Tag: Polls

Suffolk University (pdf) (11/4-8, likely voters, 9/12-15 in parentheses):

Deval Patrick (D-inc): 38 (36)

Christy Mihos (R): 20 (17)

Tim Cahill (I): 26 (24)

Deval Patrick (D-inc): 36 (36)

Charlie Baker (R): 15 (14)

Tim Cahill (I): 26 (23)

(MoE: 4%)

This poor poll has been getting kicked down the road behind the scenes here at SSP for half a week now, but let’s give it its due. It sees incumbent Democratic governor Deval Patrick in a weird position: his approvals are upside-down, at 42/51 — worse than many governors currently seen as losing their 2010 races — and he has an even-worse re-elect of 32/55. Nevertheless, he’s somehow still thumping his opposition, winning three-way matchups by 10 points.

Patrick is one of the few endangered Dem governors who seems to be improving his position as the year wears on, and it seems to be all thanks to the presence of Tim Cahill, the Dem-turned-independent state Treasurer who seems to split the anti-Patrick vote, which, if added up, is the plurality of the vote. The state’s few Republicans are sticking with the full-on Rs, while Cahill seems to pick up the Dems who can’t stomach voting for Patrick or a Republican. This can be seen in the polls before Cahill got in, where Patrick trailed his Republican opponents, versus the ones after Cahill’s entry — the most recent of which, Suffolk‘s previous poll and Rasmussen, have Patrick up by double digits.

RaceTracker Wiki: MA-Gov

• AR-Sen: PPP’s Tom Jensen has some interesting crosstabs from their AR-02 poll, which shed some light on Blanche Lincoln’s unique set of problems. Lincoln generates only lukewarm enthusiasm from her base: Barack Obama gets a 78% approval among Dems in the district, Rep. Vic Snyder is at 75%, and Mark Pryor is at 61%, but Lincoln is at only 43%, with 30% of Dems thinking she’s too conservative (although that may be coming to a head right now with her obstructionist role in the health care debate, which may not be much of an issue one year from now). Moving to the left, though, will cause her to lose votes with independents, though, among whom 49% think she’s too liberal.

• CT-Sen, CT-05: Local GOP party poohbahs are sounding eager to push state Sen. Sam Caligiuri out of the Senate race, where he’s rather, uh, underutilized, and into the 5th, for a race against Democratic Rep. Chris Murphy; Caligiuri says he’ll consider it. Problem is, Justin Bernier is already running there, and has had some fundraising success and gotten NRCC “Young Gun” status; as you might expect, Bernier is crying foul.

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist has been trying to hide from his previous stimulus support, but Rolling Stone’s Tim Dickinson has the goods on him, dragging out an old interview from spring in which Crist says “absolutely” he would have voted for the stimulus had he been in the Senate at the time. Here’s one bit of good news for Crist, though; Marco Rubio‘s once-perfect A rating from the National Rifle Association is about to drop, thanks to Rubio’s compromise (from back when he was House speaker) on the take-your-gun-to-work law that recently became law.

• IL-Sen: Former Chicago Inspector General David Hoffman has an internal poll of his own now, and while it doesn’t give numbers for the Dem primary matchup between Hoffman and frontrunner Alexi Giannoulias, it does point to some vulnerabilities for Giannoulias. The poll claims that without message-testing, GOP Rep. Mark Kirk leads Giannoulias 40-37 and leads Hoffman 40-30, but once positives and negatives are read, Kirk beats Giannoulias 47-30 and Hoffman beats Kirk 42-36. The negatives involve the Giannoulias family bank, which apparently has been connected to Tony Rezko. Meanwhile, Kirk took an embarrassing hit from the conservative Chicago Tribune editorial board, whose response to Kirk’s flip-flopping and fearmongering on trying terrorists in New York boiled down to “Give us a break.” Wondering why Kirk is so transparently turning into a right-winger? Kirk’s looking increasingly nervous about erstwhile opponent Patrick Hughes, who is currently seeking out a Jim DeMint endorsement.

• KY-Sen, NH-Sen: The NRSC is claiming it’s not getting involved in primary fights with fundraising, but you can’t make party leadership’s intentions any clearer than when Mitch McConnell hosts a fundraiser in New York on Dec. 7 for Trey Grayson and Kelly Ayotte. With both candidates facing mounting anti-establishment challenges, it seems like the bad publicity back home generated by these appearances — more grist for the movement conservative mill — might outweigh the financial benefit.

• NJ-Sen: Now that recently unemployed TV pundit Lou Dobbs has some time on his hands, he told Bill O’Reilly he’s considering a run for the Senate in New Jersey. There isn’t a seat available until 2012 (when Dobbs will be 67) — he’d be going up against Bob Menendez that year. Dobbs vs. Menendez? Hmmm, you can’t get any more weighed down with symbolism than that.

• SC-Sen: The county GOP in Berkeley County (in the Charleston suburbs) was prepared to have its own censure vote against Lindsey Graham, but they called off the vote after Graham’s chief of staff promised to meet with them first.

• CA-Gov (pdf): Lots of people have taken notice that the Republican field in the governor’s race isn’t a diverse bunch: three sorta-moderates from Silicon Valley. San Jose State University took a poll of those who would seemingly know the candidates the best: Republican likely voters in “Silicon Valley” (Santa Clara and San Mateo Counties, plus small parts of Alameda and Santa Cruz Counties). Perhaps thanks to Tom Campbell’s tenure in the House representing much of this area, he has a wide lead, at 39%, compared with 11 for Meg Whitman and 7 for Steve Poizner.

• MI-Gov, MI-08: In case there was any doubt that Rep. Mike Rogers (the Michigan one) was going to run for re-election to his House seat and not for governor, we found a statement from way back in February to that effect. (H/t to Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood, a blog devoted to all things MI-08.)

• MN-Gov: Rasmussen looks at the still-coalescing primary fields in the Minnesota governor’s races, and seems to be finding very name-recognition-driven results right now. On the Democratic side, most of the votes are going to former Senator Mark Dayton and Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak; both poll at 30, trailed by state House speaker Margaret Anderson Kelliher at 8 and former state legislator Matt Entenza at 6. On the Republican side, ex-Sen. Norm Coleman dominates, with 50%; however, he’s not in the race, at least not yet, and is probably the only name that people know. Among the rest of the rabble, former House minority leader Marty Seifert is doing the best, at 11, with 5 for Laura Brod and 1 for Tom Emmer.

• OR-Gov: Most people have already mentally ruled out Rep. Peter DeFazio from the governor’s race, but he just said that he’s still somewhat interested, and that he won’t be making up his mind on it until… next March? He doesn’t seem too concerned about the delay, as Oregon law would let him transfer over his federal dollars and he alludes to private polling showing him in a dead heat with John Kitzhaber. While I still doubt he’ll follow through, that raises the question of who might fill a vacancy in OR-04; it’s looking less and less like it would be Springfield’s Republican mayor Sid Leiken, who was just fined $2,250 by the state for the phantom poll that may or may not have been conducted by Leiken’s mom.

• TX-Gov: Little-known fact: Kay Bailey Hutchison, despite the seeming overall malaise in her campaign, has a big edge in endorsements from Texas House Republicans. She has the endorsements of 10 of 20 (including Kay Granger, Kenny Marchant, and Michael Burgess), perhaps indicative of Rick Perry’s increasingly strident anti-Washington rhetoric. (Not that that will help much when the actual electorate is in an increasingly anti-establishment mood.) A couple other Dems are looking at the race: hair care magnate Farouk Shami (who’s willing to bring his own money to the race) is officially launching his campaign on Thursday, while El Paso-based outgoing state Sen. Eliot Shapleigh is publicly weighing a run.

• FL-19: West Palm Beach mayor Lois Frankel, who would have been maybe the highest-profile possible primary challenger to state Sen. Ted Deutch in the upcoming special election in the 19th, has decided not to run. Deutch has been endorsed by outgoing Robert Wexler and has an increasingly clear path to the nomination. Meanwhile, the only GOPer looking interested in running in the dark-blue district is Ed Lynch, who lost to Wexler last year.

• IL-06: Here’s a little more information about Benjamin Lowe, who’s the only Dem running in the 6th against Peter Roskam. While he’s something of a political unknown, it turns out he’s well-connected in the religious left community as well as the green jobs movement. He’s a graduate of evangelical Wheaton College (which is in the district) and has been active in the last few years in organizing students at other evangelical colleges on issues of environmental stewardship.

• NY-13: I don’t know if anything can top last year’s NY-13 race for political trainwrecks, but the Staten Island GOP may have gotten switched onto that same track again. Michael Allegretti, a 31-year old who caught attention for raising $200K for the race already, is a lawyer who also owns a share of the family business, Bayside Fuel and Oil — which employed Gambino family capo Joe “Joe Butch” Corrao for several decades. Over $40K of Allegretti’s contributions came from family members working for Bayside. To add to the made-for-TV drama: Allegretti’s potential Republican primary opponent, Michael Grimm, was on the FBI squad charged with investigating said crime family.

• NY-19: Republican Greg Ball — who puts the “Ass” in Assemblyman — is out with an internal poll putting him within single digits of Rep. John Hall. Hall leads the Hall/Ball matchup, 48-43 — although for some reason the poll was taken only in the portion of the district that’s east of the Hudson River. Hall still has strong favorables, at 57/25, while Ball is at 40/28.

• NY-23: Recounting in NY-23 is still on track to see Rep. Bill Owens remain in the House; Doug Hoffman is down 2,951 votes with 6,123 left, so about the best he can hope for is to lose by about 2,000. The Hoffman saga just got weirder when yesterday Hoffman, goaded along by his patron Glenn Beck, unconceded on national TV — yet today, his spokesperson un-un-conceded, not that any of that is legally binding, of course.

• NRCC: If the Republicans are going to make a serious dent in the Democratic edge in the House next year, they’re going to have to refill the NRCC’s coffers, which are still lagging the DCCC. Party leadership smacked down members in a closed-door session, trying to get them to pony up their $15K dues. The Hill also has an interesting profile of CA-22’s Kevin McCarthy, an up-and-comer who’s the NRCC recruitment chair now and likely to head the NRCC at some point in the near future. Turns out that McCarthy is quite the student of Rahm Emanuel.

• Mayors: SurveyUSA polls the runoff in the Atlanta mayor’s race, and they have quite the reversal of fortune for Mary Norwood, who led all polls before November and finished first in the election. State Sen. Kasim Reed, who finished 2nd, now leads Norwood, 49-46. Reed leads 69-25 among African-American voters, indicating that he picked up almost all of 3rd-place finisher Lisa Borders’ support.

• Special elections: Two legislative specials are on tap tonight. The big one is California’s AD-72, a Republican-leaning seat in the OC left vacant by the resignation of Mike Duvall (who resigned in disgrace after bragging about his affair with a lobbyist). It seems to be mostly a contest between two GOPers, Orange County Supervisor Chris Norby and activist Linda Ackerman (who’s been making much of Norby’s four divorces). Since this is California, assuming one of the Republicans doesn’t finish over 50%, it’ll move on to another round where the top Republican faces off against Dem John MacMurray. Also, in Mississippi, there’s a contest in Biloxi-based HD-117, to replace Republican state Rep. Michael Janus; candidates aren’t identified by party on the special election ballot, but the contestants are Patrick Collins (who ran against Janus several times) and Scott DeLano.

• Redistricting: You might want to check out the website called “Redistricting the Nation,” presented by GIS software company Avencia but full of fun widgets. Most interestingly, you can evaluate the compactness of any congressional district by four different criteria, and see the worst offenders in each category.

Susquehanna Polling and Research (R) (11/10-15, registered voters, 4/27-30 in parentheses):

Beau Biden (D): 45 (34)

Mike Castle (R): 40 (55)

Undecided: 8 (8)

(MoE: ±3.4%)

Mike Castle may be rasping to himself, Lloyd Bridges-style, “Looks like I picked the wrong week to run for Senate.” And Beau Biden, who’s been strangely coy about whether or not to run for Senate since his return from Iraq, may suddenly feel motivated to declare his intentions.

Susquehanna does a fair amount of Republican internal polling, so unless they’re trying some weird messing-with-Biden’s-head psy-ops, that makes the finding of a 5-point Biden lead all the more surprising. The last time they looked at the race was April, when Castle had a 21-point lead instead. Between this and R2K‘s findings last month that the race was a dead heat, it may be time for the rest of the punditocracy to re-evaluate whether this is really the GOP’s best shot at a pickup.

UPDATE: The full memo is available now, and Susequehanna attributes this shift in large part to Castle’s “no” vote on health care reform, which occurred shortly before the poll went into the field and apparently didn’t play well with the state’s left-leaning electorate. They also point to Castle polling better among Republicans (72-17) than Biden does among Democrats (65-21), but given Delaware’s sizable Democratic registration advantage and a narrowing Castle edge among indies (42-37, down from 55-28 in April), that’s enough to put Biden over the top.

RaceTracker: DE-Sen

• IA-Sen/Gov: The newest Des Moines Register poll by Selzer & Co. has some appalling numbers for Democrats. In the Senate race, Chuck Grassley leads Democratic challenger Roxanne Conlin 57-30. And in the gubernatorial race, incumbent Dem Chet Culver trails Republican ex-Gov. Terry Branstad by almost as wide a margin, 57-33 (with Culver also trailing conservative GOPer Bob vander Plaats 45-37, although Culver beats several other GOP minor-leaguers). A 24-point beatdown is hard to believe given Culver’s poor-but-not-abysmal 40/49 approval rating, and this is way out of line with R2K‘s polling last month, but this being Iowa, I’d be hesitant to bet against Selzer. (Discussion already well underway in desmoinesdem’s two diaries.)

• IL-Sen: Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who was considered a likely candidate in this race for a long time but eventually backed down, endorsed state Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias in the Democratic primary. Giannoulias now has the endorsement of five of Illinois’s twelve House Dems. Also today, Patrick Hughes, the conservative alternative to establishment GOP pick Rep. Mark Kirk, is in DC looking for support from conservative movement poohbahs. The DSCC has a well-worth-seeing video out detailing Kirk’s transparent shift to the right (especially his pleas for help from Sarah Palin) as he seeks to fight off primary challenges.

• MA-Sen: The voter registration deadline to be able to participate in the primary special election to replace Ted Kennedy is this Wednesday. The primary itself is Dec. 8.

• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov (pdf): Siena’s monthly look at the Empire State shows a little improvement for Kirsten Gillibrand, who now narrowly leads ex-Gov. George Pataki, 45-44. She loses 49-43 to Rudy Giuliani; weirdly, while the rumor mill has until very recently had Pataki likelier to make the Senate race than Giuliani, Pataki now seems much likelier to run for President, while Liz Benjamin is now wondering if Giuliani‘s recent bout of national security saber-rattling shows he’s more likely to run for Senate than Governor.

Meanwhile, Siena has yet another installment in the ongoing David Paterson implosion. Paterson’s approval is down to 21/79, 69% would prefer to elect someone else, and he now loses the Democratic primary to Andrew Cuomo by a 59-point margin (75-16) while, in a first, also losing the general to Rick Lazio (42-39) as well as, natch, Giuliani (56-33). Cuomo defeats Giuliani 53-41 and Lazio 67-22. Latest Cuomo rumors involve him trying to assemble a whole slate to run with, and central to that is recruiting outgoing NYC comptroller William Thompson to run for state comptroller. Having the African-American Thompson on a ‘ticket’ with him would take some of the awkwardness out of Cuomo elbowing aside an African-American governor to avoid a replay of the 2002 gubernatorial primary. Cuomo also wants a female AG (possibly Nassau Co. DA Kathleen Rice) and an upstate LG to balance everything out. Still, that would set up a hot Democratic primary between Thompson and incumbent comptroller Thomas DiNapoli; there’s some tension between Cuomo and DiNapoli, though, so that’s another instance of two birds, one stone. Finally, in case there were any doubts, Hillary Clinton confirmed that she has no intention of getting in the gubernatorial race.

• SC-Sen: Lindsey Graham, although not up until 2014, could be going the way of Olympia Snowe. There are leaks of private polls showing that more Republicans oppose Graham than support him, and that his support among independents is dwindling too. I guess that’s what happens when you vote the party line only 93% of the time.

• TX-Sen: Little-noticed in the announcement on Friday that Kay Bailey Hutchison was going to delay her resignation until after the gubernatorial primary election in March means that, unless she does it immediately afterwards, the special election won’t be held until November 2010. Conventional wisdom is that this is good for the GOP, as the seat will be easier to hold as part of a larger election instead of on its own. (Of course, that assumes KBH resigns at all assuming she loses the gubernatorial primary, which somehow I doubt.) The Austin American-Statesman also has a good rundown on what the delay means to all of the potential players in the special election.

• ME-Gov: The Maine governor’s race may well wind up as crowded as the one in Minnesota: we’re up to 21 candidates, although most of them are minor. One more medium-to-big name is getting in today on the Dem side, though: John Richardson, the former House speaker and current commissioner of the state Dept. of Economic and Community Development. Current Conservation Commissioner Patrick McGowan is also looking likely to get in the Dem field.

• WY-Gov: Former US Attorney Matt Mead has formed an exploratory committee to run for the Republican nomination in next year’s gubernatorial race in Wyoming. He joins state House speaker Colin Simpson and ex-state Rep. Ron Micheli in the hunt. Mead, you may recall, was one of the finalists to be picked to replace Craig Thomas in the Senate, but that post went to John Barrasso.

• IL-11: This isn’t the way to get your campaign off on the right foot: Adam Kinzinger, who has the insider backing for the GOP nomination in the 11th, stormed out prior to a debate held by Concerned Taxpayers United against his primary competition when one of them, David McAloon, had a staffer with a video camera present. The base in the district is already suspicious of Kinzinger, and ticking them off this way can’t help.

• NY-25: One race in a swing district that hasn’t been on anyone’s radar is NY-25, held by freshman Dem Dan Maffei. He’s drawn two potential challengers, wealthy ex-turkey farmer Mark Bitz and former Syracuse Common Councilor Ann Marie Buerkle. Bitz hasn’t held office before, but says he’s prepared to loan himself a “substantial amount” of money. He’ll need it, as Maffei has been one of the freshman class’s top fundraisers.

• TN-01: Fans of wingnut-on-wingnt action may be disappointed to hear that it sounds unlikely for ex-Rep. David Davis to take on slightly-more-mainstream Rep. Phil Roe (who knocked out Davis in a 2008 primary) next year. Although he’s been staying visible at local tea parties, Davis is focusing on paying down campaign debt from last time.

• UT-02: It doesn’t sound like Rep. Jim Matheson is going to face a primary over his health care vote after all; state Sen. Scott McCoy said he didn’t intend to go after Matheson, citing the difficulty of a run given the overall composition of the GOP-leaning district.

• Biden Alert: Joe Biden is in the midst of a western swing, doing a Sunday fundraiser for Rep. Dina Titus. Today he’s holding events for Ann Kirkpatrick, Harry Mitchell, Martin Heinrich, and Harry Teague, bringing the total to 26 for vulnerable House Dems he’s campaigned for. Biden will also be in Connecticut next month for a Chris Dodd fundraiser.

• NRCC: To avoid a repeat of NY-23, the NRCC has basically turned the vetting process over to Grover Norquist and friends. Norquist said that at a recent meeting between the NRCC and conservative movementarians, 40 recruits were discussed and they apparently all met the litmus test (although Norquist grudgingly admitted that some of the northeasterners were “as good as it gets”).

• WATN?: Ex-Rep. Bill Jefferson’s going to the big house. On Friday, he was sentenced to 13 years in prison after his August conviction for money laundering and wire fraud; this is the longest sentence ever handed out to a former Congressman.

• Maps: As if electoral junkies didn’t have enough online tools to geek out over, now there’s this: super-helpful step-by-step instructions on how to generate a county-by-county map of the country on, well, whatever topic you want, using only free tools instead of expensive GIS software.

• Site News: We were so busy following the off-year elections that we didn’t notice it at the time, but last month, the Swing State Project welcomed its seven millionth visitor. (Number six million came this past March.) Thanks, everyone! (D)

Public Policy Polling (pdf) (11/11-13, registered voters):

Vic Snyder (D-inc): 44

Tim Griffin (R): 43

Undecided: 13

Vic Snyder (D-inc): 45

David Meeks (R): 42

Undecided: 13

Vic Snyder (D-inc): 44

Scott Wallace (R): 42

Undecided: 13

(MoE: ±4.9%)

When the NRCC got former US Attorney and Karl Rove acolyte Tim Griffin to run against Democratic Rep. Vic Snyder, it was clear this would be Snyder’s biggest test in a while. PPP (which is starting to poll some southern House races in the next few months, with VA-09 coming next) confirms this, finding a 1-point edge for Snyder. Snyder, unlike many other southern Dems, has had some hard-fought races in his recent past (not in 2008, though — he was unopposed), so he doesn’t have much rust to shake off, but clearly this one will be hard-fought too.

However, this doesn’t seem to be about Griffin as much as the Democratic brand in Arkansas, especially among independents (Barack Obama’s approval is 41/52, despite this currently being the mostly Dem-leaning district in the state). Griffin, despite his Beltway reputation, is still little known in his district (with a 14/19 favorable), and Griffin only slightly overperforms two guys I’ve literally never heard of, who are even less known: 7/15 for David Meeks, whose website is appropriately whoisdavidmeeks.com, and 11/14 for Scott Wallace. Snyder’s approval is 42/46, but it’s at 30/56 among independents. Discontent with Snyder may be peaking right now in the wake of the health care reform vote, which is opposed by 55% of the district’s voters, including 67% of independents.

RaceTracker Wiki: AR-02

Governor Chet Culver has gone through a couple of very tough months, with a film tax credit scandal breaking in September and low revenue projections prompting a 10 percent across-the-board budget cut in October. Selzer and Co. polled Iowans for the Des Moines Register last week, and Culver’s numbers are at an all-time low.  

Culver is at 40 percent approve/49 percent disapprove (Selzer’s last poll in September pegged his approval at 50 percent). The right direction/wrong track numbers are 34/57, the worst they’ve been in ten years.

Culver loses a hypothetical matchup with former Governor Terry Branstad 57 percent to 33 percent, and he loses to Bob Vander Plaats 45 percent to 37 percent. Against Chris Rants and Christian Fong, Culver can’t break 50 percent. He’s ahead of Rants 42-35 and ahead of Fong 42-34.

The last governor to score as low was Branstad. In February 1992, as he grappled with that year’s recession and budget crisis, only 37 percent of Iowans approved of his performance.

The economy was in much better shape by the time Branstad had to face voters in 1994. Culver’s only got a year to turn things around. There’s no guarantee unemployment will be falling by then, especially if President Obama decides to act like Herbert Hoover during the next year. Iowa’s unemployment rate, though low by nationwide standards, is the highest it’s been since the mid-1980s.

The only good thing I can say about this poll is that it may convince conservative Republicans that Vander Plaats can win the general election. During the summer, Branstad looked like a hail-mary pass for the GOP.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Research 2000 found much better numbers for Culver a month ago. Either the budget situation has caused his approval to nosedive in the past month, or one of these polls is an outlier. Unfortunately, I wouldn’t bet on a Selzer poll being an outlier in Iowa.

Rasmussen’s Iowa poll from September found numbers similar to what Selzer found last week.

SECOND UPDATE: I agree with Tom Beaumont of the Des Moines Register:

Culver has kept up an optimistic tone, predicting Iowa will emerge from the recession in better economic health than most states. Several key statistics show Iowa’s overall economy and its state government have weathered the tough times better than other states. A report issued last week by the Pew Center on the States ranked Iowa as tied for second among states in terms of fiscal health.

But that message isn’t registering with Iowans.

That Pew report gave Iowa good marks for money-management practices, and put Iowa in the group of states “least like California” in terms of budget problems, but I don’t know how Culver can get that message across. Republicans have simple talking points: budget problems = Culver incompetence.

• FL-Sen: Here’s a big score for Marco Rubio, who’s quickly cementing himself as darling for the conservative movement. He got the keynote address at CPAC’s 2010 gathering, the conservative movement’s version of Lollapalooza. Charlie Crist‘s response? Re-flip-flop on the stimulus! Today he said it was “pretty clear” he did support it at the time. The civil war in Florida is also resulting in a larger spotlight being shone on state party chair (and key Crist ally) Jim Greer, who’s the subject of an interesting (and very critical) Miami Herald piece.

• KY-Sen: A strange kerfuffle erupted in the GOP primary in Kentucky, when Rand Paul earlier this week declined to promise to support Mitch McConnell for minority leader in the face of a hypothetical leadership challenge by Jim DeMint. Paul’s rival, SoS Trey Grayson, pledged fealty to McConnell and attacked Paul for being more beholden to his “Libertarian donor base” than his fellow Kentuckians. Then, yesterday, Paul met privately with McConnell in Louisville, and after having had his brain implant installed a productive conversation, emerged filled with praise for McConnell and saying he had “no reason not to support him.”

• MA-Sen (pdf): Another poll from local pollsters Suffolk give a big lead to AG Martha Coakley, who’s pulling in 44% of the Democratic primary vote. She’s trailed by Stephen Pagliuca at 17, Rep. Michael Capuano at 16, and Alan Khazei at 3. (Coakley was at 47 and Capuano at 9 in September according to Suffolk.) Also, there appears to be one route to victory for Republican state Sen. Scott Brown: make sure that Alan Khazei somehow wins the primary. Brown beats Khazei 33-30, while losing 58-27 to Coakley, 48-29 to Capuano, and 49-27 to Pagliuca. (Brown leads perennial candidate Jack E. Robinson 45-7 in the GOP primary.)

Meanwhile, Capuano got another endorsement from among the ranks of his House colleagues, this one pretty high-profile: Nancy Pelosi. Pagliuca, on the other hand, is trying to dig out of his self-created hole, when he “misunderstood” a debate question and said that he supports reinstating a military draft.

• AL-Gov: Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks seems to have hit on an issue that differentiates him from Rep. Artur Davis in their Democratic gubernatorial primary fight: health care reform. Davis voted against it (seemingly earning him the sudden enmity of the entire netroots), and now Sparks has been loudly touting the public option, as he did at an appearance before the Madison County Democratic Women yesterday.

• CO-Gov: State Senate minority leader Josh Penry thumbed his nose rather unsubtly at ex-Rep. Scott McInnis as he departed the governor’s primary race, saying in a recent interview that not only was he not endorsing McInnis, but also that he still felt that he would be the better candidate. Is he heading for a Tom Tancredo endorsement instead? (After all, Tancredo did a lot to boost Penry’s campaign.) We can only hope.

• IL-Gov: State GOP chair (and would-be Mark Kirk antagonist) Andy McKenna got a substantial boost in his quest for the GOP gubernatorial nomination. He got the endorsement of Tom Cross, the state House minority leader.

• MD-Gov: Republican ex-Gov. Bob Ehrlich seems to be giving more weight to the idea of a rematch against Martin O’Malley, if recent comments to the press are any indication. The Republican gubernatorial victories in Virginia and New Jersey may be giving him some added incentive.

• TX-Gov: A new Rasmussen poll finds Gov. Rick Perry opening up a big lead over Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison in the Republican gubernatorial primary: 45-36, with 4% to Paulist Debra Medina. This is a big reversal from September’s Rasmussen poll, which gave KBH a 40-38 edge. Hutchison is still racing to the right, as she said that she’d be likely to try to opt out of the public option as governor, but Perry is leading that race too, cheerfully let us know that Barack Obama is “hell-bent on taking America towards a socialist country.”

• DE-AL: State Rep. Greg Lavelle, one of the names dropped by Rep. Mike Castle as suggestions for a successor, said that he won’t take on the uphill task of trying to hold Castle’s seat. Businessman Fred Cullis is the only Republican running so far.

• NC-11: Rep. Heath Shuler’s role in a 2007 land swap has the potential to hurt him next year. The Tennessee Valley Authority’s inspector general cleared him of wrongdoing in the matter (as did the House Ethics committee), but the TVA is saying that Shuler wasn’t honest to the press about it, when he said that there hadn’t been any contact between himself and the TVA.

• NY-23: Although there’s nothing to suggest that Doug Hoffman is in a place where he can catch up to Bill Owens, it’ll still be a while till the election can be certified — possibly not till early next month. (Unfortunately, this means putting off the final results of our predictions contest from last week! We’ll keep you posted.)

• SC-04: Republican Rep. Bob Inglis keeps backing away from his party’s right wing (and probably away from his job, in his dark-red district). He said that he can’t “identify” with what we called the “hard right.” Interestingly, he still identifies as “religious right,” but seems to counterpose that against the teabaggers’ movement, also saying: “As a religious right guy, I’m thinking there was a guy named Jesus who had some things to say about these kinds of concepts. And I don’t want to live in a society that lets a few test cases die on the steps of the hospital. I can’t go there.”

• VA-St. Sen.: The Democrats still control the Virginia state Senate (thanks to none of its seats being in the balance in the election last week), but it’s a fragile 21-19 edge. Especially troublesome: 83-year-old Charles Colgan only reluctantly ran for reelection in 2007, Ralph Northam considered flipping to the Republicans earlier this year, and now Bob McDonnell seems interested in taking a page from Steve Beshear and Eliot Spitzer by appointing Senate Dems to cushy jobs in his administration. On the plus side, though, there are two special elections coming up, to replace Republicans who were elected to other positions last week. The seat of Ken Stolle (new Virginia Beach sheriff) is pretty Republican-leaning, but new AG Ken Cuccinelli’s seat in Democratic-leaning Fairfax County is a potential pickup.

• Redistricting: This is interesting; Republicans keep pushing to make redistricting fairer in Indiana, despite that they’ll control the process coming out of the next census. SoS Todd Rokita has already pushed for laws to make it a more neutral process, and now state Senate President Pro Tem David Long is pushing for an independent commission to draw legislative boundaries.

• Votes: Here’s a first: Republicans actually regretting doing something wrong. They’re privately saying that they “failed to anticipate” the political consequences of a no vote on the Franken amendment, that leaves them exposed to charges of insensitivity to rape victims and hands ammo to Democrats. (Well, maybe that’s more regretting getting caught, rather than regretting doing something wrong…)

• OFA: Organizing for America is firing up the Batsignal, summoning volunteers on the ground in 32 districts that were won by Obama but are held by House Republicans. The plan is for the volunteers to visit the Reps’ offices and demand support for health care reform.

Quinnipiac (11/3-8, registered voters, 9/10-14 in parens):

Chris Dodd (D-inc): 38 (39)

Rob Simmons (R): 49 (44)

Undecided: 11 (15)

Chris Dodd (D-inc): 41 (NA)

Linda McMahon (R): 43 (NA)

Undecided: 12 (NA)

Chris Dodd (D-inc): 42 (40)

Sam Caligiuri (R): 42 (36)

Undecided: 14 (20)

Chris Dodd (D-inc): 40 (40)

Tom Foley (R): 47 (38)

Undecided: 13 (18)

Chris Dodd (D-inc): 42 (42)

Peter Schiff (R): 41 (36)

Undecided: 15 (19)

(MoE: ±2.8%)

Chris Dodd (D-inc): 55 (56)

Merrick Alpert (D): 22 (13)

Undecided: 21 (25)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Rob Simmons (R): 28 (43)

Linda McMahon (R): 17 (NA)

Tom Foley (R): 9 (5)

Peter Schiff (R): 5 (4)

Sam Caligiuri (R): 4 (2)

Undecided: 36 (43)

(MoE: ±5.4%)

Democrats had been seeming more confident about two Senate races, in Connecticut (where Chris Dodd seemed to be climbing back up to contention, as various controversies like the AIG bonuses and his mortgage that had buffetted him earlier in the year faded from view) and Ohio (where polls had shown the Democrats leading ex-Bushie Rob Portman). Yesterday, though, Quinnipiac threw a splash of cold water on both of those races.

In Connecticut, Republican ex-Rep. Rob Simmons, with whom Democratic incumbent Chris Dodd had pulled within 5 in September, now opens up an 11-point lead. Simmons also still looks on track to win the nomination, despite the splashy entry of wrasslin’ impresario Linda McMahon. Dodd had 42/49 favorables — actually a slight improvement from last time’s 40/48. Instead, Dodd seems dragged down by the economy, which respondents see as the biggest issue (at 33%) and which, for better or worse, the Democrats are starting to own. Simmons has a squeaky-clean 40/10 favorable (better than McMahon, at 20/13), so it may be time for Dodd to open up a Corzine-style can of slimy whoopass on Simmons — maybe starting by asking him what’s the deal with that teabag attached to his pocket constitution.

One other lowlight from the Connecticut poll: they find Joe Lieberman more popular than Chris Dodd, with 49/44 approval and a 46/45 re-elect. This despite 51% saying his views are closer to those of the Republican Party and 25% saying Democratic.

Quinnipiac (11/5-9, registered voters, 9/8-10 in parentheses):

Lee Fisher (D): 36 (42)

Rob Portman (R): 39 (31)

Undecided: 24 (26)

Lee Fisher (D): 38 (41)

Tom Ganley (R): 34 (29)

Undecided: 27 (27)

Jennifer Brunner (D): 34 (39)

Rob Portman (R): 38 (34)

Undecided: 27 (25)

Jennifer Brunner (D): 35 (39)

Tom Ganley (R): 32 (31)

Undecided: 30 (27)

(MoE: ±2.9%)

Lee Fisher (D): 24 (26)

Jennifer Brunner (D): 22 (17)

Undecided: 51 (55)

Rob Portman (R): 26 (27)

Tom Ganley (R): 7 (9)

Undecided: 64 (61)

(MoE: ±4.9%)

The economy may also be weighing on voters’ minds in Ohio, where Quinnipiac finds even Barack Obama in net-negative territory, with a 45/50 approval (although, compared with his national approvals, that may point to this as a slight outlier rather than an indication of particular disgruntlement in Ohio — recall this was the same sample that found a 40-40 tie in the gubernatorial race). The result is a pretty big turnaround in the Senate race, where Lt. Governor Lee Fisher was beating ex-Rep. Rob Portman by double digits in September but now falls into a slight deficit. Fisher beats teabagging auto dealer Tom Ganley, but there looks like little hope of Ganley getting out of the primary.

These numbers also indicate why SoS Jennifer Brunner is sticking around, despite the wheels having fallen off her campaign (and subsequently having been sold for food). Regardless of her fundraising situation, she’s still coming pretty close to Fisher in the primary, and performing about the same against the Republicans as Fisher. That, of course, may change once the ad wars begin.

RaceTracker Wiki: OH-Sen | CT-Sen

• NY-23: There was a brief moment of collective “Holy crap!” earlier today when people realized that the race in the 23rd wasn’t quite over. The Bill Owens lead over Doug Hoffman shrank considerably (down to 3,176 votes currently, compared to 5,335 at the end of election night) after recanvassing, including discovery of some errors in Hoffman-leaning Oswego County. There remain 5,600 absentee votes to be counted, so for the election results to actually change, Hoffman would need to win about 80% of those votes (many of which were sent in while Dede Scozzafava was still in the race). Hoffman’s camp is admitting that the results of the race aren’t about to change, but they say they might not have conceded so quickly on Election Night if they’d known it was going to be so close — meaning that the big story here is that they could have stopped Bill Owens from being sworn in and providing one of the decisive votes on health care reform in the House.

• FL-Sen: Every day now seems to bring a little more bad news for Charlie Crist, and today’s bit is that members of the Florida state GOP are demanding an “emergency closed door meeting” with the state chair, Jim Greer. The meeting-demanders seem to be Marco Rubio supporters, and they’re particularly exercised about Crist’s relationship with sketchy financial backer Scott Rothstein.

• IL-Sen: Rep. Mark Kirk’s pronounced turn to the right has been unsubtle enough that even NARAL is noticing, and calling him out on it. They’re no longer considering him “pro-choice” after his Stupak amendment vote, and say they’ll be working toward his defeat next year.

• ME-Sen: We weren’t the only ones to take notice of Olympia Snowe’s terrible approvals among Republicans according to PPP. The Family Research Council is now saying that if a conservative candidate shows up to run against Snowe in 2012, the FRC will back them.

• NC-Sen (pdf): PPP’s newest poll of North Carolina finds more of what they’ve been finding all year: people are lukewarm about Richard Burr (with an approval of 40/31) and he only narrowly leads a Generic Dem (44-40). However, Burr does better against named Democrats, including Rep. Bob Etheridge (45-35), SoS Elaine Marshall (45-34), and former Lt. Gov. Dennis Wicker (45-33).

• NV-Sen: There’s yet another hapless-seeming Republican entering the GOP Senate field: former Nevada Board of Education member Greg Dagani. Dagani is probably best known for resigning from the Board of Education after getting caught making out with his wife during a public meeting. Wait… his wife, and not a staffer (or someone he met in Argentina and/or the men’s room)? Are we sure he’s a Republican?

• UT-Sen: Here’s a little more information on the two new guys scoping out the GOP field in the wake of AG Mark Shurtleff’s departure, suggesting that they both have the potential to be formidable opponents to Bob Bennett. In fact, these two might do better at gaining the favor of the teabaggers, in that Shurtleff (who was running to the conservative Bennett’s right) was somehow considered not conservative enough in some circles (mostly owing to his immigration stance). Wealthy businessman Fred Lampropoulos was a gubernatorial candidate in 2004, almost forcing Jon Huntsman to a primary. And while lawyer Mike Lee hasn’t run for office before, he’s the son of Mormon leader and former BYU president Rex Lee, which means a lot in Utah (although Bennett’s family’s role in the Mormon church also looms large).

• CO-Gov: Is Scott McInnis about to get Scozzafavaed? The law of unintended consequences seems to point that direction. After ex-Rep. McInnis’s establishment moneybags supporters thought they were being smart by hounding state Senate minority leader Josh Penry out of the GOP primary, that just seemed to tick off the anti-establishment base. And now a much higher-profile (and much less palatable in the general) candidate with a national following to draw on is emerging to take Penry’s place. Yes, it’s ex-Rep. Tom Tancredo, who’s saying that he’ll file to create an exploratory committee in the next few days.

• MN-Gov: Another Republican fell by the wayside in the overstuffed Minnesota gubernatorial race. State Sen. Mike Jungbauer dropped out, citing fundraising troubles and a weak showing in a recent straw poll.

• WI-Gov: People have treated Republican Milwaukee Co. Exec Scott Walker as a strong contender in the Wisconsin gubernatorial race, but he seems to have a certain tone-deafness about him: he met with Sarah Palin during her Wisconsin visit to try to secure an endorsement from her… in a state where Barack Obama won 56-42.

• DE-AL: Republicans managed to lure somebody into the open seat race to replace Rep. Mike Castle, despite that this race may be the Republicans’ likeliest House loss in 2010. Fred Cullis, who owns an industrial sales company, said he’d be an “independent voice” for Delaware a la Castle.

• FL-08: I don’t know if this is an indicator of the NRCC having settled on Bruce O’Donoghue as its consensus pick, or a case of Rep. Alan Grayson having yet more success with his voodoo doll, but yet another prospective Republican challenger is turning tail and running. First-term state Rep. Eric Eisnaugle made public his decision not to run.

• FL-16: St. Lucie County Commissioner Chris Craft has previously sounded some moderate notes as he takes on freshman Republican Rep. Tom Rooney in this R+5 district, but he’s not playing it safe on health care. He came out yesterday saying that he’d have voted for the House health care reform bill and against the Stupak amendment.

• PA-17: Republican state Senator David Argall batted down rumors that he’d challenge long-time Rep. Tim Holden in this GOP-leaning Harrisburg-based seat, saying he was “99% sure” he wouldn’t run. Blue Dog Holden seems on track to receive his usual free pass.

• Nassau Co. Exec: Republican Ed Mangano’s lead over incumbent Dem Tom Suozzi expanded to 497 in the recount of the Nassau County Executive race on Long Island. Suozzi also waxed philosophical in an interesting interview with Ben Smith, pointing to a public exhaustion with civic engagement and a return to “self-interest” on tax issues.

• Mayors: Endorsements from the 3rd place finishers were handed out in the runoff elections in both the Atlanta and Houston mayoral races. In Houston, city controller Annise Parker got the endorsement of city councilor Peter Brown, who surprisingly finished behind Parker and former city attorney Gene Locke. (Locke is African-American, Parker is white and a lesbian, and Brown is a straight white guy.) And in Atlanta, city councilor Lisa Borders endorsed state Senator Kasim Reed, consolidating the African-American vote against white city councilor Mary Norwood, who finished first.

• Vote By Mail: Washingtonians are getting pretty tired of watching their elections drag on (the Seattle mayoral race this time). There’s a renewed move afoot in Washington to change election laws to match the mail-in ballot law in better-organized Oregon, where ballots must be received by Election Day instead of postmarked by Election Day. The movement is getting a boost with Gov. Chris Gregoire’s support.

Quinnipiac (11/5-9, likely voters, 9/8-10 in parentheses):

Ted Strickland (D-inc): 40 (46)

John Kasich (R): 40 (36)

(MoE: ±2.9%)

There’s been a lot of up and down in the Ohio governor’s race, as pollsters don’t seem to have this race in sharp focus yet; today’s Quinnipiac poll seems to be a down day, with incumbent Dem Ted Strickland falling into a tie with ex-Rep. John Kasich after having posted a 10-point lead last time. The overall Pollster.com regression line gives Strickland a 48-45 edge.

The numbers seem driven by lukewarm feelings toward Strickland, whose approval rating is 45/43. By contrast, few people seem to remember Kasich, with a favorable of 23/7; he seems to benefit by virtue of not being an incumbent governor in today’s climate. The state’s two Senators are still putting up tolerable approval numbers: George Voinovich is at 47/36 while Sherrod Brown is at 46/31.

RaceTracker Wiki: OH-Gov