Tag: Donn James

• AK-Sen: Joe Miller has two things going for him in the Alaska GOP Senate primary: the endorsements of Sarah Palin and Mike Huckabee. On the other hand, Lisa Murkowski has the backing of about 1.9 million dead presidents behind her. That’s her cash on hand, based on $300K raised in July and early August. Miller raised only $68K in that span and now has $84K CoH.

• KS-Sen, KS-Gov: SurveyUSA, no stranger to Republican-friendly samples lately, comes up with quite the GOP wipeout in Kansas. They find Republican Rep. Jerry Moran leading Lisa Johnston in the Senate race, 69-23, and find Sam Brownback leading state Sen. Tom Holland in the gubernatorial race, 67-25. They even find several Dem incumbents losing to GOP challengers in downballot races. It may be worth, noting, however, the disparity in self-described ideology between this sample and the 2008 exit polls: this poll is 49 conservative, 37 moderate, 9 liberal, compared with 2008’s 45 moderate, 38 conservative, 16 liberal.

• NV-Sen: With her endorsement percentage starting to trend steeply downward (with last night’s losses by Rita Meyer and Clint Didier), Sarah Palin’s trying out a new angle, literally. She’s backing Sharron Angle in Nevada, saying she’ll “actively help” her and that Angle “is putting up with more crap than she deserves.” Palin avoided getting involved in the primary, probably in large part because of other family members’ support for Danny Tarkanian.

• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov (pdf): Siena’s out with another look at the big-ticket races in New York, finding the same-old same-old. Kirsten Gillibrand leads Bruce Blakeman 55-28, Joe DioGuardi 54-29, and David Malpass 55-27. DioGuardi is on track to win the GOP Senate primary, leading Blakeman and Malpass 19-8-5. And Andrew Cuomo is even more dominant, leading Rick Lazio 60-26 and Carl Paladino 60-27. Lazio leads Paladino 43-30 in the GOP primary, much closer than previous months. Further down the ballot, they find incumbent Dem comptroller Tom DiNapoli leading Harry Wilson 46-28, and Dems leading a generic ballot-type question about the state legislature, 33-27.

• CO-Gov: Dan Maes picked his running mate: former state Rep. and former Dept. of Regulatory Agencies head Tambor Williams. Williams seems to actually be something of a moderate by today’s GOP standards, which is an interesting act of ticket-balancing by the wackadoodle Maes (although you have to wonder how “moderate” someone willing to be joined at the hip to Maes can be). Meanwhile, Tom Tancredo is focusing most of his fire on Maes, not on John Hickenlooper, attacking Maes’, well, utter lack of qualifications. Tancredo seems to realize that the only path to viability in this election as an indie is reducing Maes to the Alan Schlesinger-style single-digits role. And guess who’s throwing up their hands and walking away? The RGA, which according to several local Republicans, has confirmed it won’t be spending money in Colorado.

• ID-Gov, ID-01: We’ve gotten an inkling that the Idaho gubernatorial race (where GOP incumbent Butch Otter was elected with lackluster numbers in 2006) was possibly a real race, and these poll numbers seem to confirm it. I don’t know whether to call this a Republican poll (it’s taken by a local pollster who usually works for Republicans, Greg Strimple, on behalf of the Idaho Hospital Association) or an independent one, but either way, it’s not good news for the GOP. Otter leads Dem Keith Allred by only 47-36. Also good news: that Raul Labrador internal poll that had him losing by double digits was actually pretty optimistic, on his part. This sample sees Dem Walt Minnick beating Labrador by a startling 52-29 margin. Maybe all that chatter about the NRCC moving to write off this seat has some real roots.

• VT-Gov: Lone Republican Brian Dubie is the fundraising leader in the decidedly small-dollar gubernatorial race in Vermont. Dubie has raised the most over the course of the campaign (slightly more than $1 million). (Maybe if Meg Whitman can’t win in California, she should consider moving to Vermont and buying the gubernatorial race here. In fact, maybe she should just consider buying the entire state of Vermont, which would still be cheaper than buying the gubernatorial race in California.) The Dems are all closely bunched, with Peter Shumlin and Deb Markowitz more or less tied for most raised. But all five major Dems are low on cash, each reporting less than $100K CoH (Matt Dunne has the most, at $83K). For some reason, the article doesn’t tell us Dubie’s CoH.

• GA-08: GOP state Rep. Austin Scott (following hot on the heels of fellow legislator and GA-02 candidate Mike Keown’s internal poll release) is out with an internal showing a competitive race against Rep. Jim Marshall. Marshall leads Scott 44-39 in the poll conducted in late July by American Viewpoint.

• MI-01: This has the potential to mightily reshuffle things in the open seat race in the 1st… or it could turn out to be so much wind in sails, as promises of massive self-funding usually are. Random teabagger and indie candidate Glenn Wilson is promising to spend $2 million of his own money in order to defeat Gary McDowell and Dan Benishek, the Dem and GOP nominees. In this rural seat with dirt-cheap media markets, that could go a long way toward blanketing the airwaves… but without the organizational backing that the party apparatuses provide, that seems like it still might not translate into actual votes.

• TN-08: Humble farmer/gospel singer and, in his spare time, director of Fight Club, Stephen Fincher is out with an internal poll from the Tarrance Group that gives him a lead over Democratic state Sen. Roy Herron in this open seat race. He claims a 47-37 lead, with conservative indie Donn James at 5, in a poll taken immediately post-primary. Herron, who avoided much trouble in the primary and was able to bank a lot of money, is already hitting Fincher with TV ads, though.

• RGA: One nice thing about the post-Citizens United universe is that it lets us see everything in the open that we’ve only just suspected in the past. Case in point: Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp. (the Fox News and WSJ parent corporation) just gave $1 million to the Republican Governors Association. Insert obvious snarky comment about “Fair and Balanced” here.

• Rasmussen:

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway (D) 40%, Rand Paul (R) 49%

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 47%, Sharron Angle (R) 47%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 40%, John Kasich (R) 48%

• PA-Gov: Dan Onorato (D) 38%, Tom Corbett (R) 48%

• Redistricting Contest: A reminder – if you haven’t sent in your .DRF.XML file to Jeff, please do so ASAP – jeffmd [at] swingstateproject [dot] com. Please be sure to include your SSP username and a link to your diary. Thanks! (D)

• AR-Sen: Alleged United States Senator Blanche Lincoln is whinging that actually doing her job in December cost her $300,000 in fundraising receipts. This is probably her way of saying her numbers will be lighter than expected this quarter. Why on earth would you go public with this, though? This is not exactly the kind of message you want to communicate to the public – or your opponents. (D)

• CA-Sen: A lot of Republicans seemed dismayed by Carla Fiorina’s suggestions a few months ago that she wasn’t going to be dipping into her personal money in order to fund her Senate bid – I mean, that was the whole point of her running, wasn’t it? At any rate, she’s just reversed course, with her latest finance report, which reveals that she loaned her campaign $2.5 million. Having burned through most of her outside donations, that leaves her with $2.7 million on hand.

• FL-Sen, FL-Gov: Charlie Crist’s message discipline seems to be gotten completely unglued, as he searches for the just-right pitch that’s moderate enough and yet conservative enough. Today, he’s acknowledging support for the stimulus package and “being nice” to Barack Obama, and not apologizing for either one. Meanwhile, there’s still that persistent rumor out there involving Crist bailing on the Senate race and going back to another term as Governor. That’s not happening if GOP AG Bill McCollum has anything to say about it; he says he won’t stand down for Crist.

• MA-Sen: Everyone’s still milling around waiting for that rumored close Boston Herald poll, but in the meantime, a new Democratic internal poll floated to the surface this morning, and it seems to give some credence to that Boston Globe/UNH poll that gave a solid 15-point margin to Democratic AG Martha Coakley. The internal, conducted by Mark Mellman’s firm, gives Coakley a 50-36 lead over Republican state Sen. Scott Brown, with Libertarian candidate Joe Kennedy (no relation to the Kennedy clan) pulling in a surprisingly-high 6 (which may be coming out of Brown’s share). If Brown has internals showing the race a dead heat like he claims, now would be the time for him to lay them on the table. Also today comes word that Barack Obama has no plans to campaign for Coakley, although I don’t know whether to interpret that as a sign of Democratic confidence, or of Obama not wanting to risk political capital on something that’s less than a slam dunk.

• ND-Sen: Gov. John Hoeven had said he needed a few weeks to get some stuff out of the way before saying anything official about the Senate race, but it looks like the stuff was more easily cleared away than anticipated: he’s now expected to announce his candidacy at an appearance at a GOP district convention in Bismarck tonight.  

• NY-Sen-B: Republican Rep. Peter King announced, for something like the third or fourth time, that he is no longer considering running for the Senate, and instead will run for another term in NY-03. Stay tuned for next month, when King will at some point remember that he hasn’t been on cable news for a while and will reveal that he’s considering a run for the Senate. Meanwhile, the political establishment is continuing to take seriously the possibility of a Harold Ford Jr. primary challenge to Kirsten Gillibrand, going all the way up to the White House, which today confirmed that it will back Gillibrand over Ford. Ford, meanwhile, is doing some serious remodeling of his image to better comport with New York codes: he’s now done a complete 180 on gay marriage, which he’s now for, and on abortion, where he claims that when he said he was pro-life, it was to “take back” the term from its right-wing appropriators. Finally, the Republicans will have to look elsewhere than ex-Rep. Susan Molinari for their nominee; after a brief flirtation, Molinari (who’s making big money consulting and probably doesn’t want the pay cut) just declined.

• UT-Sen: This should come as no surprise, but the NRSC, tasked with defending incumbents, confirmed that it’s supporting Bob Bennett in his re-election bid against several right-wing primary challengers. The Club for Growth has painted a bullseye on Bennett’s back, although they haven’t settled on which challenger to support.

• CO-Gov: Denver mayor John Hickenlooper hasn’t leaped as quickly into the Governor’s race (following the withdrawal of Bill Ritter and demurral of Ken Salazar) as many had expected; he’s saying he’ll make a decision within the next five days, so stay tuned. Former House speaker Andrew Romanoff, currently an invisible presence in the Senate primary, has also been consulting with Democratic officials about getting in, although it sounds like he’d do so only if Hickenlooper didn’t. Another rumor getting bandied about: Romanoff joining forces and running as Hickenlooper’s Lt. Gov. candidate; at any rate, it sounds like Romanoff is looking for an exit from the Senate race. Hickenlooper’s decision may get helped along by a certain Barack Obama, who apparently called Hickenlooper to encourage him to get into the race (Hickenlooper says that doesn’t change his decision, though).

• KS-Gov: Kansas Democrats are getting way, way down the totem pole as they look for a gubernatorial candidate, with Tom Wiggans’ recent withdrawal. Board of Regents chair Jill Docking, whose name frequently appears as Democrats’ Plan B in a variety of races, said she won’t run, and now the fickle finger seems to be pointing at Lawrence-area state Sen. Marci Francisco. (H/t Campaign Diaries.)

• MA-Gov: The Boston Globe/UNH poll of the Senate race also asked about 2010’s gubernatorial race, and it’s more confirmation for the apparent trend that Dem incumbent Deval Patrick seems bolstered by the presence of state Treasurer Tim Cahill’s independent bid (despite Patrick’s 39/50 favorables and Cahill’s 39/15). Rather than Cahill dominating the middle, as he may have expected, instead he just winds up splitting the anti-Patrick vote, leaving the race’s GOPers a distant third. A Patrick/Cahill/Charlie Baker ballot plays out 30-23-19, while Patrick/Cahill/Christy Mihos is a similar 32-23-19.

• CA-11: The GOP hasn’t quite found a top-tier candidate to take on Democratic Rep. Jerry McNerney, the only Golden State Dem who’s even remotely vulnerable. But they might get something of an upgrade with the newly-announced candidacy of David Harmer, the Republican attorney who acquitted himself fairly well in the special election last year in much bluer CA-10. He can bring residual name rec and fundraising connections to the race, and one of the race’s lesser lights, former San Jose city councilor Larry Pegram, is already moving to get out of the race. Still, Harmer doesn’t live in the district, and he exposes himself to the same carpetbagging charges he brought to his race against John Garamendi in the 10th.

• CA-19: Kevin McCarthy looks a little flaky after this whole incident: it was reported last Friday that the Bakersfield-area Republican was sticking with his earlier endorsement of state Sen. Jeff Denham in the 19th while admitting a bit of a man-crush on ex-Rep. Richard Pombo. But now the Fresno Bee is reporting that McCarthy has gone all the way, spurned Denham, and is now endorsing Pombo.

• HI-01: The local political establishment weighed in heavily on the side of state Sen. Colleen Hanabusa in the upcoming special election to replace resigning Rep. Neil Abercrombie. The decision of Sen. Daniel Akaka to endorse Hanabusa over his nemesis Ed Case should be no surprise, but this was accompanied by endorsements from the state’s other Senator, Daniel Inouye, and a variety of labor leaders as well. Case does have one endorsement which he’s touting in ads, though, from ex-Governor Ben Cayetano.

• NY-23: Doug Hoffman won’t have the GOP primary field to himself in the 23rd after all. He’ll face a fight with a fellow conservative, albeit more of a team player: Assemblyman Will Barclay, who passed on a run in the special election in the 23rd, says he’s begun exploring the general election race.

• OK-02: Rep. Dan Boren can always be counted on to say something douchey, and today’s no exception. He tells the Tulsa World (in an article titled “Boren: Democrats May Lose Congress”) that Dems are likely to lose seats in Congress, and that’s good news for Oklahoma and especially for him personally. “”In the 112th (Congress), I probably will have the most influence I have ever had, no matter who has the majority,” he says.

• TN-08: It remains to be seen how much of an impact this will have on the race to succeed retiring Dem Rep. John Tanner, but the Republican primary just shrunk by one: computer consultant Donn Janes has announced that he’s going to run instead as a Tea Party-aligned independent. (J)

• Mayors: That Rahm Emanuel-running-for-Chicago-mayor thing seemed to last a whole couple days. Emanuel yesterday praised Richard Daley and backed him for another term starting in 2011.

• Florida: For all the general black clouds hanging over the Democrats regarding 2010, there’s always a lot of nuts-and-bolts numbers that somehow still look favorable, such as party committee fundraising and registration numbers. In Florida, both are actually advantage Team Blue, as the state Democratic party is sitting on $2.6 million cash on hand, $1 million more than state Republicans. Democrats have also built up their registration advantage over Republicans in Florida, to a margin of more than 800,000.

• Tea Partiers: TPM has an interesting look at the civil war growing within the Tea Party movement, a microcosm of the larger civil war within the Republican party. Front and center today is the big teabaggers’ convention in Nashville (with Sarah Palin as keynoter), which is too expensive for many of the teabagging rank and file to attend, leading some to question whether there’s a usurpation of the movement by the Republicans’ Beltway professional class. Meanwhile, Think Progress has some new additions to its ongoing compendium of teabagger primary challenges to establishment GOPers.