-Sen: Sharron Angle seems to be wandering all over the map in search of a position on Social Security privatization, one that’s extreme enough to satisfy her teabagging core supporters but not so extreme that it scares off, y’know, old people. She’s removed the words “transitioned out” from her website (regarding Social Security) but, when pushed yesterday, said that she hasn’t changed her view that that’s how she feels about it (despite running ads claiming that she wants to “save” Social Security).

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak, meet Raul Labrador? As you probably know, there’s a common-sense rule of thumb that you don’t release your internal polls unless they show you, y’know, ahead of your opponent. Nevertheless, somebody (unclear whether it was the DSCC or the Sestak camp) leaked NBC a Peter Yang internal of the race giving Pat Toomey a 2-point lead over Sestak, 46-44. Obviously, that’s not designed to create a sense of Sestak’s inevitable victory as most internals are designed to do, but it’s pushback against this week’s PPP poll, where the switch to LVs hurt Sestak’s numbers, probably oriented toward letting contributors know that this race is still in play. The DSCC has also been nailing Toomey on the rather arcane issue of derivatives, which had a key role in inflating the asset bubble that popped and left all our faces covered in pink sticky goo in 2008. Somehow I doubt more than 1% of the nation can offer a cogent explanation of what derivatives (especially credit default swaps) do, but at any rate, they’ve tracked down three separate times when Toomey as Congressman, on the House floor, praised the use of derivatives, something he’s lately tried to distance himself from.

• WA-Sen: We’re up to 67% reporting in Washington, with the numbers not really having budged from Tuesday night (still 46 Patty Murray, 34 Dino Rossi, 12 Clint Didier), but more than three-quarters of the remaining precincts are in the Dem-friendly King, Pierce, and Snohomish Counties, so look for some future budging. Meanwhile, here’s a comparison that only true politics junkies will get… remember Fred Heineman? (The one-term Republican House member from NC-04 swept in in 1994, who then said that his $183,000 salary made him “lower-middle-class” and that the middle class extended up to $750K, and promptly got swept out in 1996.) Dino Rossi has apparently decided that he should be Washington’s answer to Heineman, as he essentially said that one-third of Washingtonians make over $200K per year. More specifically, he said 2.5 million Washingtonians would benefit from keeping the Bush-era tax cuts for those making more than $200K/yr. (In reality, 105K households, or 1.6% of the state’s population, fit that profile.)

• CA-Gov: Here’s an iceberg in the way for the serene cruise of the Queen Meg: activists at a convention of state conservatives this weekend plan a rude welcome for her. They plan to lambaste her on her non-extreme positions on an Arizona-style immigration law in California, and her support for greenhouse gas-limiting Proposition 19 23. Also, here’s some quantitative evidence for something that I’ve long suspected: Whitman has so oversaturated the airwaves with advertising that it went well past the point of having its desired effect and is now just getting people pissed off at her. A Jerry Brown staffer leaked that nugget from internal polling, finding that her own advertising has helped Whitman with 8% of voters and hurt her with 27% of voters.

• IA-03: Hot on the heels of the David Rivera story in FL-25, here’s another uncomfortable blast from the past for another Republican House candidate: records reveal that Brad Zaun, the GOP’s nominee against Leonard Boswell, had to be told by West Des Moines police to stay away from his ex-girlfriend after a late night visit to her house to pound on her windows and call her names.

• MO-03, MO-04: Odd little pollster We Ask America seems to be entering another period of being prolific, as now they’re out with a couple House polls from the underserved state of Missouri. They find Russ Carnahan fairly comfortable against Republican challenger Ed Martin in the 3rd, leading 48-39, but find veteran Dem Ike Skelton in a tighter race in the 4th, leading Vicky Hartzler 45-42. Skelton still draws the support of 27% of Republicans and 37% of indies, crucial to surviving this dark-red district.

• CfG: The Club for Growth is starting to switch gears from primaries (where they seem to have had a more productive run this year than in previous cyles) to the general. They’ve endorsed four Republican challengers who all cleared the primary bar: Stephen Fincher in TN-08, Todd Young in IN-09, Mick Mulvaney in SC-05, and Tim Griffin in AR-02.

• Ads: The most attention-grabbing ad today seems to be from Indiana Dem Joe Donnelly, who already tried to distanced himself from “the Washington crowd” in his previous ad. Now he’s basically thrown in the towel on trying to fight the messaging war and just start running with Republican memes, touting his opposition in his newest ad to “Nancy Pelosi’s energy tax.” Other ads worth checking out today include an RGA ad for Duke Aiona in HI-Gov, a Joyce Elliott ad in AR-02, a Michelle Rollins spot in DE-AL, and a Mike McIntyre ad in NC-07.

• Rasmussen:

• MD-Gov: Martin O’Malley (D) 45%, Bob Ehrlich (R) 44%

• NV-Gov: Rory Reid (D) 36%, Brian Sandoval (R) 52%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D) 48%, Dino Rossi (R) 44%

AK-Sen: The Tea Party Express just threw down another $90K on behalf of Joe Miller (mostly on ad buys), bringing their total spent on the race to $367K. Still, as Lisa Murkowski’s fundraising reports show, they still have a pretty sizable gap to make up.

CT-Sen: Dick Blumenthal is taking the obvious tack of running against Washington, attacking both TARP (of course) and also the stimulus… but note that his critique of the stimulus is decidedly from the left. Said Blumenthal: “I believe that the stimulus was wrongly structured, because it failed to provide jobs and paychecks to ordinary Americans. It unfortunately was inadequately designed to invest in infrastructure, in roads and bridges and schools.”

LA-Sen: Chet Traylor, challenging David Vitter in the GOP primary, is apparently putting all of his meager campaign cash (some $50K) into a radio ad directly slamming the incumbent for his, uh, record when it comes to women. Traylor’s ad ain’t shy.

NH-Sen, NH-01: Biden alert! The VPOTUS is coming to New Hampshire on September 27th to do an event for Rep. Paul Hodes’s senate campaign and Rep. Carol Shea-Porter’s re-election campaign.

NV-Sen: Another day, another batshit Sharron Angle quote:

People have always said – those words, ‘too conservative,’ is fairly relative. I’m sure that they probably said that about Thomas Jefferson and George Washington and Benjamin Franklin. And truly, when you look at the Constitution and our founding fathers and their writings, the things that made this country great, you might draw those conclusions: That they were conservative. They were fiscally conservative and socially conservative.

Wait, we’ve got some more. Back in 1993, Angle (then a member of the Independent American Party) sent a letter to Harry Reid regarding the Clinton budget. Have a look-see:

I and the majority of my fellow Nevadans are sickened by the passage of the recent huge tax increase bill. With YOUR help the quality of life in America has taken another step into the pit of economic collapse. Clinton’s mother-of-all tax packages is the world’s biggest tax increase ever. It increases government spending by $300 billion, increases the national debt by $1 trillion, it is retroactive to January 1, and probably the most offensive, it schedules 80 percent of the promised spending cuts to take place after the next Presidential election. What a joke, and not a very funny one at that! …

The answer to this mess is clear. STOP FUNDING THE WASTEFUL SOCIAL AND ENTITLEMENT PROGRAMS. MAKE THE DIFFICULT CHOICES THAT WILL KEEP OUR COUNTRY STRONG. THAT’S WHAT YOU WERE ELECTED TO DO!

With her mastery of ALL CAPS, Angle’d make a great comment forum troll.

WI-Sen: Wealthy teabagger and presumptive GOP senate nominee Ron Johnson is sounding a bit like Chauncey Gardner, wouldn’t you say? In denying the anthropogenic nature of global warming, Johnson says: “It’s far more likely that it’s just sunspot activity or just something in the geologic eons of time.” There will be growth in the spring!

CO-Gov: Really excellent and funny first ad from Dem John Hickenlooper – just go check it out. NWOTSOTB, unfortunately. Meanwhile, on the other side(s) of the aisle, CO GOP chair Dick Wadhams put out a statement claiming that Tom Tancredo told him he’d drop out of the gube race if Dan Maes did as well (presumably allowing for them to combine into a better candidate, Voltron-style). Maes told Tancredo to go dangle.

OH-Gov: Biden alert! The VPOTUS is visiting a Chrysler plant in Toledo on Monday, and afterwards he’s going to help raise some bucks for Ted Strickland.

AZ-08: Rep. Gabrielle Giffords has a new ad up attacking those who have called for a boycott of Arizona on account of SB 1070. You can see the ad here. Neighboring Rep. Raul Grijalva is taking the ad personally, since he was among those calling for “economic sanctions” against his own state. NWOTSOTB, though Grijalva claims the buy “potentially total[s] $350,000.” (No idea where he got that figure from.)

Meanwhile, in the GOP primary, presumed front-runner Jonathan Paton is airing an ad attacking rival Jesse Kelly for alleged stimulus hypocrisy.

FL-25: Wow. GOP candidate David Rivera is one crazy motherf*cker. Back in 2002, while seeking election to the state House of Representatives for the first time, he ran a truck off the road because it was carrying flyers printed for his opponent, in the hopes of preventing it from reaching the post office on time. Man.

GA-12: Regina Thomas, who took 42% in her primary challenge to Rep. John Barrow earlier this year, says she wants to run as a write-in this fall. However, it seems like state law would prohibit this, though she’s claiming the relevant statute wouldn’t apply to her.

IN-09: You can’t deny that the GOP has done a good job in general with recruitment this cycle. They have a systemic problem, though, which is that their party is fundamentally insane, and so their candidates believe – and say – a lot of fundamentally insane things. Case in point: Republican Todd Young caught on camera deriding Social Security as a “Ponzi scheme.” Baron Hill uses Young’s words no fewer that four times in a new attack ad that, of course, questions Young’s commitment to protecting the program. NWOTSOTB.

LA-03: It’s not really a surprise that the mouthbreathers running in the Republican primary in Louisiana’s 3rd CD are trying to out-crazy each other. (“Repeal the 17th amendment!” “Repeal the 14th amendment!”) What is a little interesting is that former state House Speaker Hunt Downer skipped the teabagger-sponsored debate where rivals Jeff Landry and Kristian Magar dueled each other to see who could shred the Constitution the fastest. Both Landry and Downer have raised real money (Magar hasn’t) and are probably the main candidates.

MA-10: In a cycle where you have a guy like Rick Scott seeking office, it’s pretty damn hard to be a contender for Douchebag GOP Candidate of the Year – but Jeffrey Perry is not giving up. Perry is best known for his failings as a police sergeant (he allowed an officer under his supervision to strip-search teenage girls – twice), so it’s not a surprise to hear that he abused his powers in yet another way. In sworn deposition testimony, a supervisor said that Perry played “the old red light game,” in which Perry purposely tripped a red light to catch drivers going through it, “creating motor vehicle violations.” Bonus bit of petard-hoisting: The testimony was given in lawsuits brought against Perry by the very girls his subordinate mistreated.

NH-02: Dem Annie Kuster is out with her second ad of the campaign, a jobs-related spot. NWOTSOTB, but it’s airing “on WMUR-Channel 9 and cable stations across New Hampshire.” (WMUR is the one NH-based broadcast channel which covers the whole state.) Primary rival Katrina Swett also has a new ad of her own… and seriously, people, what is with the references to bodily functions in political advertising? First there was Stephanie Herseth Sandlin’s pooping kid, now we have an entire ad devoted to bad puns based on Swett’s last name? Ick.

NY-20: Another upstate Republican challenger speaks out in defense of the Cordoba House… only to quickly backtrack. Much like Richard Hanna, GOPer Chris Gibson put out a statement on Facebook, saying that “churches, synagogues and mosques should be treated the same.” After a CNN piece pointed out Gibson’s comment, his campaign deleted the post, and then put out a statement saying he opposes the cultural center. God, this whole non-controversy is really sickening to me, and the political spinelessness it’s led to is just revolting.

NY-24: Rep. Mike Arcuri just filed 7,300 signatures for his new “NY Moderates” ballot line (he needed 3,500). As we noted when we first mentioned this story, Arcuri doesn’t have a second ballot line to run on (he was denied the endorsement of both the Working Families Party and the Independence Party), so this is his attempt to make up ground.

OH-16: So of course GOPer Jim Renacci has come out against the Cordoba House (which wags have amusingly dubbed the “Burlington Coat Factory Mosque”). Frosh Rep. John Boccieri had a great response:

[If Renacci] wants to run for the zoning commission in New York City, I’ll be more than happy to pay his filing fee.

AND I WILL FUCKING RUN AGAINST HIM! If only it were actually an elected position. (Eh, it’s probably a good thing that it isn’t.)

SC-02: It’s Miller Time – finally. Dem Rob Miller, who has a huge pile of cash on hand, is going up with his first ad of the election campaign. The spot (which you can view here) features Miller’s fellow Marines describing their commander’s leadership during the battle for control of Fallujah. NWOTSOTB. Rep. Joe Wilson also has an ad up, apparently only on cable.

TN-06: Lou Ann Zelenik, who trailed Diane Black by just a tiny margin in the GOP primary on election night, has more or less conceded. Interestingly, Black’s husband had filed a lawsuit against Zelenik over a TV ad late in the campaign, and Zelenik’s statement basically asks Black to drop the case. Though Zelenik says she “congratulates” Black on her victory, I wonder if she’s holding out a formal endorsement in exchange for a dismissal.

VA-05: Earlier in the digest, I was bemoaning the lack of political courage we’ve mostly seen in the Cordoba House “debate.” Well, I’m not sure if there’s a more courageous dude in the House these days than Tom Perriello, who, among other things, unflinchingly keeps attending town halls, no matter how hostile the attendees are. Facing yet another tough crowd, here’s how he rose to the occasion:

“Let me start by saying, I cannot imagine wanting the government to be able to tell me and my faith community where we can build a house of worship on private property,” Perriello said. “… I have opinions on whether it’s a good idea or not, but … compared to the importance of solving the economy right now… this is a distraction of what our biggest priorities should be.”

The crowd overwhelmingly applauded his answer.

A lot of Democrats could learn a lot from this man.

• DE-Sen: Looks like New York mayor Michael Bloomberg had to show some of that patented post-partisanship, having endorsed Joe Sestak in Pennsylvania yesterday. He offered a counterpoint in the form of an endorsement of Mike Castle in Delaware as well, and is doing a New York-based fundraiser for him tonight.

• IN-Sen: That grinding sound you hear is old-school Republican Dan Coats shifting gears, trying to fit into the Tea Party template. Having won the Republican Senate nomination in Indiana probably with big help from the split among teabagger votes between Marlin Stutzman and John Hostettler, he’s now working on outreach to that set, trying to keep the focus on financial issues.

• LA-Sen: Chet Traylor (who’s been seen polling in the single digits in polls we’ve seen so far of the Republican Senate primary) is out with an internal poll that purports to have him within striking distance of incumbent David Vitter. The poll by Verne Kennedy gives Vitter a 46-34 lead, keeping Vitter down in runoff territory. However, there’s a huge caveat: that number comes after voters were informed about Vitter’s use of prostitutes and employment of sociopathic aides, and there’s no word of what the non-informed toplines were. Meanwhile, Traylor seems to be gaining little momentum on the fundraising front: he’s filed a fundraising report showing he’s raised $42K since announcing his bid last month, and has $41K on hand.

• NH-Sen: Bill Binnie, with little time left to catch up to Kelly Ayotte in the GOP primary, is defying orders from state party boss John Sununu to keep everything positive, and is rolling out two negative ads against Ayotte. Both ads focus on her time as Attorney General and her failure to pick up on anything wrong at Financial Resources Mortgage, which engaged in large-scale fraud and then collapsed.

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin hasn’t wasted any time on the fundraising front. He’s raised $410K already since declaring his candidacy last month, which may not initially seem like much but will go a long way in the cheap markets in West Virginia. Likely GOP opponent John Raese has raised only $30K, although he’s also poured $320K of his own money into the race.

• IA-Gov, IA-Sen: Local GOP blog The Iowa Republican commissioned some polls of Iowa through Voter/Consumer Research. In a non-surprise, the Republicans are leading. Terry Branstad leads Chet Culver 53-35 in the gubernatorial race and Chuck Grassley leads Roxanne Conlin 59-33 in the Senate race. (Down the ballot, though, things look OK for Dems in the AG, Treasurer, and Supreme Court races.)

• OH-Gov: This goes in the “nice work if you can get it” file. In further evidence of the high-dollar revolving door between politics and academia, there are more details out on John Kasich’s rich-guy sinecure at Ohio State University over the last decade. For instance, during 2008 he made $50K from OSU, but worked about four hours a month there, essentially making $4,000 for each visit to campus.

• PA-Gov: While the Dems got good news yesterday in the Senate race in Pennsylvania with the dropout of the Green Party candidate, they got bad news in the gubernatorial race today with the dropout of John Krupa. Krupa was running as the Tea Party candidate, but had to pull the plug after a GOP petition challenge left him with too few signatures.

• AZ-03: It looks like Ben Quayle’s week or two in the sun is pretty much over after a one-two punch of salacious website revelations and his own incompetent TV ad; conventional wisdom is treating him as having plunged out of front-runner status in the GOP primary in the open seat 3rd. Self-funding businessman Steve Moak seems to have that role now, followed by underfunded but better-known state Sen. Jim Waring. (The article alludes to polling, but irritatingly doesn’t offer any specifics.)

• FL-17: The Miami Herald offers interesting profiles of all nine Democrats competing in the primary to replace retiring Rep. Kendrick Meek. This dark-blue seat may be, of all the nation’s open seats, the one we’re most starved for information about, so it remains to be seen whether we can get an upgrade from Meek (who voted with an eye always toward his next promotion) in this seat.

• New York: Wow, there’s a serious race to the bottom going on among the New York House delegation, with regards to Cordoba House: Mike McMahon, Tim Bishop, and even non-endangered Steve Israel all offered statements saying they should look elsewhere to build. This is playing out most interestingly in NY-24, where Richard Hanna — one of the few conspicuously moderate Republicans on the front lines this year — offered support for the project last week. Then Dem Mike Arcuri came out in opposition… and Hanna, realized he was getting outflanked on the right, did a 180 and is now against it too. While it’s nice to see a GOPer getting caught in such a transparent and ad-worthy flip-flop, is this the kind of high-ground-ceding way we want to do it?

• NRCC: Everyone seems abuzz that the NRCC is out with its list of 40 targeted districts today and its plan to spend $22 million (more than their current $17 mil CoH). It’s worth noting, though, that unlike the DCCC’s $49 mil list of 60 districts from July, these aren’t even reservations (which require deposits – or a willingness to seriously piss off television stations if you try to cancel), only a telegraphing of their plans, so things may change. (They may also roll out more in two steps, as did the DCCC.) Most of the buzzing is about what got left out. (Where are the defenses in LA-02 and HI-01? There’s a grand total of one defensive buy: the open seat in IL-10.) National Journal also has an interesting analysis of the method behind the NRCC’s madness, noticing that they’re playing Moneyball, focusing on the cheaper media markets and letting some of the more expensive East Coast markets slide.

• Ads: Lots of ad miscellany today, starting with big buys from Karl Rove-linked GOP group American Crossroads, which is spending $425K on an anti-Michael Bennet piece in CO-Sen, and $500K on a pro-Rob Portman (doesn’t he have his own money?) spot in OH-Sen. Dina Titus and Betsy Markey, freshman Dems in tough defenses in NV-03 and CO-04, are both on the air with new spots with a similar strategy: go negative on TARP (they’re inoculated from it, not having been in Congress in the previous cycle). Finally, Scott Murphy is dipping into his huge cash stash with his first ad in NY-20, a feel-good piece featuring his enormous family that (like Stephanie Herseth Sandlin’s ad) traffics in the metaphor that Washington sometimes eats too much (although luckily this ad doesn’t show anyone pooping).

• Rasmussen:

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 37%, Rob Portman (R) 45%

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 37%, Pat Toomey (R) 46%

FL-Sen: As any attentive swingnut will now tell you, when you hear “Jeff Greene” and “Cuba” in the same sentence, you’re gonna think of the booze cruise he took their on his vomit-caked yacht a few years back. Well, Greene is (desperately?) trying to change the subject, saying that he now is open to lifting the Cuban embargo. Less than two weeks ago, though, he declared his firm support for it. Perhaps running to the right on Cuba is no longer the automatic option in Democratic primaries in Florida?

LA-Sen: Charlie Melancon has a new ad up just lacerating David Vitter for his record on women’s issues. I highly suggest you check it out – I think it’s very well done. NWOTSOTB, but Josh Kraushaar says the ad “is airing on broadcast and cable television throughout the state.”

MA-Sen: In a long profile with the Boston Globe, Vicki Kennedy (Ted’s widow) says she won’t challenge Scott Brown in 2012.

MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan is up with her first ad of the cycle, a negative spot hitting Roy Blunt for his support of the bailout. NWOTSOTB, but the ad (which you can view here) “is running statewide.”

SC-Sen: Looks like we’re stuck with the recently-indicted Alvin Greene as our candidate. In fact, say local election officials, “even if he were to be convicted before the election, the law appears to read that he could still serve and be on the ballot.” Memo to all state Democratic parties everywhere: Fix your bylaws!

FL-Gov: Dem Alex Sink is up with her first ad, ribbing her Republican rivals for their negative campaigning against each other. The Orlando Sentinel says that Sink “has bought $950,000 in TV from now through the Aug. 24 primary,” but I’m not sure if all of that is devoted to this one ad.

GA-Gov: It’s a continuing theme this digest: Roy Barnes is also up with his first ad of the general election, hitting Nathan Deal for his ethical issues. (Recall that Deal resigned from Congress earlier this year to avoid an Ethics Committee investigation.) NWOTSOTB.

TN-Gov: One more: Republican Bill Haslam is on the air with his first ad of the general election campaign, a super-cheesy one-minute spot in which (among other things) he name-checks his opponent’s dad, former Gov. Ned McWherter. NWOTSOTB.

WI-Gov: Obama alert! The POTUS will stop in Milwaukee on Monday to do a fundraiser for Dem gubernatorial candidate Tom Barrett. Nice to see that a guy like Barrett, running in a swing state which probably doesn’t feel too warmly toward Obama these days, isn’t afraid to appear with the president.

AZ-03: Ben Quayle seems to be acting like one of those defendants whose attorneys are begging him to stop talking to the papers, but who just can’t shut up. He put out a statement berating his opponents and the media for linking him to the sickeningly odious “Dirty Scottsdale” website (now thedirty.com – not linking them)… which of course can only have the effect of keeping this story alive even longer. Wonder where he gets these genius genes from….

AZ-08: Air Force vet Brian Miller, citing a lack of money, announced he was dropping out of the Republican primary and endorsing former state Sen. Jonathan Paton, rather than fellow veteran Jesse Kelly.

CA-52: Uh, wow. Just read the link.

CO-04: The conservative 501(c)4 group “Americans for Prosperity” is launching a $330K ad buy against Dem Rep. Betsy Markey. You can view the ad (which does not strike me as having the highest of production values) here.

IL-10: Both Dan Seals and his Republican opponent, Bob Dold!, are up on cable with their first ads of the general election. NWOTSOTB (either of them).

MA-10: Republican Jeff Perry’s resume takes another hit – literally. Turns out he’d been touting a “degree” he earned from a school called Columbia State University… which was, in fact, a notorious diploma mill until it was shut down by the authorities. Cape Cod Today was first on the story, and now it’s being picked up in other media outlets as well.

MI-01: Major bummer: State Sen. Jason Allen, who trails physician Dan Benishek by just fifteen votes following a re-canvass, won’t seek a recount. Still, I think Dems probably got our preferred candidate here.

NY-19: Rep. John Hall is trying to knock his Republican opponent, Nan Hayworth, off the Independence Party line, saying that her petitions contain too many invalid signatures.

NY-24: GOPer Richard Hanna is up with his first ad of the election campaign, a positive bio spot. NWOTSOTB.

PA-06, PA-07: Howard Dean is coming to suburban Philly next month to do a joint fundraiser for two Dems, Manan Trivedi and Bryan Lentz.

SD-AL: Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin has a new ad up (“running statewide,” but NWOTSOTB) which features her two-year-old son pooping. Not kidding. Supposedly this is some kind of analogy to Congress (which likes to “eat, and eat, and eat”) that I am truly not getting.

• CT-Sen: This may be the first time we’ve ever linked to Jezebel, but they have a nice deconstruction of the public face of the new image that Linda McMahon has built up for herself, and its complicated relationship to the WWE, the source of the millions that Linda McMahon plans to spend on her Senate bid. (Although I wish they’d focused more on the behind-the-scenes stuff: the steroids, the lack of health care, the union-busting, and so on…)

• KY-Sen: Is this really the kind of headlines that Rand Paul (or any candidate, for any office) would want to be seeing today? “Woman Says Paul Did Not Kidnap Her,” and “Paul Apologizes for Fancy Farm Beer Flub.” The former story isn’t that surprising, in that Paul’s college acquaintance clarifies that the whole let’s-tie-her-up-make-her-smoke-pot-and-pray-to-a-graven-idol thing was more of a consensual hazing than an out-and-out kidnapping (of course, other than the “kidnapping” semantics, all that Bong Hits for Aqua Buddha stuff still seems to stand). The latter story has its roots in Paul’s worries that the audience at the Fancy Farm church picnic (the same ones who got the vapors last year when Jack Conway used the words “son of a bitch”) were going to start throwing beer at him – even though the event was dry. Having realized that you don’t go around dissing politically-legendary church picnics unless you have the political instincts of a brick, Paul later apologized.

• LA-Sen: Southern Media & Opinion Research finds that David Vitter leads Charlie Melancon 46-28, not much changed since their last poll from spring, where Vitter led 49-31. They also take a look at the Republican Senate primary, finding (as did POS a few weeks ago) that Chet Traylor is really turning into something of a paper tiger: Vitter leads Traylor 78-4! They also do a quick look at the jungle-style Lt. Governor special election, giving the lead to current Republican SoS Jay Dardenne at 26.

• OR-Gov: Well, it seems like the John Kitzhaber campaign has finally acknowledged what the blogosphere realized a while ago, that it’s time to shake things up and bring in a more feisty and uptempo approach. That’s hopefully what they’re doing with a new campaign manager, Patricia McCaig. Interestingly, McCaig is a former right-hand woman to ex-Gov. Barbara Roberts, who Kitzhaber shoved over in 1994 and whose relations with Kitz have been rocky since then.

• AZ-03: Will today’s double-whammy be enough to knock Ben Quayle out of his seeming frontrunner position in the GOP primary in the 3rd? Rocked by controversy over having denied and then having gotten outed as having written pseudonymously for sleazy local website DirtyScottsdale.com (a forerunner to today’s TheDirty.com), he’s out with a TV spot that he hopes will take some of the heat off. Unfortunately for him, the ad seems to have gotten an almost universally derisive reaction, based on his odd combination of hyperbolic claims (“Barack Obama is the worst president in history”), slow, droning delivery, and strange robotic motions.

• IA-03: When we moved Leonard Boswell in the 3rd to Tossup a few weeks ago, we weren’t fooling around. A second Republican poll was released today giving his GOP challenger, state Sen. Brad Zaun, a decent-sized lead: Victory Enterprises, on behalf of the Polk County GOP and not the Zaun camp, finds a 45-38 lead for Zaun. (There was also a June poll giving Zaun a 41-32 lead. It was also by Victory Enterprises, and shared the same Republican-friendly party ID composition, but that one was for the Zaun campaign.)

• OR-05: He’s Scott Bruun, and he drives a truck. He also supports privatizing Social Security. Or doesn’t he? Bruun has reversed himself several times on how he frames the issue, depending on who his audience is, but either way, he seems to be relying on the Paul Ryan roadmap for his ideas.

• Passages: Here’s a sad bookend to yesterday’s death of Ted Stevens: today’s death of another legendary, long-time Congressman who was a master at horse-trading and pork-wrangling, this one from the other side of the aisle. Former Rep. Dan Rostenkowski, one of the biggest Democratic names to fall in 1994, died at age 82.

• Rasmussen:

• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek (D) 21%, Marco Rubio (R) 38%, Charlie Crist (I) 33%

• FL-Sen: Jeff Greene (D) 20%, Marco Rubio (R) 36%, Charlie Crist (I) 37%

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 40%, Mark Kirk (R) 40%

• TN-Gov: Mike McWherter (D) 31%, Bill Haslam (R) 56%

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

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold (D-inc) 48%, Dave Westlake (R) 39%

• AK-Sen: You might have seen mention at other sites of a Tea Party Express “poll” of the GOP Senate primary in Alaska that had Joe Miller within 9 points of Lisa Murkowski. Mother Jones has been digging around, trying to find the poll, and can find no confirmation of its existence or even word of who took the poll, from either the Miller campaign or TPE.

• CO-Sen: Jane Norton’s closing argument wasn’t about how great she was, but rather about her “concerns” with Ken Buck. Her interview with Politico this morning alluded to his “issues with spending and ethics.”

• IL-Sen: If all else fails, try tying your opponent to Saddam Hussein. That’s what Mark Kirk’s attempting, with an ad that accuses Broadway Bank of having made a 2006 loan to an Iraqi businessman with some sort of Hussein connections. Alexi Giannoulias pointed out that was after he’d already left the bank, but I think a better argument would be that Saddam Hussein was played in South Park Bigger Longer & Uncut by Matt Stone, who was in Baseketball with Greg Grunberg, who was in Hollow Man with Kevin Bacon.

• LA-Sen: Charlie Melancon is out with his very first TV ad, as he and GOP candidate Chet Traylor try to put the squeeze on David Vitter from both directions. The ad (NWOTSOTB for $115K) launches a direct hit on how Vitter “hasn’t been honest.”

• PA-Sen: Pat Toomey is out with yet another TV ad, a negative ad against opponent Joe Sestak. Their only word on the size of the buy is “significant.” The Toomey campaign has been on the air with at least five different ads for a month now, without seeming to budge the poll numbers at all. Sestak hasn’t hit the TV airwaves yet, and seems to, as was the case with his successful primary bid, marshalling his resources for a large salvo closer to the election.

• KS-Gov: Wow, check out the opponent Sam Brownback dispatched in the GOP gubernatorial primary, if you’re in the mood for serious nutjobbery. Joan Heffington alleges “CIA infiltration of western Kansas” and has faced sanctions for practicing law without a license. At any rate, having garnered 15% in the GOP primary, she’s now saying she’s a GDI (God-driven independent) and shouldn’t have gotten suckered into that whole Republican racket in the first place, and as such is launching a write-in candidacy for November.

• MI-Gov: You may remember state Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith, who pulled the plug on her gubernatorial candidacy on the day of the filing deadline, saying she didn’t want to split the progressive vote (and thus giving a big boost to Lansing mayor and eventual primary winner Virg Bernero). Probably figuring that Bernero owes her big-time and also that he’d like some diversity on the ticket, Smith is now floating her own name for the Lt. Governor slot.

• NY-Gov: GOP gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino has gone ahead and pulled the trigger on creating his own ballot line, the Taxpayers Party. It still remains a completely open question as to whether he plans to run on it if he loses the GOP primary, though. (He originally said he wouldn’t be a spoiler in the race against Andrew Cuomo, but then changed to an “options open” position.)

• IL-10: Dan Seals got apparently re-endorsed by the Illinois Federation of Teachers today. (He also had their backing in the Dem primary against Julie Hamos.)

• IL-11: Rep. Debbie Halvorson didn’t start out near the top of anyone’s list of vulnerable Democrats, but she’s starting to earn her position there. Republican opponent Adam Kinzinger has issued a second internal poll (the first one was in March) giving him a lead over Halvorson. The poll from POS gives him a 51-40 edge. (The article, however, helpfully points out that POS saw Halvorson with only a 2-point lead over the hapless Marty Ozinga six weeks before the election in 2008, a race which she went on to win by 24. Update: In 2008, we wrote about that POS poll here.)

• IN-02: Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly, no stranger to occasional use of conservative framing, goes an extra step in his new TV ad hating on those immigrants, using a photo of Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama when saying how he stands apart from “the Washington crowd.” John Boehner’s lurking in the photo’s background, too, so at least it’s bipartisan.

• KS-01: Wow, SurveyUSA sure likes polling KS-01, probably one of the likeliest races in the country to stay red. (Or at least KWCH-TV sure likes paying them to poll it.) They find Republican state Sen. Tim Huelskamp, who just won the primary, leading Dem Alan Jilka 65-23. (Jilka is a former mayor of Salina, which may actually make him a pretty big ‘get’ as far as this hopeless district goes.)

• NH-02: When is a lobbyist not a lobbyist? It turns out that Katrina Swett, who has denied (gasp) lobbying, in fact filled out the required federal paperwork in 1997 to register as a lobbyist, although now her defense is that she never actually got around to lobbying once she registered. Swett has previously been attacking Dem primary foe Ann McLane Kuster for her own previous lobbying work.

• TX-17: Rep. Chet Edwards got a key endorsement in this dark-red, largely rural Texas district: he got the backing of the NRA. It may seem odd to see so many conservaDems getting NRA backing, but the NRA’s policy is where there are two equally pro-gun candidates, the incumbent gets the nod.

• WV-01: Alan Mollohan 2.0? The man is actually talking like he’s eyeing a 2012 comeback, having filed FEC paperwork setting up a 2012 candidacy (although it’s unclear whether that was just to have a fundraising receptacle for donors’ funds to repay a personal loan to his committee). He also just issued a long memo to supporters, bashing, well, everyone, ranging from Republican House members who pursued ethics complaints against him while they were in charge, to Mike Oliverio, who he says defeated him in this year’s Dem primary using those discredited charges.

• Census: Next time a Republican complains to you about the ineffective, bloated government, point him in the direction of the Census, which just came in $1.6 billion under budget (out of a total $14.7 billion appropriated) as it wraps up its main phase. A solid 72% initial response rate helped save money on the inevitable follow-up process.

• Passages: Sadly, today we bid farewell to Ted Stevens, the long-serving Republican Senator from Alaska and chronicler of the inner workings of the series of tubes. Stevens died last night in a plane crash near the town of Dillingham, at the age of 86. Stevens was the survivor of a previous 1978 plane crash, which killed his first wife. We offer our best wishes to his friends and family.

• Rasmussen:

• IA-Sen: Roxanne Conlin (D) 35%, Chuck Grassley (R-inc) 55%

• IN-Sen: Brad Ellsworth (D) 29%, Dan Coats (R) 50%

• NH-Gov: John Lynch (D-inc) 50%, John Stephen (R) 39%

I’m going to do one of these on the first Monday of every month between now and election day. Though I expect movement in most of these races it is time to do away with the tossup cop out and get off the fence!

Rankings are ‘Tilt’ (less than 5 point race), ‘Lean’ (5-10 point race) and ‘Favored ‘(10-20 point race). Anything beyond that is ‘Solid’ for either party.

SENATE

Dem Tilt

IL (Absolute deadheat but since the topic of conversation is all about Kirk I’m giving it Alexi in such a blue state.)

NV (I’m less certain this is has become clear cut as some but Reid has definitely moved ahead at least for now.)

WI (Feingold never wins by whopping margins and races in Wisconsin always seem closer than most.)

WA (No fireable offence from Murray and decent approvals. Rossi has baggage and is only close because of the cycle.)

Rep Tilt

PA (Small lead for Toomey right now but I expect Sestak to improve his position when he gets better known.)

CO (Until the latest SurveyUSA poll both Buck and Norton lead both Dems. Until the primary shakes itself out we aren’t going to see movement.)

KY (Paul has the lead because he has kept his mouth shut lately. Hopefully ads and debates will help Conway.)

OH (I fear this is a huge missed opportunity. Portman is ripe for attack but Fisher doesn’t have resources to do it.)

MO (Will be close until the end and I still think Robin can do it despite the unsavory environment.)

NH (Ayotte has clearly been hurt recently but I’m skeptical Hodes can get over the top in this one.)

Dem Lean

CA (Small percentage lead for Boxer but much harder for a Republican to close that gap in real votes in California.)

FL*(I’m counting Crist as a Dem pickup though I still think there is a chance he caucuses with the GOP.)

Rep Lean

NC (Don’t see Burr losing here. Not this year, not with his CoH advantage.)

Dem Favored

CT (Blumenthal should be fine since he managed to ride out his exaggerations far better than Mark Kirk.)

WV (Without Capito in the race Manchin should be fine so long as he doesn’t coast.)

Rep Favored

IN (Ellsworth’s problem is name recognition and bad environment. He will close here fast but not sure fast enough.)

LA (Melancon is doing well just to keep this remotely competitive. The electorate wants someone to oppose Obama 100%.)

AR (Blanche shocked everybody once so can she do it again? No. Though I think it will be closer by election day.)

DE (Coons will surprise many and narrow the gap further as we go on but like IN I’m not sure it will be enough.)

We can put ND safely in the GOP column.

GOVERNORS

Dem Tilt

OR (Polls are tied but have to give it to Kitzhaber for his campaigning skills and the lean of the state.)

MN (Emmer is killing himself rather than anything the Dems are doing. I think Dayton will get a clear win in the end.)

RI*(I’m counting Chafee as a Dem since he is arguably more liberal than the actual Dem nominee.)

MD (O’Malley hasn’t committed a fireable offense and has decent approvals. Lean of the state should be enough.)

FL (The Republicans have nuked each other and Chiles looks like a non-factor.)

MA (Deval seems to be improving his approvals and Cahill means he has a decent shot at re-election.)

CA (Once Brown starts running ads he should be ok in such a blue state.)

Rep Tilt

GA (Barnes is an underdog in a red state but he is closer than he should be. Both Republicans have skeletons.)

IL (Brady leads but the lean of the state may be enough yet for Quinn if he can paint his opponent as too far right.)

ME (LePage is ahead but like in RI anything could happen here including an indie win.)

OH (Polling is mixed here but my best guess is Kasich has a narrow lead. Strickland can still pull it out though.)

VT (Dubie ahead here but probably more to do with name recognition than anything else. Suspect it will be close.)

TX (Bill White is doing a great job here but I expect the year and state is just too Republican.)

NM (Martinez with a small lead but Denish can win if she is able to seperate herself from Bill Richardson.)

WI (Small leads for both Republicans but Barrett was as good a nominee as Dems could get here. Still possible.)

Dem Lean

CO (What a mess for the GOP! Hick should win easily here unless McInnis drops out post-primary.)

CT (Lamont really should win this one and I think he will.)

Rep Lean

AZ (Great change in fortunes for Brewer. Maybe Goddard can make this close but I have my doubts.)

MI (Post-primary this may get interesting, especially if Hoekstra is the GOP nominee.)

PA (Onorato will close when he gets his name recognition up but PA has a pattern here that likely won’t change.)

OK (Not as big a Fallin lead as I expected but the year and state makes it very hard for Askins.)

Dem Favored

HI (Abercrombie has a big lead and should win this going away.)

Rep Favored

IA (Branstad is popular and Culver is not. Only one outcome looks likely here.)

NV (Maybe Harry’s improving fortunes helps Rory but Sandoval is no Sharron Angle!)

AL (Sparks is probably as good as it gets for Dems but a fresh face in Bentley in a GOP year makes this very tough.)

ID (Not as big a lead for the GOP as one would expect but it is still Idaho.)

KS (Brownback isn’t exactly loved by the entire KS GOP but I can’t see anything but a Holland defeat here.)

SC (Sheheen may shock people but again, red state in a terrible year for Dems means Governor Haley.)

SD (Daugaaurd is popular and once again, red state, GOP year.)

TN (McWherter is not his dad and the polls are ugly.)

UT (Herbert has anemic poll leads but it is Utah!)

Projection

SENATE – GOP +5

GOVERNORS – GOP +5

We’re back from a successful Netroots Nation, and in the midst of sweeping up from half a week of limited posting, we’re going to do a polls-only digest first and tackle the rest of the damage later today.

• AK-Sen (pdf): Local pollster Ivan Moore is out with the first (and probably only) public look at the Republican primary between incumbent establishment figure Lisa Murkowski and Tea Party fave (and proxy for foxy GOP doxy Sarah Palin) Joe Miller. Y’know what? Alaskans know that their local economy is largely propped up with federal dollars, and the teabagger message isn’t likely to have much resonance here, no matter how much pro-gun posturing it gets dressed up in. The poll finds Murkowski with 53/29 positives, and a 62-30 lead over Miller.

• FL-Sen, FL-Gov (pdf): The Attack of the Shady Billionaires seems to continue unabated, as they pour even more money into advertising. PPP looks at both of their primaries. It’s still a close race in the Democratic Senate primary, where Rep. Kendrick Meek leads the yacht-crashing Jeff Greene 28-25 (with Tom Jensen observing “Democratic voters seem uninterested in this election,” with many of them already having settled on Charlie Crist). In the GOP gubernatorial primary, Columbia/HCA-crashing Rick Scott is in firm control, though, leading AG Bill McCollum 43-29. McCollum’s favorables among Republicans are a horrible 26/40, while Scott’s are 35/32.

• KY-Sen: Another public poll places the Kentucky Senate race in near-dead heat territory. Braun Research, on behalf of local politics website cn|2, finds Rand Paul with a 41-38 lead over Jack Conway. Conway has substantial leads among moderates (52-18) and among women (43-36).

• LA-Sen: The Charlie Melancon camp and the NRSC exchanged fire over the last few days, issuing dueling internal polls with dramatically different takes on their races. Melancon struck first with an Anzalone Liszt internal showing a much closer race than anyone has seen before: David Vitter led Melancon only 44-43 (the previous A-L internals had 10-point spreads). The NRSC responded with a POS poll over the weekend, giving Vitter a more predictable 48-31 lead when including leaners. Maybe more importantly, this poll is the first look at the GOP primary, and it shows Vitter may not have too much trouble with it: he claims a 76-5 lead over Chet Traylor.

• NC-Sen: Here’s one more Democratic internal that really serves to shake up what’s been considered a Republican-leaning race. The Elaine Marshall camp released a poll from Lake Research last Thursday giving her a 37-35 lead over Richard Burr (with 5 to Libertarian Mike Beitler). Burr’s favorables are 34/43, and he has a re-elect of 25/31, numbers no incumbent would like to see.

• GA-Gov (pdf): I have trouble believing this one, but maybe Nathan Deal, who seems to be staking out more conservative turf than Karen Handel, is consolidating more of the votes of the various primary losers than is Handel. Deal is out with a new internal, from McLaughlin & Associates, giving him a 39-38 lead over Handel in the GOP gubernatorial (or goober-natorial, in Georgia) runoff. 56% of respondents say Deal is conservative, while 35% say Handel is and 30% call her a moderate.

• MI-Gov: A new poll of the Democratic primary from Inside Michigan Politics gives a different result from just about everybody else: they give a significant lead to Virg Bernero, who leads Andy Dillon 36-22. The article is strangely silent on other details about the poll, especially the issue of sample size, where Inside Michigan Politics has been pushing the limits of credibility.

• OK-Gov: SoonerPoll.com, on behalf of the Tulsa World, is out with what’s probably the last word on the gubernatorial race before this Tuesday’s primaries. Tuesday night looks to be pretty drama-free: on the Dem side, AG Drew Edmondson leads LG Jari Askins 49-33 (up from a 10-point gap in their previous poll, way back in January). For the GOPers, Rep. Mary Fallin leads state Sen. Randy Brogdon 56-18 (which is actually a drop for Fallin from the last poll). They also look ahead to November matchups, finding Fallin leading Edmondson 47-39 and Askins 46-40.

• TN-Gov: The Tennessee primary will also be fast upon us, and Mason-Dixon, on behalf of the Tennessee Newspaper Network, takes their first look at the GOP gubernatorial primary there. Like other recent polls, they give the edge to Knoxville mayor Bill Haslam, who’s at 36. Rep. (and now, apparently, aspiring secessionist) Zach Wamp is at 25, and Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey is at 20. (All three candidates are from the eastern third of the state, and western Tennesseeans are disproportionately undecided (29%). That would tend to benefit the biggest advertiser, which is Haslam.) Mason-Dixon also tried out November matchups, finding Dem Mike McWherter looking DOA against the sorta-moderate Haslam, 49-31, but in closer races against the more strident Wamp (45-38) and Ramsey (43-38).

• PA-03: There’s one House internal to mention, and, as has been the trend lately, it’s from a Republican. It’s from a race that been on most people’s back-burners; we’ll have to see if this raises auto dealer Mike Kelly’s profile. Kelly’s own poll, via the Tarrance Group, give him a 48-37 lead over freshman Dem Kathy Dahlkemper.

• Rasmussen

• AR-Gov: Mike Beebe (D-inc) 50%, Jim Keet (R) 40%

• AR-Sen: Blanche Lincoln (D-inc) 35%, John Boozman (R) 60%

• AZ-Gov: Terry Goddard (D) 37%, Jan Brewer (R-inc) 56%

• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek (D) 20%, Marco Rubio (R) 35%, Charlie Crist (I) 33%

• FL-Sen: Jeff Greene (D) 19%, Marco Rubio (R) 34%, Charlie Crist (I) 36%

• GA-Gov: Roy Barnes (D) 43%, Nathan Deal (R) 49%

• GA-Gov: Roy Barnes (D) 44%, Karen Handel (R) 45%

• ID-Gov: Keith Allred (D) 36%, Butch Otter (R-inc) 53%

• ND-AL: Earl Pomeroy (D-inc) 46%, Rick Berg (R) 49%

• NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo (D) 58%, Rick Lazio (R) 27%

• NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo (D) 58%, Carl Paladino (R) 29%

• RI-Gov: Frank Caprio (D) 30%, John Robitaille (R) 23%, Lincoln Chafee (I) 37%

• RI-Gov: Frank Caprio (D) 33%, Victor Moffitt (R) 18%, Lincoln Chafee (I) 36%

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 51%, John Raese (R) 35%