Tag: Jay Townsend

• FL-Sen: File this under half a year too late and a few million dollars too short. Charlie Crist, as quietly as possible through an advisor making a leak to the Wall Street Journal, says he’d caucus with the Democrats if elected. If he’d said that many months ago, he would have probably had a clearer shot consolidating the Democratic vote and turning it into a two-man race. This comes shortly after a day of conflicting reports on whether or not Bill Clinton tried to get Kendrick Meek to drop out of the race, as recently as last week. Clinton and Meek have offered partial rebuttals, but at any rate, it’s kind of a non-story at this point with only a few days left.

• LA-Sen: Too bad there isn’t time left in the cycle to turn this into an ad: David Vitter’s verbal gymnastics at the last debate as to direct questions as to whether or not he actually broke the law when he was engaging in “very serious sin,” apparently for pay. The short answer is, of course, yes (assuming that his involvement with a prostitution ring occurred in Washington DC and not Reno).

• NV-Sen: Those of you following Jon Ralston’s tweets of the early voting in Nevada with bated breath probably already know this, but thanks to the movement of the mobile voting booths into some Dem-friendly areas, Democrats have actually pulled into the lead (at least by party registration) among early voters, up by 20,000 in Clark County.

• CO-Gov: My first question was why Tom Tancredo would even bother running for office if he felt this way, but then I remembered that he’s running for an executive position this time, not a legislative one. Apparently he’s a believer in a strong executive. Very, very, very strong.

There is a sort of an elitist idea that seeps into the head of a lot of people who get elected. And they begin to think of themselves as, really, there for only one purpose and that is to make laws. And why would you make laws?

• IL-Gov: Oooops, ad buy fail. A round of Bill Brady ads were pulled from the air on Thursday because the appropriate television stations didn’t get paid first. It appears to have been a “glitch” (their words) rather than a cash flow problem, though, nothing that a Fed-Exed check won’t fix: the ads will resume running tonight.

• PA-Gov: Ah, nice to see that a Republican briefly acknowledge that the fewer people vote, the better Republicans do. Tom Corbett, at a Philadelphia appearance, said that he wanted to keep Democratic participation down, saying “we want to make sure that they don’t get 50 percent.”

• OH-13: Sensing a pattern here? A second woman is coming forward to accuse Tom Ganley of sexual harassment. She filed a police report stating that in 2005, while in the middle of a car transaction, Ganley groped her and later propositioned her. This race, despite Ganley’s money, is seeming increasingly like one of the House Dems’ lesser worries.

• RGA: I’m not sure what you can do with $6.5 million in half a week, but the RGA is determined to find out. They put that much money into four governor’s races in some of the nation’s largest states: Florida, Illinois, Ohio, and (interestingly, since they haven’t sweated this one before) Pennsylvania. (While the other three are for TV ads, in Florida it’s for GOTV… seemingly something that Rick Scott forgot to purchase.)

• Election night: This may be the most shocking news of all today, for the obsessive number crunchers among us. This will be the first election where the powers that be (mostly the AP) will be doing away with precinct reporting. Instead of giving specific numbers of precincts in, they’ll be expressing it as “percentage of expected vote.” The change in longstanding tradition has mostly to do with the increasing prevalence of mail-in votes and early votes, best seen with some locales dumping all their early votes all at once and calling it one precinct, messing with people like us who build complicated models ahead of time.

• SSP TV:

• IL-Sen: Mark Kirk’s last ad calls Alexi Giannoulias “too immature” for the Senate (um, has he actually seen the Senate in action?)

• NV-Sen: Obama! Fear! Tyranny! Aaaghh! And apparently the Carmina Burana playing the background! (Sharron Angle’s closing statement, in other words)

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold puts on a plaid shirt and faces the camera, touting his accomplishments and newspaper endorsements

• TX-Gov: Bill White also rolls out his newspaper endorsements, as well as lobbing “career politician” at Rick Perry one last time

• MN-06: Taryl Clark’s last ad is a look at real people with real problems in the 6th, and the myriad ways Michele Bachmann blew them off

• Rasmussen:

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 49%, Meg Whitman (R) 45%

• CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 47%, Dan Maes (R) 5%, Tom Tancredo (C) 42%

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway (D) 41%, Rand Paul (R) 53%

• MA-Gov: Deval Patrick (D-inc) 46%, Charlie Baker (R) 44%, Tim Cahill (I) 6%

• OR-Sen: Ron Wyden (D-inc) 53%, Jim Huffman (R) 42%

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 46%, Pat Toomey (R) 50%

• YouGov: The English pollster is out with a slew of polls; the numbers seem very plausible, but they’re conducted over the Internet (probably using at least some sort of rigor, but that alone is enough for relegation to the end of the digest)

• CA: Jerry Brown (D) 50%, Meg Whitman (R) 41%; Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 49%, Carly Fiorina (R) 45%

• FL: Alex Sink (D) 44%, Rick Scott (R) 41%; Kendrick Meek (D) 18%, Marco Rubio (R) 42%, Charlie Crist (I) 31%

• NY: Andrew Cuomo (D) 57%, Carl Paladino (R) 27%; Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc) 57%, Joe DioGuardi (R) 33%; Charles Schumer (D-inc) 59%, Jay Townsend (R) 35%

• OH: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 45%, John Kasich (R) 48%; Lee Fisher (D) 40%, Rob Portman (R) 53%

• PA: Dan Onorato (D) 41%, Tom Corbett (R) 50%; Joe Sestak (D) 44%, Pat Toomey (R) 50%

• 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: National Research, Inc. for the Club for Growth (10/8-9, likely voters):

Scott McAdams (D): 27

Lisa Murkowski (WI-inc): 31

Joe Miller (R): 33

(MoE: ±4.9%)

CA-Sen, CA-Gov, Prop 23: Ipsos for Reuters (10/12-14, likely voters, 10/2-4 in parens):

Barbara Boxer (D-inc): 46 (49)

Carly Fiorina (R): 45 (45)

Jerry Brown (D): 48 (50)

Meg Whitman (R): 44 (43)

Yes on 23: 35

No on 23: 46

(MoE: ±4.6%)

CT-Gov: Quinnipiac (10/7-11, likely voters, 9/21-26 in parens):

Dan Malloy (D): 49 (45)

Tom Foley (R): 42 (42)

(MoE: ±2.9%)

FL-Gov: Susquehanna for Sunshine State News (10/12-13, likely voters, 9/28-10/3 in parens):

Alex Sink (D): 48 (44)

Rick Scott (R): 44 (50)

(MoE: ±2.2%)

HI-Gov: Aloha Vote for Honolulu Civil Beat (10/11, likely voters):

Neil Abercrombie (D): 47

Duke Aiona (R): 44

(MoE: ±2.9%)

KS-Sen, KS-Gov: Survey USA for KWCH-TV (10/10-12, likely voters, 9/14-16 in parens):

Tom Holland (D): 32 (32)

Sam Brownback (R): 60 (59)

Andrew Gray (L): 3 (3)

Ken Cannon (Ref): 4 (4)

Lisa Johnston (D): 27 (24)

Jerry Moran (R): 67 (66)

Michael Dann (L): 2 (2)

Joe Bellis (Ref): 3 (5)

(MoE: ±4%)

For SoS, Dems trail 35-53; for State Treasurer, it’s 39-55. For Attorney General, appointed Dem Steve Six trails Derek Schmidt 40-48.

MA-Gov: Suffolk University (10/10-12, registered voters, 9/14-16 in parens):

Deval Patrick (D-inc): 46 (41)

Charlie Baker (R): 39 (34)

Tim Cahill (I): 10 (14)

Jill Stein (G): 1 (4)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

ME-Gov: Critical Insights for Maine Today Media (10/10-11, likely voters, 9/27 in parens):

Libby Mitchell (D): 29 (33)

Paul LePage (R): 34 (33)

Eliot Cutler (I): 13 (10)

Shawn Moody (I): 7 (6)

Kevin Scott (I): 1 (-)

(MoE: ±4.0%)

MN-Gov: SurveyUSA for KSTP-TV (10/11-13, likely voters, 9/12-14 in parens):

Mark Dayton (DFL): 42 (38)

Tom Emmer (R): 37 (36)

Tom Horner (IP): 14 (18)

Other: 3 (5)

(MoE: ±3.7%)

NH-Sen: University of New Hampshire (10/7-12, likely voters, 9/23-29 in parens):

Paul Hodes (D): 35 (35)

Kelly Ayotte (R): 50 (50)

Other: 3 (2)

(MoE: ±3.7%)

NV-Sen, NV-Gov: Mason–Dixon for the LVRJ (10/11-12, likely voters, 9/20-22 in parens):

Harry Reid (D-inc): 45 (43)

Sharron Angle (R): 47 (43)

Other: 2 (2)

NOTA: 2 (4)

Rory Reid (D): 37 (37)

Brian Sandoval (R): 52 (51)

Other: 2 (3)

NOTA: 1 (2)

(MoE: ±4%)

NV-Gov: Public Policy Polling (10/7-9, likely voters, July in parens):

Rory Reid (D): 43 (38)

Brian Sandoval (R): 52 (52)

(MoE: ±4.4%)

NV-Gov: Suffolk University (10/8-11, likely voters, in parens):

Rory Reid (D): 39

Brian Sandoval (R): 50

Other: 2

NOTA: 3

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Bonus findings: Incumbent LG Brian Krolicki (R) leads Dem Jessica Sferrazza 42-30, Dem SoS Ross Miller leads 40-24, Dem Treasurer Kate Marshall trails 33-38, and Dem Controller Kim Wallin leads 31-26.

NY-Gov, NY-Sen, NY-Sen-B: SurveyUSA for WABC-TV, WHEC-TV, and WNYT-TV (10/11-13, likely voters, in parens):

Andrew Cuomo (D): 59 (57)

Carl Paladino (R): 33 (34)

Other: 6 (5)

Chuck Schumer (D): 63 (60)

Jay Townsend (R): 30 (30)

Other: 4 (6)

Kirsten Gillibrand (D): 54 (54)

Joe DioGuardi (R): 36 (35)

Other: 7 (8)

(MoE: ±3.9%)

Bonus finding: Manhattan/Bronx state Senator Eric Schneiderman (D) leads Staten Island DA Dan Donovan (R) for Attorney General 44-40, down from 46-40 a week ago.

OH-Sen, OH-Gov: Univ. of Cincinnati for the Ohio Poll(10/8-13, likely voters, 9/16-20 in parens):

Lee Fisher (D): 36 (40)

Rob Portman (R): 58 (55)

Ted Strickland (D-inc): 43 (45)

John Kasich (R): 51 (49)

(MoE: ±3.7%)

OK-Sen: Sooner Poll (10/3-7, likely voters):

Jim Rogers (D): 22

Tom Coburn (R-inc): 62

Other: 2

(MoE: ±5.2%)

Other results here find the GOP leading for all statewide offices: 40-28 for LG, 50-30 for Attorney General, 41-35 for Insurance Commissioner, 45-31 for Treasurer, 35-32 for State Superintendent, 44-33 for Labor Commissioner, and 41-35 for Auditor/Inspector. Dems had held most of these offices, if you’ll recall.

OR-Gov, OR-Sen: SurveyUSA for KATU-TV (10/12-14, likely voters, 9/12-14 in parens):

John Kitzhaber (D): 46 (43)

Chris Dudley (R): 45 (49)

Greg Kord (C): 4 (3)

Wes Wagner (L): 3 (2)

Ron Wyden (D-inc): 56 (54)

Jim Huffman (R): 34 (38)

Bruce Cronk (WF): 2 (3)

Marc Delphine (L): 2 (1)

Rick Staggenborg (P): 2 (0)

(MoE: ±3.9%)

PA-Gov: Magellan (10/10, likely voters, 9/21 in parens):

Dan Onorato (D): 38 (38)

Tom Corbett (R): 48 (50)

(MoE: ±2.3%)

VT-Sen, VT-Gov, VT-AL: Mason-Dixon for Vermont Public Radio (10/11-13, registered voters):

Patrick Leahy (D-inc): 62

Len Britton (R): 27

Other: 4

Peter Shumlin (D): 43

Brian Dubie (R): 44

Other: 5

Peter Welch (D): 61

Paul Beaudry (R): 25

Other: 4

(MoE: ±4%)

WA-Sen: Washington Poll (10/5-14, registered voters, in parens):

Patty Murray (D-inc): 50

Dino Rossi (R): 42

(MoE: ±4.3%)

WA-Sen: SurveyUSA for KING-TV (10/11-14, likely voters, in parens):

Patty Murray (D-inc): 50 (50)

Dino Rossi (R): 47 (48)

(MoE: ±4.1%)

• WI-Sen, WI-Gov: Russ Feingold and Tom Barrett are both out with internal polls today, both from the same pollster (Fairbanks Maslin), both showing tied races. The Senate poll (Oct. 7, and 10-11) shows Russ Feingold and Ron Johnson tied at 48-48. The gubernatorial poll was an entirely separate sample, Oct. 5-7, showing Tom Barrett and Scott Walker are at 47-47.

• GA-Gov: InsiderAdvantage (10/10, likely voters, 9/27 in parens):

Roy Barnes (D): 41 (37)

Nathan Deal (R): 49 (45)

John Monds (L): 3 (5)

Undecided: 7 (13)

(MoE: ±4%)

If you’re wondering about downballot races, IA also has GOPer Casey Cagle leading Carol Porter in the LG race, 50-36, and GOPer Sam Olen leading Ken Hodges in the AG race, 50-40. Also, if you’re wondering how Nathan Deal seemed to regain his footing after a few rocky weeks where the race was seemingly tied, a lot of that seems to have to do with the RGA pouring money into this race ($3.2 million worth), as they’ve tacitly made this race one of their top priorities.

• AZ-05: Although this is an internal poll that has the GOPer leading the incumbent Dem, it’s a little on the lackluster side. David Schweikert responds to the DCCC internal giving Harry Mitchell an 7-point lead with his own poll showing him up by only 2, 45-43. (The poll was taken 10/5-6 by National Research.) An incumbent at 43% is no good, of course, but averaging the two polls out (for whatever that’s worth) gives Mitchell a small edge.

• NY-20, TN-08: What do these two races (one with a Blue Dog incumbent who seems in control of his race, the other an open seat with an aspiring Blue Dog not likely to win) have in common? In both races, the Dem said he wouldn’t support Nancy Pelosi for Speaker. Scott Murphy’s decision (granted, he’s more of a waffle than a flat-out “no”) is much more surprising than Roy Herron‘s; we’ll have to see if this becomes more of a trend in the closing weeks.

• OH-13: Tom Ganley has pulled his broadcast television advertising for the remaining weeks of the campaign, although he will be focusing on less-expensive cable and radio buys instead of going dark completely. He says that’s how he’s going to “cut through the clutter,” but somehow methinks the self-funder (savvy businessman that he is) realized that he shouldn’t throw his own money down the hole in a race that just got considerably more difficult once sex assault accusations started to fly. (H/t LookingOver.)

• PA-13: Here’s an unremarkable internal from a race where we shouldn’t even have to be looking at one: Allyson Schwartz, in the D+7 NE Philly district, leads Dee Adcock 57-32 in a 10/5-6 poll from Cooper & Secrest. Apparently this was released to combat rumors of a Republican internal showing it a single-digit race.

• SD-AL: This was the day’s big fundraising story until Sharron Angle showed up: the reason Kristi “Leadfoot” Noem was driving so fast was because she had to get to so many different donors’ houses. She raised $1.1 million for the quarter, compared to $550K for Stephanie Herseth Sandlin. That actually gives Noem the CoH edge, $770K to $500K.

• TN-03: Here’s one more place I wouldn’t think I’d be seeing an internal, considering that this GOP-held open seat in a dark-red district should be a slam-dunk this year, but I guess Chuck Fleischmann feels like he needs to look busy. The GOP nominee is leading Dem nominee John Wolfe by a 50-20 margin, in a poll (no dates) by Wilson Research.

• DCCC: More news on the triage front, on what’s apparently the last day to cancel ad reservations without taking a big financial hit. Having thrown Steve Driehaus overboard yesterday, the DCCC followed up today with Kathy Dahlkemper in PA-03 and Suzanne Kosmas in FL-24, who won’t get any more ad cover according to the NYT. Aaron Blake also tweets that open seats KS-03, IN-08, and TN-08 got the axe.

• AGs: You probably know Louis Jacobson of Governing magazine for his handicapping of state legislative chambers, but he also works the state AG beat (that’s often short for “Aspiring Governor,” so it’s a key bench-building step), and is out with handicapping for all the Attorney General races up this year. As you might expect, Dems should brace for some losses, especially in open seats.

• Gerrymandering: If there’s any place where people would be psyched to sit down and watch a movie about gerrymandering, it’s here at SSP. The movie’s creator is up with a diary here that lists all the theaters where it’s opening over the next month (including where he’ll be hosting Q&As). Some of them are one-night engagements, starting as early as tonight, so check out the listings ASAP!

• SSP TV:

• CO-Sen: The DSCC hits Ken Buck for his craptastic tenure working for the local US Attorney’s office

• KY-Sen: The DSCC goes back to the $2,000 Medicare deductible issue yet again to hit Rand Paul

• WA-Sen: I’m not sure why Washington Dems always wait until the last minute to remind voters that Dino Rossi is pro-life (that’s what happened in both gube races) — maybe they figure it’s their trump card — but they’re doing it again; meanwhile, the American Action Network hits Patty Murray by whipping up a second version of that weird Fred Davis ad with the tennis shoes walking on people

• WI-Sen: One of Russ Feingold’s myriad problems is that Ron Johnson actually comes up with some effective ads: this one’s a bio spot

• GA-Gov: Nathan Deal’s new ad hits Roy Barnes for having once said that “Mexican workers were good for Georgia”

• SC-Gov: The suddenly resurgent Vince Sheheen’s out with another spot, this one equating Nikki Haley to protégé Mark Sanford

• TX-Gov: Lone Star First (a DGA-backed group) hits Rick Perry on the HPV vaccine and links to Big Pharma

• OH-13: EMILY’s List steers clear of the sex assault allegations of Tom Ganley, going with a humorous spot on outsourcing and his 400 civil lawsuits at his car dealerships

• Rasmussen:

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 44%, Mark Kirk (R) 43%, LeAlan Jones (G) 4%

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 34%, Rob Portman (R) 57%

• TN-Gov: Mike McWherter (D) 31%, Bill Haslam (R) 59%

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold (D-inc) 45%, Ron Johnson (R) 52%

• Rasmussen (as Fox/Pulse):

• CT-Gov: Dan Malloy (D) 45%, Tom Foley (R) 41%

• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal (D) 49%, Linda McMahon (R) 43%

• DE-Sen: Chris Coons (D) 54%, Christine O’Donnell (R) 38%

• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 47%, Sharron Angle (R) 49%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 42%, John Kasich (R) 47%

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 35%, Rob Portman (R) 52%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 46%, Dino Rossi (R) 47%

• Angus-Reid: Another reason to be suspicious of Angus-Reid in addition to their Dem-friendly internet samples: they seem to have neglected to poll the actually interesting Senate race in New York…

• NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo (D) 63%, Carl Paladino (R) 32%

• NY-Sen: Charles Schumer (D) 67%, Jay Townsend (R) 27%

• AK-Sen: Joe Miller finally got around to belatedly filing his financial disclosures, maybe feeling he had something to hide. He really shouldn’t, because he’s just like the rest of us: he’s carrying a lot of credit card debt. He owes between $35K and $80K on three separate charge accounts, and also owes himself $103K for a campaign loan.  That, my friends, is fiscal conservatism you can believe in. (His biggest asset seems to be undeveloped farmland worth at least $250K, apparently the same Delta Jct. land for which he was receiving farm subsidies.)

• FL-Sen: Here’s a freaky rumor (and I think it’s nothing more than that, as everything seems to be business as usual with the Kendrick Meek camp today, at least on the surface). The Wall St. Journal alludes to increased chatter that a Meek/Charlie Crist deal might be in the works for Meek to drop out of the race and clear the way for Crist to take all the left-of-center votes.

• IL-Sen, IL-Gov: The DGA is out with an internal poll of Illinois, via Global Strategy Group. The poll, though, has better news on the Senate front than the gubernatorial battle. Alexi Giannoulias leads Mark Kirk by 3: 40-37, with 3 each to the Green and Libertarian candidates. On the other hand, Pat Quinn, who’s popped up in the lead in a couple polls lately, trails Bill Brady by 1, at 36-35, with 4 for Green Rich Whitney, 2 for Lex Green, and 6 for Scott Lee Cohen. Just the fact that Quinn seems to be climbing back into the thick of things at this late date seems to be newsworthy in itself, though.

• MO-Sen: As is often the case with these advancing-in-a-different-direction stories, there have been some mixed signals about whether the DSCC is packing up in Missouri. Hotline is observing that this seems to be at least partially the case: they’ve canceled buys from Oct. 11 to Oct. 25, although the buy still seems intact for the last week before the election. They’ve spent $1.8 million in Missouri so far, but probably will be looking to spend that money on defense in West Virginia, or maybe even Washington, which seems to be slowly edging back onto the map.

• NV-Sen: We might expect a steady stream of endorsements on a regular basis from now until the election for Harry Reid from not-insane Republicans. Two were just unveiled in the last few days. One is from Bill Raggio, the former Republican leader in the state Senate (and a legislator since 1972), who has particular reason to dislike Sharron Angle, as she tried to primary him out of his Reno-area seat in 2008. The other is Dema Guinn, the widow of the recently deceased ex-Gov. Kenny Guinn, who also says that her former husband would have backed Reid in this case too.

• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov: Quinnipiac (10/1-5, likely voters, 9/16-20 in parens):

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 55 (48)

Joe DioGuardi (R): 34 (42)

Undecided: 11 (9)

(MoE: ±2.9%)

SurveyUSA (10/5-7, likely voters, 9/20-21 in parens):

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 54 (45)

Joe DioGuardi (R): 35 (44)

Other: 8 (8)

Undecided: 3 (4)

Andrew Cuomo (D): 57 (49)

Carl Paladino (R): 34 (40)

Other: 5 (8)

Undecided: 3 (3)

(MoE: ±4%)

I think we can conclude that both those previous Quinnipiac and SurveyUSA polls — the two ones that came out simultaneously and had the big New York races in single digits, spurring a wave of panic — were some combination of a perfect wave of primary bounce and big honkin’ outlier. These races have resumed looking pretty much the way they have all cycle except for those two blips.

We also have NY-Sen-A numbers (60-30 for Chuck Schumer over Jay Townsend in SurveyUSA, and 63-32 in Quinnipiac), and NY-AG numbers (Eric Schneiderman leads Dan Donovan 46-40 in SurveyUSA, and 43-32 in Quinnipiac). Quinnipiac also has Thomas DiNapoli leading Harry Wilson 49-31 in the Comptroller race.

• AK-Sen: Daily Kos just added Scott McAdams to its Orange to Blue list, so if you’re still looking to throw some money in his direction, you can do so via Big Orange. Meanwhile, Lisa Murkowski is trying to gear up her write-in campaign, and with Ted Stevens having been laid to rest this week, she’s mulling whether to roll out those ads featuring Stevens that she had ready to go pre-primary but pulled because of his death. This can’t be good news for Murkowski, though: Rep. Don Young, more from the Murkowski/Stevens wing of the local GOP than the teabagger wing, is having a bout of self-preservation and is staying neutral, not endorsing anyone in the race. Finally, here’s one more page in Joe Miller’s ongoing saga of milking the system that he hates so darn much: when new to Alaska (but after he’d bought his expensive house and started working as an attorney), he obtained an indigent hunting/fishing license that required an income of less than $8,200/yr.

• DE-Sen: Christine O’Donnell says she attended Oxford. Oh, no, wait, she took a course from something called the Phoenix Institute that “rented space from” Oxford. Why am I not surprised?

• FL-Sen: I always figured that the early love affair between the local teabaggery and Marco Rubio wouldn’t last; he seemed more from the mainstream Jeb Bush camp and it seemed more a marriage of convenience based on his charisma but mostly on the fact that he wasn’t Charlie Crist. Anyway, he’s pretty much severed the relationship and making a break for the establishment with his latest revelation, that he decided several months ago against privatizing Social Security after concluding the idea “doesn’t work.” (If Ken Buck gets elected, I wonder how long it’ll take him to make the same move?)

• IL-Sen: The DSCC is keeping on pouring money into the Land of Lincoln, bolstering Alexi Giannoulias. They’re adding another $400K to the pile, for another week on the air.

• KY-Sen: The NRSC is taking the opposite tack, engaging in a little advertisus interruptus and pulling out for a week from Kentucky. (They claim they’re doing so from a position of strength, naturally.) Meanwhile, this is kind of small ball ($1,400 in contributions from three guys), but it’s still the kind of headline you probably don’t want to see if you’re Rand Paul, especially once you’ve made your feelings on the Civil Rights Act clear:

Conway camp calls on Paul to return money from white separatists

• NY-Sen-B: Marist (9/19-22, likely voters, 5/3-5 in parentheses):

Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 52 (50)

Joe DioGuardi (R): 41 (30)

Undecided: 7 (20)

(MoE: ±4%)

Marist gives you a buffet of different numbers of choose from, as it’s 54-42 for Gillibrand when leaners are pushed, or it’s 55-36 when polling just registered voters (meaning there’s an enthusiasm gap worth 8 points here). They also find Chuck Schumer having no problems in the other Senate race, leading Jay Townsend 58-37 among LVs (and 63-32 among RVs).

• WI-Sen: Ron Johnson’s one act of political participation prior to this year — testifying before the state legislature in opposition to the bipartisan-supported Wisconsin Child Victims Act — is getting a second look in the press. His main interest in opposing the bill was that it could lead to corporations or other business entities being held liable for acts of employees, worried about the “economic havoc” it would create (and worried that those meddling “trial lawyers” would benefit). Think Progress has video of the testimony.

• WV-Sen: This seems like a new one to me… John Raese is actually paying people to write letters to the editor on his behalf. Not just offering them McCain Bucks that can’t be redeemed for anything in the real world, but running an actual contest giving money to people who get the most letters published. Also, I’ll give John Raese credit for being himself even when he’s being followed around by reporters. Here’s his reaction to finding out that the NRA endorsement went to Joe Manchin:

Raese speaks angrily into the phone, his words full of threat: “Tell them that I have an A plus rating with them, and that if they are fair they should include that. Tell them about the polling. Tell them I’m riding an elephant.” Raese pulls the cell phone away from his ear,  hands it back to Patrick the driver, and says “That has made it a lot harder.”

• CT-Gov: Little known fact: did you know that Jodi Rell still hasn’t endorsed Tom Foley yet, despite only weeks to go? Foley’s camp is saying it’s imminent, but it looks like Rell has summoned up even less enthusiasm in the general as she did for her Lt. Gov., Michael Fedele, in the GOP primary.

• FL-Gov: Here’s an interesting endorsement for Alex Sink: she got the backing of term-limited Republican state Sen. Alex Villalobos. Villalobos is also backing Charlie Crist (and even Dan Gelber in the AG race), so this exactly a sign of the Republican edifice collapsing, though.

• IA-Gov, SD-AL: Add one more to the long list of Dems who are getting a nice NRA endorsement as their box-of-Rice-a-Roni-and-can-of-Turtle-Wax-style parting gift on their way out the studio door. Chet Culver just got the backing of the gun lobby. (One state to the north, they also just backed Stephanie Herseth Sandlin today.)

• CA-44: PPP for Democrats.com (9/24-26, likely voters, no trendlines):

Bill Hedrick (D): 38

Ken Calvert (R-inc): 49

Undecided: 13

(n=760)

Despite being woefully underfunded, Bill Hedrick’s keeping the race competitive in his rematch against Ken Calvert (recall that he almost won, out of nowhere, in 2008). How he makes up that last 12 points in this climate, though, I’m not sure.

• FL-22: Harstad Research Group for Project New West (9/20-22, likely voters, no trendlines):

Ron Klein (D): 48

Allen West (R): 43

Undecided: 9

(n=504)

There’s lots of back-and-forth in the polling of the 22nd, with each side sporting their own internal with a lead in the last week. Dem pollster Harstad weighs in with another one going in Ron Klein’s column.

• KS-03: Moore money, Moore problems? Retiring Rep. Dennis Moore is still busy emptying out his campaign coffers, transferring $100K more to the Kansas Democratic party (on top of a previous $100K in June). That’s probably with the understanding that the money will be used to pay for their newest mailer in support of Stephene Moore, running to succeed her husband.

• NH-01, NH-02: American Research Group (9/22-26, likely voters, no trendlines):

Carol Shea-Porter (D-inc): 40

Frank Guinta (R): 50

Undecided: 8

Ann McLane Kuster (D): 36

Charlie Bass (R): 38

Undecided: 21

(MoE: ±5%)

Here are some unusual results from ARG! (although should we expect anything else?): they find Carol Shea-Porter getting keelhauled in the 1st, while the open seat battle in the 2nd is a swashbuckling battle (contrary to other polls we’ve seem of these races, where the 1st has been a tossup or a narrow CSP advantage while the 2nd has looked bad).

• PA-08: I’ve been patiently waiting here for actual toplines for more than a day, but it seems like they aren’t forthcoming… so I’ll just let you know there’s a Harstad Research Group poll (on behalf of SEIU and VoteVets, not the Patrick Murphy campaign) out in the 8th that gives Murphy a 3-point lead over Mike Fitzpatrick and an 8-point lead among voters who voted in 2006. It was taken Sept. 20-22.

• WI-07: Garin Hart Yang for Julie Lassa (9/26-27, likely voters, in parentheses):

Julie Lassa (D): 41

Sean Duffy (R): 42

Gary Kauther (I): 7

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±4.4%)

I don’t know how good a sign this is, releasing an internal where you’re still trailing in a Democratic-leaning district. Lassa needs to let the donors know she’s still in this, I suppose.

• WV-03: Global Strategy Group for DCCC (9/23-26, likely voters, no trendlines):

Nick Rahall (D-inc): 55

Spike Maynard (R): 37

Undecided: 8

(MoE: ±4.8%)

Well, here’s one district where all the polls (even the one from AFF) are consistent in showing a nearly-20 point edge for long-time Dem Nick Rahall.

• NY-St. Sen.: Four polls from Siena of key New York State Senate races have, on the balance, bad news for the Democrats: Darrell Aubertine, the first Democrat in several geological epochs to hold SD-48 in the North Country, is trailing GOP opponent Pattie Ritchie for re-election, 48-45. Brian Foley, in Long Island-based SD-4, is also in a tough race, leading Lee Zeldin 44-43. Meanwhile, two Republican incumbents are looking fairly safe: Frank Padavan, who barely survived 2008 in Dem-leaning Queens-based SD-11, leads ex-city councilor Tony Avella 56-32, while in SD-44, Hugh Farley leads Susan Savage 55-37. (I’d rather see them poll the open seat races; that’s where the Republicans are at more risk.)

• Mayors: There aren’t a lot of big-city mayoral races where the decisive vote is in November (most were wrapped up in the primaries), but one interesting one is Louisville, where the longtime Dem incumbent Jerry Abramson is leaving in order to run for LG next year. Dem Greg Fischer (who you may remember from the 2008 Senate primary) is beating Republican city councilor Hal Heiner 48-42, according to SurveyUSA.

• DLCC: You probably saw yesterday that the DLCC is out with a first round of 20 “essential races” for controlling key state legislative chambers. Well, over in diaries, now they’re soliciting suggestions for further additions to the list, so please add some suggestions from races that are near and dear to your own hearts.

• SSP TV:

• CA-Sen: The Chamber of Commerce, trying to salvage this dwindling race, tries to hang the “career politician” tag on Barbara Boxer

• CO-Sen: The DSCC goes after Ken Buck on Social Security again

• CO-Sen: The NRSC runs an anti-Michael Bennet ad, hitting him on his support for health care reform

• DE-Sen: The DSCC crams as much Christine O’Donnell insanity as it can into 30 seconds

• IL-Sen: Mark Kirk goes back to where he began, with another bio spot of small town boy made good

• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak’s newest ad keeps on trying to tie Pat Toomey to Wall Street

• WV-Sen: The DSCC goes after John Raese for supporting eliminating the minimum wage and his own ooopses at his own company

• CT-Gov: The DGA hits Tom Foley on outsourcing in his former career as textile magnate

• MI-Gov: The RGA hits Virg Bernero on spending as mayor (OMG! he spent $1,277 on pencils!)

• NM-Gov: Another Susana Martinez attack ad hits Diane Denish for some bungled solar power thingamajig

• TX-Gov: Here’s a mindblowing stat: the DGA has never paid for advertising in Texas… until now. They’re out with an attack on Rick Perry, calling him what nobody wants to be called this cycle (“career politican”)

• KY-03: Todd Lally’s out with two ads, one a bio spot, the other a pretty funny attack on John Yarmuth using the K-Tel greatest hits album motif

• MI-07: Tim Walberg has to call on his mom for help: not to do any polling on his behalf, just to appear in an ad about Social Security

• NC-02: This was probably inevitable… AJS weighs into the 2nd with an ad using Bob Etheridge going apeshit on a poor innocent little tracker

• NC-11: Repent now or Jeff Miller will forever cast you into the fiery pits of Nancy Pelosi’s hell!

• ND-AL: Earl Pomeroy touts how well he cooperated with George W. Bush! (on Medicare Part D, though, which probably plays well among North Dakota’s aging population)

• PA-08: Outsourcing must be polling well for the Dems these days, as Patrick Murphy hits Mike Fitzpatrick on that

• VA-05: Indie candidate Jeff Clark scrounged up enough money to advertise? And he’s attacking GOPer Robert Hurt? That’s good enough for me

• Rasmussen:

• CT-Gov: Dan Malloy (D) 50%, Tom Foley (R) 40%

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 46%, John Raese (R) 48%

• Fox/Pulse (aka Rasmussen):

• CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 44%, Dan Maes (R) 15%, Tom Tancredo (C) 34%

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 43%, Ken Buck (R) 47%

• IL-Gov: Pat Quinn (D-inc) 36%, Bill Brady (R) 46%, Rich Whitney (G) 8%

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 40%, Mark Kirk (R) 42%, LeAlan Jones (G) 7%

• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 43%, John Kasich (R) 45%

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 37%, Rob Portman (R) 50%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 48%, Dino Rossi (R) 47%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 45%, Scott Walker (R) 49%

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold (D-inc) 44%, Ron Johnson (R) 52%

• AK-Sen: If anything makes clear the depth of the NRSC’s change of allegiance from Lisa Murkowski to Joe Miller, check out the list of five different NRSC-organized, Senator-filled fundraisers that’ll be held on Miller’s behalf next week. Murkowski, meanwhile, is shrugging off the loss of her leadership post (which went to John Barrasso) and ranking committee position, seeming more focused on the mechanics of her write-in bid. She’s going to have to do a little better than this, though (although Alaska doesn’t require precise spelling of write-ins): the original version of the ad telling people about her write-in bid directed people to a URL that misspelled her name (LisaMurkwski.com). (I wonder if some cybersquatter has already grabbed that URL by now?)

• AR-Sen: Ipsos, on behalf of Reuters, is out with a look at Arkansas, a Senate race that’s hardly worth looking at anymore. Nevertheless, they show a closer race than anybody else has lately: Blanche Lincoln trails John Boozman by “only” 14, a 53-39 gap among LVs. Lincoln’s favorables seem to be improving a bit too, but time’s running out for a full-fledged comeback.

• CO-Sen: Here’s a tantalizing tidbit, although it doesn’t have any bearing on the current race, just likely to exacerbate the seemingly-escalating war between the NRSC and Jim DeMint. It turns out the NRSC gave the maximum $42K to Jane Norton, just four days before the GOP primary. Not much of a vote of confidence in Ken Buck, is it?

• NH-Sen: Unfortunately, where many Republican primaries have dissolved into acrimony afterwards, we’re seeing lots of unity in New Hampshire. Ovide Lamontagne is helping to raise funds for narrow victor Kelly Ayotte at a DC fundraiser scheduled for Sep. 27.

• WA-Sen: Considering the play this has gotten in the local press, this small comment on a parochial issue looks to be a major faceplant for Dino Rossi… he dared depart from the party line on the mighty Boeing. He suggested that Boeing should get no favorable treatment from the Pentagon in its competition with Airbus (whose efforts are subsidized by European governments) over who gets to build the next-generation Air Force tanker. (To put that in context, that would be like a candidate going to Iowa and dissing ethanol, or going to West Virginia and dissing coal.) Boeing had already explicitly endorsed Patty Murray, but now she has a nuclear-grade weapon to use against Rossi in the Boeing-dependent swingy suburbs.

And here’s a hat tip to Horsesass’s Goldy, who spots some interesting details in the fine print of that Elway Poll from last week. People were surprised when that CNN/Time poll found a reverse enthusiasm gap for the Dems in Washington (with Murray faring better among LVs than RVs), but Elway actually shows something similar. The 50-41 topline was LVs, but pushed leaners. Include only the “definite voters” and that pushes up to a 13-pt lead for Murray (43-30). I don’t have one good explanation for this phenomenon, but I’d guess it’s a combination of a) Dems being more diehard liberal in Washington and less swingy and/or sporadic than in other states, b) the economy being somewhat better in Washington than many other places, and c) teabagger ennui after Clint Didier lost the primary to establishment leftover Dino Rossi.

• NM-Gov: We’ve got dueling banjos internals in the Land of Enchantment. Susana Martinez whipped it out first, rolling out a POS poll from last week with a 50-40 lead for her. Not to be outdone, Diane Denish pulled out her own poll from GQR from the same timeframe, showing that Martinez is leading “only” 49-44. Um… take that?

• NY-Gov: Rick Lazio is hedging on what exactly he’s going to do with his spot on the Conservative Party line, sounding like he wants to wait and see how Carl Paladino fares before making up his mind. Meanwhile, Andrew Cuomo got a pretty significant endorsement, from NYC mayor Michael Bloomberg, which may sway a few moderate indies but is probably mostly helpful from a GOTV organizational standpoint within the city. Meanwhile, you might have also heard something about a poll of this race today? I’ve heard a few rumblings. Anyway, we’re deferring discussion of today’s Quinnipiac poll until the Siena and SurveyUSA polls, due tomorrow, also come out, offering us a better yardstick.

• RI-Gov, RI-01: Quest for WJAR-TV (9/15-17, likely voters, no trendlines):

Frank Caprio (D): 36

John Robitaille (R): 13

Lincoln Chafee (I): 24

Ken Block (M): 2

Undecided: 25

David Cicilline (D): 49

John Loughlin (R): 26

Undecided: 25

(MoE: ±4.7%)

This is probably the biggest lead we’ve seen for Frank Caprio in the Governor’s race, and also the first post-primary poll of the race in the 1st, which looks to be an easy race for Providence mayor David Cicilline despite being an open seat in a dangerous year. The poll also finds the Dems easily winning the LG, AG, SoS, and RI-02 races.

• TN-Gov: Crawford Johnson and Northcott for WSMV-TV (registered voters, trendlines from early July):

Mike McWherter (D): 24 (34)

Bill Haslam (R): 55 (60)

Undecided: 19 (6)

(MoE: ±4%)

I’m not going out on a limb by saying we can expect Bill Haslam to win the Tennessee governor’s race. The only odd thing here is that this is WSMV’s second poll of the race, and the number of undecideds has shot up dramatically since July (of course, it’s a mystery how there were so few back then).

• FL-22: Anzalone-Liszt for Ron Klein (9/14-16, likely voters, no trendlines):

Ron Klein (D): 48

Allen West (R): 40

(MoE: ±4.4%)

While this isn’t an awe-inspiring lead for Klein in his own internal, it’s a good topline and there are some interesting numbers in the fine print. Most notably, West’s unfavorables have tripled (to 26%) since May as people have started paying attention.

• MA-04: OMG, even Barney Frank’s in trouble! (In case you couldn’t tell, I was being sarcastic.) (Or was I?) Anyway, the Republican candidate running against Frank, Sean Bielat, is out with a poll from GOP pollster On Message giving Frank a 48-38 lead over Bielat. I suppose a ceiling of 38% is plausible for a no-name GOPer in this part of Massachusetts, which went 63% for Obama but includes a lot of exurbs and went narrowly for Scott Brown in the special election, but I’m unclear on how he gets much further than that.

• PA-03: Franklin & Marshall (9/14-19, registered voters, no trendlines):

Kathy Dahlkemper (D-inc): 38

Mike Kelly (R): 44

(MoE: ±4.8%)

This seems to be the first truly independent poll of this race, although we’ve seen various internals and Republican third-party polls all showing Dahlkemper in trouble, though not always losing. Franklin & Marshall opts for the “losing” side, although it’s slightly less severe among RVs (42-38).

• VA-05: Benenson Strategy Group for Tom Perriello (9/14-16, likely voters, no trendlines):

Tom Perriello (D): 44

Rob Hurt (R): 46

Jeff Clark (I): 4

Undecided: 5

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Not much difference here than that DCCC poll by Global Strategy Group a few weeks ago that also saw Perriello down by 2. Again, not the most appetizing numbers for rolling out when it’s your own internal, but at least it’s some pushback against those SurveyUSA numbers.

• WA-09: Benenson Strategy Group for Adam Smith (9/18-20, likely voters, no trendlines):

Adam Smith (D): 54

Dick Muri (R): 35

Undecided: 19

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Hmmm, speaking of pushback against SurveyUSA numbers, here’s an internal from the Adam Smith camp (who were seen as being in a close race in a public poll from over the weekend). Now these are the kind of internal poll numbers we like to see… although the very fact that Adam Smith should have to be releasing internal polls in the first place is, well, a sign of the times.

• DCCC: Here’s some interesting money shuffling from the DCCC, which might portend an increased focus on GOTV. A CQ piece detailing some miscellany from their report this month included a number of transfers from the DCCC to state Democratic party committees. That includes $196K to Ohio, $142K to Arizona, and $132K to Arizona.

• American Crossroads: Wasn’t the “Crossroads” myth about selling your soul to the devil? At any rate, Politico is out with a nauseating story that’s a stark counterpoint to the normal old committee numbers that we released this morning: while the Dems have advantages at the committee level, they’re getting crushed in outside TV spending by third-party groups, to the tune of $23.6 million for GOP ads to $4.8 million for Dem ads. (Of course, some of that is money that in previous cycles would have gone to the RNC, which is way out of whack (or “wack,” as Michael Steele might say) and unable to do much with its usual task of helping state committees… making the GOP more reliant than ever on hoping that their air saturation can overcome disadvantages in the ground game.)

The largest of these groups, of course, is American Crossroads, which is out with six new attack ads in different Senate races: Illinois ($482K), Kentucky ($235K), Nevada ($320K), New Hampshire ($643K), Ohio ($260K), and Pennsylvania ($226K). I know the teabaggers like to think that when the 2010 election is written in the history books, the story will be about some sort of populist uprising, but more likely, their useful idiocy will be long forgotten and the story will be about the uprising of a dozen or so billionaires, leveraging tens of millions on ads in order to save themselves hundreds of billions in taxes.

• SSP TV:

• CT-Sen: The state Democratic party goes after Linda McMahon, looking at job cuts she oversaw at WWE

• MO-Sen: The DSCC wades back into Missouri, looking at how Roy Blunt keeps his corruption all in the family

• MD-Gov: A DGA-allied group hits Bob Ehrlich for being in the pocket of utilities during and after his gubernatorial term

• IL-10: Dan Seals goes negative against Bob Dold!, hitting him on social security and abortion rights

• IL-14: Nancy Pelosi’s coming for you! Booogetyboogetyboogety! (or so says Randy Hultgren’s second ad)

• NC-02: Renee Elmers found the money to run an ad? Well, it is cable only… Anyway, it’s about the Burlington Coat Factory mosque, despite that Bob Etheridge says he doesn’t support it

• PA-11: Paul Kanjorski again goes negative on Lou Barletta on the bread and butter stuff, hitting for him opposition to a State Department security forces training center for the district

• PA-17: Even Tim Holden’s hitting the airwaves with two different ads, one that’s a soft bio spot for himself, and then an attack on his opponent’s role in legislative pay raises

• WA-08: Suzan DelBene’s second ad is against negative against Dave Reichert, especially for opposing financial reform

• Rasmussen:

• AK-Gov: Ethan Berkowitz (D) 34%, Sean Parnell (R-inc) 54%

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 47%, Meg Whitman (R) 46%

• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 41%, Mark Kirk (R) 44%, LeAlan Jones (G) 4%

• ME-Gov: Libby Mitchell (D) 27%, Paul LePage (R) 45%, Eliot Cutler (I) 14%

• MI-Gov: Virg Bernero (D) 38%, Rick Snyder (R) 51%

• NY-Sen: Charles Schumer (D-inc) 58%, Jay Townsend (R) 36%

• CT-Sen: Rob Simmons may not be as revved up about jumping back into the GOP Senate primary as was reported last night (i.e. “I’m thinking about it.”). His former campaign manager told The Fix today that there’s no secret comeback bid and that “he has no plans to re-engage.” It’s probably wiser for Simmons to take that approach, to lay low and wait for the off chance that Linda McMahon implodes pre-primary, rather than drain himself in an uphill fight against her.

• KS-Sen: I don’t know what spooked Jerry Moran into coughing up another internal poll (I can’t imagine it was the backstabbing by Tom Tancredo, but who knows?), but at any rate, he released a new internal from POS giving him a 56-24 lead over Todd Tiahrt in the GOP Senate primary. Moran also continues to win the fundraising race, raising $538K last quarter with $2.3 million CoH. Tiahrt raised $451K last quarter and has $1.3 million CoH, although he has a big fundraising dinner scheduled soon hosted by former Notre Dame football coach Charlie Weis.

• NV-Sen: This news has to be, on the balance, good news for Harry Reid. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce, while certainly not considering endorsing Reid, is moving toward sitting out the Nevada Senate race. It may be tempting to pin this down with increasing Chamber discontent with the teabagger wing of the party (as seen with their moves in SC-Gov and ID-01), but a lot of it may be that they’re less unhappy with Reid as Majority Leader than the alternatives (Chuck Schumer or Dick Durbin). Reid‘s also reporting, unsurprisingly, tons of money: he raised $2.4 million, although, after spending a lot on ads, he’s at $9 million CoH.

• NY-Sen, NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov (pdf): Siena released polls everyone and everything in the Empire State today, although there’s little suspense in any of these races anymore. In the gubernatorial race, Andrew Cuomo beats Rick Lazio 60-28, beats Carl Paladino 64-23, and beats Lazio and Paladino (with Paladino on a 3rd party line) 54-23-10. Lazio beats Paladino in the GOP primary 40-20. In the Senate special election, Kirsten Gillibrand leads Bruce Blakeman 51-28, beats Joe DioGuardi 51-29, and beats David Malpass 50-27. DioGuardi leads the GOP primary at 24, with 7 for Blakeman and 5 for Malpass. And in the other Senate race, Chuck Schumer beats both Gary Berntsen and Jay Townsend by an identical 63-26. Townsend tops Berntsen in the GOP primary 24-13. They even throw in the Comptroller’s race, where Dem incumbent Tom DiNapoli beats self-funded GOPer Harry Wilson 48-24.

• SC-Sen: The Charleston minor league baseball team has answered Alvin Greene’s call for economic stimulus in the form of Alvin Greene action figures: they’ll be giving out Greene figurines as a promotion at their Saturday game. (Although it sounds a little half-assed, as they’re just sticking Alvin Greene heads on unused Statues of Liberty.) Also, with the primary out of the way, local and Beltway Democrats alike are uniting behind Greene, filling his coffers with… um… $1,000? (At least that puts him ahead of Roland Burris.) That number was apparently volunteered by Greene; he won’t have to file with the FEC until he hits the $5,000 mark.

• WV-Sen: Plans are already afoot in Washington to swear in West Virginia’s new Senator by Tuesday so that the unemployment benefits extension can be voted on that same day. Who, though, is still an open question. Other Senator Jay Rockefeller says there’s some White House pressure and he thinks he knows who it’ll be, but he isn’t saying who. Ex-Gov. and current College Board President Gaston Caperton has suddenly reversed course and is now saying that he is interested, which certainly seems like a tea leaf to me. There are also reports that Bob Wise and Larry Puccio have removed themselves from consideration, and Nick Casey (awaiting a federal judgeship) is very unlikely.

The NRSC is already running anti-Joe Manchin ads (in print media only), but that may not provide that much encouragement to Shelly Moore Capito (the only Republican who can make this competitive) to get in: one little-noted fact is that one item that rather pointedly got left off the agenda for today’s legislative special session is whether or not an officeholder could run for two seats at the same time in the special election and the regularly-scheduled election (like in, oh let’s just say, WV-Sen and WV-02).  

• CO-Gov: Scott McInnis may be the last to know to know that he’s dropping out of the gubernatorial race. Tom Tancredo has been telling people that McInnis is going to drop out, although the McInnis camp is denying that, saying “we’re moving forward.” Tancredo is also the first state GOPer to publicly call for McInnis to get out, although I wonder if Tancredo is hoping he may get the chance to take his place (remember Tancredo had flirted with the race early last year). Tancredo doesn’t seem to be on the list of replacements that’s being bandied about by the local press, though: they include Josh Penry (whom Tancredo had backed, and who ran for a while before dropping out), former state Sen. Mark Hillman, and… get this… ex-Rep. Bob Schaffer, who badly lost the 2008 Senate race.

There’s also some speculation about the legalities of replacing McInnis: it doesn’t seem like the GOP could insert a hand-picked filler before the primary, unless both McInnis and Dan Maes dropped out (not out of the question, I suppose, considering that Maes’ campaign is currently belly-up). This may help McInnis’s decision along: the RGA is now saying that they’re abandoning him, pulling out of fundraisers they’d previously scheduled.

• GA-Gov: Mason-Dixon takes a look at the Georgia gubernatorial primaries. On the Republican side, they find John Oxendine at 31, Karen Handel at 23, Nathan Deal at 18, and Eric Johnson at 6. Compare that with Rasmussen (see below) and Magellan’s recent polls, which see possible Handel/Deal runoffs. Ed Kilgore also takes a look at the proxy war being fought in Georgia by Sarah Palin (backing Handel) and Newt Gingrich (backing Deal), which may be boosting those two’s fortunes at Oxendine’s expense. Mason-Dixon’s look at the Dem primary has comparatively less drama: Roy Barnes is out of runoff territory at 54, with Thurbert Baker at 20, David Poythress at 7, and Dubose Porter at 3.

• AZ-08: The Fix seems to be the leaking place of choice for the GOP for its internal polls, and they have word of another one with a GOPer with a (slight) lead. It’s in the 8th, where a Tarrance Group poll gives Jonathan Paton a 45-44 lead over Gabrielle Giffords. Paton, of course, still has to survive a primary against the more tea-flavored Jesse Kelly.

• KS-04: SurveyUSA’s new poll of the KS-04 primaries shows some interesting movement on the GOP side: both Mike Pompeo and Wink Hartman have declined by similar amounts (they’re currently at 32 and 31, respectively), with state Sen. Jean Schodorf making a late move up to 16, based on strength among women and moderates. Jim Anderson’s also at 9. There’s also a surprise on the Dem side: the DCCC-touted Raj Goyle is actually in danger of losing his primary to Some Dude, Robert Tillman. Tillman now leads, 40-36. Looks like we may have been right about Goyle’s reasons behind launching a TV buy now.

• House: We don’t usually like to link to this sort of meta about the state of the House, but it’s interesting to see the various blind men who are veterans of the DCCC and the NRCC in relatively close agreement about the size and shape of the elephant this year.

• Fundraising: AR-Sen | CA-Sen| CA-Sen | CT-Sen | DE-Sen | FL-Sen | IL-Sen | IN-Sen | MO-Sen | NH-Sen | OR-Sen | WI-Sen | IL-Gov | TX-Gov | CT-04 | DE-AL | FL-08 | GA-02 | NH-01 | OH-13 | PA-03 | PA-10 | RI-01 | WA-03

• Rasmussen:

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 46%, Meg Whitman (R) 47%

• GA-Gov (R): Nathan Deal (R) 25%, Karen Handel (R) 25%, John Oxendine (R) 20%, Eric Johnson (R) 13%

• TX-Gov: Bill White (D) 41%, Rick Perry (R-inc) 50%

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

• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold (D-inc) 51%, Dave Westlake (R) 37%

• CO-Sen: Both Democratic candidates are hitting the TV airwaves, with Michael Bennet trying once again to introduce himself to his constituents with a feel-good bio spot, and Andrew Romanoff’s first ad playing up the anti-corruption, anti-Washington angle he’s been working. Over on the Republican side, where Ken Buck seems to be putting some distance between himself and Jane Norton, Buck got some useful backing from the Dick Army: he snagged a FreedomWorks endorsement. Norton’s 2005 support for TABOR-limiting Referendum C seems to have been a dealbreaker for the teabaggers.

• KY-Sen: PPP, fresh off its Rand Paul/Jack Conway poll yesterday, also has some approval numbers out for Mitch McConnell. It’s more evidence that the most dangerous job in America is party leader in the Senate. McConnell’s numbers are dwindling, and his backing of Trey Grayson over Paul in the GOP primary seems to have accelerated that: he’s down to 34/48, after having had favorables in the 40s in their previous polls, with almost all of his decline coming from Republicans. 49% of all respondents would like to see him lose his leadership role, with only 38% saying continue.

• NH-Sen: Big money for Kelly Ayotte this quarter: she raised $720K last quarter, her biggest quarter so far. No word on her CoH.

• NV-Sen: With their empty coffers suddenly replenished, the Karl Rove-led 527 American Crossroads decided to keep their anti-Harry Reid attack ad on the air in Nevada for the fourth straight week. They’ve spent nearly half a million airing the same ad.

• NY-Sen-B: Although the terrible disarray in the state GOP can’t be helping matters, New York’s unique ballot access laws just seem to encourage self-destructive behavior by the local Republicans. With Republican/Conservative/Independence Party splits threatening to result in multiple viable right-of-center candidates in races ranging from NY-01 to NY-23, now cat fud is about to start flying in the Senate race. David Malpass, seeming a long shot in the Republican field, has said that he’s going to seek the ballot line on the as-yet-to-be-named teabagger’s ballot line that gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino is trying to create, most likely to be called the Taxpayer’s line. Malpass, as you’ll recall, is lagging in GOP primary polls against Joe DioGuardi, who already has the Conservative line but is trying to petition onto the GOP ballot, and Bruce Blakeman, who’s assured a spot on the GOP ballot. This may even spill over into the who-cares other Senate race, where Gary Berntsen wants in on the Taxpayer’s line (and where rival Jay Townsend already has the Conservative line).

• WA-Sen: The Washington Farm Bureau, which endorsed Dino Rossi in his two failed gubernatorial bids, has decided not to endorse anybody in the Senate race. Goldy wonders whether this is a matter of lots of Clint Didier supporters at the Farm Bureau… Didier, after all, is a farmer… or if the Farm Bureau secretly likes Patty Murray’s skill at appropriations.

• WV-Sen: Gov. Joe Manchin held a press conference today to announce his plans on the vacant Senate seat, and it seems like the institutional pressure on him to fill the seat soon (preferably with himself) seems to be working. Manchin stopped short of calling on the state legislature to have a special session to move up the election to Nov. 2010, but he did tell his AG to start laying the legal groundwork for such a move. Manchin again said that he wouldn’t appoint himself to the seat on a temporary basis, but confirmed that he would be “highly” interested in running for the seat whenever the special election occurs. (He didn’t give any inkling on who he might appoint.) At any rate, it seems like Manchin feels confident that, despite the national downdraft for Dems this year, his own personal popularity, combined with the shortened election schedule working to his advantage, would facilitate his election in November; if he didn’t, he wouldn’t be going along so readily with the moved-up election.

• CO-Gov: Democratic nominee John Hickenlooper had better hope the contributions keep coming in: he’s sitting on only $66K CoH right now (although he raised $500K in June alone), but he just reserved $1.2 million in ad time. The plan is to lock the ad space in now, when it’s still cheap to reserve far in advance. On the Republican side of the aisle, insurgent candidate Dan Maes is in some trouble: he’s being hit with the largest fine ever handed down to a Colorado candidate for campaign finance donations. It was for a series of small-ball failures rather than one huge blunder, ranging from improper reimbursements to himself for mileage, to failure to list occupations for many donors.

• OK-Gov: As I remarked yesterday, it’s a remarkable transformation for Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, who in a few months went from DOA in her own primary, to competing with Sarah Palin in terms of traversing the country handing out GOP primary endorsements like so much poisoned candy. (What’s something Arizona-specific that we can call her clutch of endorsees? Mama Rattlesnakes?) Brewer waded into another gubernatorial race, giving her backing to Rep. Mary Fallin in Oklahoma.

• PA-Gov: Democratic nominee Dan Onorato seems to be kicking his fundraising operations into higher gear after having won the primary; he pulled in $1 million in contributions in the last month. He’s sitting on $2.5 million CoH.

• TX-Gov: The plot (to get the Green Party on the ballot in Texas) keeps thickening. New e-mails have surfaced among Green leaders revealing the name of Anthony Holm, a GOP consultant linked to big-time GOP donor Bob Perry (the man behind the Swift Boat Vets), saying that he wanted to pay for 40% of the costs of petitions to get the Greens on the ballot. Holm denies any involvement.

• MN-06: It looks like the 6th, held by lightning rod Michele Bachmann, is going to be the nation’s most expensive House race this year. Democratic challenger Tarryl Clark posted big numbers this morning, raising $910K this quarter, claiming $2 million raised so far this cycle. (No mention of her CoH.) Then later this morning, Bachmann topped that, raising $1.7 million last quarter, giving her $4.1 million CoH, which would be plenty even for a Senate race.

• TN-06: State Sen. Diane Black has a GOP primary lead in an internal poll taken for her by OnMessage. She’s at 41, leading former Rutherford County GOP chair Lou Ann Zelenik at 22 and state Sen. Jim Tracy at 20. Black (or whoever else wins) should have an easy time picking up this R+13 Dem-held open seat, vacated by retiring Rep. Bart Gordon.

• TN-08: Here’s one more GOP primary internal poll out of Tennessee, from the Stephen Fincher camp. His poll, conducted by the Tarrance Group, gives Fincher the lead at 32, followed by Ron Kirkland at 23 and George Flinn at 21. Attacks on Fincher by the other two seem to have taken their toll, as Fincher’s previous internal poll from early April gave him a 40-17-7 lead. As with the poll in the 6th, there’s no word on general election matchups.

• WI-07: Republican Sean Duffy, bolstered by David Obey’s retirement (and a Sarah Palin endorsement), had a big quarter, raising $470K. He’s at $670K CoH.

• Legislatures: If you read one thing today, this should be it: Stateline.org’s Louis Jacobson handicaps all the state legislative chambers that promise to be competitive this year. As you might expect, the news isn’t very good for Democrats, considering not just the nature of the year but how many chambers they currently hold. He projects one currently Democratic-controlled chamber as Lean R (the Indiana House), and has 11 nominally Dem-held chambers as Tossups (both Alabama chambers, Iowa House, Montana House, both New Hampshire chambers, New York Senate, Ohio House, Pennsylvania House, and both Wisconsin chambers). The only nominally GOP-held chamber that’s a Tossup is the Alaska Senate, which is in fact controlled by a coalition of sane Republicans and Democrats.

• NRCC: The NRCC seems to like slapping lots of different names on different groups so that they look busy, and now they’ve even come up with a program for primary victors who are running in safe Republican seats: “Vanguard!” There’s no word on what exactly they plan to do for these shoo-ins, or if it’s just an impressive-sounding title so that the likes of Jeff Duncan and Todd Rokita don’t feel left out.

• Fundraising: The Fix has a couple other fundraising tidbits that we haven’t seen before: Craig Miller in FL-24 raised $270K for 2Q with $332K CoH. And Charlie Bass in NH-02 raised $170K and has $360K CoH.

• CT-Sen, CT-Gov: Leftover from last Friday is the most recent Quinnipiac poll of Connecticut. Without much changing from their previous poll other than some within-the-margin-of-error gains for Linda McMahon, the poll is very digestible. Richard Blumenthal leads McMahon 55-35 (instead of 56-31 in late May), leads Rob Simmons (who has “suspended” his campaign) 54-33, and leads Peter Schiff 56-29. McMahon leads Simmons and Schiff in the GOP primary 45-29-13. They also included gubernatorial primaries (but not the general): for the Dems, Ned Lamont leads Dan Malloy 39-22, while for the GOP Tom Foley leads Michael Fedele and Oz Griebel 39-12-2.

• IL-Sen: With a growing sense that many Illinois residents would prefer to vote for neither Mark Kirk nor Alexi Giannoulias, a new right-winger with money to burn looks like he’s daring to go where Patrick Hughes didn’t. Mike Niecestro says he’s a “disgusted Republican who has had it with the people the party throws at us,” and differentiates himself from Kirk on cap-and-trade and immigration. Just another random teabagger who’s all talk and no $$$? No, Niecestro says he already has the 25,000 signatures he needs to qualify before the June 21 deadline, and also has $1 million of his own money ready to go, along with another $100K he’s raised elsewhere. Even if he winds up pulling in only a few percent off Kirk’s right flank, that could be what that Giannoulias needs to squeak by in what otherwise looks to be a close race.

• NV-Sen: Jon Scott Ashjian is turning into something of the white whale for the Nevada GOP. Even though his candidate lost the primary, Dan Burdish, former political director for Sue Lowden, is still filing complaints with the SoS’s office to get Ashjian off the ballot. It doesn’t look like it’ll go anywhere, though; Ashjian himself has qualified for the ballot, easily meeting the low 250-vote signature hurdle even though the “Tea Party” didn’t meet the signature requirements for its own ballot line. Of course, competing right-wing third party the Independent American Party is still trying to get Ashjian off the ballot too, and now the teabaggers in general have turned on Ashjian (who never really had much support from them in the first place) since one of their own, Sharron Angle, managed to snare the GOP nod.

• NY-Sen, NY-Sen-B (pdf): Siena has yet another poll out of both the Senate races in New York. There’s still very little of interest to report. Kirsten Gillibrand leads Bruce Blakeman 48-27, David Malpass 49-24, and Joe DioGuardi 47-29. DioGuardi leads the GOP primary over Blakeman and Malpass, 21-7-3. Chuck Schumer leads Jay Townsend 60-26 and Gary Berntsen 59-27. Townsend leads Berntsen in the other GOP primary, 20-15.

• SC-Sen: Vic Rawl, who lost the Democratic nomination to the baffling Alvin Greene last week, is now formally contesting the results of the election. The state party’s 92-member executive committee will meet on Thursday to hear evidence, but it’s unlikely they’ll do anything, as there’s no precedent in South Carolina for throwing out a primary election’s results.

• WA-Sen: The state GOP convention was over the weekend in Washington; unlike, say, Utah or Connecticut, there’s nothing at stake here, but the general sense in terms of signage, applause, and the like, was that the party’s activist base is pretty jazzed about Sarah Palin-endorsed Clint Didier, and much more tepid about Dino Rossi than they were in 2008, when he was a more apt vehicle for their resentments. A straw poll at a Patriot Coalition event associated with the convention (a subset of a subset of the most hardcore base, so take with much salt) gave Didier a 99-12 edge over Rossi.

• AL-Gov: Artur Davis isn’t giving up on being a douchebag just because he lost the gubernatorial nomination; he said he isn’t sure how Ron Sparks is going to be able to win the uphill fight in the general election, and that Sparks will need something “broader than bingo” to win. Also, this is a very strange time to be making any major staff changes, let alone plunging into what Reid Wilson is describing as “turmoil:” fresh off the triumph of (probably) making the GOP gubernatorial runoff against Bradley Byrne, Robert Bentley just sacked his campaign manager, communications director, and new media director. Bentley is bringing in members of the Mike Huckabee camp to take over (with Huckabee son-in-law Bryan Sanders the new CM), but it seems like his small-time help didn’t get demoted, but instead rudely shown the door by the new bosses.

• CO-Gov: Businessman Joe Gesundheit Schadenfreude Weltschmerz Gschwendtner has pulled the plug on his Republican gubernatorial bid, without endorsing anybody else. He wasn’t able to round up enough signatures to qualify, which is odd, considering that people only need to be able to spell their own names, not his.

• FL-Gov: With his once-clear path to the GOP nomination suddenly looking to be on life support, Bill McCollum got some help from a key GOP establishment figure: Mitt Romney. Romney will appear at two Sunshine State fundraisers today, handing out endorsements like candy to a number of other Republicans in better position too.

• IA-Gov: You may recall that, in the wake of Terry Branstad’s closer-than-expected victory over social conservative Bob vander Plaats, we lamented that the Dems didn’t try any Gray Davis-style meddling in the primary to get the more-conservative, less-electable guy over the top. Well, it turns out they did try a little of that; the Dems launched an independent expenditure committee called “Iowans for Responsible Government” that ran ads on Fox News and sent direct mail attacking Branstad for tax hikes and putting his face on a liberal Mt. Rushmore next to Bill Clinton, Barack Obama, and Nancy Pelosi. While it didn’t seal the deal, it may have contributed to the underwhelming showing by Branstad.

• MI-Gov: AG Mike Cox won the endorsement of Michigan Right to Life, a big endorsement that will help him as he fights for the social conservative vote in the GOP primary with Rep. Peter Hoekstra. Cox might be the Republican we most want to face out of the GOP field; Rasmussen joined the crowd today in finding that he polls the weakest against either Democrat.

• NY-Gov (pdf): Siena also polled the gubernatorial race; again, nothing noteworthy here, other than Andrew Cuomo having lost a few points since last time. Cuomo leads Rick Lazio 60-24, and leads Carl Paladino 65-23. Party-endorsed Lazio leads Paladino (assuming he can successfully petition onto the ballot) in the GOP primary, 45-18. Meanwhile, the race may get slightly more interesting as gadflyish New York city councilor Charles Barron seems to be moving forward on his quixotic plans to create a whole third party (New York Freedom Democratic Party) for a challenge to the left, mostly to protest Cuomo putting together an all-white ticket.

• OH-Gov: Incumbent Dem Ted Strickland won the NRA endorsement today, instead of GOP ex-Rep. John Kasich. That may seem a surprise, but Strickland has a lifetime “A” rating from the NRA while Kasich was always an unusually anti-gun Republican.

• GA-12: The Hill details how Rep. John Barrow’s fundraising from fellow Dems has fallen way off this year, perhaps an indication of blowback over his “no” vote on HCR. He’s only gotten money directly from five Democratic colleagues and five others’ PACs, compared with 53 in 2006 and 22 in 2008. (An alternative explanation, of course, is that he’s in no major trouble in the general election this year and that money may be more needed elsewhere.) Barrow still has the AFL-CIO’s endorsement, and about a 20:1 CoH advantage over primary challenger Regina Thomas. Speaking of one of his minor GOP opponents, Carl Smith, the fire chief of the small town of Thunderbolt, has a less-appealing resume now that he just got canned by his city council, which opted to stop paying for a fire department and return to an all-volunteer operation.

• IN-03: The Indiana state GOP met over the weekend to pick a nominee to fill the spot left behind by the resigned Rep. Mark Souder. It wasn’t much of a surprise: they picked state Sen. Marlin Stutzman, an up-and-comer who gave Dan Coats a challenge in the GOP Senate primary. Stutzman won on the second ballot, with state Rep. Randy Borror a distant second. It was a double pick: Stutzman will be replace Souder as the GOP candidate in the general election, and also will be the GOP’s candidate in the special election that will also be held on Election Day in November (which, assuming he wins, will allow him to serve in the post-election lame duck session).

• NC-02: Rep. Bob Etheridge, usually one of the more low-key members of the House, had an embarrassing flip-out in front of two GOP trackers/college students asking him if he “supported the Obama agenda,” grabbing one of them and his camera. Etheridge subsequently issued a statement apologizing.

• Polltopia: PPP is soliciting opinions on where the poll next, both multiple-choice and open-ended. Let ’em know what burning questions you’d like answered.