Tag: Chamber of Commerce

• AK-Sen: All signs are pointing to Lisa Murkowski winning this race, and joining Strom Thurmond in the won-a-Senate-write-in-race club. At the end of yesterday’s counting, which took us up to nearly half of all the write-in votes analyzed, the state Division of Elections is reporting that nearly 98% of all write-ins are being successfully counted for Murkowski. Even the rate of challenges, even if they were all successful (and few of them are), is inadequate for Joe Miller to make up all the needed ground (he’d need to shave off 12%, and isn’t even challenging at quite that rate). 45,132 write-ins have been analyzed so far, and only 1.52% have been successfully challenged by the Miller camp. Seemingly realizing the gap can’t be made up, the Miller camp, while still harping on the spelling issue and keeping that line of argument alive, is now turning to nebulous claims of voter fraud as their next line of attack, threatening a second potential lawsuit. His team is setting up a voter fraud hotline for people to report fraud, voter intimidation, and voter bullying. (Kind of a strange angle to explore, when you’re the campaign that has its own paramilitary goon force.)

• HI-Sen: The Republican bench in Hawaii basically begins and ends with outgoing Gov. Linda Lingle. As far as her running against octogenarian Dan Akaka in 2012, she says she’s going to take six months off from thinking about politics, and then give the race some “serious consideration” at that point.

• IN-Sen: Baron Hill is also looking for work in a few months, and he’s one of the biggest names on the Dems’ bench in Indiana. However, even with his potential choice of running for the Senate, for Governor, or his old seat in 2012, it sounds like he doesn’t plan on any of those.

• MO-Sen: Could we see a 2006 rematch in the 2012 Senate election in Missouri? Ex-Sen. Jim Talent seems to be prepping toward that, with GOP operatives saying he’s “furthest along” of all potential challengers to Claire McCaskill, who beat him in 2006. Other potential GOP names include ex-Treasurer Sarah Steelman, Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder (who’s probably likelier to run for Governor in 2012), and Ann Wagner, wealthy person (former RNC vice-chair and Ambassador to Luxembourg, the kind of goodies doled out to itinerant rich donors) and former campaign manager to Roy Blunt.

• ND-Sen: Jeremy Jacobs lists a few possible challengers for Kent Conrad, who looks vulnerable after Republicans ran up the score in North Dakota this year. Mentioned are Jack Dalrymple (the Lt. Governor, who’s about to become Governor once John Hoeven resigns, although he may be likelier to run for a full term as Gov. in 2012), AG Wayne Stenehjem, and Public Service Commissioner Brian Kalk.

• Chicago mayor: And here I thought I was done with having to laboriously type out “Alexi Giannoulias” every day, like I have for the last few years. The recently vanquished Senate candidate is now at least considering the idea of pivoting over to the Chicago mayoral race, presumably under the principle of striking while the iron is hot in terms of his name recognition and donor base. He’s getting urging from several anti-Rahm Emanuel aldermen. (UPDATE: OK, scratch that. A Giannoulias spokesperson now says no, he’s not running for mayor.)

• DSCC: I think we’ve gotten closer to getting someone willing to hold the burning bag of dog doo than we have so far: Harry Reid personally asked Michael Bennet to lead the DSCC next cycle, and Bennet “didn’t say yes and he didn’t say no.”

• DCCC: Dan Boren is moving the anti-Nancy Pelosi push to a new front: demanding that the position of DCCC chair be up for a true vote by the whole caucus, not a de facto appointment by leadership. He’s being seconded in the effort by Larry Kissell, of all people (the same guy who got $1.7 million in DCCC aid this cycle after stinking it up on the fundraising front, and may be worried that another Pelosi ally might cut bait with him next time and make him catch his own fish). It’s not clear who they’d rather see than likely chair Steve Israel, especially since they both had praise for departing chair Chris Van Hollen.

• Redistricting: Guess who’s leading the push for Utah to switch to a independent redistricting commission, instead of it being done by the heavily Republican legislator? Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson, who may figure he’ll be given an even worse version of UT-02 in 2012 than he currently has. (Interestingly, there’s the possibility that a commission might give him a worse district, though; it’s also possible that a GOP gerrymander might decide to concede a swing seat to him (probably the best Matheson could hope for) and go for three safe GOP seats, instead of risking a push for a 4-0 map.) Also on the redistricting front, here’s a good overview from Real Clear Politics’ Sean Trende, who goes state-by-state with possible outcomes.

• WATN?: Ashwin Madia (whom you probably remember for losing the MN-03 race in 2008) is taking over the helm for VoteVets for the time being while its current head, Jon Soltz, is deployed to Iraq. Also in the news is Andy Dillon, who lost the 2010 Dem gubernatorial primary after being termed-out as state House speaker. Turns out the centrist Dillon is crossing the aisle one last time: he just signed on as state Treasurer at Rick Snyder’s request (it’s an appointed position in Michigan).

• Money: When they write the tale of the 2010 election, the role of the Chamber of Commerce (and other third-party GOP backers, but especially the Chamber) will probably loom a lot larger in retrospect than it does right now. The Chamber spent $32 million, almost entirely on GOP candidates. The Fix also takes a look at self-funders, and calculates how much they spent per vote. The biggest fail was probably Linda McMahon, spending $97 per vote in a losing effort, outpacing Meg Whitman who spent only $57 per vote to lose by a similar margin (albeit for a much bigger price tag overall). Rick Scott spent “only” $29 per vote to win; the biggest bargain may have been Ron Johnson, who won spending only $7 per vote (although he did a lot of conventional fundraising too). In House races, Tom Ganley spent $29 per vote to lose ignominiously; the biggest spender was the victorious Scott Rigell in VA-02, at $30 per vote.

• Post-mortem: If you’re still feeling down about last week’s losses in the House and need some rationalization about it, here are a couple pieces that don’t really try to put a happy face on the results but still show how very predictable the whole thing was. Alan Abramowitz, certainly no mindless cheerleader for the Dems, points out some of the ways in which it was something of a mile-wide, inch-deep victory for the GOP. And while the teeth-gnashing that accompanies the graph is worth a read too, here’s a piece built around an amazing scatterplot from John Sides that shows how Democratic House candidate performances tracked presidential preferences district by district.

• Maps: If you’re tired of looking at glitzy, state-of-the-art political maps, here’s an amusing look back at the New York Times’ earliest attempts at mapping the nation’s political geography, going back as far as 1896. (As you might expect, their graphics capacity has evolved considerably.)

• KY-Sen: The Beltway chattering class seems to have either moved on from “Aqua Buddha,” or taken it as a given that it just backfired on Jack Conway. Josh Green at the Atlantic does some actual, y’know, reporting on what’s happening on the ground, though, and finds that the ad (and its rebuttal), and their aftermath, are still completely driving the conversation in Kentucky. Local GOP pols still seem to think that Rand Paul will squeak by in the end, but it’s thrown him deeply off message and the refusal to debate again doesn’t look good on him. (UPDATE: Actually, Greg Sargent just reported that the Conway camp is taking down the Aqua Buddha ad. To clarify “taking down,” though, this was a planned move, as it reached the end of its original run, to be replaced by this sales tax ad.)

• PA-Sen: Barack Obama will be making a four-state swing through the east coast and midwest over the weekend prior to the election; one of the stopping spots will be Philadelphia, where he’ll be doing a canvassing event. He’ll also be doing rallies in Chicago, Cleveland, and Bridgeport, Connecticut (indicating they’re still leaving nothing to chance with Richard Blumenthal).

• CA-Gov: Meg Whitman breaking self-funding records has become something of a dog-bites-man story around here, but one more for old times sake: she spent $23 million in the first half of October, bringing her all-cycle total to $163 million. Jerry Brown, by contrast, spent $14.6 million in that period, bringing his all-cycle spending to $25 million.

• CO-Gov: I doubt this is much of a game-changer, but it may help flip a few more Colorado Springs area votes in Tom Tancredo’s direction (if there were any Dan Maes supporters left there). Rep. Doug Lamborn became perhaps the most prominent elected Republican in Colorado to publicly come out in support of Tancredo, rather than Maes.

• MN-Gov: The RGA must be seeing something the polls aren’t telling them, because they’re still fighting till the end in Minnesota. (Of course, if one committee has money to throw at unlikely races and see what sticks, it’s the RGA.) They just gave $1 million to third party group Minnesota Future to run more anti-Mark Dayton (and probably anti-Tom Horner) ads. (You may remember Minnesota Future from the whole Target contribution controversy. Interestingly, Hubbard Broadcasting, owner of local TV station KSTP, also was just identified as having given $25K to Minnesota Future. Y’know, because they’re part of that liberal lamestream media.)

• FL-24: And here I’d thought we’d dodged something of a bullet when Karen Diebel got sent packing to spent more time guarding her swimming pool. Sandy Adams, who seems likely to be the next Representative for the Space Coast, has come out in favor of the “biblical teachings” rather than the theory of evolution. I look forward to hearing her proposals for a faith-based space program next.

• ID-01: The Tea Party Express finally endorsed Raul Labrador in the 1st. However, that comes only after they tried to endorse Democratic incumbent Walt Minnick as their token Dem fig-leaf and he rejected the endorsement (over racist statements by one of their, at the time, key members).

• Early voting: Ohio Democrats are pointing to an edge in early voting, where they’re leading 44 percent to 34 percent for Republicans in votes cast so far. The Republicans are claiming the edge after three days of early voting in Florida, with a 148,000 vote edge, although Dems pointed out that was about where the numbers were in the 2006 election.

• Redistricting: Here’s a good counterpoint to several articles that have shrugged off the possible large Republican advantage on the redistricting front coming out of this election, one that actually looks at the actual number of House seats that are likely to be influenced. Extrapolating likely control of state governorships and legislatures, the GOP will have “untrammeled” control over 125 House seats while Dems will control only 62, a worse outcome than 1990 or 2000. (43 are in commission-based states or at-large states, with 205 drawn by divided governments.)

• Chamber of Commerce: This article was been making the rounds, but it’s a must-read if you haven’t already done so and you’re interested in the “dark money” that’s swamping the transparent money, this cycle more than ever. The NYT digs into what corporations are using the national Chamber of Commerce as a pass-through for their contributions, including Prudential, Dow Chemical, and Dutch insurer Aegon.

• SSP TV:

• AZ-Sen: This looks like John McCain’s last ad, as it’s a soft-focus closing argument type of spot

• CO-Sen: The League of Conservation Voters hits Ken Buck on environmental issues

• DE-Sen: Here’s the first Chris Coons ad to take on Christine O’Donnell directly, saying she lives in the “Twilight Zone”

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid rolls out endorsements from various local business leaders in his newest ad

• WA-Sen: Waiting until the end to go after Dino Rossi for his anti-abortion stance seems to be tradition now, in order to swing any last-minute moderate women who haven’t decided, and the DSCC piles on

• HI-Gov: Barack Obama, fresh off his Colleen Hanabusa spot, also cuts an ad touting Neil Abercrombie

• RI-Gov: The DGA keeps pounding on Lincoln Chafee over the tax hikes he’d like (I’ve also heard the RGA is buying an ad here on behalf of John Robitaille, though I haven’t seen a link)

• WV-03: Ewwww… Spike Maynard plays the terrorist card against Arab-American Rep. Nick Rahall

• MoveOn: MoveOn seems to have saved their powder for one huge blast at the end, running ads in eight Senate races and 20 House races (here’s their WI-08 ad), helping only Dems who voted in favor of HCR

• Sierra Club: The Sierra Club is out with ads boosting Democratic incumbents in FL-22, MI-07, and AZ-08

• 60+ Assoc.: The AARP’s evil doppelganger is running two spots, a two-fer in Arizona hitting both Raul Grijalva and Gabby Giffords, and… here’s a new one… Solomon Ortiz in TX-27

• Rasmussen:

• MN-Gov: Mark Dayton (D) 44%, Tom Emmer (R) 41%, Tom Horner (I) 10%

• NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo (D) 51%, Carl Paladino (R) 37%

• NY-Sen: Charles Schumer (D-inc) 59%, Jay Townsend (R) 31%

• SD-AL: Stephanie Herseth Sandlin (D-inc) 44%, Kristi Noem (R) 49%

• AK-Sen: The story of how his employment with the city of Fairbanks ended is one of the key reasons why Joe Miller suddenly clammed up and said he wouldn’t answer questions about his personal background anymore. Now the city’s former mayor, Jim Whitaker, is offering his version of the story, saying Miller is “not truthful” about it. Whitaker says Miller’s use of borough resources for political purposes (namely, for gaming an online vote for state party chair in a Sarah Palin-orchestrated party coup) was a violation of borough ethics policy and it would have been a cause for termination if they hadn’t been so understaffed. Miller eventually resigned in 2009 anyway, partly because his request to go elk hunting got denied.

• FL-Sen: There are so many Kennedys I really can’t keep track which one is allied with who, but any time one leaves the reservation it’s interesting. Robert Kennedy Jr. announced that he’s backing Charlie Crist for Senate, saying that Kendrick Meek can’t win and the most important thing is blocking Marco Rubio. Meanwhile, with the current race not looking very interesting anymore, PPP has its eye on 2012 (which seems like it could be close, especially if Jeb Bush gets involved). They ran two other hypotheticals, one not very likely: Bill Nelson beats Rush Limbaugh 50-36 (if Limbaugh for whatever reason decided to take the huge pay cut). More plausibly, he also beats Rep. Connie Mack IV by 42-33.

• LA-Sen: Charlie Melancon is out with an internal poll from Anzalone-Liszt. Public pollsters have generally seen this as a double-digit race, but his poll, taken over Oct. 9-12, gives David Vitter a not-overwhelming 49-42 lead. The campaign says that’s a major improvement (no specific numbers, though) over their September poll.

• FL-Gov: The Florida Education Association (obviously a Democratic-leaning organization) polled the gubernatorial race, and found numbers very close to PPP’s results yesterday. The poll from Tom Eldon, taken Oct. 9-12, gives Alex Sink a 47-41 lead over Rick Scott. Scott’s faves are down to 33/50.

• IL-Gov: This is quite the screwup: Green candidate Rich Whitney’s name will appear as “Rich Whitey” on electronic voting machines in nearly two dozen wards in Chicago (half of which are predominantly African-American). And that leads inevitably to the question (to quote the Illinois Nazi Party): “Well, what are you going to do about it, Whitey?” Apparently, he can’t do much, as there isn’t adequate time left to reprogram and test the machines, although he’s looking into various legal options.

• AZ-07: I don’t know if there’s any hard evidence other than a Magellan poll and a McClung internal to prove there’s a real race here, but judging by efforts by some organizations on both sides, something’s going on. The Progressive Change Campaign Committee had members make 21,000 phone calls to the district to shore up Raul Grijalva, while Americans for Tax Reform is going to spend $230K on advertising in the district, hitting Grijalva with an ad for encouraging a boycott of his state in the wake of SB 1070.

• CA-44: Like CA-03, this is one offense opportunity in California that still seems to be alive and kicking. The Bill Hedrick campaign, short on cash but facing an underwhelming opponent that he nearly knocked off last time, is out with a Zata|3 internal poll showing Hedrick trailing GOP incumbent Ken Calvert by only a 48-43 margin (improved a 49-38 showing in September).

• GA-08: He made it implicit with his most recent ad (distancing himself from Nancy Pelosi, even going so far as to show 60s-era San Francisco hippies), but Jim Marshall is now explicitly joining Bobby Bright in the camp of incumbents saying they won’t support Pelosi for Speaker in the next Congress (if they’re there for it).

• IA-03: I didn’t think I’d be saying this a few months ago, but Leonard Boswell is starting to look like he’s in healthy shape for the election, thanks in large part of a variety of damaging details about Brad Zaun that went public. Boswell leads Zaun 47-38 in an internal from his campaign, taken Oct. 3-5 by Anzalone-Liszt.

• IL-10: Bob Dold sure can rake in the fundraising dollars, even if Bob Dold can’t seem to come up with a lead in the polls, in what’s looking like one of the Dems’ few pickups this cycle. Bob Dold raised $843K in the third quarter and is sitting on $979K CoH, enough to start running two broadcast ads this week, while Bob Dold’s opponent Dan Seals has yet to release any numbers. Bob Dold!

• MD-01, VA-02, VA-05: Another testament to the unpredictability of elections: even a few months ago, who’d have thought, that at this point, the DCCC would have cut loose Debbie Halvorson and Steve Kagen, but would be keeping on pumping money into the races of Frank Kratovil and Tom Perriello? Those two, along with Glenn Nye, are among the survivors of the triage process and will receive continued ad buys.

• NH-02: This race is also turning out to be close, and this can’t help Charlie Bass this close to the election: questions are emerging about a stock buy (in New England Wood Pellet, his nephew-in-law’s company) that he made while in Congress the previous time. He then set up a meeting between company officials and Bush administration officials, which is a potential House ethics violation.

• OH-01: Credit Steve Driehaus for having some fire in the belly. After having gotten thrown onto the bring-out-your-dead cart by the DCCC, instead of just shrugging and starting to look for a lobbying job, he’s doubling down on his fundraising efforts, using it as an incentive to ask for more from his supporters. In particular, he’s pissed that the DCCC let him go even while giving money to various Reps. who voted “no” on health care reform.

• OR-04: Well, here’s one more race to add to the watch list. Peter DeFazio hasn’t faced credible opposition in… well, ever. And he’s still not facing credible opposition this year (Art Robinson is kind of a clown; his main action item seems to be the elimination of public schooling, which would kind of help him out considerably, since his day job is selling curriculum supplies for home schoolers). Nevertheless, the mysterious group Concerned Taxpayers (who’ve also made a six-digit ad buy against DeFazio) is out with an internal poll from Oct. 4-5 from Wilson Research showing a single-digit race, with DeFazio leading Robinson 48-42. (MoE is a hefty 5.6%.)

• PA-10: Chris Carney is on the wrong end of a Critical Insights poll of his district (which will be in our Poll Roundup later), but he’s already getting out in front of it with an internal poll. The Oct. 12-13 poll from Momentum Analysis has Carney leading Tom Marino 48-41. With both candidates able to point to leads not just in internal polls but public polls too, this is quite definitely a “Tossup.”

• TN-08: Whew! One last internal. Not much surprise here… GOPer Stephen Fincher has an internal out giving him a double-digit lead in the open seat race against Roy Herron, very similar to yesterday’s 47-37 Penn/Hill poll. The Tarrance Group poll from Oct. 11-12 gives Fincher a 47-36 lead (with 3 to indie Donn James).

• FL-AG: This is one of the higher-profile downballot races around, and it gets a fair amount of polling attention too. This time, it’s Susquehanna’s turn (on behalf of Sunshine State News), and they give a lead to Republican Hillsborough Co. Prosecutor Pam Bondi, who leads state Sen. Dan Gelber 50-42.

• Money: Zata|3 is out with more of their super-helpful charts on the behind-the-scenes money game, which is where the Republicans are really winning this cycle, even more so than the polls. Compared with 2008, spending on Senate races (from both sides) has nearly doubled, and it’s up more than 50% on House races. And Republican groups are leading the way: the top 5, and 8 of the top 10, outside groups, spending-wise are GOP-leaning. That starts with the cash-flush RGA ($12 mil so far), followed by the Chamber of Commerce and American Crossroads.

• Polltopia: You may have already seen the new Pew study on cellphone use, but it’s a real eye-opener, one that should cast some measure of doubt on the accuracy of current polls or even the whole sense that polls can tell us anything. Pew, which in 2008 found a certain amount of pro-Republican bias in polls because of the exclusion of cellphone-only users, is out with a new round of polling showing that bias has only increased. At this point, nearly 25% of adults are “cell-only.” Pew finds a 5-point Republican increase would have occurred in their most recent generic ballot test if they hadn’t polled cellphones.

Also, on the polling front, Daily Kos is taking a page from PPP and asking where readers what gubernatorial and House race they’d like to see polled in the coming weeks.

• SSP TV:

• AK-Sen: This is actually kind of funny: Joe Miller spoofs Old Spice ads in an attempt to get voters to not write in Lisa Murkowski

• CO-Sen: Ken Buck’s out with a base-rallying ad using speech footage of him getting teabaggers fired up about how they got ignored for the last two years and are now out for blood; the NRSC is also on the air, hitting Michael Bennet over his support for the stimulus

• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan’s new TV spot pushes back against various Roy Blunt negative ads, especially on the subject of an extended family member’s wind farm

• PA-Sen: This may be an interesting tea leaf that those Dem internals yesterday may be showing some actual tightening: the NRSC, after letting surrogate orgs do all the work here, is finally having to step in with its own IE ad (a basic HCR/stimulus/cap-and-trade troika)

• WV-Sen: The DSCC goes after John Raese again over the minimum wage

• CA-Gov: What is this, the 80s? Meg Whitman’s new ad hits Jerry Brown for being soft on crime

• TX-Gov: Bill White’s newest ad goes after Rick Perry’s seeming habit of steering state contracts to cronies

• Rasmussen:

• AK-Sen: Scott McAdams (D) 27%, Joe Miller (R) 35%, Lisa Murkowski (WI-inc) 34%

• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 49%, Carly Fiorina (R) 46%

• IL-Gov: Pat Quinn (D-inc) 40%, Bill Brady (R) 46%, Scott Lee Cohen (I) 4%, Rich Whitney (G) 2%

• NC-Sen: Elaine Marshall (D) 38%, Richard Burr (R-inc) 52%

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 39%, Pat Toomey (R) 49%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 42%, Scott Walker (R) 51%

• CA-Gov: Another few weeks go by, and Meg Whitman keeps smashing the barriers on over-the-top self-funding: she’s spent $140 million out of pocket over the entire cycle now. Here’s the number that’s gotta suck for her, though: Jerry Brown, having spent all of $10 million so far this cycle, is sitting on $22 million in reserves for the remaining month, allowing him to compete on perhaps an even financial footing for the last month. Whitman’s cash reserves are $9 million, but even if she cuts herself the biggest check of all to re-up, there’s only a finite amount of TV time left for her to buy. Truly the story of the ant and the grasshopper.

• NM-Gov: The Diane Denish camp keeps up the onslaught of internal polls showing her behind but within arm’s length of Susana Martinez. This time, the poll is from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, and gives Martinez a 49-46 lead. That still feels kind of “meh” to me, but there’s an interesting kernel in the fine print: Martinez has fallen into net negative favorables for the first time (39/42, down from 42/31 in August), suggesting the ad war is having its effect.

• OH-Gov: I’m going to wait until I start seeing these kind of numbers in public polls before I start getting too optimistic about whether Ted Strickland’s comeback really has legs, but here’s another strong internal from his camp. The Feldman Group poll taken 10/3-5 gives Strickland a 46-42 lead over John Kasich, and finds Strickland with 47/40 favorables.

• CA-03: Ami Bera continues to be a fundraising force among Democratic challengers (not that he has much high-profile competition on that front); he raised $550K in 3Q, and $2.1 million raised over the cycle. He beat incumbent Dan Lungren yet again, who raised $480K for a $1.7 mil total.

• FL-02: We still haven’t seen any public polling of this race, but here’s a second GOP poll for challenger Steve Southerland giving him a double digit lead over Allen Boyd (the first one was an NRCC poll from the Tarrance Group way back in May, giving Southerland a 52-37 lead). This one’s from National Research (presumably on Southerland’s behalf?), taken 9/29-30, giving Southerland a 46-30 lead.

• VA-05: The US Chamber of Commerce gave its backing to Robert Hurt, not much of a surprise as he’s the kind of non-threatening establishment conservative that wing of the GOP tends to like. Tom Perriello picked that up and is using it as a cudgel that seems to combine various elements that have apparently polled well for Dems (outsourcing and Citizens United), saying that the endorsement means “foreign money” is pouring into the race now, citing companies in Bahrain, Russia, and China that give money to the US Chamber.

• DCCC: Here’s some more detail on the various ways in which the DCCC is, um, advancing in other directions (we told you about their pullout in AZ-08 last night, which probably has to do with Gabby Giffords having enough money to pull her own weight). They’ve also reduced buys for one week in a few other districts: a mix of ones where they seem genuinely hosed (CO-04, TX-17, FL-24, and the KS-03 and IN-08 open seats), one that seems a true tossup but where our guy has money (Harry Teague in NM-02), and one that’s looking like a pickup (LA-02). The DCCC will be using at least some of that money putting out a new brushfire that popped up in NY-23, where Doug Hoffman’s ceasing and desisting makes the race a tossup, and where they’re spending $500K.

• NRCC: Speaking of CO-04 and being hosed, here’s some additional evidence: the NRCC is taking $700K out of the 4th, and moving it next door to another race that’s looking decidedly tossup-ish: John Salazar’s CO-03.

• Redistricting: This may be the single best use of money anywhere by Dems this cycle: they’re finally putting some money into Florida’s redistricting amendments that purport to make the process less subject to gerrymandering. Over $1 million has flowed from Democratic groups to Fair Districts Florida, who are behind the measures. Fair Districts is ostensibly nonpartisan, but obviously the net effect of a less partisan map would be to dismantle one of the most effective Republican gerrymanders anywhere.

• Polltopia: With dramatically different results (especially in the generic ballot tests, but also in head-to-head polls) popping up that often seem to have very different definitions of “likely voter,” Mark Blumenthal looks at the various ways pollsters cobble together their LV models. There’s a marked difference between the way academic pollsters and partisan pollsters do it, revealing major disparities. If you haven’t seen it already, this should be required reading.

• Independent expenditures: The folks at Zata|3 have put together a very useful table, adding up and comparing DCCC and NRCC independent expenditures in all the districts where they’ve weighed in. (The NRCC has spent a lot more so far, despite their cash shortfall vs. the DCCC. The D-Trip seems to be saving up for a massive blast in the final weeks. Or maybe just saving up for 2012.) They also have charts for the DCCC and NRCC that break down each district’s expenditures by category (media buys, production, internet, etc.).

• SSP TV:

• CO-Sen: The DSCC hits Ken Buck for his enthusiasm for privatizing everything he can get his hands on

• CT-Sen: The Chamber of Commerce has a fairly boilerplate ad against Richard Blumenthal for being too anti-(big) business

• KY-Sen: There are six different ads embedded in this Inquirer article, several of which you’ve already seen (including the DSCC ad on Medicare deductibles), but including a new Rand Paul campaign ad on the “Conway = Obama” theme; separately, the NRSC has a new ad here on Conway waffling on extending Bush tax cuts

• MO-Sen: The DSCC has yet another ad about Roy Blunt and his lobbyist friends

• NY-Sen-B: Kirsten Gillibrand’s out with a second bio ad that seems specifically aimed at the upstate market, pointing out her roots in that part of the state

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak’s new ad points to what we junkies have long known, that Pat Toomey’s free market fundamentalism has given him aggregator ratings even more conservative than Rick Santorum

• WI-Sen: A second cookie-cutter ad from the Chamber of Commerce, this one targeting Russ Feingold

• KS-Gov: Tom Holland’s out with his first ad of the cycle, a comparison spot that’s half negative against Sam Brownback, half positive intro of Holland

• TX-Gov: Bill White’s newest ad rebuts some of Rick Perry’s claims about his mayoral leadership and lists his various commendations

• AZ-05: The National Education Association gets into the ad war in a big way, hitting David Schweikert for being anti-public education (this buy is part of a $15 million initiative on the NEA’s part, also including TV in OH-13 and mailers in NC-08)

• CO-04: EMILY’s List is still sticking around in the 4th, bolstering Betsy Markey with an anti-Cory Gardener spot that’s a mother of a child with autism addressing Gardener not wanting to require insurers to cover that

• Rasmussen:

• AZ-Gov: Terry Goddard (D) 39%, Jan Brewer (R-inc) 55%

• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal (D) 54%, Linda McMahon (R) 43%

• IL-Gov: Pat Quinn (D-inc) 38%, Bill Brady (R) 46%, Rich Whitney (G) 4%

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 41%, Mark Kirk (R) 45%, LeAlan Jones (G) 4%

• MD-Gov: Martin O’Malley (D-inc) 49%, Bob Ehrlich (R) 41%

• RI-Gov: Frank Caprio (D) 30%, John Robitaille (R) 22%, Lincoln Chafee (I) 33%

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 44%, John Raese (R) 50%

CO-Sen: Colorado Dems are concerned that if Andrew Romanoff topples Sen. Michael Bennet in the primary, he’ll be badly hamstrung in the general by his refusal to take PAC money. This problem is compounded by the fact he’s been a pretty crappy fundraiser in general. Romanoff also supposedly said he won’t accept the DSCC’s help – though luckily for us, independent expenditure rules mean that he can’t tell the DS what to do. This all reminds of Russ Feingold demanding that outside groups not spend money on his 1998 re-election campaign, which he won by barely 3% in an otherwise very strong Democratic year.

Meanwhile, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce is up with a quarter million dollar ad buy on behalf of Jane Norton, touting an endorsement from Jan Brewer (whose instant celebrity strikes me as something on the level of a reality TV star).

FL-Sen: So it turns out that Kendrick Meek, who was initially left off some notices, will participate in Barack Obama’s August 18th Miami Beach fundraiser. But a Meek staffer tells Politico that he wants nothing less than a “prominent role” at the event and is “expecting the president to strongly reaffirm his endorsement.” If you have to float these kinds of things via blind leaks to the beltway press… well… that doesn’t exactly evince a great deal of confidence, does it?

Meanwhile, Tom Jensen confirms empirically something I’ve felt intuitively for a while (and mentioned on our panel at Netroots Nation): Charlie Crist is better off with Jeff Greene winning the Democratic primary rather than Kendrick Meek. In particular, black voters support Meek 39-33 over Crist, while they support Crist 61-17 over Greene.

IL-Sen: It’s confirmed: A federal judge ruled that the candidates on the special election ballot to fill out the remaining months of Sen. Roland Burris’s term will be the same as those on the regular election ballot – meaning Burris won’t be able to seek “re-election” for those two extra months (something he actually had considered doing). Phew.

KS-Sen: A final SurveyUSA poll of the GOP primary shows Todd Tiahrt, who has trailed badly for the entire race, closing the gap with Jerry Moran. Moran still leads by a sizable 49-39 margin, but two weeks ago, it was 50-36, and Tiahrt has gained 10 points over the last two months. The problem is, time’s up: The primary is tonight.

KY-Sen: The Club for Growth just endorsed Rand Paul, and undoubtedly it’s because of College Libertarian Society bullshit like this which comes out of his mouth:

The Republican running to replace outgoing Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) in the coal-mining hub of Kentucky said recently that Washington has no business formulating mine safety rules.

“The bottom line is: I’m not an expert, so don’t give me the power in Washington to be making rules,” Paul said at a recent campaign stop in response to questions about April’s deadly mining explosion in West Virginia, according to a profile in Details magazine. “You live here, and you have to work in the mines. You’d try to make good rules to protect your people here. If you don’t, I’m thinking that no one will apply for those jobs.”

“I know that doesn’t sound… I want to be compassionate, and I’m sorry for what happened, but I wonder: Was it just an accident?”

CA-Gov: Fellow humans of Earth! I have traveled back through time from the year 3000! And I come to tell you that in our wondrous and awesome future, the spending record for candidate self-funding is still held by Meg Whitman! I cannot tell you how much she spent in total, lest I create a temporal paradox and cause all of you never to have been born, but I can inform you that she has already spent one hundred million of your Earth dollars! Also, everyone in the future eats Dippin’ Dots!

Meanwhile, a more chronologically closer reporter informs us that Jerry Brown has $23 million on hand.

FL-Gov: The 11th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down Florida’s public financing law, whereby candidates whose opponents spend more than $25 million (as Rick Scott has) get added matching funds from the state. Apparently this system “chills free speech” (whatever). Bill McCollum is obviously none too happy, and is weighing a possible appeal – or an attack on another part of the law which limits the size of donations he can accept.

GA-Gov: Landmark Communications, a Republican pollster which says it has no ties to either candidate, is out with the first poll of the GOP runoff. They find Karen Handel leading Nathan Deal by a 46-37 margin. Deal, meanwhile, is out with a new ad, and props to the AJC’s Jim Galloway for getting the Deal campaign to cough up that the buy is for 850 gross ratings points in the Atlanta area. One rating point is equal to one percent of a potential audience, but because the same viewer might see the same ad more than once, you need a lot more than 100 GRPs to reach your full target audience. As things go, 850 is a pretty decent-sized buy, especially in an expensive market like Atlanta.

CA-47: This really doesn’t seem wise: Rep. Loretta Sanchez, locked in a competitive race with Assemblyman Van Tran, filed paperwork for state bid in 2014. She really couldn’t have waited until after November? Now-Rep. Tom McClintock (CA-04) did something similar last cycle, and it certainly did not seem to help him (he barely eked out a win in a decidedly red district). Speaking of Tran, by the way, here’s an interesting item from late last week: He secured the backing of the grifters running the Tea Party Express – not exactly a popular gang, I’m sure, in this 60% Obama district.

FL-08: You know how they say that if you wind up in prison, you should act all crazy on your first day so that the other inmates know better than to mess with you? Well, Alan Grayson’s tack seems to have been to act crazy so as to get his opponents to act even crazier and thus blow themselves up in the process. Republican state Rep. Kurt Kelly, reacting to Grayson’s absence during a vote on an Afghanistan war funding bill, spazzed: “He put our soldiers, our men and women in the military, in harm’s way and, in fact, maybe he wants them to die.” Said a Grayson spokesperson in response: “Kurt Kelly thinks the stupider he sounds, the more Republican votes he’ll get.” Heh.

HI-01: GOP Rep. Charles Djou is out with an internal poll from the Tarrance Group showing him up 50-42 over Colleen Hanabusa. Djou has about $380K on hand to Hanabusa’s $220K. I wonder if Hanabusa will release her own internal.

ID-01: I swear, some days it really feels like Bill Sali actually is running again. This time, apprentice fuckup Raul Labrador moved his campaign headquarters outside of the 1st Congressional District – a pretty remarkable feat given that Idaho has only two CDs. If this sounds extremely familiar, that’s because it is: Sali himself did the exact same thing, situating his campaign office in ID-02 as well. Let’s hope history repeats in November, too.

IL-10: Dem Dan Seals has donated $5,000 he received from ethically embattled Rep. Maxine Waters to charity – even though she gave that money to him last cycle. I wonder if other candidates will follow suit, ala Rangel.

NY-10: Even though he’s already spent an absurd $1.1 million and held 2008 challenger Kevin Powell to just 32% in the primary, Rep. Ed Towns is taking no chances in his rematch and is attempting to get Powell kicked off the ballot. However, Powell (who has raised very little and has just $30K on hand) collected 8,000 signatures, far more than the 1,250 he needed. So unless there are massive flaws (or fraud), this is going to be difficult for Towns.

WI-08: Organic farmer, Door County supervisor, and teabagger Marc Savard, who had raised very little, dropped out and endorsed roofing contractor Reid Ribble in the GOP primary. Ribble, who leads the fundraising field (but only has about $180K on hand), still faces former state Rep. Terri McCormick and current state Rep. Roger Roth. (And here’s a rather disturbing item we missed: While we noted retired radiologist Marc Trager’s departure from the race in mid-June, we were previously unaware that he committed suicide just a couple of weeks later.)

DCCC: Obama alert! The POTUS will do a fundraiser for the D-Trip on August 16 at the Los Angeles home of “ER” and “West Wing” executive produce John Wells. Nancy Pelosi and Chris Van Hollen are also expected to attend.

CA-Gov: This video (the second one on the page) is a couple of months old but is worth watching if you haven’t seen it yet. I think it goes a ways toward explaining Meg Whitman’s glass jaw. It’s a local news piece detailing an ugly snub of the media by Whitman at a campaign stop she specifically invited the press to – and it’s about as harshly negative as a straight news piece can be. When ordinary people imagine rich douchebags behaving douchily, this is what we envision.

KY-Sen: Republican muckety-muck Cathy Bailey, who almost ran in this race herself, endorsed Rand Paul, while the U.S. Chamber of Commerce endorse Trey Grayson. They must love fiat currency.

PA-Sen, PA-07: Joe Sestak just endorsed Bryan Lentz to succeed him in PA-07… but Lentz faces zero primary opposition. The real news is that Lentz in turn endorsed Sestak, which may help him snare an extra vote or two in the Philly burbs.

UT-Sen: Is Orrin Hatch setting himself up to be Bob Bennett 2.0? He said that the teabaggers “don’t have an open mind and they won’t listen.”

FL-Gov: Rick Scott loves his chocolate milk: The uber-wealthy gubernatorial candidate (who has been flooding the Florida airwaves) opposes a Charlie Crist-backed amendment to the state constitution which would ban offshore drilling. It’s interesting to see how this is playing among conservative circles, where even Bill McCollum largely supports Crist’s idea. On the flipside, both Scott and McCollum luv Arizona’s new immigration law.

MA-04: Consultant and Marine vet Sean Bielat announced that he will challenge Rep. Barney Frank as a Republican.

MI-13: Carolyn Cheeks Kilpatrick may survive yet another primary. She narrowly escaped last cycle thanks to a split field again, and may yet do so again. Four opponents filed against her, including state Sen. Hansen Clarke.

NY-23: Keep the cat fud a-comin’: Conservative Party chair (and newfound progressive hero) Mike Long sent out a memo to North Country GOP leaders explicitly comparing Matt Doheny to Dede Scozzafava and pleding to stick with Doug Hoffman. Long points out that Doheney (who sought his party’s nomination last year) maxed out to Dede after she got the nod, and also said, “I’m going to do everything I can for her, and more.” If Doheny wins the Republican primary, it could be Hoffman’s turn to play spoiler on the Conservative line. History is definitely starting to rhyme.

OH-18: There were fat ladies… all around… but he never heard them singing…. State Sen. Bob Gibbs “declared victory” over a disgruntled Fred Dailey, even though official results have not yet been declared. Dailey called the move presumptuous and said the fat lady ain’t sung. The Secretary of State doesn’t have to certify results until 20 days after the election, and then, since the margin of victory was less than half a percent, we could see a recount – which might take until June. You know Zack Space is doing a happy dance.

PA-12: Big Dog coming to town: Bill Clinton is coming to Johnstown on May 16th to do a rally for Dem Mark Critz.

PA-17 (PDF): Susquehanna Polling & Research (5/7-8, likely voters, no trendlines):

Tim Holden (D-inc): 54

Sheila Dow-Ford (D): 27

Undecided: 18

(MoE: ±4.9%)

David Argall (R): 21

Frank Ryan (R): 17

John First (R): 7

Allen Griffth (R): 5

Undecided: 47

(MoE: ±4.3%)

While Dow-Ford probably can’t unseat Holden, these are some uninspiring numbers for the incumbent, who only gets 38% re-elects. Obama’s job approval is 32-56.

SD-AL: Chris Nelson, South Dakota’s Republican Secretary of State who is hoping to take on Rep. Stephanie Herseth Sandlin, is at least birther-curious, claiming that “many people” contacted him as SoS “asking how Obama could be on our ballot given this controversy.” Nelson’s primary opponents (who were asked the same question) didn’t take the bait, so you gotta wonder if Nelson is trying to out-teabag them.

NY State Sen.: Among his many un-endearing habits, Mike Bloomberg has long used his zillions to prop up Republicans in the state Senate. However, Bloombo flack Howard Wolfson is now hinting that this tradition may come to an end. His Bloombleness has already endorsed Dem Craig Johnson of Long Island.

NRSC: Michael DuHaime, a top strategist for Chris Christie’s gubernatorial campaign (and before that, political director for John McCain’s presidential bid), is being tapped by the NRSC to head up their independent expenditure arm this year.

AR-Sen: The odious U.S. Chamber of Commerce is running ads on behalf of Blanche Lincoln, though they are refusing to say how much they are spending on their buy. As Salon says, with friends like these….

FL-Sen: Reid Wilson does some counting and finds that Arlen Specter has given back a rather amazing $1 million this election cycle, following his party switch. (Part of this was fueled by an aggressive campaign by the Club for Growth, which won FEC permission to contact Specter’s donors and push them to ask for refunds.) If Charlie Crist bails on the GOP, there’s no telling how much it might cost him financially, but the Specter precedent suggests it could be a hell of a lot.

IL-Sen: Even Mark Kirk is smart enough to skip an IL GOP fundraiser headlined by Sarah Palin.

IN-Sen: With the GOP primary just days away, Dan Coats has floated himself a $200K lifeline. I wonder if it will be enough.

NV-Sen: Fuck it – Sue Lowden knows that when you’re at the bottom of a 2,000-foot deep mineshaft, you should keep fucking digging until you’ve reached China. That’s why she is still advocating the barter system. While this prolonged episode of inspired insanity is not helping her win any elections, it is helping her become one of the most awesome candidates of 2010. Meanwhile, GOP primary opponent Danny Tarkanian is shish-kebobbing Lowden for her “poultry-based healthcare plan.”

OH-Sen: Quinnipiac should have a poll out of the Dem senate primary this morning.

PA-Sen: Michael J. Fox has cut an ad for Arlen Specter, citing his support for medical research. Fox had previously done an ad for Specter in 2004 as well.

FL-Gov: Mocking gun ownership? And pissing law enforcement off in the process? It sounds like a deranged GOP fantasy of something they think Dems would love to do, but in fact, the Republican Party of Florida is the guilty party here. They put out a shitty web video mocking CFO Alex Sink, who authorized the purchase of “advanced weaponry” for law enforcement officers who operate out of her agency. The state PBA blistered AG Bill McCollum (who posted the video on his website) for this offense, noting with irony that he’s the state’s chief law enforcement officer.

GA-Gov: Ex-Rep. Nathan Deal has come out in favor of Arizona’s draconian new immigration law, apparently the first Republican gubernatorial candidate in Georgia to do so. While Deal trails badly in the polls and isn’t very likely to win the GOP nod, in my opinion, he might succeed in driving the Republican field to the right on this issue.

NY-Gov: Steve Levy, the Dem-turned-Republican who is hoping to get buzz-sawed by Andrew Cuomo in the fall, is apparently “likely” to get the endorsement of the Queens Republican Party. In order to get a spot on the GOP ballot line, he needs the support of 51% of the state’s county-level parties (which are weighted by size), because he’s still a registered Democrat. He claims to be at around 45%, but it’s not clear if Queens is already included in that tally. If Levy pulls it off, this will be an extraordinary humiliation for Rick Lazio, a man I thought was incapable of being humiliated further.

FL-16: Shut up and go away.

ID-01: Some Very Wacky Dude dropped out of the GOP primary the other day. On his way out, Michael Chadwick attacked another candidate, Vaughn Ward, for representing “powerful special interest groups in New York City and Washington, D.C.” He also called Ward a “protégé and surrogate of the military-industrial-intelligence establishment” who will “vote to build up and sustain the Permanent War Machine.” I hadn’t realized this, but another Republican, Allan Salzberg, also bailed last week.

MI-01: Is it crowded in here, or is it just me? State Rep. Matt Gillard, a Democrat, is the latest to enter the race. He joins two other state Reps, Joel Sheltrown and Gary McDowell, as well as Connie Saltonstall, in the Dem primary field.

NY-14: Reshma Saujani may want to re-think her pro-bankster platform as she attempts to unseat Rep. Carolyn Maloney: A new Marist poll shows that even Manhattanites consider Wall Street to be “more of the problem” rather than “more of the solution” by a 49-31 margin.

NY-15: As Liz Benjamin observes, Assembly Adam Clayton Powell IV hasn’t gotten a whole lot of establishment backing in his attempt to unseat Rep. Charlie Rangel, but a few of his colleagues on the Assembly are hosting a fundraiser for him. Seems pretty minor to me, though.

NY-29: Republicans are citing a case from the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals in their attempt to force Gov. David Paterson to hold a special election to fill Eric Massa’s seat. The 6th Cir. ruled (PDF) that Art. I, § 2, ¶ 4 of the Constitution required then-Gov. Bob Taft of Ohio to hold a special election to fill Jim Traficant’s seat after he was expelled from Congress. However, there’s an old New York State Court of Appeals case, People v. Voorhis, 119 N.E. 106 (1918), which held otherwise – and if this goes before the federal courts in NY, the Second Circuit may very well rule differently from the Sixth.

Calendar: Be sure to bookmark SSP’s handy list of key primary & special elections in the very merry month of May.

AR-Sen: The Communications Workers of America, a union supporting Bill Halter, is firing back with an ad on black radio to combat Blanche Lincoln’s bullshit spot claiming she “stood with our president to pass healthcare reform.” CWA’s ad is in heavy rotation around the state, running “50 times a day” around Little Rock. They also have a new TV ad out, but no word on the size of the buy.

AZ-Sen: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce has given its first endorsement of the 2010 cycle to Sen. John McCain – but apparently cash ain’t attached. I guess the CoC, the grand doyenne of “cheap labor conservatives,” doesn’t believe Johnny Mac’s nativist turn is for real. Given what a fraud McCain has shown himself to be from top to bottom, I guess this makes sense.

CA-Sen: No, the reason John McCain can’t be found in Arizona isn’t because they took him “to a farm upstate.” He’s out in California, campaigning with Carly Fiorina.

IN-Sen: It’s not just that Dan Coats has an unsavory record as a lobbyist – his voting record seems pretty out-of-step with the crazies who make up the modern GOP base. John Hostettler is hitting Coats (albeit in the form of a web video) for things like his votes in favor of the assault weapons ban, the Brady Bill, and the Clinton crime bill – a set of votes tradmed analysts usually like to ascribe many 1994 Dem losses to.

UT-Sen: While they haven’t picked a specific horse to back yet, the Club for Growth has nonetheless spent $133K against Sen. Bob Bennett.

AZ-Gov: Democrat Terry Goddard has finally made his gubernatorial bid official.

AL-02, AL-05: GOP State Sen. Harri Anne Smith, who endorsed Dem Bobby Bright for re-election, has been kicked off her own re-election ballot by the Alabama Republican Party in retaliation. Smith lost the GOP primary in 2008 to Jay Love and apparently is still smarting over that – but this has to sting quite a bit more. Smith hasn’t decided if she’ll run as an independent instead. (Switch! Switch!) Meanwhile, the AL GOP said that turncoat Parker Griffith could stay on the Republican ballot, despite a challenge thanks to his party-switching ways.

FL-08: I’ve totally lost track of how many Republicans are trying to challenge Rep. Alan Grayson, so what’s one more? Wealthy businessman Ross Beiling, owner of a medical parts supplier, is throwing his shrimp on the barbie.

MI-07: While two Michigan Republicans have endorsed ex-Rep. Tim Walberg in his comeback bid, five others are staying neutral in the primary, which also includes Brian Rooney, younger brother of Rep. Tom Rooney (FL-16).

NY-05: Dan Halloran, a Republican who won a Dem-held seat on the NYC City Council last year, is weighing a challenge to Rep. Gary Ackerman. Halloran, a practicing Theodist, thinks he can make Ackerman pay a price for voting in favor of healthcare reform. Ackerman, for his part, has $1.1 million on hand and the support of the Queens Independence Party. This district also went 63-36 for Obama (but notably, that’s the same percentage that Kerry got, suggesting there was something of a “conservative white ethnic New Yorkers for McCain” effect here).

NY-13: The United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1500 is backing Rep. Mike McMahon, in spite of his vote against healthcare reform, citing his support of the Employee Free Choice Act. Speaking of the CWA again, though, a day ago, its local vice president, Chris Shelton, called McMahon “the Judas from Staten Island.” Personally, I think that phrase is overused, and I’m going to start calling traitors “Brutuses.”

Across the Pond: Our friends in the U.K. have scheduled their elections for May 6th. Imagine if we only had one-month campaigns here!