Tag: Polls

Rasmussen (8/11, likely voters, 6/16 in parens):

Arlen Specter (D-inc): 47 (51)

Joe Sestak (D): 34 (32)

Other: 3 (4)

Undecided: 16 (13)

(MoE: ±5%)

Those are the best nums for Joe Sestak yet from any pollster. (Quinnipiac had Specter up by 32 points in mid-July.) Perhaps there’s a bit of an announcement bounce for Sestak in effect here, but if these numbers are accurate, Arlen Specter has a lot to worry about.

Also interesting was this tidbit:

Among voters who favor the congressional health care plan, Specter leads 55% to 26%. However, among those who oppose the plan, Sestak leads 61% to 25%.

So, despite challenging Specter from the left, Sestak is gobbling up the early support of seemingly anti-public option Democrats. Go figure.

Rasmussen’s favorability numbers have shown little movement since June; Specter’s at 71-25 while Sestak’s sitting on an implausibly high 54-23. (That so many people have an opinion of Sestak is probably due to IVR methodology.) Quinnipiac painted a much different picture last month, with Specter carrying a 45-44 favorable rating to Sestak’s 23-7. UPDATE: Um, whoops. Sorry to realize this so late, but I was not making an apples-to-apples comparison between Rasmu’s Democratic favorability numbers and Quinnipiac’s favorability stats from all voters. My bad. Q’s Democratic numbers: Specter was at 73-16 and Sestak was at a good-but-still-mostly-unknown 30-3.

(H/T: P-Wire)

• AR-Sen (pdf): Here is a very weird set of numbers out of Arkansas, courtesy of a poll from somebody called Talk Business Quarterly. Blanche Lincoln has a 49% job approval rating, with 40% disapproval — no surprises, about what I’d expect. But on the re-elect question, the results are 27/60! (There’s some polling sleight of hand going on here, though; the question is phrased “would you vote to re-elect Blanche Lincoln as your U.S. Senator no matter who ran against her?” Well, I dunno… is Jesus going to run against her?) Also, in Arkansas, Republican wealthy guy/gaffe-prone crackpot Curtis Coleman has apparently gotten his shots and visa and can now go safely campaign in southeast Arkansas, as he officially launched his campaign today.

• CT-Sen: Chris Dodd underwent successful surgery for prostate cancer yesterday and is resting comfortably. He’ll be back to full activity in a few weeks, probably just in time for the end of recess.

• IA-Sen: Democrats nailed down a candidate to go against Chuck Grassley, although he’ll be hard-pressed to make a dent in the well-funded and inexplicably well-liked Grassley. Tom Fiegen, a former state Senator and bankruptcy attorney, will announce his candidacy on Friday. Another Dem, Iowa Democratic Veterans Caucus chair Bob Krause, is already exploring the race.

• NV-Sen: Here’s a telling little tidbit from an interview with Rep. Dean Heller, suggesting that he may have just as much of a non-aggression pact with Harry Reid as does John Ensign (or else he just lives in perpetual fear of Reid). When asked if it was best for Nevada if Reid were defeated, Heller’s response was a 14-second pause, followed by “Um. My position is that I’m going to support the Republican candidate. If we have a viable Republican candidate, that is going to be my position. So I think that speaks for itself.”

• NH-Sen: Kelly Ayotte made her public debut yesterday (although she maintains she’s not a candidate yet, despite having filed her candidacy papers), and shed a little more light on her hitherto-unknown positions on, well, everything. She seems to be running on mostly a law-and-order image, but she did reveal that she’s anti-abortion rights and anti-gay marriage.

• NY-Sen-B: With Carolyn Maloney now out of the picture, Bronx-based Rep. Eliot Engel endorsed Kirsten Gillibrand today for re-election. That brings to 12 (out of 26) Dem members of the New York House delegation who’ve endorsed her.

• HI-Gov: Rep. Neil Abercrombie, who’s running for Hawaii governor, ran into a sticky wicket: he won’t be able to transfer the $900K in his federal fund to his state fund, according to Hawaii’s Campaign Spending Commission. This puts him behind, in the fundraising game, both Republican candidate Lt. Gov. Duke Aiona and possible Dem primary opponent Honolulu mayor Mufi Hannemann, although he’s well-connected and should be able to catch up with some effort.

• NJ-Gov: In a revelation that should surprise no one, it turns out that Karl Rove discussed with Chris Christie the possibility of running for New Jersey Governor while Christie was serving in the ostensibly non-partisan position of U.S. Attorney.

• SC-Gov: Democrats may be sensing an opening in the South Carolina governor’s race after l’affaire Sanford, as yet another Dem jumped into the scrum: Dwight Drake, an attorney and lobbyist who hasn’t been elected before but is a prominent behind-the-scenes Democrat in Columbia.

• UT-Gov: Gary Herbert was sworn in as Utah’s Governor yesterday, replacing new Ambassador to China Jon Huntsman. Although Herbert is universally viewed as conservative, he rankled some conservatives by throwing a bone to the state party’s moderate wing by picking state Sen. Greg Bell to be Lt. Governor. He now has nine months to prepare for the GOP nominating convention for the 2010 special election, where possible candidates he may face include state Senators John Valentine and Steve Urquhart, state House speaker David Clark, and law professor Kirk Jowers. With Rep. Jim Matheson declining a run, the Dems’ next best bet is Salt Lake County mayor Peter Corroon.

• VA-Gov: Rasmussen takes its monthly look at the Virginia Governor’s race. Republican Bob McDonnell leads Democrat Creigh Deeds, 49-41, when leaners are pushed; the 8-point gap mirrors the R2K poll from last week, but is a drop from the 3-point gap in the July Rasmussen poll. Voters still like both of them; McDonnell’s favorables are 53/30, while Deeds’ are 48/39.

• GA-02: Rep. Sanford Bishop has an honest-to-gosh state Rep. opposing him this time, instead of the usual token Republican opposition: Mike Keown. Bishop should face little difficulty in this black-majority district he’s held since 1992, though. (H/t TheUnknown285.)

• NY-01: Speaking of Bishops, Rep. Tim Bishop also drew a bigger challenger than he’s used to, in the form of wealthy businessman Randy Altschuler, whom the NRCC had been trying to lure into the race. It remains to be seen if Altschuler, who’s never run for office before, has any political chops; the NRCC may have been loudly touting him more for his fundraising abilities, as he was a big McCain bundler and can open up his own wallet as well if need be. At any rate, it at least puts this D+0 district onto the map for 2010.

• NY-St. Sen.: It’s amazing what being in the majority can do for you: New York State Senate Democrats are now way in the lead in the fundraising, compared with the once-dominant Republicans. Dems have raised $6.9 million so far this year, compared with $2.5 million for the GOP, driven largely by shifts by unions who previously felt the need to play ball with the Republicans in order to avoid getting shut out of the discussion. The GOP still retains a cash-on-hand edge, though.

• FL-Sen: As the angling for a one-and-a-half-year fill-in for Mel Martinez’s Senate seat continues, there’s already been one prominent “no thanks,” from Jeb Bush (not that anyone would expect Charlie Crist to pick him, as there’s been a lot of Crist/Bush friction and Crist wouldn’t want to risk having a placeholder overshadow him). Meanwhile, a likelier pick, 70-year-old former Republican Rep. Clay Shaw (a Gold Coast moderate who served in the House from 1980 to his 2006 defeat) shot his hand up and said “pick me pick me!”

• IL-Sen: Chicago Urban League president (and former Rod Blagojevich spokeperson) Cheryle Jackson made her entry into the Democratic senatorial primary field official yesterday. However, the Illinois SEIU chapter, one of the state’s major unions, came out with an Alexi Giannoulias endorsement today, which, given their resources, moves him closer to having a lock on the nod. I’m wondering if they’re announcing in response to Jackson… or to Roland Burris, who keeps popping his head back up.

• KS-Sen: Not much change in the GOP Senate primary in Kansas since we last looked. SurveyUSA finds that Rep. Jerry Moran has a 38-32 lead over Rep. Todd Tiahrt, propelled along by a 78-13 edge in the state’s western portion. Moran led by 2 in June and 4 in April.

• NY-Sen-B, NY-16: It didn’t register much, at a time when all speculation focused on Rep. Carolyn Maloney, but several months ago Rep. Jose Serrano said he would consider a primary run against Kirsten Gillibrand. Yesterday he made clear that he wouldn’t get in the race (although he still didn’t sound very enthused about Gillibrand), which means that none of her former House colleagues are left planning a primary challenge.

• MN-Gov: Add one more second-tier Republican to the huge pile of prospects for the open Minnesota governor’s race: state Senator Mike Jungbauer, a religious rightist from exurban Anoka County, formally kicked off his campaign. He does already have one important endorsement in his corner; he was “called by God” to run.

• NJ-Gov: Today’s Quinnipiac poll has a slightly better showing for Jon Corzine, in line with last week’s R2K poll, though it’s far from time to start talking “comeback.” He cuts the lead to 9 points, 51-42, in a two-way poll of likely voters, down from 53-41 in July. More importantly, Corzine trails Chris Christie 46-40 in a three-way that includes independent Chris Daggett (who’s up to 7%). Campaign Diaries observes that the centrist Daggett (a former EPA regional administrator) is probably absorbing a lot of protest votes, keeping Democrats and moderate indies who hate Corzine from going over to Christie. If Corzine wins, he’ll owe Daggett a big ol’ “thank you.”

• NY-Gov The NYT reports on growing discomfort by various downballot electeds on the prospect of having David Paterson at the top of the ticket. Both Reps. Michael McMahon and Dan Maffei worry about the effect of Paterson’s low approvals spilling over into their own races. Not to worry: although it’s buried deep in the story, the Times says that powerful local Dems are pushing Paterson to stand down and make way for Andrew Cuomo — and that local bigwigs have been tugging at White House sleeves, hoping they’ll find a nice appointed position for Paterson soon.

• CA-10: The John Garamendi camp released an internal poll from Tulchin Research giving Garamendi a sizable edge in the upcoming special election: Garamendi is at 31, Mark DeSaulnier is at 21, Joan Buchanan is at 17, Anthony Woods is at 9, and Republican David Harmer is at 5. There’s a wrinkle with this poll, though (one that didn’t elude the DeSaulnier campaign): it’s a poll only of Democratic and decline-to-state voters, but the primary election is an all-party primary with one pool of votes (although under California law, the top Democrat and Republican will advance, not simply the top 2). In response to our inquiry, the Tulchin crew said that polling Republicans as well just wasn’t cost-effective, especially since there are six Republicans running and therefore there isn’t likely to be much party-line crossing.

In other CA-10 news, Garamendi got another bit of good news: he got the endorsement of both Bill Clinton and Al Gore (he was a deputy Secretary of Interior for part of the Clinton administration). However, a SurveyUSA that only tested favorables for the CA-10 candidates didn’t have good news for much of anyone: Garamendi is at 30/34, DeSaulnier is at 22/23, and Buchanan is at 16/25. Only up-and-comer Woods is in positive (if generally unknown) territory, at 14/13.

• CT-04: With presumptive GOP nominee state Senate minority leader John McKinney staying out, not one but two other GOPers got in the race against Democratic freshman Rep. Jim Himes. One was the party’s likely #2 choice, state Senator Dan Debicella; the other is Rob Merkle, a political novice but the wealthy owner of a financial services recruitment firm.

• PA-06: Maybe journalist Doug Pike won’t have the Dem primary to himself after all, now that Rep. Jim Gerlach is committed to the gubernatorial race. Bob Roggio, the little-known businessman who almost beat Gerlach in 2008, said he hasn’t “ruled it out.” Also, while there doesn’t seem to be anything tangible, there are indications that state Sen. Andy Dinniman, the Dems’ highest-profile elected official in the pivotal Chester County portion of the district, is “increasingly rumored to be seriously considering” the race.

Good news and bad news for Handsome Harry Reid.

The good news:

Nevada Rep. Dean Heller has decided not to run against Harry Reid (D-Nev.), robbing Republicans of their top recruit against the Senate Majority Leader in 2010, according to an informed source.

Heller, who was elected to the vast 2nd district in 2006, called National Republican Senatorial Committee Chairman John Cornyn (Texas) earlier today to pass on his decision.

Heller turned down the race despite internal Republican polling — conducted by the Tarrance Group — that showed him leading Reid by nine points.

The bad news: the GOP has released internal polling showing Reid losing to Nevada GOP Chair Susan Lowden, which may as well be Generic R at this point.

Vitale & Associates (7/29-30, likely voters):

Harry Reid (D-inc): 42

Susan Lowden (R): 48

Undecided: 10

(MoE: ±4.4%)

Yeah, this poll was commissioned by “Lowden supporters” who are trying to draw her into the race, but before you dismiss these numbers out of hand, bear in mind that PPP’s Democratic polling guru, Tom Jensen, finds these numbers very believable. Tweeting at your face:

I can believe NV poll showing Reid trailing. Fresh polls in Ark. and Co. prob. wouldn’t be pretty for Dems either.

RaceTracker Wiki: NV-Sen

Anzalone Liszt for Dan Seals (8/3-6, likely primary voters):

Dan Seals (D): 63

Julie Hamos (D): 8

Elliot Richardson (D): 2

Undecided: 27

(MoE: ±4.9%)

At first glance, those numbers might seem a bit laughable, but don’t forget: Seals put out some pretty similar internal polls last cycle, including one in November 2007 that showed him leading the hapless Jay Footlik by 58-6. Seals eventually won that primary with 81% of the vote despite Footlik raising some decent pie.

The Math is pretty formidable for Seals here — he posts an 83% name recognition score, and a 70-13 favorable/unfavorable spread. In short, despite losing two general elections in a row, Democratic voters appear to like Seals pretty well. Hamos, a state representative who lives in the nearby 9th District, is only known to 18% of voters, so she has some room to grow, but she’d have to raise some seriously huge scrilla to wash out Seals’ strong and early advantage.

The full, Resistance Is Futile-themed polling memo is available below the fold.

• CT-Sen: Here’s some good news for Chris Dodd (and also Kent Conrad, although he’s not facing any danger at home): the Senate Ethics Committee found that no Senate gift rules were broken by accepting VIP mortgages from Countrywide. Perception-wise, though, this is a case where the damage has probably already been done.

• FL-Sen: Marco Rubio has issued some demands to Charlie Crist, regarding Mel Martinez’s now-vacant Senate seat: appoint someone conservative, and appoint an “interim” senator (i.e. not Crist). TPM also cites NRO’s Jim Geraghty as hearing rumors that the pick may be former Republican Gov. Bob Martinez (no relation to Mel), a conservative (although registered as a Democrat when nonpartisan mayor of Tampa) who served one term, 1986-1990. Bob Martinez is 74, and of Spanish ancestry rather than Cuban.

• IL-Gov: It still seems like a strange choice to me, but Comptroller Dan Hynes (runner-up to some guy named Barack Obama in the 2004 Democratic Senate primary) made it official yesterday. He’ll be running in the primary against incumbent Governor Pat Quinn, who’s been sporting surprisingly good approval ratings (by virtue of not being Rod Blagojevich, I suppose) and already managed to deter the much stronger Lisa Madigan from a primary fight. The primary is a ridiculously-early Feb. 2.

• NJ-Gov: One more poll in the New Jersey governor’s race came out yesterday, painting a worse picture than yesterday’s not-terrible R2K. Rasmussen finds a 13-point spread, 50-37, for Chris Christie over Jon Corzine. That’s right in line with Pollster.com’s rolling average, which is 50-38 today.

• UT-Gov: Utah Governor Jon Huntsman was confirmed as ambassador to China today, to no one’s surprise. Once he resigns, Republican Lt. Gov. Gary Herbert will be promoted but will face a special election in 2010.

• VA-Gov: Creigh Deeds has taken on some criticism in recent weeks in the wake of flagging polls, for ignoring northern Virginia and focusing on his white rural base too much. He seems to be remedying that with his newest wave of radio ads, targeting Hispanic and black voters. On top of that, of course, was yesterday’s appearance with Barack Obama in McLean in NoVa.

• CA-47: Republican Assemblyman Van Tran, who’s running against Loretta Sanchez in the 47th, got some bad PR last night. Tran was disruptive enough at the scene of a drunk-driving accident involving Westminster city councilor Andy Quach that he was threatened with arrest unless he returned to his car. (Tran was apparently called to the scene to act as Quach’s attorney, rather than a passenger.)

• IL-10: State Rep. Julie Hamos got a boost in her quest to win the Democratic primary in the open-seat battle to replace Rep. Mark Kirk. Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who represents the next-door 9th, endorsed Hamos, the first high-profile endorsement in the race.

• SC-04: Republican Rep. Bob Inglis laid down the law at his town hall the other night, telling Screamers at the event to turn off the Glenn Beck and tune out the fear-mongering. One more clue that the increasingly-sane Inglis, who’s facing several high-profile primary challengers (most notably state Sen. David Thomas) in a dark-red district, is becoming the 2010 cycle’s likeliest GOP primary casualty.

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (8/3-5, likely voters, 5/25-27 in parens):

Jon Corzine (D-inc): 40 (39)

Chris Christie (R): 48 (46)

Undecided: 9

(MoE: ±4%)

Being down by “only eight” is about as rosy as it has gotten for Corzine over the last month. The glimmer of hope for Corzine here is that many of the undecideds are minority voters; 28% of African-American voters, 18% of Hispanics, and another 18% of “Others” are still noncommittal, while only 4% of whites are still on the fence — a slice of the electorate where Christie is enjoying a monstrous 58-34 lead. (Hat-tip: andgarden)

And now for Virginia…

Research 2000 for Daily Kos (8/3-5, likely voters, 6/15-17 in parens):

Creigh Deeds (D): 43 (44)

Bob McDonnell (R): 51 (45)

Undecided: 6 (11)

(MoE: ±4%)

The fact that this one isn’t as ugly as PPP‘s findings (McDonnell +14) or SUSA‘s (M+15) is cold comfort right now. Again, if the 22% of African-American voters who are on the fence come home to Deeds, the margin becomes quite a bit tighter, but Deeds will need to shave off some McDonnell voters in order to get the job done.

Another point of interest here is that R2K finds Deeds ahead by 65-27 in “Northern Virgina”. Of course, I’m not sure how exactly R2K has defined NoVA, but SUSA had Northeast Virginia going for McConnell by 56-41 in their polling last week. (PPP found the 703 going to Deeds by a very limp 51-44 margin.) In any case, these are the voters that Deeds will have to excite, so it’s time to get cracking.

RaceTracker Wiki: NJ-Gov | VA-Gov

• DE-Sen: Rep. Mike Castle yesterday told a radio interviewer that he’d decide “in the next month or so” what, if anything, he’s going to run for. One possible hint, though, is that he said that there are some “good young elected officials in the state who possibly could run on a statewide basis and should be looked at,” and he specifically named some state legislators like state sen. Charlie Copeland and state Reps. Tom Kovach and Greg Lavelle.

• FL-Sen: Here’s another sign of trouble looming in the GOP primary for Charlie Crist, at least within the activist base, hot on the heels of his big loss in the Pasco County straw poll. The Volusia County GOP actually voted to censure him, over a list of grievances including his moderate judicial appointments, support of the Obama stimulus, and lack of support for Tom Feeney and Ric Keller last year. (Volusia Co.’s main city is Daytona Beach and population is over 400,000, so this isn’t one of those little Dixiecrat panhandle counties, either.)

• IL-Sen: Rep. Mark Kirk downplayed the story of his Tweeting while on active military duty (as a Naval Reservist) at a news conference yesterday, but apologized for having done so.

• NH-Sen: Skepticism behind-the-scenes seems to be growing in New Hampshire, especially among conservative activists, about the ordination of Kelly Ayotte as Senate candidate, handed down from on high from the Beltway. Various on- and off-the-record insiders are unsure of her political leanings, ‘meh’ about her speaking style, and worried that she’s never had to raise funds before. A lot of this agitation has been coming from the state’s largest paper, the Manchester Union-Leader, which has a notably hard-right editorial page and has been fannish of likely primary opponent Ovide Lamontagne in the past.

• MN-Gov: This seemed to slip through the cracks last week, but Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak is sounding more like a candidate now. While giving a stump-ish speech to local Democrats, Rybak said that he’s “very likely” to enter the open seat gubernatorial race.

• NJ-Gov (pdf): In another indication that things are getting worse, not better, for Jon Corzine, the new poll from Monmouth shows him trailing Chris Christie by 14 points among likely voters, 50-36, with 4% to independent Chris Daggett. This is particularly troublesome because Monmouth has been the pollster most favorable to Corzine; he trailed by only 8 in the July poll. Interestingly, though, Corzine trails by only 4 (43-39) among registered voters, a narrower gap than in July — suggesting that his only hope is getting a lot of unlikely voters to turn out. Democrats countered with their own internal poll (pdf) today, showing Corzine down by “only” 7, 42-35-6.

• TX-Gov: You may recall that the Kay Bailey Hutchison campaign decided to pull the hidden phrase “rick perry gay” from its website’s code, but left a bunch of other hidden phrases (in the code, not meta-tags). That’s a big-time search-engine optimization party foul, though, and it led to Google and Yahoo pulling the website from their search indexes this weekend.

• CA-10: State Senator Mark DeSaulnier may have lost one of his most potent weapons: the State Department asked him to stop using the endorsement of his predecessor (and current Undersecretary of State for arms control) Ellen Tauscher. It’s not illegal, but they want to avoid any ethical impropriety. The primary special election is Sept. 1.

• FL-24: Rep. Suzanne Kosmas may find herself up against a celebrity candidate next year: former Notre Dame football coach Lou Holtz, who now lives in the Orlando area. Holtz has been in contact with the NRCC about the race, and certainly brings name recognition, but comes with a couple drawbacks: one, he’s 72 years old, ancient for a House freshman, and two, he raised some eyebrows last year after having to apologize for calling Hitler a great leader.

• LA-02: Kudos to Rep. Joseph Cao for having the courage to say out loud what we’re all thinking: “I know that voting against the health care bill will probably be the death of my political career.” Strange to give that sort of ammunition to potential opponents when it’s clear from his fundraising that he’s intending to run again.

• LA-03: Scott Angelle, natural resources secretary under both Kathleen Blanco and Bobby Jindal and former Democratic St. Martin parish president, is maintaining his interest in the possibly-vacant LA-03 seat. However, rumor has it that he may run for the seat as a Republican, and he did go on the record saying he’d “consider” swapping party labels (which are especially porous in Louisiana). State Rep. Nickie Monica says he’s in the race (as a Republican) regardless of whether or not Charlie Melancon pulls the trigger on a Senate run. One other Democrat not mentioned before who’s considering the race is 27-year-old New Orleans corporate lawyer Ravi Sangisetty, who grew up in Houma.

• MD-01: State Sen. Andy Harris is taking steps to solve one of the two problems that hampered him in last year’s election against Rep. Frank Kratovil: he’s coming to the Eastern Shore. He isn’t moving, but he will be working part-time (he’s a mild-mannered anesthesiologist by day) at the hospital in Salisbury, in order to bolster his Eastern Shore cred. It’ll be a little harder to paper over his other problem, which is that he’s a Club for Growth wacko. Harris was just named one of the NRCC’s Young Guns, despite the fact that he might still face a primary against less conservative and Eastern Shore-based state Sen. E.J. Pipkin, who seems like he’d pick up most of the votes that went for Wayne Gilchrest in the 2008 primary (although Pipkin may be looking at running for state Comptroller instead).

• NY-23: Despite interest from some colorful-sounding “activists,” it looks like the Conservative Party line in the upcoming special election is likely to go to a more establishment figure, accountant Doug Hoffman, who you may recall was one of the Republican wannabes not selected by the party apparatus. Hoffman attacked the hypothetical Democratic nominee and GOP nominee Dede Scozzafava as “Mr. Bad or Mrs. Worse.”

• MO-03: Rep. Russ Carnahan doesn’t usually draw more than a passing glance from the GOP in his D+7 district, but it looks like he’ll have a somewhat credible opponent in 2010. Ed Martin opened an exploratory committee for the race; he hasn’t been elected before, but has consummate insider credentials as Gov. Matt Blunt’s chief of staff for four years.

• RI-02: In an almost-one-party state like Rhode Island, primary challenges are a routine part of life. Rep. Jim Langevin fought off a primary challenge from professor Jennifer Lawless in 2006; in 2010, he’ll likely face state Rep. Elizabeth Dennigan (who had been planning to run for Lt. Governor, but had to drop that plan when incumbent Elizabeth Roberts decided to run for re-election instead of Governor). Although abortion was the flashpoint in 2006 (Langevin is pro-life), Dennigan says she won’t make much of an issue of it.

• TX-23: Pete Sessions is probably pounding his head on his desk right now. After getting self-funder Quico Canseco to come back for a clear shot at Rep. Ciro Rodriguez in the 23rd, Bexar Co. Commissioner Lyle Larson, who upset Canseco in the GOP primary in 2008, is saying he’s thinking of coming back for another try — potentially setting up another self-destructive primary.

• WI-03: Rep. Ron Kind is facing a real opponent for the first time in a while. State Sen. Dan Kapanke, who’s been acting candidate-ish for a long time, made it official yesterday that he’ll challenge the 14-year incumbent in 2010.

• OH-SoS: With Jennifer Brunner giving up her job to run in the Senate primary, the Secretary of State open seat race is turning into one of Ohio’s hottest tickets. While Democratic Franklin Co. Commissioner Marilyn Brown is in the race, she is trailing GOP state Sen. Jon Husted (who has $1.3 million) by about a 10-to-1 ratio for cash-on-hand. Now a second Democrat, state Rep. Jennifer Garrison from Marietta in the state’s southeast, is getting into the race. It’s a key race, as the SoS is one of the votes on the 5-member state legislative apportionment board, which Dems currently control 3-2, and which they’ll need to hold if they’re going to undo Republican-favorable gerrymanders in the state legislature.

Public Policy Polling (7/31-8/3, registered voters, 6/30-7/2 in parens):

Creigh Deeds (D): 37 (43)

Bob McDonnell (R): 51 (49)

Jody Wagner (D): 34 (40)

Bill Bolling (R-inc): 48 (46)

Steve Shannon (D): 32 (38)

Ken Cuccinelli (R): 45 (45)

(MoE: ±4.1%)

Wow, these are scary ugly numbers all around. Tom Jensen has more:

The biggest problem hampering Deeds right now is a lack of enthusiasm among Democrats for coming out to vote this fall. Although Barack Obama took Virginia 52-46 last November, those planning to vote in this year’s election report having voted for John McCain by a margin of 52-41. Put another way, roughly 60% of people who voted for McCain last fall are planning to come out while only 42% of those who voted for Obama are. He probably needs to generate enough excitement around his candidacy to get out closer to 55% of those Obama voters if he’s going to win.

There are some signs within the poll that Deeds’ standing is likely to improve. For instance two of the largest groups of undecided voters are African Americans and those under 30, both groups that were very favorable to Barack Obama last year. He has a 64-3 lead with blacks and seems likely to pick up most of the undecideds as the election comes closer.

Still it’s clear there’s a lot of work to do. For instance his lead in northern Virginia is only 51-44 and among all voters describing themselves as suburbanites he trails McDonnell 51-37. By comparison a PPP survey right before the election last year showed Obama winning those folks 58-38, meaning at this point there’s basically a 34 point turnaround with those voters.

As Jensen says, it’s still too early to count Deeds out, but this looks to be the most challenging gubernatorial election for Democrats in Virginia in several cycles. Even during the 2005 campaign, which was no walk in the park for Tim Kaine, Republicans never enjoyed a lead this big. Democrats have good reason to be very concerned here.

Discussion is already underway in Conspiracy’s diary.

• AR-Sen: Here’s a tea leaf that state Sen. Gilbert Baker may be interested after all in getting into the Senate race: he issued a press release today going after Democratic health care reform and Blanche Lincoln in particular. He’d probably be the favorite to win the GOP nomination if he got in, if only by virtue of the rest of the field being gaffe-prone wackos.

• CT-Sen: Best wishes to Chris Dodd, who has been diagnosed with early-stage prostate cancer and will undergo surgery over the August recess. He said he’ll be back at work after several weeks of recuperation at home, and that he still plans to run for re-election in 2010.

• IL-Sen: Add one more GOP Twitter fail to the increasingly long-list. Rep. Mark Kirk, who is also a Naval Reservist, tweeted his location (the National Military Command Center) while on duty. The DoD is now investigating, as it’s a problem on two fronts: one, the prohibition against using the media to give away your position, and two, the prohibition against, while on military service, updating a website established prior to the beginning of service. Complicating the legal question even further: it may have been a staffer tweeting on Kirk’s behalf. Because, y’know, it’s so hard to think up 140 characters of content on your own.

• NY-Sen-B: The confusion over the Carolyn Maloney campaign has reached epic proportions. Yesterday, CQ reported that Maloney had no fixed timeline for officially getting into the Senate primary, but that early August seemed likely. But today, Politico’s Glenn Thrush is reporting that Maloney is “leaning heavily against” making the race at all, according to several prominent Dems.

• ND-Sen: The NRSC is flogging a new internal poll which claims Gov. John Hoeven has a 53-36 lead over Sen. Byron Dorgan. Both men are very popular, with Hoeven with an 86% approval and Dorgan with a 69% approval. A public poll from R2K in February found the numbers almost exactly reversed, with Dorgan beating Hoeven 57-35… but Hoeven hasn’t taken any public steps to get into the race, so we may never find out who’s right.

• AK-Gov: Local pollster Hays Research looked at in-state approvals for Alaska’s incoming and outgoing governors, and found Sarah Palin leaving in net negative territory: 47/48. Sean Parnell looks bulletproof for the moment, at 67/8, but, having been in office for less than a week, hasn’t had the chance to screw anything up yet.

• TX-Gov: A bit more egg on the Kay Bailey Hutchison campaign’s face today, as the Austin American-Statesman found that her website had over 2,200 hidden phrases on it designed to steer traffic, including “rick perry gay.” (This wasn’t mere meta-tagging, but blind keywords invisibly put into the site’s code, something of a search engine-optimization no-no.) A spokesperson said they’d remove “rick perry gay,” although it sounds like the other 2,199 phrases stay.

• KS-04: Businessman Jim Anderson got into the overflowing GOP field in KS-04 to replace retiring Rep. Todd Tiahrt. He seems like he might get a little lost in the shuffle, in a field that already includes local GOP heavyweights RNC committeman Mike Pompeo and state Sen. Dick Kelsey, along with state Sen. Jean Schodorf, who recently began exploring the race.

• MO-04: Ike Skelton, who’s held down the fort for Dems in dark-red central Missouri since time immemorial, has drawn a more serious opponent than usual (not hard, since his usual opponents are nobodies or no one at all). Vicky Hartzler is a former state Rep. who has also written a book called “Running God’s Way,” apparently a how-to guide to campaigning for Christian right candidates. CQ also mentions several other still-in-office legislators who could also take on the 77-year-old Skelton (especially if he hears the siren song of retirement): state Rep. Tom Self and state Sen. Bill Stouffer.

• DCCC: The DCCC has responded with its own ad offensive on the health care front, a day after the RNC targeted 60 districts. The DCCC’s radio buy and robo-call package is a bit more targeted, focusing on 8 GOPers (not coincidentally, maybe their 8 most vulnerable incumbents running in 2010): Michele Bachmann, Joseph Cao, Charlie Dent, Dan Lungren, Thad McCotter, Erik Paulsen, Dave Reichert, and Pat Tiberi.

• Where Are They Now?: Former GOP Rep. Anne Northup found her way into the Obama administration, as a commissioner on the Consumer Product Safety Commission. This initially seems very odd — she already lost KY-03, so there’s no sense in appointing her to facilitate a Dem pickup — but it’s because the Senate GOP leader has a say in picking a Republican for one of the five commissioners, and Mitch McConnell opted to give the job to his long-time protege, who, having lost three races in a row, is probably finished with electoral politics.