Tag: Morgan Griffith

• ME-Sen: The attempt to primary out Olympia Snowe by the state’s various fractious Tea Party factions seems to be sputtering, partly for lack of a credible challenger to rally around (with Some Dude Scott D’Ambroise the only one officially in the race right now) but also as the various Judean People’s Front and People’s Front of Judea wings of the ‘baggers start to increasingly turn their fire on each other rather than on Democrats and alleged RINOs.

• MI-Sen: Joining a major law firm after an electoral loss isn’t, in itself, dispositive of future political runs a few years down the line. But observers are taking the decision by former AG Mike Cox (who lost last year’s GOP gubernatorial primary) to join a Detroit law firm as an indicator that he isn’t considering the 2012 Senate race.

• MO-Sen: There are increasing signals that Jim Talent may not run for Senate in 2012, after all. Dave Catanese talks to various Show Me State insiders who say that Talent hasn’t been doing the behind-the-scenes reaching-out that one usually does at this point, and they point to him not only having got caught off guard by Sarah Steelman’s abrupt early entry into the primary but also his close relationship with Mitt Romney. Talent is currently traveling with Romney in an advisory role in Afghanistan, and there’s speculation his 2012 plans may involve hitching his wagon to Romney in the hopes that he’s the next President and that a Cabinet role (SecDef?) may be in the offing.

• OH-Sen: With Mike DeWine having passed on a rematch against Sherrod Brown, the speculation has turned to newly-elected Lt. Gov. and former Auditor Mary Taylor. It sounds like she’s game; local insiders are saying she’s at “90%” in terms of likelihood of running. She may not have the field to herself even if she does, though; another newly-elected statewide GOPer, 33-year-old state Treasurer Josh Mandel has been impressing the local GOP in his first week on the job and is starting to attract some buzz for a quick promotion.

• WY-Sen: Wyoming promises to be the least dramatic state in the 2012 election, so PPP’s decision to poll here this early seems a little odd. At any rate, they find Wyomingites love their politicians: outgoing Dem Gov. Dave Freudenthal gets a 71/18 approval, making him the nation’s most popular governor, while the state’s two GOP Senators, John Barrasso (69/25) and Mike Enzi (63/24) are the nation’s two most popular Senators. Despite his popularity (and, well, despite the fact that he’s never expressed any interest in running for federal office), Freudenthal loses a hypothetical 2012 matchup against Barrasso, 56-36, thanks to the GOP’s huge registration advantage here.

• RI-Gov: There’s already one Dem reportedly gearing up for the 2014 Governor’s race: state Treasurer Gina Raimondo, who’s build a war chest and getting friendly with DC consultants. (Alternatively, she could also be running for Senate in 2014 instead, if Jack Reed isn’t running again.) No mention of whether she’d be challenging new indie Gov. Lincoln Chafee (last seen more or less declaring war on local talk radio) from the left or the right (as Frank Caprio tried to do, and failed).

• FL-14: With Rep. Connie Mack IV looking like one of the House’s likeliest retirements right now (in order to pursue a Senate bid against Bill Nelson), speculation has already begun about who’ll fill his seat. One thing is pretty predictable, given the Fort Myers-area district’s R+11 bent and lack of any Dem tradition or bench: it’ll be a Republican. GOP names to watch include ex-state Rep. Dudley Goodlette and Lee Co. Commissioner Ray Judah. The most prominent name, though, may be former Lt. Gov. Jeff Kottkamp (though he might have trouble getting out of a GOP primary unless he can find a way to wash the stank of the Charlie Crist administration off his suit). State Sen. Garrett Richter (whose district closely overlaps the 14th) says no thanks to the race.

• HI-01: GOP ex-Rep. Charles Djou, seeming a bit testy after the abrupt end to his very short tenure in the House, seems to have thrown all that feel-good ohana crap out the window in his exit press conference, blaming Dem successor Colleen Hanabusa in advance for expected future failures. He may feel free to speak his mind as he also says he has “no plans to run for any political office ever again.”

• NM-01: Rep. Martin Heinrich has already drawn some seemingly-credible Republican opposition for 2012, although he has the kind of district that seems much safer for a Dem in a presidential year than last year’s narrow win. Republican Albuquerque city councilor Dan Lewis has formed an exploratory committee.

• State legislatures: Two state House speaker elections are in the news today. The big one may be in Texas, where an expected coup from the right against GOP speaker Joe Straus didn’t ever seem to materialize. He got the support of 70 of 100 GOP House members in a pre-vote caucus, and then was easily elected to another term by the whole House. Meanwhile, in Oregon, an unusual power-sharing arrangement was cobbled together with a surprising degree of civility and equanimity, as the parties figure out how to grapple with a never-before 30-30 tie. GOPer Bruce Hanna and Dem Arnie Roblan will be co-speakers, handing the gavel to each other on alternating days.

• Special elections: Two southern states have special elections scheduled today, although there should be very little drama in any of the elections, as these are Republican-leaning districts replacing promoted Republican legislators in lightly-contested races (and icy conditions should reduce turnout to microscopic levels). In Mississippi, the races are to replace Alan Nunnelee in SD-6 and Steven Palazzo in HD-116. (With a recent party switch by state Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith, the GOP is poised to tie the state Senate with today’s election.) In Virginia, the races are to replace Robert Hurt in SD-19 and Morgan Griffith in HD-8.

• Primaries: In a nice bit of symmetry, two states are going in very different directions with their primary election rules. In Idaho, where the GOP seems fearful of meddling in its primaries by the state’s Democrat (I think his name is Jerry), the state GOP is pushing to change from open primaries to closed primaries. Meanwhile, in Louisiana, after a period of closed primaries for federal-level offices (which was extremely confusing, since they kept using open primaries for state offices), they’re expecting federal approval of a switch back to all open primaries this month. The state legislature has already approved it, but as a VRA state, they’re waiting for DOJ preclearance.

• Redistricting: Finally, here’s some redistricting news. Bob McDonnell has thrown a bone to fans of redistricting reform with the creation of a new redistricting commission with 11 members. It’s not a very interesting bone, though, since the commission’s role is purely advisory and the commission doesn’t even have a budget. Meanwhile, the Hill looks at what might happen to the House districts in New Jersey, a state where the hard work is actually done by commission (which has traditionally focused on incumbent protection, but has to eliminate one seat this year). For now, everyone is waiting for more complete Census figures to see if the population stagnation was more concentrated in the state’s north (which would probably hit the Dems) or the state’s middle (which would hit the GOP).

• AL-Gov (Univ. of S. Alabama): Ron Sparks (D) 35%, Robert Bentley (R) 48%

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov (Suffolk): Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 52%, Carly Fiorina (R) 43%; Jerry Brown (D) 50%, Meg Whitman (R) 42%

(Bonus: Kamala Harris leads Steve Cooley 35-34 in the AG race, and “no” leads “yes” on Prop 19 55-40)

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov (SurveyUSA for KABC): Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 45%, Carly Fiorina (R) 40%; Jerry Brown (D) 46%, Meg Whitman (R) 38%

(Bonus: Gavin Newsom leads Abel Maldonado 42-34 for LG, and “no” leads “yes” on Prop 19 46-44)

• CA-Sen, CA-Gov (PPP): Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 52%, Carly Fiorina (R) 43%; Jerry Brown (D) 53%, Meg Whitman (R) 42%

(Bonus: “no” leads “yes” on Prop 19 45-48)

• CA-20 (SurveyUSA for KFSN): Jim Costa (D-inc) 42%, Andy Vidak (R) 52%

(note: this poll population is 37% Hispanic, compared with 67% in reality) (also, the DCCC responded with a poll giving Costa a 47-41 lead, although they neglected to leak the pollster’s name) (UPDATE: The pollster is Bennet Petts & Normington, with the sample over the same 10/21-24 period as SurveyUSA)

• CT-Sen, CT-Gov (Quinnipiac): Richard Blumenthal (D) 54% (54), Linda McMahon (R) 42% (43); Dan Malloy (D) 48% (49), Tom Foley (R) 43% (42)

• FL-08 (Susquehanna for Sunshine State News): Alan Grayson (D-inc) 41% (36), Daniel Webster (R) 48% (43), Peg Dunmire (T) 4%

• GA-Gov (InsiderAdvantage): Roy Barnes (D) 41%, Nathan Deal (R) 47%, John Monds (L) 5%

• ID-Gov, ID-Sen, ID-01, ID-02 (Mason-Dixon for Idaho newspapers): Keith Allred (D) 30%, Butch Otter (R-inc) 52%; Tom Sullivan (D) 20%, Mike Crapo (R-inc) 64%; Walt Minnick (D-inc) 44%, Raul Labrador (R) 41%; Mike Crawford (D) 17%, Mike Simpson (R-inc) 67%

• IA-Gov (Global Strategy Group for Chet Culver): Chet Culver (D-inc) 40%, Terry Branstad (R) 46%

• IL-Gov (MarketShares for Chicago Tribune): Pat Quinn (D-inc) 39% (39), Bill Brady (R) 43% (38), Scott Lee Cohen (I) 5%, Rich Whitney (G) 4%, Lex Green (L) 2%

• IL-Sen (Anzalone-Liszt for DSCC): Alexi Giannoulias (D) 38%, Mark Kirk (R) 36%, LeAlan Jones (G) 7%, Mike Labno (L) 4%

• KY-Sen (PPP): Jack Conway (D) 40%, Rand Paul (R) 53%

• KY-03 (RiverCity for Todd Lally): John Yarmuth (D-inc) 41%, Todd Lally (R) 37% (note: n = only 239, yet they claim MoE of 4.5%)

• LA-02 (Anzalone-Liszt): Cedric Richmond (D) 49%, Joe Cao (R-inc) 32%

• MD-Sen (Baltimore Sun): Barb Mikulski (D-inc) 59%, Eric Wargotz (R) 32%

• NC-Sen (SurveyUSA for WRAL): Elaine Marshall (D) 38%, Richard Burr (R-inc) 53%, Mike Beitler (L) 5%

• NC-Sen (Tel Opinion Research for Civitas): Elaine Marshall (D) 34%, Richard Burr (R-inc) 44%, Mike Beitler (L) 4%

• NJ-03 (Monmouth): John Adler (D-inc) 43% (42), Jon Runyan (R) 48% (39)

• NJ-03 (Eagleton/Rutgers): John Adler (D-inc) 44%, Jon Runyan (R) 44%, Peter DeStefano (I) 4%

• NJ-06 (Monmouth): Frank Pallone (D-inc) 52% (53), Anna Little (R) 45% (41)

• NM-Gov (POS for Susana Martinez): Diane Denish (D) 42%, Susana Martinez (R) 50%

• NM-Gov (Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for Diane Denish): Diane Denish (D) 45%, Susana Martinez (R) 46%

• NY-20 (Siena): Scott Murphy (D-inc) 42% (54), Chris Gibson (R) 51% (37)

(The Murphy camp leaked an internal from Global Strategy Group today, although only saying a 3-point lead without specific toplines)

• OH-Gov, OH-Sen (Quinnipiac): Ted Strickland (D-inc) 43% (41), John Kasich (R) 49% (51); Lee Fisher (D) 36% (34), Rob Portman (R) 53% (55)

• OH-Sen (Wilson Research, not apparently on anyone’s behalf): Lee Fisher (D) 38%, Rob Portman (R) 49%

• OH-Sen (Univ. of Cincinnati for Ohio newspapers): Lee Fisher (D) 39%, Rob Portman 58%

• PA-Sen, PA-Gov (Ipsos for Reuters): Joe Sestak (D) 46%, Pat Toomey (R) 46%; Dan Onorato (D) 43%, Tom Corbett (R) 49%

(Sestak leads 46-42 among RVs, and even Onorato leads 46-43 among RVs)

• PA-Sen, PA-Gov (Muhlenberg): Joe Sestak (D) 40% (42), Pat Toomey (R) 48% (47); Dan Onorato (D) 39% (41), Tom Corbett (R) 50% (49)

• PA-08 (POS for Mike Fitzpatrick): Patrick Murphy (D-inc) 40%, Mike Fitzpatrick (R) 50%

• PA-10 (Lycoming): Chris Carney (D-inc) 45%, Tom Marino (R) 39%

• SD-Gov (Neilson Brothers): Scott Heidepriem (D) 40%, Dennis Daugaard (R) 43%

• VA-09 (SurveyUSA for WDBJ): Rick Boucher (D-inc) 46%, Morgan Griffith (R) 47%

• WI-Gov (Mellman Group, not apparently on anyone’s behalf): Tom Barrett (D) 45%, Scott Walker (R) 47%

All the latest House polls in one place.

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

Jan Schakowsky (D-inc): 48

Joel Pollak (R): 30

(MoE: ±3%)

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

Dan Seals (D): 39

Bob Dold (R): 50

Undecided: 11

(MoE: ±2.9%)

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

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

Dean Scontras (R): 33 (36)

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

Jason Levesque (R): 30 (32)

(MoE: ±5.7%)

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

Tim Walz (D-inc): 47

Randy Demmer (R): 42

Steven Wilson (IP): 4

Lars Johnson (I): 2

Undecided: 5

(MoE: ±4.1%)

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

Emanuel Cleaver (D-inc): 52

Jacob Turk (R): 43

(MoE: ±4%)

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

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

Frank Guinta (R): 48 (49)

(MoE: ±5.3%)

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

Charlie Bass (R): 36 (43)

(MoE: ±5.1%)

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

Jason Altmire (D-inc): 47

Keith Rothfus (R): 36

(MoE: ±5.7%)

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

Bryan Lentz (D): 31

Pat Meehan (R): 34

(MoE: ±4.9%)

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

Patrick Murphy (D-inc): 46

Mike Fitzpatrick (R): 51

(MoE: ±3.9%)

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

Chris Carney (D-inc): 38

Tom Marino (R): 44

Paul Kanjorski (D-inc): 41

Lou Barletta (R): 43

(MoE: ±4.9%)

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

David Cicilline (D): 47 (49)

John Loughlin (R): 36 (26)

Undecided: 13 (25)

(MoE: ±6.2%)

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

Rob Miller (D): 39 (34)

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

(MoE: ±4.4%)

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

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

Scott DesJarlais (R): 45 (42)

(MoE: ±5.7%)

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

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

Morgan Griffith (R): 41 (38)

Jeremiah Heaton (I): 4 (5)

Undecided: 4 (4)

(MoE: ±4%)

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

Denny Heck (D): 42 (43)

Jaime Herrera (R): 53 (52)

Undecided: 6 (4)

(MoE: ±4.1%)

DE-Sen: Interesting – Mike Castle isn’t ruling out a write-in bid. If he does pull the trigger, let’s see if the NRSC and the Senate GOP caucus have the stomach to tell Castle to fuck off. It’d be a great test of their will – and their willingness to embrace Christine O’Donnell.

FL-Sen: Al Gore Alert! In a rare sighting on the campaign trail, Al Gore (still my president!) will headline a rally for Kendrick Meek in Tampa on September 30th. Have we seen Gore do events for any other candidates this cycle?

KY-Sen: Objectively pro-methamphetamine senate candidate Rand Paul keeps running into trouble over his views on drugs. Republican Clay County Sherriff Kevin Johnson endorsed Paul after Paul told him he supported Operation UNITE, a federally-funded anti-drug task force. Paul’s hostility to UNITE, though, is what’s gotten him into hot water in the first place – and amazingly enough, when asked to confirm his pledge to Johnson, Paul’s campaign refused to back it up! I had always hoped/prayed/expected that Rand Paul was such a hardcore libertarian that he’d rigidly – and publicly – cling to beliefs that halfway-competent politicians would be smart enough to elide, deny, or just plain hide. I just figured it would be something like the gold standard, not, you know, meth.

Surprisingly, Paul has smelled the glove belonging to a very different interest group, the neocons. They mistrust Paul’s views on Israel and probably just on the general concept of randomly invading countries and killing people.

AR-Gov: That Ipsos poll which showed Blanche Lincoln “only” 14 points into her political grave also has a gubernatorial component. Dem Gov. Mike Beebe is beating Republican Jim Keet by a 55-37 margin among LVs. You want an enthusiasm gap? Beebe wins 58-30 among RVs. (It was 57-35 among RVs back in July.)

CO-Gov: God, I love the smell of ratfucking in the morning. So, we all know about Scott McInnis’s now-legendary implosion thanks to his plagiarism/theft scandal, but Democrats had a big hand in consigning him to the dustbin of history. It turns out that a group called the Colorado Freedom Fund spent half a million bucks on ads blistering McInnis during the primary, in order to help bolster Dan Maes. The DGA was a big contributor to this effort, chipping in $150K, while unions and wealthy philanthropist Pat Stryker gave the rest. Excellent fucking work, guys.

MN-Gov: The RGA is funneling $428K to a pro-Tom Emmer group, while the DGA sent a quarter mil to an org helping Dem Mark Dayton.

TX-Gov: Rick Perry may not be the suckiest suck who ever sucked, but you’ll have to agree that he is pretty sucky. The Texas Farm Bureau finally agrees, too. Though they’ve always endorsed him in the past (and have always endorsed Republicans for governor), they’re giving up on his sorry ass this year and staying neutral in the race. (They previously endorsed Kay Bailey Hutchison against him in the primary.) It probably didn’t help that a Perry spokesman, in an attempt to bolster his boss’s teabagger/secessionista cred, derided the bureau as “an insurance company that supported the bailout.”

IL-14: We could call this the Hypocrisy State Project and still have tons to write about. The latest chapter in this never-ending saga is penned by Republican Randy Hultgren, who was responsible for marketing his investment firm’s funds. One of the firm’s offerings invested entirely in bailout-backed securities, which were described by one Wall Streeter as “an incredibly free lunch.” This is a two-fer, because this fund was also based in the Cayman Islands, to take advantage of lax tax laws, of course.

MA-10: Massachusetts, at least, is one place where Republicans still need to run away from their own party in order to be electable. So it’s no surprise to see Jeffrey Perry declare that he doesn’t want Sarah Palin showing up in his district. (Don’t worry, bud, I think you’re safe.) Of course, Perry isn’t exactly from the non-crazy wing of the Republican Party (to the extent there still is such a thing), since he has teabagger ties himself.

MI-07: Rossman Group/Team Telcom (9/20, likely voters, no trendlines):

Mark Schauer (D-inc): 38

Tim Walberg (R): 42

Undecided: 12

(MoE: ±5.6%)

NY-18: This interview with Jim Russell – remember him from yesterday? the guy whose writings have been favorably cited by the KKK? – is just brutal. He doesn’t disavow anything. So we’ve gotta ask: Why isn’t the press giving this guy the Alvin Greene treatment? After all, Greene’s weirdest idea was to sell bobblehead dolls. Russell thinks there are too many Jews. Anyhow, the Westchester GOP is trying to get Russell off the ballot through legal means, and they say if they can’t, they’ll run a write-in candidate.

NY-19: A judge ruled against a group trying to knock Nan Hayworth off the Independence Party line for a lack of valid signatures. Hayworth gets to keep the line, while incumbent John Hall has the Working Families line.

NY-23: With the vote count all but completed, it looks like Matt Doheny is (still) the winner of the Republican primary, but Doug Hoffman ain’t conceding yet. I guess he feels burned after what happened in the special election, where he tried to “un-concede” after some counting errors emerged (but still lost anyway). The vote count does not officially get certified until the 27th, but Doheny could declare victory (and/or Hoffman could concede) before then. Hoffman still hasn’t said anything about how vigorously (if at all) he plans to wage war from the Conservative Party line.

PA-10: Another day, another NRA endorsement for a Dem. Chris Carney is the latest in a string of mostly-conservative Democrats to rack up the group’s support, even though they labeled him a “true enemy” of guns just four years ago.

TN-09: Heh – the Memphis Flyer commissioned a poll by Yacoubian Research, which found Steve Cohen leading Charlotte Bergmann 66-23. There were only 205 respondents, and note that we previously flagged a Yacoubian poll of the primary for attempting to screen voters by asking them if they lived in the 9th CD – how many people actually know what district they live in, by number? But whatever, Steve Cohen ain’t losing.

VA-09: Rick Boucher successfully got an ad by Americans for Job Security pulled off the air for making a misleading statements. The ad said “Rick Boucher supports Nancy Pelosi 96 percent of the time,” but this claim was based on the Washington Post’s “party voting” score, which Boucher rightly argued does not measure “support for Pelosi.” (A good time to remind folks that it’s much, much easier to get third-party ads yanked because stations are liable for defamation when they run these ads. Media outlets are immune from liability for candidate ads.)

SSP TV (by James L.):

• LA-Sen: “Diaper” David Vitter hits Charlie Melancon for attending a fundraiser in Canada, of all places.
• AR-01: Chad Causey’s latest spot takes a shotgun approach to messaging, touting his heritage, his support for a balanced budget amendment and a paycut for Congress, while hitting Republican Rick Crawford over the bad kind of SSP and for his support of a 23% national sales tax
• FL-22: Allen West takes on Ron Klein over a Florida Democratic Party mailer that boneheadedly revealed West’s Social Security number
• GA-08: Dem Rep. Jim Marshall goes heavy negative on GOP state Rep. Austin Scott on immigration – not once, but twice
• MI-07: GOP douche Tim Walberg says that Dem Rep. Mark Schauer is spending America into ruin, and also makes the dubious claim that he “strongly supports” Social Security. The ad, a coordinated expenditure partially paid for by the RNC, is airing in the Lansing media market and cost $85,000.
• MI-15: John Dingell goes negative on Republican Rob Steele over his support from the wretched hive of scum and villainy that is Wall Street, while Steele has gone up with an ad of his own touting his record as a physician and poking Dingell over spending
• NC-02: Dem Rep. Bob Etheridge’s latest ad features the testimonials of locals who say that Etheridge saved their jobs
• OH-12: Dem Paula Brooks touts her record on the Franklin County Commission while spilling marbles all over her kitchen island
• OR-05: GOPer Scott Bruun will stop the spending… except when it comes to restoring Medicare cuts, apparently
• SC-02: Libruhl Rob Miller and libruhl Nancy Pelosi will liberally kill all your jobs; meanwhile, Joe Wilson still sounds like he uses a speech synthesizer instead of a functional set of vocal cords. Seriously, what a creepy-sounding asshole.
• VA-09: Republican Morgan Griffith plays a clip of Barack Obama saying “I love Rick Boucher” – four times in thirty seconds

SurveyUSA (8/31-9/2, likely voters, 7/17-20 in parens):

Rick Boucher (D-inc): 50 (52)

Morgan Griffith (R): 40 (39)

Jeremiah Heaton (I): 5 (5)

Undecided: 4 (5)

(MoE: ±4.2%)

SurveyUSA again takes the pulse of the much-hyped race between veteran Dem Rep. Rick Boucher and Virginia House of Delegates Majority Leader Morgan Griffith, and finds that the needle hasn’t budged significantly over the past month and a half. SUSA’s likely voter universe has gotten slightly more Republican over that time, shifting from 33D-35R-29I to 32D-37R-29I, but Boucher is still strong enough in less-friendly demographics to maintain a decent lead. Boucher takes a quarter of the Republican vote and holds a one-point lead among indies — very strong numbers compared to the performance of other Democratic incumbents playing on red turf this year.

We haven’t seen a great deal of polling from this race, but all indicators are surprisingly positive for Boucher. In addition to this pair of SUSA polls, a mid-August Benenson Strategy Group internal poll for Rick Boucher gave him a 55-32 lead over Griffith. With plenty of time left on the clock, Boucher is by no means safe, but it appears he has slipped down the priority list for Republican gunners this fall.

AK-Sen: Lulz. Ex-state Rep. Andrew Halcro is still carrying the torch for a Murkowski Libertarian bid, despite the fact that the Alaska Libertarian Party voted to reject having Murkowski on their ticket over the weekend. Halcro is telling The Hill (and anyone else willing to listen, apparently), that he thinks the Libertarians would be willing to reconsider, as long as Murkowski is the one who reaches out directly. And maybe he’s actually got something there, as the state Libertarian chair, Scott Kohlhass, said yesterday that “as a sitting senator, we’d always be open to sitting down and talking to Lisa Murkowski.” This is the same guy who, we remind you, previously announced that Murkowski was unwelcome on their ticket due to “fundamental differences”. Make up your minds already!

It’s also worth noting that Murkowski didn’t sound all that interested in carrying this fight on to the general election in her concession speech last night. While she didn’t endorse Miller, she spoke of her plans for the future, saying that she was looking forward to “coming home” at the end of her term. I don’t think a Libertarian bid, or a write-in campaign, is in the cards.

Meanwhile, the NRSC has been busy trying to convince the world that Joe Miller has this shit locked. On Monday, they released a Basswood Research poll (8/28-29, likely voters) showing Miller leading Sitka Mayor Scott McAdams by 52-36. PPP tested the race around the same time and found Miller ahead by only 47-39.

FL-Gov: The St. Pete Times is hearing “considerable buzz” that Bud Chiles, the son of legendary former Democratic Gov. Lawton Chiles, will pull the plug on his independent gubernatorial candidacy. Chiles, who seemed to be having a net-neutral impact on the race due to his support from Dixiecrat-flavored voters, reportedly was spotted having lunch with Democrat Alex Sink in Miami yesterday. Is an endorsement on tap?

WI-Gov: Jesus. Are these the kind of headlines that you really want to be generating?

Wis. cand. runs fighting ad aimed at attack victim

Scott Walker is up with a new ad in which he dons boxing gloves and vows to “go the distance” against Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. Barrett, as you may recall, was brutally attacked while intervening in a domestic violence incident at the Wisconsin State Fairgrounds last summer, sustaining injuries from which he may never fully recover. Talk about not thinking through all the angles…

CT-05: GOP state Sen. Sam Caligiuri won the endorsement of the Independent Party of Connecticut yesterday, meaning that he’ll appear on the ballot against SSP hero Chris Murphy on both the Republican and Independent lines.

IA-03: Dem Rep. Leonard Boswell rolled out an endorsement Monday from architect Mark Rees… who was most recently seen losing the Republican primary for the nomination to challenge Boswell back in June. Rees, who drew 4% in the GOP primary, says that he’s backing Boswell because the Republican nominee, state Sen. Brad Zaun, is too far to the right “on all the issues”.

NV-03: AFSCME shelled out $750K for attack ads on GOPer Joe Heck, and they’re out with their second ad in the series, a thirty-second spot on the topic of Social Security privatization.

NY-24: Here’s a double-dose of bad news for Mike Arcuri. First, the New York Board of Elections recommended that Libertarian Ernest Logan Bell be removed from the ballot after coming up short on valid ballot signatures. (Never fear, fans of liberty, Bell’s encouraging his supporters to write-in his name in November.) Next, it seems that Arcuri’s “NY Moderates” Party line is in jeopardy. Republicans in the district pointed out the existence of a state statute that says that ballot lines aren’t allowed to include the words “New York.” Election officials say that may cause Arcuri’s indie line to go up in smoke, but are putting off a final decision on the matter until September 16th. Arcuri’s attorney, for what it’s worth, says that the party name will merely change to “Moderates”. Good luck with that.

VA-09: Benenson Strategy Group (8/18-22, likely voters) for Rick Boucher:

Rick Boucher (D-inc): 55

Morgan Griffith (R): 32

Is that too optimistic for Boucher? Perhaps, but it’s not entirely far-fetched, either. A July poll by SurveyUSA — not the most Dem-friendly pollster this cycle — had Boucher up by 52-39. Despite the bottom falling out for so many Democratic incumbents in tough districts, Boucher appears to have more staying power than some of his colleagues.

WI-07: At SSP, we always try to give you the Size Of The Buy where possible. We reported yesterday that the DCCC was hitting the airwaves with their first independent expenditure ad of the cycle against ex-Real World star Sean Duffy. Turns out the buy is for $36,500 — not breaking the bank by any means, but House party committees rarely saturate the airwaves in August.

• KY-Sen: The online “moneybomb” technique seemed to help Rand Paul get a lot of traction in the early months of the Republican primary, but his latest few scheduled moneybombs have been fizzles. Yesterday’s was a case in point: $258K is still a lot of dough for two days, but it was far short of the planned $400K. (And every penny counts: Paul reported only $319K CoH at the end of June.) Are Paulists feeling tapped out these days, or are his early-adopting libertarian-minded nationwide fans chafing that he’s increasingly parting ways with his dad and becoming more of an NRSC sock puppet? (As seen just today with their divergence over Cordoba House.)

• PA-Sen: Two pieces of good news in Pennsylvania: first, Joe Sestak is rolling out an endorsement from Chuck Hagel, the former GOP Senator from Nebraska who was on the short list for an Obama cabinet position. Not that Hagel is probably a household name in the Keystone State, but it certainly burnishes Sestak’s bipartisan (and military) cred. Also, the DSCC is planning to spend even more on this race, letting Sestak, presumably, keep marshaling his resources for a big late push (the kind that helped him shoot past Arlen Specter in the closing weeks in the primary). They’re spending $546K on broadcast media this week, on top of $494K last week; the DSCC’s total spending and reservations so far in this race amount to $4.4 million.

• WI-Sen: Hmmm, maybe all that sunspot and Greenland stuff actually started to stick. Republican wingnut candidate Ron Johnson is trying to undo the crazy on his various climate change comments, offering the usual last refuge of the pathetic walkback, that his remarks were “taken out context.” Johnson is also trying to walk back his previous support for elimination of the home mortgage interest deduction, about as popular a provision of the tax code as there is. If you wanted to simultaneously set back both the entire real estate business and the middle class by several decades, eliminating the home mortgage interest deduction would be a good way to do it.  

• IL-Gov: The exodus from the field of broken dreams that is the Pat Quinn camp just continues. Today, the departee is CoS Jerry Stermer, and while it isn’t a rancorous departure (as was the case with Quinn breaking it off with David Axelrod’s media firm last week), he is resigning to avoid being a distraction with an ethics investigation (over whether he sent political e-mails from his government account) hanging overhead. With Quinn seemingly circling the drain, that ain’t gonna help.

• AZ-05: In the “ooops, spoke too soon” department, presumed Republican primary frontrunner David Schweikert opted for a last-minute ad buy for $14K on cable, apparently worried that he was losing momentum going into tomorrow’s primary. Last week, his camp had said he was so far ahead they were just going to go dark and start saving money for the general. Meanwhile, next door in AZ-03, Steve Moak, the only candidate who rivals Ben Quayle on the money front, is out with a new ad hitting Quayle over his pseudonymous tenure writing for the website that was the precursor to TheDirty.com.

• FL-24: Wow, Craig Miller actually went there: he sent out a last-minute mailer going after the widely-known, but not yet broached in the campaign context, issue of GOP primary opponent Karen Diebel’s mental stability. Maybe he’d been planning to do a last-minute boom-lowering all along, but it seems kind of strange, as Miller’s millions have seemed to have the race locked down, not requiring him to get his hands dirty. Was there a last minute Diebel surge (she’s been attacking him on being too soft on immigration)?

• TX-23: Republican challenger Quico Canseco is out with an internal poll, via OnMessage, giving him a small lead over incumbent Dem Rep. Ciro Rodriguez. The poll gives Canseco a 43-37 lead, a turnaround from Rodriguez’s lead of 48-45 in a Canseco poll from June.

• Ads: Bobby Bright’s out with his first ad, in AL-02. SSP southern correspondent Trent Thompson’s description of the ad says it all, so I’ll just quote him: “”Bobby” voted against everything Obama. Also, he kisses a baby.” Ben Chandler is also out with an ad in KY-06, touting his saving the local VA Hospital. Finally, Rick Boucher’s GOP opponent, Morgan Griffith, is also out with a new TV spot, reminding you that he’s a conservative. (As an interesting ethno-linguistic observation, one clear indicator that VA-09 is an Appalachian district, not a Southern district, is that Griffith cites “Warshington” as being the source of all our problems.) NWOTSOTB, in all three cases.

• We Ask America: The quirky little Republican-linked pollster that could, We Ask America, is out with an array of polls in Illinois (the state where they’re based). They find Mark Kirk leading Alexi Giannoulias 39-33, but they also look at three House races. In fact, they looked at these races back in March, so we now have trendlines. In IL-11, they find Adam Kinzinger leading Debbie Halvorson 52-32 (down from an already bad 42-30); in IL-14, they have Randy Hultgren leading Bill Foster 44-37 (also down, from 38-36). The good news: they have Dan Seals leading Bob Dold! in IL-10, 43-40 (Seals led 40-37 in March, so he’s holding his own). We’ve also discovered a few recent WAA odds and ends that we didn’t cover earlier: they also see Roy Blunt leading Robin Carnahan 47-43 in MO-Sen, and see Sean Duffy leading 42-33 over Julie Lassa in WI-07.

• Rasmussen:

• AL-Sen: William Barnes (D) 28%, Richard Shelby (R-inc) 60%

• AR-Gov: Mike Beebe (D-inc) 53%, Jim Keet (R) 33%

• MD-Sen: Barbara Mikulski (D-inc) 55%, Eric Wargotz (R) 39%

• TX-Gov: Bill White (D) 41%, Rick Perry (R-inc) 49%

SurveyUSA (7/17-20, likely voters, no trend lines):

Rick Boucher (D-inc): 52

Morgan Griffith (R): 39

Jeremiah Heaton (I): 5

Undecided: 5

(MoE: ±4.2%)

Continuing the clean-up of items we missed while boozing it up in Las Vegas, SurveyUSA’s next stop on their Virginia road trip is the much-hyped match-up between veteran Democratic incumbent Rick Boucher and Virginia House of Delegates Majority Leader Morgan Griffith. Compared to the absolute carnage that SUSA projected in their poll of Democrat Tom Perriello’s race, this poll looks a lot more comforting for Team Blue. Still, like we did for the Perriello poll, it’s worth comparing SUSA’s 2010 likely voter universe to their work in previous cycles.

We have to look back to July 2006 in order to find SurveyUSA’s previous poll of this district. In that poll, Boucher led Bill Carrico, also a member of the state House of Delegates, by 66-29. Boucher ultimately won that race by a 68-32 spread, so I think it’s safe to say that SUSA nailed it four years ago. That year, SUSA’s likely voter model had a 21% sample composition of 18-34 year-olds, who favored Boucher by a whopping 65-31 margin. This year, SUSA’s likely voter screen only has a 12% sample of 18-34 year-olds who favor Griffith over Boucher by an eye-popping 61-31 margin. The sample of self-identified conservatives has shot up from 40% in 2006 to 54% today. As for party composition, SUSA’s screen has shifted from 38D-35R-25I in 2006 to 33D-35R-29I this year, which seems like it could be an entirely reasonable turnout projection.

Would I buy stock in these numbers? I’m not sure, but the fact that this sample’s party ID hasn’t gyrated as wildly as SUSA’s VA-05 polls leaves me more trusting of this poll.

AR-Sen: The SEIU is looking to finish the job, throwing down another $450K on behalf of Bill Halter. The union has spent almost $2 million dollars on this race so far.

AZ-Sen: Perhaps sensing some vulnerability on John McCain’s part, ex-state Rep. and former AZ health department chief Cathy Eden is jumping into the Democratic primary, where she’ll face former Tucson city councilman Rodney Glassman. Eden served in the state House in the early 1990s, then ran a brief campaign for the Dem nod for Arizona’s open Senate seat in 1994, dropping out before the primary. She’s also apparently tight with Janet Napolitano.

CT-Sen: So it turns out the NYT did have in its possession a copy of the full video of the Dick Blumenthal speech where he first said he served “during Vietnam,” only later to cloud things by saying he served “in Vietnam.” Yet despite having the entire video, the Times only posted a truncated clip showing the latter bit. Sheesh.

FL-Sen: The normally Dem-friendly Florida Education Association endorsed both Charlie Crist and Democrat Kendrick Meek for Senate on Friday, as a thank-you to Crist for his veto of a controversial teacher “merit pay” bill. Crist tried to parlay that victory by attempting to steal another endorsement from Meek, enthusiastically courting the backing of the AFL-CIO. Unfortunately for Crist, the union decided to endorse Meek and only Meek. (J)

KY-Sen: You probably saw that Rand Paul abruptly cancelled a “Meet the Press” appearance scheduled for yesterday. What you may not have known is that the only other people in recent history to do so are Louis Farrakhan and Saudi Arabia’s Prince Bandar. Also, if you check out that first Politico link, you’ll see exactly how uncomfortable Paul’s post-primary “unity” roll-out has been. Even Trey Grayson couldn’t stay on-message long enough to avoid admitting to reporters that the whole thing has been “awkward.”

NV-Sen: This is the chicken that laid the golden egg: Nevada election officials have banned people from wearing chicken suits into polling places on primary day. Though Dems have been sending people in chicken costumes to Sue Lowden campaign events, no one had any apparent plans to do electioneering while so garbed. But what this means is another day of chickens in the news. I think that calls for some Chicken Dance!

PA-Sen: Weird – Joe Sestak repeated his claim that the Obama administration offered him a job so that he’d drop his challenge to Sen. Arlen Specter. The weird part is that White House press secretary Bob Gibbs, in response, said only that  “nothing inappropriate” happened, but didn’t confirm or deny Sestak’s claim.

WI-Sen: This is a surprise: One-time beer baron Dick Leinenkugel has dropped out of the race after less than a month. He endorsed teabaggy businessman Ron Johnson, which seems like an odd fit, since the Kugel had worked in Dem Gov. Jim Doyle’s administration (a pretty big and obvious knock against him in a GOP primary). Hey, Beer Man – we hardly knew ye! Meanwhile, Johnson picked up the GOP’s endorsement (by a wide margin) at the state Republican convention this past weekend. Terrence Wall and David Westlake are apparently still staying in the race, though.

FL-Gov: God bless chrome-domed creep Rick Scott. He’s blasting McCollum on the airwaves for failing to support Arizona’s new “papers, please” immigration law with sufficient gusto. Though I usually complain when tradmed accounts fail to detail the size of ad buys, since it’s Scott, we can probably assume there’s plenty of money behind it, as he’s already spent approximately eight zillion dollars on the race. You know McCollum is sitting at home with his head in his hands, just wondering, “What the hell did I do to deserve this shit?”

Meanwhile, third wheel state Sen. Paula Dockery said she wouldn’t put her personal wealth into her campaign – and also opined that she’d veto an abortion bill she voted for if she became governor. I’m not even sure John Kerry could come up with something that good.

ID-Gov: This is interesting – Dem Keith Allred raised $240K since January, outstripping Gov. Butch Otter’s $193K. Otter has $201K CoH while Allred has $130K.

WI-Gov: Republican gubernatorial candidate Scott Walker was forced to return $44K in illegal contributions for an amazingly simple reason: a railroad exec used company money to reimburse employee donations to Walker! Talk about shady – and dumb.

HI-01: Colleen Hanabusa made it clear she’s going to run again after Saturday’s lost to Charles Djou, but Ed Case sounded surprisingly non-committal, saying only that on Monday, he planned to “wake up, go body surfing and cut the lawn. We’ll figure out the rest of it later.”

IN-03: Ala NY Gov. David Paterson and the NY-29 race, Gov. Mitch Daniels is reportedly considering holding the IN-03 special election in November, on the same day as the regular general election, in order to save the state money.

VA-09: Morgan Griffith, majority leader of the state House of Delegates, won the GOP nod at a district convention this past weekend on the first ballot. I’m not sure if there even would be a primary here on account of the convention, but in any case, it sounds like the other Republican candidates are rallying behind Griffith, who will take on Dem Rep. Rick Boucher in the fall.

NY-State Sen.: New York Dems seem to have landed a good recruit against the 78-year-old Sen. Hugh Farley in the 44th district upstate. Susan Savage, chair of the Schenectady county lege, is entering the race in this 50-48 Obama district.

Fundraising: The WaPo has a great interactive graphic illustrating corporate PAC giving to Dems vs. Republicans, dating all the way back to 1989.

Polling: A new Pew study shows that question responses in landline + cell phone surveys are starting to differ from landline-only answers, sometimes as much as four or five points (and in one case, seven). In general, landline-only surveys tend to underestimate Democratic support.

Passings: One-time GOP Rep. Donald “Buz” Lukens died on Saturday at age 79. He was best known for his conviction for paying a 16-year-old girl for sex, which led to his 1990 loss in the GOP primary to none other than John Boehner.

WATN?: Former senator and general d-bag Bob Kerrey may go and head up the Motion Picture Association of America. He’d follow in the footsteps of another former member of Congress from the middle of the country, Dan Glickman.

• AR-Sen: Americans for Job Security strikes back! They’re launching a new ad against Bill Halter on the outsourcing front… well, it’s pretty much the same ad, just not as, y’know, openly racist. They’re spending almost $500K on the TV ad buy, supplementing the large amounts they’ve already dropped in this race.

• FL-Sen: Mason-Dixon has a new post-party-switch poll of the Senate race. They find Charlie Crist with a narrow lead, at 38, compared with Marco Rubio at 32 and Kendrick Meek at 19, but they also warn that Crist’s sitting on a house of cards, as more than half of Crist’s support is from Democrats and that may erode as Meek gets better known (Meek is at 40% unknown). I trust Mason-Dixon more than the three other pollsters who’ve also released results this week, but they all seem to be reaching a sort of consensus on this race (Rasmussen at 38C-34R-17M, McLaughlin at 33C-29R-15M, and POS for Crist at 36C-28R-23M). Meanwhile, the candidates are fumbling around trying to pin down their respective bases with various flipfloppery: Rubio is walking back his previous disdain for Arizona’s immigration law, now saying he’s all for it, while the occasionally pro-life Crist is prepared to veto a bill requiring pregnant women to view a fetal ultrasound before being able to have an abortion.

• IL-Sen: This is probably good news for Alexi Giannoulias, although it was more a question of when it would happen rather than if it would happen, given the media’s tendency to get distracted by the next shiny object. A local TV reporter more or less called out Mark Kirk for incessant focus on the Broadway Bank scandal and asked him what else he was planning to talk about in the future, perhaps indicative of a growing media boredom with the story.

• PA-Sen/Gov: Today’s tracker in the Muhlenberg/Morning Call poll shows a narrower spread in the Senate race: Arlen Specter leads Joe Sestak 45-40. In the Governor’s primary, Dan Onorato is at 34, Joe Hoeffel is at 12, and Anthony Williams and Jack Wagner are at 8. Meanwhile, the Sestak camp is hitting Specter with a new TV ad focusing on what’s probably Specter’s biggest vulnerability in the Democratic primary: the fact that he was a Republican Senator for, y’know, three decades or so. The ad’s replete with lots of photos of Specter and G.W. Bush, together again. The tightening race and aggressive tone has the Pennsylvania Dem establishment worried, and state party chair T.J. Rooney is sounding the alarm, calling a possible Sestak win “cataclysmic” and making various electability arguments in favor of Specter.

• AL-Gov: We don’t have any actual hard numbers to report, but local pollster Gerald Johnson (of Capital Survey Research Center) has been leaking reports that there’s significant tightening in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, with Ag Commissioner Ron Sparks moving within the margin of error of Rep. Artur Davis. Davis’s numbers seem to have dropped following his anti-HCR vote. Meanwhile, on the GOP side, Tim James‘ attention-grabbing, race-baiting ad seems to have had its desired effect. He just released an internal poll showing him taking the lead, with him at 26, Roy Moore at 21, Bradley Byrne at 20, and Robert Bentley at 7. (The previous James internal had Moore at 27, Byrne at 18, and James at 14.)

• CA-Gov (pdf): Another gubernatorial primary where there’s some tightening is on the Republican side is the GOP primary in California. Steve Poizner is touting an internal poll from POS that his him within 10 points of the once-unstoppable Meg Whitman, 38-28. It seems like Whitman lost a whole lot of inevitability once someone than her actually started advertising on TV, too.

• CT-02: That was fast… it was only a few days ago that former TV anchor Janet Peckinpaugh’s interest in running the 2nd became known. Now she’s officially launched her campaign, with Connecticut’s nominating convention fast approaching (May 21).

• PA-12: The DCCC paid for another $170K in media buys on behalf of Mark Critz, bringing their total investment in this special election up to $641K. (J) The GOP is bringing one more big gun to the district to campaign on Tim Burns’s behalf, too: Rep. Mike Pence.

• VA-05: In the wake of his surprising decision to join the Constitution Party, ex-Rep. Virgil Goode had to clarify several things: most notably, he said that, no, he’s not running in the 5th this year as a Constitution Party candidate (or as anything else), although he wouldn’t rule out a future run. Furthermore, he isn’t leaving the Republican Party; he doesn’t view membership as mutually exclusive. Meanwhile, Politico is wondering what’s up between the NRCC and the establishment candidate in the 5th, state Sen. Robert Hurt. Hurt hasn’t been added to the NRCC’s Young Guns list, despite their tendency to add anyone with a pulse everywhere else. The NRCC hasn’t added any names in this district and says they’d prefer to wait until after the primary — although in other contested primaries, they’ve added multiple names to the list, which suggests that they’re trying to lay low in this race, which has become a rather emblematic flash point in the establishment/teabagger rift this year.

• WA-03: Both Democratic candidates in the 3rd nailed down labor endorsements in the last few days. Denny Heck got the endorsement of the Boeing Machinists (maybe the state’s most powerful union) and the local IBEW, while Craig Pridemore got the nod from the pulp and paper workers.

• WI-07: With David Obey’s surprising retirement announcement yesterday, we’re moving the open seat in the 7th to “Tossup” status (from Likely Dem). On the one hand, it’s a D+3 district with a solid Democratic bench of state legislators, but on the other hand, GOP challenger Sean Duffy is sitting on a lot of money and establishment support, and there’s, of course, the nature of the year. CQ lists a whole herd of possible Democratic successors in the district: the big name on the list is probably Russ Decker, the state Senate’s majority leader. Others include state Sens. Julie Lassa and Pat Kreitlow, state Rep. Donna Seidel, and attorney Christine Bremer. Another area state Sen., Robert Jauch, has already taken himself out of the running. And one other Republican isn’t ruling out a bid, which could complicate Duffy’s path: state Rep. Jerry Petrowski.

• CA-Init: It looks like Californians will get the chance to vote on an initiative that proposes to move congressional redistricting to the same independent commission process as legislative redistricting, as the initiative just qualified for the ballot. I’m genuinely torn: on the one hand, the naïve idealist in me admits some fondness for compactly-drawn swingy districts, but on the other hand, Dems have a good shot at controlling the trifecta in California and with the ability to wring some additional Dem-leaning seats out of the map, control of the 2012 House may well be at stake here.

• NRCC: The NRCC promoted 13 members of its Young Guns framework to the top tier (the “Young Guns” level). This includes not only the aforementioned Sean Duffy, but also the winners of the three contested primaries in Indiana… and a surprise in the form of Morgan Griffith, who’s taking on Rep. Rick Boucher in VA-09 but who’s still sitting on a five-figure cash stash and on the wrong end of a 22:1 CoH ratio.