Tag: POS

• DE-Sen: Christine O’Donnell’s radio interview on a local station yesterday should answer any doubts about whether or not the new Tea Party fave is ready for prime time (the answer: she isn’t). Mostly it’s notable for how testy it got, but also for O’Donnell pushing back on rumors that Mike Castle is gay – rumors that apparently no one has ever heard until O’Donnell brought them up in the first place. At any rate, Castle isn’t content to just stand back and let her dig her own hole: not wanting to fall into the Lisa Murkowski trap, his camp confirms that his last-minute pre-primary ad buy will be negative against O’Donnell. He also said he won’t be debating with (or otherwise even talking to) O’Donnell… ordinarily a safe decision for a quasi-incumbent, but who knows, maybe a mid-debate implosion by O’Donnell would be all Castle needs to put this one away.

• FL-Sen: Charlie Crist’s out with an internal today from Fredrick Polls, and while it gives him the lead, it’s a small enough edge compared with his rather robust leads pre-Dem primary that it shouldn’t fill anybody with much confidence about where his trendlines are headed. He leads Marco Rubio and Kendrick Meek 35-34-17. That comes against the backdrop of getting squeezed in both directions, with the NRSC “pledging” (I don’t know what that means, but it’s not actual reservations) $2.5 million for the race, and Meek airing a new radio ad going after Crist’s GOP past, airing Crist’s own words, including calling himself “pro-life” and a “Jeb Bush Republican.” At least Crist is getting some backing from one rather unusual corner: state Sen. Al Lawson, who just lost the FL-02 primary to Allen Boyd, just endorsed Crist.

• NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov: Maybe I should’ve been patient yesterday instead of complaining about Quinnipiac’s lack of New York primary numbers, because they rolled them out today. At any rate, they find, as I’d suspected, things tightening in the GOP gubernatorial primary: Rick Lazio leads Carl Paladino 47-35. (“Tightening” may not be the right word, as this is their first look at the NY-Gov primary, but it’s what other pollsters have seen.) In the Senate special election, Joe DioGuardi leads David Malpass and Bruce Blakeman, 28-12-10. And in another sign that Democratic voters are only dimly aware that there’s an election this year, fully 77% of Dem voters have no idea who they’ll vote for in the Attorney General’s race. Kathleen Rice leads Eric Schneiderman by a margin of 4-3. (That’s not a typo.)

• WI-Sen: Ron Johnson has been outspending Russ Feingold 3-to-1 on the TV airwaves, which goes a long way to explaining why this is a tied race, but that may not matter much if he keeps stepping on his own free-market-fundamentalist message. Johnson found himself, in a recent radio interview, tying himself into knots by praising Communist China for having a more favorable investment climate for business than America, in part because of its “certainty.” So, let’s see… to stop America’s descent into socialism, we need to become more like the Communists, because the path to freedom is actually through the kind of “certainty” that comes from a command economy? Finally, this is probably too little too late, but Terence Wall, the guy who dropped out in a huff from the GOP field after the state convention, is now publicly touting the idea of a write-in campaign in the upcoming primary. I don’t know if he actually thinks he has a shot against a stumbling Johnson or is just engaged in some last-minute sour grapes.

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin continues to rake in the bucks in the West Virginia Senate special election. (Facing self-funding John Raese, the money issue is the main threat to Manchin… well, that, and the perilously low approvals for national Dems here.) He reported raising $393K last week, bringing his total to $1.5 million. Raese reported $717K, but $520K of that was self-funded, with only $22K from donors.

• AZ-Gov: This may not get much press in the wake of her amazing debate performance, but Jan Brewer is also engaged in an interesting strategy of retaliation, pulling her campaign ads off the local CBS affiliate, whose news department dared to question Brewer’s relationship with a key advisor who’s also connected to private prison company Corrections Corporation of America, which stands to make significant money incarcerating illegal immigrants rounded up under Arizona’s SB 1070. That’s not the same station whose reporter aggressively questioned Brewer post-debate last night… my advice to Brewer would be to go ahead and stop advertising on all local network affiliates as punishment. That’ll show ’em!

• CO-Gov: This may be kind of repetitive, but Dan Maes again turned down calls to drop out of the race today, after former state Senate president John Andrews withdrew his endorsement and told him to get out. Andrews wasn’t alone in the endorsement rescinding department: it looks like the whole ooops-no-I-actually-wasn’t-an-undercover-cop-in-Kansas thing was the fridge too far for former GOP Senator Hank Brown, who is now saying he’s “looking around” for a new candidate. Meanwhile, on the touchy subject of water law, maybe Maes should take a page from Scott McInnis and just plagiarize all his work on the subject, as at least that way he wouldn’t appear completely ignorant of the law. He just introduced an entirely new water law doctrine with his proclamation that “If it starts in Colorado, it’s our water” – ignoring the 7-state compact on use of Colorado River water and the whole concept of prior appropriation. As much as I’d like to see Jan Brewer using the Arizona National Guard to invade Colorado and reclaim its water, I don’t think the courts would let it get to that point.  

• FL-Gov: Alex Sink is expanding her current TV advertising buy, throwing another $600K into keeping her introductory spot on the air in a number of non-Miami markets. Oddly, Rick Scott has been taking the week off since the primary, at least from advertising.

• OR-Gov: John Kitzhaber has finally decided to go negative on Chris Dudley… it might be too little too late, but at least he’s recognizing what he needs to do (as recently as last week, he negged a DGA ad that went negative on Dudley… and this is the first time he’s aired a negative ad since 1994). The ad attacks Dudley for having “never managed anything” and never “shown much interest in Oregon” before (as seen in his decision to live in income-tax-free Washington while playing for the Trail Blazers).

• CT-04: Republican state Sen. Dan Debicella offers up a recent internal poll, via National Research. It has him within 4 points of Rep. Jim Himes, trailing 42-38 (the same 4-point margin seen in the recent round of AAF polling).

• FL-25: Here’s an offensive opportunity for House Dems that nobody should be writing off. Joe Garcia posted a lead in a recent internal poll (taken in wake of the primary, and revelations about various unsavory moments from Republican opponent David Rivera’s past) for his campaign. Garcia leads by 4 points in the poll from Benenson, 40-36 (with 5 for the Tea Party candidate and 1 for the Whig).

• MO-03: Republican challenger Ed Martin got the endorsement of the Missouri Farm Bureau, a change from their backing of Russ Carnahan in previous cycles. Carnahan didn’t show up for his meeting with the Farm Bureau, although it’s unclear whether that’s why he didn’t get endorsed or if he felt the endorsement was already lost.

• NH-02: EMILY’s List, Planned Parenthood, and NARAL are all coordinating their efforts in favor of Ann McLane Kuster ahead of the Dem primary in the 2nd, where’s she’s running against Katrina Swett, who has supported parental notification laws. In addition to a joint rally, they’re sending out a joint mailer together.

• PA-12: The NRCC is out with a poll, via POS, of the 12th, giving Tim Burns a small lead in his rematch against special election victor Mark Critz. Burns leads 48-43, quite the reversal from Critz’s 53-45 win in May. (Bear in mind that POS’s final released poll before that election gave Burns a 2-point lead.)

• Rasmussen:

• AK-Sen: Scott McAdams (D) 44%, Joe Miller (R) 50%

• FL-Gov: Alex Sink (D) 44%, Rick Scott (R) 45%

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray (D-inc) 46%, Dino Rossi (R) 48%

• CT-Sen: Linda McMahon’s gotta be wondering why all those former employees couldn’t wait until after the November election to up and die. With the death two weeks ago of Lance McNaught still in the news, another WWE star, Luna Vachon, died over the weekend. An autopsy is scheduled, but the WWE paid for rehab for substance abuse for Vachon last year.

• KY-Sen: Democrat Jack Conway’s out with his first TV ad for the general election. The ad buy, touting Conway’s work against prescription drug abuse and child pornography as AG, is for about $150K. Meanwhile, Rep. Ron Paul is out with a doozy of a legislative proposal: to audit the nation’s gold reserves. As with many things that come out of the gray area between ultra-libertarianism and black helicopters-territory, the “huh? why?” part is best answered by reading the comments on the article, which apparently suggest that our nation’s gold supply actually been given away as collateral on all our debt to commercial banks/our Chinese overlords/the UN/the Bavarian Illuminati. Why is this getting filed under KY-Sen? Partly because those reserves are (allegedly!!!!1!) in Kentucky at Fort Knox, but also because at some point Rand Paul is going to inevitably get called on the carpet to say whether he agrees with dad’s latest scheme.

• NC-Sen: Civitas is out with a new poll of the Senate race in the Tar Heel State, but it’s an odd little critter, only polling “unaffiliated” voters. They seem to mirror the larger split statewide, with Richard Burr leading Elaine Marshall 39-32 (with 7 for Libertarian Michael Beitler). 34% of respondents had still never heard of Marshall. Burr is also out with his first TV ad of the cycle, focusing on his down-home-ness, presumably to ward off the “gone Washington” problem that sank Elizabeth Dole two years ago. The buy is for $578K (click the link to see the breakdown among the state’s many media markets).

• NH-Sen: Ovide Lamontagne just got a big score: the endorsement of the Manchester Union-Leader, the state’s largest newspaper and also one of the most consistently right-wing editorial pages anywhere. Newspaper endorsements can usually be shrugged off, but the Union-Leader’s endorsement of Lamontagne in the 1996 GOP gubernatorial primary helped him pull of the surprise upset of Rep. Bill Zeliff. Can this help him in a four-way split, though, instead of just a two-way, especially when Kelly Ayotte and Bill Binnie have dramatically outspent him so far? Lamontagne is also finally hitting the airwaves with his first TV ad, with the primary approaching in just a couple weeks. (No dollar figure given, but it’s only a one-week cable buy.)

• NV-Sen: Sharron Angle just keeps handing gift after gift to Harry Reid, this time unfortunately timed to coincide with Katrina’s 5th anniversary: video has surfaced from Angle’s 2006 NV-02 bid in which she says she would have voted against Katrina relief funds. One other minor Nevada point, also courtesy of Jon Ralston: Clark County‘s GOP chair just resigned, leaving more disarray in the local Republican hierarchy as far as staying organized and disciplined for November.

• OH-Sen: The national Chamber of Commerce is out with a new positive ad touting Rob Portman, which is odd since Portman has enough money in the bank that he can pay his own way and then some. (The establishment, free-tradin’ Portman is definitely their kind of guy, though, much more so than the teabaggers cluttering a number of other close Senate races.) NWOTSOTB.

• AL-05: Republican Mo Brooks (who blew out party-switching Parker Griffith in the GOP primary) has a decent, but not overwhelming, lead over Dem Steve Raby, at least according to his own internal courtesy of POS. Brooks leads 48-37; taking into consideration that it’s an internal, this race isn’t a likely pickup but certainly still on the table.

• KY-06: One other ad to consider today: Ben Chandler’s out with another spot, this time going negative against local attorney Andy Barr, hitting him on the issue of the bad kind of SSP (social security privatization).

• MI-01, MI-03, MI-07: We Ask America is out with a trio of House district polls in Michigan. As is their usual modus operandi, the Republicans are in the lead. In the Dem-held open seat 1st, Dan Benishek leads Gary McDowell 45-29 (even WAA admits they expect that to tighten a lot, based on Benishek’s name being in the news from the ultra-close GOP primary). In the reddish open-seat 3rd being vacated by GOPer Vern Ehlers, Justin Amash leads Patrick Miles 51-30. And the state’s most vulnerable Dem incumbent, Mark Schauer trails ex-Rep. Tim Walberg in a rematch, 45-37.

• OH-17: “Trafican’t” just got turned into “Trafican.” Although there’s no official word, supporters of ex-con ex-Rep. Jim Traficant are saying that re-canvassing of petitions has yielded enough valid signatures to get him on the ballot as an independent. He was only 20 shy, and they’ve found at least 27 new valid signatures. Traficant isn’t likely to be much of a factor against incumbent Rep. Tim Ryan in this solidly blue district, though.

• AGs: I know I can rely on Louis Jacobson to go even deeper into the weeds than we here at SSP ever will. Writing for Governing magazine, he handicaps and encapsulates the nation’s many state Attorney General races. He finds the Dems (who currenly have a 32-18 edge in AG positions) in danger of losing at least six seats this year, including Dem-held open seats in California, Arizona, and Georgia. One of the Dems’ best (if only) offensive opportunities is Bill McCollum’s old post in Florida. The St. Petersburg Times has a deeper profile of the race between Democratic state Sen. Dan Gelber, and the Sarah Palin-backed Hillsborough Co. prosecutor Pam Bondi.

• Mayors: Here’s a second poll in a week’s time showing current Washington, DC mayor Adrian Fenty significantly trailing in his bid for re-election, against Democratic primary opponent Vincent Gray. The Washington Post finds Gray leading Fenty 53-36 among likely voters, or 49-36 among registered voters.

• Rasmussen:

• AZ-Gov: Terry Goddard (D) 38%, Jan Brewer (R-inc) 57%

• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 44%, Ken Buck (R) 47%

• OK-Gov: Jari Askins (D) 37%, Mary Fallin (R) 52%

• OK-Sen: Jim Rogers (D) 24%, Tom Coburn (R-inc) 67%

• SC-Sen: Alvin Greene (D) 19%, Jim DeMint (R) 63%

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 48%, John Raese (R) 42%

• FL-Sen: Well, so much for the secret ballot. The Palm Beach Post deduced that Jeff Greene voted for himself… inasmuch as his vote was the only vote for himself in his entire precinct. It was a 2-to-1 vote (literally… Kendrick Meek got 2). Even his wife didn’t vote for him, although that’s because she isn’t registered to vote in the county. (Marco Rubio got 26 votes in the same precinct.) Meanwhile, Charlie Crist seems to have lost some of his footing after a convincing Meek victory in the Dem primary; he flip-flopped on health care reform in the space of one day, saying in a TV interview that he would have voted for health care reform, then, after the Rubio camp started flagging that, saying later in the day that he actually wouldn’t have voted for it. I get that he wants to appeal to both Dems and moderate GOPers, but he has to be less transparent than that.

• IL-Sen: Bad news for Alexi Giannoulias: the Constitution Party slate just got struck from the ballot, so Randy Stufflebeam won’t be there to siphon right-wing votes from Mark Kirk. Libertarian candidate Mark Labno will be on the ballot, though, as a Kirk alternative (as will Green LeAlan Jones).

• IN-Sen: This is sort of pushing the outer limit of when it’s a good idea to release an internal, but it looks like the Brad Ellsworth camp needed to let people know that he’s still in this race. His own poll, via Garin Hart Yang, finds him trailing Dan Coats 49-38. The race is closer among those who actually know Ellsworth, but his six-week-long ad buy is about to end, so his name rec problems may persist.

• KY-Sen: Jack Conway is joining Elaine Marshall on the Alan Simpson-pile-on, seconding calls for the firing of Simpson from the Social Security commission in the wake of his “milk cow” comments. Meanwhile, Rand Paul has apparently brushed up on his elementary math skills recently, as he’s now backtracking on previous pledges to erase the nation’s federal budget deficit in one year.

• MO-Sen, MO-04: Although this poll from Missouri State University (on behalf of TV station KY3) looks good for Robin Carnahan, it’s got some methodological issues that we just aren’t comfortable with. It was taken over the period of Aug. 7-22, is of registered (not likely) voters, and it also wound up with a sample that was 63% female, although they say they weighted for various demographic factors. At any rate, it shows the race a dead heat, with Roy Blunt leading Robin Carnahan 49-48. It also took looks at three House races in the Show Me State, although with MoEs in the 7% ballpark. In the 4th, Ike Skelton has a 47-35 lead over Vicki Hartzler. Two GOP-held seats look to be pretty uneventful: in the open 7th, Billy Long leads Scott Eckersley 51-23, and in the 8th, Jo Ann Emerson leads fundraising maven Tommy Sowers 64-17.

• WI-Sen: Seems like it was just this morning we were discussing the second instance of Ron Johnson’s flagrant hypocrisy when it comes to railing against government involvement in the market, except when it comes to government aid for his own business… and now we’re up to a third instance before the day’s even out. On Wednesday it came out that in 1985 he’d gotten $2.5 million in government loans to expand his plastics business, and now it’s come out that in 1983, two years earlier, he’d gotten a separate $1.5 million loan for a $4 mil total.

• NM-Gov: The DGA is out with a new ad against Susana Martinez in the gubernatorial race, hitting her for $350K in bonuses handed out in her prosecutor’s office. NWOTSOTB, but we’re told it’s a statewide saturation buy.

• VT-Gov: The final count from the SoS office in the Dem gubernatorial primary seemed to get finished ahead of schedule, as numbers today gave Peter Shumlin a 197-vote win over Doug Racine. Racine said that he would go ahead and request a recount; state law provides for a taxpayer-funded recount for a candidate trailing by less than 2% (seems like a pretty generous recount policy compared with most states). In keeping with the primary’s very civil tone, both candidates continued to praise each other and say they understood the recount choices.

• CO-07: Republican pollster Magellan (which put out an internal for Scott Tipton in CO-03 last week) is out with a poll in the 7th as well now, although this appears to be on their own, not as an internal for Ryan Frazier. At any rate, their poll gives a 40-39 lead to Republican Frazier, over incumbent Dem Ed Perlmutter. (10% opt for “some other candidate.”)

• MS-04: Thanks to Haley Barbour, the previously low-dollar campaign of state Rep. Steven Palazzo just kicked into higher gear (or into gear, period). Barbour held a fundraiser for Palazzo that raised $177K, which will help his uphill campaign against Democratic Rep. Gene Taylor.

• SC-05: Another POS poll in the 5th on behalf of GOP state Sen. Mick Mulvaney has him making up ground on Rep. John Spratt; the two are now tied at 46-46. Spratt led by 2 in a previous POS poll in May. Spratt retorted to CQ that in his own polling he was ahead with “breathing room,” but declined to provide specific numbers.

• Ads: Other ads for your consideration today include not one but two new ads from Roy Barnes, going negative against Nathan Deal (on the ethics issue, but also general Washington-bashing). In OH-Gov, Ted Strickland is also out with a double-shot of ads, hitting John Kasich for his free-trading past. Chet Edwards is out with an anti-Bill Flores ad in TX-17 accusing Flores of lying about having voted for GOPer Rob Curnock in 2008 (he didn’t vote at all that day), while the Club for Growth is out with a PA-Sen ad that calls Joe Sestak “liberal” several hundred times in the space of 30 seconds.

• Rasmussen:

• AZ-Sen: Rodney Glassman (D) 31%, John McCain (R-inc) 53%

• FL-Gov: Alex Sink (D) 36%, Rick Scott (R) 41%, Bud Chiles (I) 8%

• NM-Gov: Diane Denish (D) 43%, Susana Martinez (R) 48%

• SC-Gov: Vincent Sheheen (D) 36%, Nikki Haley (R) 52%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 44%, Scott Walker (R) 47%

• WI-Gov: Tom Barrett (D) 44%, Mark Neumann (R) 48%

• AZ-Sen: Bad news! For John McCain! J.D. Hayworth still hasn’t conceded. He’s still waiting for those late-breaking absentee ballots to help him make up that oh-so-narrow 56-32 margin, apparently.

• CT-Sen: This doesn’t seem like it’ll end well for Linda McMahon, whose stance on WWE has been that it’s harmless soap opera. Harley McNaught, the father of recently-deceased pro wrestler Lance Cade (who died of heart failure at age 29 in the wake of painkiller addiction), is going on the offense against McMahon in response to her comments that she “might have met him once.” McNaught said that he’d been to several functions with his son where they’d met McMahon and she’d known him by name, and also ripped the company’s “Wellness Program,” which he says was more about PR than about helping employees.

• DE-Sen: There’s no third-party fallback option for teabagger Christine O’Donnell, challenging Mike Castle for the GOP Senate nomination. The Constitution Party had nominated O’Donnell for its ballot line, but didn’t even receive a ballot line after its membership dwindled to 287(!) members. (That’s less than something called the “Blue Enigma Party,” which still qualified for the ballot.) O’Donnell still can mount a write-in campaign after losing the primary to Castle (which she already did in the 2006 race after losing the primary to Jan Ting).

• KY-Sen: Our James L. summed this up pithily: “Douche Day Afternoon.” Losing Dem Senate candidate Dan Mongiardo’s latest statement of semi-support for Jack Conway was that Conway was “not the best” but that “he’s a heck of a lot better” than Rand Paul, whose “scare[s him].”

• PA-Sen, PA-Gov (pdf): The newest Franklin & Marshall poll is another one of their choose-your-own-adventure specials, which shows the dimensions of the enthusiasm gap the Dems are facing, especially in the Keystone State. In the Senate race, Pat Toomey leads Joe Sestak 40-31 among likely voters, but only 31-28 among registered voters, which isn’t much different from where we left off with their last general election poll in May. And in the gubernatorial race, it’s similar, with Tom Corbett leading Dan Onorato 38-27 among LVs, but only 29-28 (probably the best showing I’ve seen in a head-to-head in this race) among RVs.

• FL-Gov: With Hayworth and Murkowski already mentioned today, it’s just turning out to be the big day of GOP disunity and sour grapes all around. While figures like Jeb Bush and state party chair John Thrasher have gotten behind Rick Scott without any major hedging, Bill McCollum is continuing his sulk, flat-out not endorsing Scott.  

• KY-Gov: The aptly-named Republican Agriculture Commissioner, Richie Farmer (I guess “Rich Farmer” was a little too overly descriptive), is still mulling over a run for Governor in next year’s off-year election against Dem incumbent Steve Beshear, where early polling has shown he’d be competitive. He’s also been linked to a possible Lt. Gov. bid, as running mate to state Senate president David Williams.

• SC-Gov: In another sign that a chunk of the local political establishment prefers Dem Vincent Sheheen to GOPer Nikki Haley, Sheheen just got the endorsement of 30 mayors around South Carolina. Most of these mayors are in nonpartisan elected positions, although one, Greer mayor Rick Danner, said he was a two-time voter for Mark Sanford.

• VT-Gov: Faced with the unenviable task of certifying her own gubernatorial primary loss, SoS Deb Markowitz says that the final certification of the super-close race in Vermont will be done on next Tuesday. All five candidates appeared amicably at a unity rally yesterday, but only shortly after Doug Racine’s campaign manager called Peter Shumlin’s declaration of victory premature, saying to wait until Tuesday. Shumlin currently leads Racine by 192 votes.

• AL-02: Rep. Bobby Bright caused some hyperventilating today when it came out that, in meeting with constituents, had punted on the issue of whether or not he’d be voting for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker next session. He did so by listing a number of reasons why that might not be an issue, including the decidedly morbid “heck, she might even get sick and die.”

• CA-18: I don’t know who looks worse in this situation, Mike Berryhill (the Republican launching an uphill, but generally credible, challenge to Rep. Dennis Cardoza), or his former campaign consultant John Villareal. Apparently they parted ways in unpleasant fashion, as Villareal blasted Berryhill’s campaign as a lost cause… but did it in the form of a somewhat unhinged-sounding, 25-minute long rant posted to YouTube.

• OH-17: Jim Traficant may still yet be able to beam himself back into Congress. He just got an extension from Jennifer Brunner, giving him more time to prove that he did collect enough signatures to qualify for the November ballot as an independent. He previously got bounced for the ballot for not having enough valid signatures.

• OR-05: Hot on the heels of a too-good-to-be-true internal from Scott Bruun giving him a small lead a few days ago, Rep. Kurt Schrader hauled out his own internal from Lake Research giving him a pretty comfortable lead: 46-35. The poll’s from late July, though, so one wonders if there’s a more recent one that he’s not sharing.

• PA-08: The ubiquitous POS is out with an internal poll on behalf of ex-Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick, giving him a 7-point lead (48-41) over Democratic sophomore Rep. Patrick Murphy. Murphy hasn’t been one of the Dems’ top worries in Pennsylvania, but as we’ve seen in recent weeks, the Dem brand in Pennsylvania seems to be waning particularly quickly.

• VA-05: Tom Perriello, in an interesting bit of distancing from national Dems that’s ambiguous enough that it works from both right and left, called for the replacement of Treasury Sec. Timothy Geithner, at a local town hall. He didn’t say who his preferred replacement would be (Robert Reich, anyone?).

• Ads: Lead-off ad of the day is from Alan Grayson in FL-08; the Hotline actually says it makes Grayson look “angelic” and they refer to it as the most positive ad they’ve seen so far from anyone. That Grayson… always zigging when everyone else is zagging. Other Dems out with their first TV ads for themselves today include Kathy Dahlkemper in PA-03, Julie Lassa in WI-07, and Tom Hayhurst in IN-03.

All the GOP ads today are anti-Dem ads being run by third party groups: America’s Future Fund running against Bruce Braley in IA-01, the Heritage Foundation’s lobbying arm against Mike McIntyre in NC-07, and Koch-backed Americans for Prosperity running against Gabrielle Giffords in AZ-08 and a weird two-fer (aimed at the Phoenix market, I guess) attacking both Anne Kirkpatrick and Harry Mitchell in AZ-01 and AZ-05. NWOTSOTB, on any of the ads.

• Rasmussen:

• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 40%, Meg Whitman (R) 48%

• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek (D) 21%, Marco Rubio (R) 40%, Charlie Crist (I) 30%

• UT-Gov: Peter Corroon (D) 29%, Gary Herbert (R-inc) 60%

• UT-Sen: Sam Granato (D) 29%, Mike Lee (R) 54%

• AK-Sen: You might have seen mention at other sites of a Tea Party Express “poll” of the GOP Senate primary in Alaska that had Joe Miller within 9 points of Lisa Murkowski. Mother Jones has been digging around, trying to find the poll, and can find no confirmation of its existence or even word of who took the poll, from either the Miller campaign or TPE.

• CO-Sen: Jane Norton’s closing argument wasn’t about how great she was, but rather about her “concerns” with Ken Buck. Her interview with Politico this morning alluded to his “issues with spending and ethics.”

• IL-Sen: If all else fails, try tying your opponent to Saddam Hussein. That’s what Mark Kirk’s attempting, with an ad that accuses Broadway Bank of having made a 2006 loan to an Iraqi businessman with some sort of Hussein connections. Alexi Giannoulias pointed out that was after he’d already left the bank, but I think a better argument would be that Saddam Hussein was played in South Park Bigger Longer & Uncut by Matt Stone, who was in Baseketball with Greg Grunberg, who was in Hollow Man with Kevin Bacon.

• LA-Sen: Charlie Melancon is out with his very first TV ad, as he and GOP candidate Chet Traylor try to put the squeeze on David Vitter from both directions. The ad (NWOTSOTB for $115K) launches a direct hit on how Vitter “hasn’t been honest.”

• PA-Sen: Pat Toomey is out with yet another TV ad, a negative ad against opponent Joe Sestak. Their only word on the size of the buy is “significant.” The Toomey campaign has been on the air with at least five different ads for a month now, without seeming to budge the poll numbers at all. Sestak hasn’t hit the TV airwaves yet, and seems to, as was the case with his successful primary bid, marshalling his resources for a large salvo closer to the election.

• KS-Gov: Wow, check out the opponent Sam Brownback dispatched in the GOP gubernatorial primary, if you’re in the mood for serious nutjobbery. Joan Heffington alleges “CIA infiltration of western Kansas” and has faced sanctions for practicing law without a license. At any rate, having garnered 15% in the GOP primary, she’s now saying she’s a GDI (God-driven independent) and shouldn’t have gotten suckered into that whole Republican racket in the first place, and as such is launching a write-in candidacy for November.

• MI-Gov: You may remember state Rep. Alma Wheeler Smith, who pulled the plug on her gubernatorial candidacy on the day of the filing deadline, saying she didn’t want to split the progressive vote (and thus giving a big boost to Lansing mayor and eventual primary winner Virg Bernero). Probably figuring that Bernero owes her big-time and also that he’d like some diversity on the ticket, Smith is now floating her own name for the Lt. Governor slot.

• NY-Gov: GOP gubernatorial candidate Carl Paladino has gone ahead and pulled the trigger on creating his own ballot line, the Taxpayers Party. It still remains a completely open question as to whether he plans to run on it if he loses the GOP primary, though. (He originally said he wouldn’t be a spoiler in the race against Andrew Cuomo, but then changed to an “options open” position.)

• IL-10: Dan Seals got apparently re-endorsed by the Illinois Federation of Teachers today. (He also had their backing in the Dem primary against Julie Hamos.)

• IL-11: Rep. Debbie Halvorson didn’t start out near the top of anyone’s list of vulnerable Democrats, but she’s starting to earn her position there. Republican opponent Adam Kinzinger has issued a second internal poll (the first one was in March) giving him a lead over Halvorson. The poll from POS gives him a 51-40 edge. (The article, however, helpfully points out that POS saw Halvorson with only a 2-point lead over the hapless Marty Ozinga six weeks before the election in 2008, a race which she went on to win by 24. Update: In 2008, we wrote about that POS poll here.)

• IN-02: Democratic Rep. Joe Donnelly, no stranger to occasional use of conservative framing, goes an extra step in his new TV ad hating on those immigrants, using a photo of Nancy Pelosi and Barack Obama when saying how he stands apart from “the Washington crowd.” John Boehner’s lurking in the photo’s background, too, so at least it’s bipartisan.

• KS-01: Wow, SurveyUSA sure likes polling KS-01, probably one of the likeliest races in the country to stay red. (Or at least KWCH-TV sure likes paying them to poll it.) They find Republican state Sen. Tim Huelskamp, who just won the primary, leading Dem Alan Jilka 65-23. (Jilka is a former mayor of Salina, which may actually make him a pretty big ‘get’ as far as this hopeless district goes.)

• NH-02: When is a lobbyist not a lobbyist? It turns out that Katrina Swett, who has denied (gasp) lobbying, in fact filled out the required federal paperwork in 1997 to register as a lobbyist, although now her defense is that she never actually got around to lobbying once she registered. Swett has previously been attacking Dem primary foe Ann McLane Kuster for her own previous lobbying work.

• TX-17: Rep. Chet Edwards got a key endorsement in this dark-red, largely rural Texas district: he got the backing of the NRA. It may seem odd to see so many conservaDems getting NRA backing, but the NRA’s policy is where there are two equally pro-gun candidates, the incumbent gets the nod.

• WV-01: Alan Mollohan 2.0? The man is actually talking like he’s eyeing a 2012 comeback, having filed FEC paperwork setting up a 2012 candidacy (although it’s unclear whether that was just to have a fundraising receptacle for donors’ funds to repay a personal loan to his committee). He also just issued a long memo to supporters, bashing, well, everyone, ranging from Republican House members who pursued ethics complaints against him while they were in charge, to Mike Oliverio, who he says defeated him in this year’s Dem primary using those discredited charges.

• Census: Next time a Republican complains to you about the ineffective, bloated government, point him in the direction of the Census, which just came in $1.6 billion under budget (out of a total $14.7 billion appropriated) as it wraps up its main phase. A solid 72% initial response rate helped save money on the inevitable follow-up process.

• Passages: Sadly, today we bid farewell to Ted Stevens, the long-serving Republican Senator from Alaska and chronicler of the inner workings of the series of tubes. Stevens died last night in a plane crash near the town of Dillingham, at the age of 86. Stevens was the survivor of a previous 1978 plane crash, which killed his first wife. We offer our best wishes to his friends and family.

• Rasmussen:

• IA-Sen: Roxanne Conlin (D) 35%, Chuck Grassley (R-inc) 55%

• IN-Sen: Brad Ellsworth (D) 29%, Dan Coats (R) 50%

• NH-Gov: John Lynch (D-inc) 50%, John Stephen (R) 39%

There’s been a whole lot of OMG! today online about a new polling memo from Republican pollster POS on behalf of American Crossroads, the new one-stop-shopping Karl Rove 527 emporium for attack ads, message testing, and the like. Taegan Goddard, in particular, seems to have fallen prey to the way the memo is deviously worded, titling a post “Senate Up For Grabs?” and saying the poll “shows Republican U.S. Senate candidates averaging a high single-digit lead over their Democratic opponents in 13 states with close races — suggesting Democrats might lose control of the chamber in this fall’s elections.”

Um, yeah. Except that’s not 13 Democratic-held seats. The poll is of five GOP-held seats and eight Dem-held seats, but without topline numbers for any seat. It’s a poll of smaller-than-useful samples in a bunch of different competitive races, globbed together into bigger numbers. The numbers still seem outlandish at first, with a 45-37 advantage for the GOP in the GOP-held seats, and a 47-40 advantage for the GOP in Dem-held seats. But then, looking a little deeper, you notice that those Dem-held seats include Arkansas, Delaware, and Indiana, where the GOP currently has large leads, tipping the scales’ balance against the Dems in those other Dem-held seats.

To unpack this, I looked at today’s Pollster.com rolling averages of each of these races, and averaged those out within each category to see what it looks like. For instance, for their five GOP-held seats, you have FL-Sen (using Meek vs. Rubio) at 15-32, KY-Sen at 43-45, MO-Sen at 44-48, NH-Sen (using Hodes vs. Ayotte) at 39-48, and OH-Sen at 41-43. That averages out to a 36-43 deficit for the Dems in those races altogether, not much different from POS’s 37-45 figure. And in the eight Dem-held seats, there’s AR-Sen at 34-57, CO-Sen (using Bennet vs. Buck) at 43-45, DE-Sen at 36-50, IL-Sen at 42-41, IN-Sen at 31-50, NV-Sen at 45-43, PA-Sen at 41-45, and WA-Sen at 49-47. That averages out to a 40-47 GOP advantage… remarkably, the exact same number that POS comes up with.

So my response to all this is: so what? If you go by the Pollster.com averages (and I wouldn’t necessarily, as these are heavily determined by Rasmussen numbers and rely heavily on the large disparity between Rasmussen and other pollsters in OH, PA, and CO), they show Dems poised to lose six seats (throwing in ND-Sen, so far gone that they didn’t bother polling it)… and gain one, assuming Charlie Crist dances with them that brung him and caucuses with the Dems… which would be a Rasmussen-style-worst-case-scenario net loss of five. Which is simply no different from what any other prognosticator, including us, would expect. So Karl Rove’s The Math (TM) looks like it may actually be correct for the moment… but is it telling us anything that we don’t already know?

• CO-Sen: It looks like the Michael Bennet camp, and his Beltway backers, are taking the recent polling surge by Andrew Romanoff in the Dem Senate primary, very seriously. Barack Obama just did a remote appearance on behalf of Bennet, for five minutes at a Bennet town hall.

• KY-Sen: Well, he finally got around to it. It was buried in the fifth and final paragraph of a press release. Nevertheless, Dan Mongiardo finally endorsed Dem primary victor Jack Conway. Despite previous rumors that he was holding out on his endorsement to get his $77K campaign debt paid off, a Mongiardo spokesperson says he didn’t receive anything in exchange for the nod.

• PA-Sen: Bill Clinton will be in Scranton to campaign for Joe Sestak next Tuesday. Frankly, that’s a really good fit of candidate, backer, and locale. I wonder if Paul Kanjorski will be allowed to tag along, though? Seems like he could use some Clinton love, too. (No, not that kind of Clinton love.) On the GOP side, Pat Toomey got some campaign fundraising help in Philly from moderate Maine GOP Senator Susan “Comrade of the Month” Collins, who seems to have forgiven or conveniently forgotten all those Club for Growth attempts to knife her in the back.

• WA-Sen: Patty Murray seems to be taking a page from the John Hickenlooper campaign in Colorado, dropping a huge amount of money right now on advertising reservations, all the way through November, while they’re still cheap. She spent $3.4 million, nearly half her CoH, on ad buys in July. She can count on her coffers being replenished, though, as Barack Obama will be hosting a fundraiser for her later this month.

• WI-Sen: Dueling ads in Wisconsin. Russ Feingold is out with a sobering ad rattling his saber at Wall Street, while Ron Johnson levels accusations of being a “career politician” at Feingold. Double NWOTSOTB.

• CO-Gov: Is there blood here in the water, or what? Colorado Ethics Watch just filed a complaint with the state bar, which could lead to disciplinary action against Scott McInnis’s license to practice law in Colorado, over his plagiarism scandal. McInnis’s former campaign manager (until last December, so he was out long before the scandal) also just asked McInnis for a refund of all the contributions he’s given him. The DGA is also starting to pour money into this race, striking while the iron is hot; they’ve plowed $100K into a new third-party group airing a new anti-McInnis attack ad. And if you were thinking that Dan Maes might turn out to be a reasonable alternative to McInnis, guess again. He ventured not just into Michele Bachmann territory (about how we’ll all have to live in tenements and take mass transit to work) but clear into UN-black-helicopters-are-fluoridating-my-water territory. And what’s the nerve center of the one-world-government’s scurrilous plot against Coloradan sovereignty? Denver’s program for public bike shares and more showers for bike-riding commuters!!!!1!

“At first, I thought, ‘Gosh, public transportation, what’s wrong with that, and what’s wrong with people parking their cars and riding their bikes? And what’s wrong with incentives for green cars?’ But if you do your homework and research, you realize ICLEI is part of a greater strategy to rein in American cities under a United Nations treaty.”

• GA-Gov: This seems like a big Deal for Nathan: the third-place finisher in the gubernatorial primary, state Sen. Eric Johnson, is backing ex-Rep. Nathan Deal in the runoff. (Oddly, Johnson hasn’t said anything about it himself, but Rep. Jack Kingston, another Johnson backer-turned-Deal backer, made the announcement.) Johnson’s support should help Deal in the Savannah area, where Johnson seems to have a strong base.

• MD-Gov: I wonder if Sarah Palin is playing three-dimensional chess here, in some sort of strange gambit to help Bob Ehrlich in the general election… or just playing tic-tac-toe, and losing badly at it. At any rate, she endorsed Ehrlich’s barely-registering primary rival, businessman Brian Murphy, in the GOP gubernatorial primary. (Which, if you think about it, doesn’t jibe at all with her endorsement of centrist and likely victor Terry Branstad in Iowa instead of wingnut Bob Vander Plaats… but then, Maryland’s not an early presidential state.) Ehrlich is now publicly doing the happy dance over her endorsement of his rival, saying that it just confirms his moderate credentials for the general, where he has a shot at knocking off incumbent Dem Martin O’Malley.

• AZ-01: Rogue dentist Paul Gosar has a lead in the Republican primary in AZ-01 for the right to take on freshman Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick, if his own internal is to be believed. The poll from Moore Info puts him at 30, with ’08 candidate Sydney Hay at 10, Some Dude Bradley Beauchamp at 7, and, surprisingly, former state Sen. majority leader Rusty Bowers back at 6. Gosar seems to have consolidated many big-name movement conservatives behind him, ranging from Sarah Palin to Joe Arpaio. My main question, though, is: Sydney Hay is running again?!? Why weren’t we informed? (You may remember her legacy of fail from her 2008 run.)

• AZ-03: This is at least the second time a childless GOP candidate has gotten busted for playing up his “family man” credentials by romping with children in advertising (the first time was Kevin Yoder in KS-03). At least Yoder was able to claim the kids were his nieces and nephews… Ben Quayle apparently had to borrow some of his aides’ kids for his photo shoot.

• IL-17: After seemingly no one found their internal poll from last week credible (which gave the previously-unheralded, if not unknown, Bobby Schilling a lead over Democratic Rep. Phil Hare), there’s another Republican poll out that seems to at least be on the same temporal plane as reality, in this swing district where the GOP hasn’t competed hard in a while. POS (on behalf of a state party committee… Magellan did the Schilling internal) gives Hare a 33-31 lead over the political novice and pizza restauranteur. The poll also gives 7% support to the Green Party candidate, which somehow doesn’t seem likely to hold.

• WV-01: As heartburn-inducing Mike Oliverio will probably be in terms of his voting record, here’s some confirmation that we at least got an electoral upgrade here from the guy he defeated in the Dem primary, Rep. Alan Mollohan, who had ethical clouds following him and seemed to be phoning in his campaign. Oliverio is out with a new internal from Hamilton Campaigns that gives him a 52-36 lead over GOP opponent David McKinley. With Joe Manchin at the top of the ticket in a November special election, now, too, here’s one Tossup seat where our odds seem to be getting noticeably better. (As a bonus, they find Manchin leading John Raese 62-30 in the district, which is West Virginia’s reddest.)

• DCCC: CQ looks at the DCCC’s attempts to enforce dues-payment this cycle. While their “Frontline” members (the ones in the trickiest races) are exempt from paying dues, they’re winding up giving de facto passes to a number of other vulnerable incumbents, not having had any luck at stopping them from hoarding their own cash in preparation for tough races. 88 House Dems haven’t paid any dues at all this cycle, while many others are in arrears. There’s also, buried in the article, a statement that the DCCC doesn’t plan to further extend its Frontline program, even as the number of potentially vulnerable Dems seems to keep increasing.

• California: For people who just can’t get enough campaign finance reports, the Sacramento Bee has a helpful table of filings for all the candidates for the downballot statewide races. Dems have a cash on hand lead in most races, except for two (Secretary of State and Insurance Commissioner). It’s particularly pronounced in the Lt. Governor race, where Gavin Newsom leads GOP incumbent Abel Maldonado $495K to $91K. In the very tight AG’s race (also the downballot race that’s seen by far the most expenditures), Dem Kamala Harris leads GOPer Steve Cooley $186K to $121K (and Cooley also has $170K in debt).

• Redistricting: Ohio, unfortunately, won’t be having a referendum on a constitutional amendment on the ballot in November, that would limit parties’ ability to gerrymander by requiring bipartisan support for new maps. The problem? The parties in the state legislature couldn’t agree on the exact framework for the plan. At least there’s good news on the better-districts front in New York, where the state Senate just passed legislation that will make sure that incarcerated persons are counted in their home communities, when legislative lines are redrawn next year.

• Rasmussen:

• FL-Gov: Alex Sink (D) 31%, Bill McCollum (R) 27%, Bud Chiles (I) 20%

• FL-Gov: Alex Sink (D) 31%, Rick Scott (R) 35%, Bud Chiles (I) 16%

• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 40%, Rob Portman (R) 44%

We’re back from a successful Netroots Nation, and in the midst of sweeping up from half a week of limited posting, we’re going to do a polls-only digest first and tackle the rest of the damage later today.

• AK-Sen (pdf): Local pollster Ivan Moore is out with the first (and probably only) public look at the Republican primary between incumbent establishment figure Lisa Murkowski and Tea Party fave (and proxy for foxy GOP doxy Sarah Palin) Joe Miller. Y’know what? Alaskans know that their local economy is largely propped up with federal dollars, and the teabagger message isn’t likely to have much resonance here, no matter how much pro-gun posturing it gets dressed up in. The poll finds Murkowski with 53/29 positives, and a 62-30 lead over Miller.

• FL-Sen, FL-Gov (pdf): The Attack of the Shady Billionaires seems to continue unabated, as they pour even more money into advertising. PPP looks at both of their primaries. It’s still a close race in the Democratic Senate primary, where Rep. Kendrick Meek leads the yacht-crashing Jeff Greene 28-25 (with Tom Jensen observing “Democratic voters seem uninterested in this election,” with many of them already having settled on Charlie Crist). In the GOP gubernatorial primary, Columbia/HCA-crashing Rick Scott is in firm control, though, leading AG Bill McCollum 43-29. McCollum’s favorables among Republicans are a horrible 26/40, while Scott’s are 35/32.

• KY-Sen: Another public poll places the Kentucky Senate race in near-dead heat territory. Braun Research, on behalf of local politics website cn|2, finds Rand Paul with a 41-38 lead over Jack Conway. Conway has substantial leads among moderates (52-18) and among women (43-36).

• LA-Sen: The Charlie Melancon camp and the NRSC exchanged fire over the last few days, issuing dueling internal polls with dramatically different takes on their races. Melancon struck first with an Anzalone Liszt internal showing a much closer race than anyone has seen before: David Vitter led Melancon only 44-43 (the previous A-L internals had 10-point spreads). The NRSC responded with a POS poll over the weekend, giving Vitter a more predictable 48-31 lead when including leaners. Maybe more importantly, this poll is the first look at the GOP primary, and it shows Vitter may not have too much trouble with it: he claims a 76-5 lead over Chet Traylor.

• NC-Sen: Here’s one more Democratic internal that really serves to shake up what’s been considered a Republican-leaning race. The Elaine Marshall camp released a poll from Lake Research last Thursday giving her a 37-35 lead over Richard Burr (with 5 to Libertarian Mike Beitler). Burr’s favorables are 34/43, and he has a re-elect of 25/31, numbers no incumbent would like to see.

• GA-Gov (pdf): I have trouble believing this one, but maybe Nathan Deal, who seems to be staking out more conservative turf than Karen Handel, is consolidating more of the votes of the various primary losers than is Handel. Deal is out with a new internal, from McLaughlin & Associates, giving him a 39-38 lead over Handel in the GOP gubernatorial (or goober-natorial, in Georgia) runoff. 56% of respondents say Deal is conservative, while 35% say Handel is and 30% call her a moderate.

• MI-Gov: A new poll of the Democratic primary from Inside Michigan Politics gives a different result from just about everybody else: they give a significant lead to Virg Bernero, who leads Andy Dillon 36-22. The article is strangely silent on other details about the poll, especially the issue of sample size, where Inside Michigan Politics has been pushing the limits of credibility.

• OK-Gov: SoonerPoll.com, on behalf of the Tulsa World, is out with what’s probably the last word on the gubernatorial race before this Tuesday’s primaries. Tuesday night looks to be pretty drama-free: on the Dem side, AG Drew Edmondson leads LG Jari Askins 49-33 (up from a 10-point gap in their previous poll, way back in January). For the GOPers, Rep. Mary Fallin leads state Sen. Randy Brogdon 56-18 (which is actually a drop for Fallin from the last poll). They also look ahead to November matchups, finding Fallin leading Edmondson 47-39 and Askins 46-40.

• TN-Gov: The Tennessee primary will also be fast upon us, and Mason-Dixon, on behalf of the Tennessee Newspaper Network, takes their first look at the GOP gubernatorial primary there. Like other recent polls, they give the edge to Knoxville mayor Bill Haslam, who’s at 36. Rep. (and now, apparently, aspiring secessionist) Zach Wamp is at 25, and Lt. Governor Ron Ramsey is at 20. (All three candidates are from the eastern third of the state, and western Tennesseeans are disproportionately undecided (29%). That would tend to benefit the biggest advertiser, which is Haslam.) Mason-Dixon also tried out November matchups, finding Dem Mike McWherter looking DOA against the sorta-moderate Haslam, 49-31, but in closer races against the more strident Wamp (45-38) and Ramsey (43-38).

• PA-03: There’s one House internal to mention, and, as has been the trend lately, it’s from a Republican. It’s from a race that been on most people’s back-burners; we’ll have to see if this raises auto dealer Mike Kelly’s profile. Kelly’s own poll, via the Tarrance Group, give him a 48-37 lead over freshman Dem Kathy Dahlkemper.

• Rasmussen

• AR-Gov: Mike Beebe (D-inc) 50%, Jim Keet (R) 40%

• AR-Sen: Blanche Lincoln (D-inc) 35%, John Boozman (R) 60%

• AZ-Gov: Terry Goddard (D) 37%, Jan Brewer (R-inc) 56%

• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek (D) 20%, Marco Rubio (R) 35%, Charlie Crist (I) 33%

• FL-Sen: Jeff Greene (D) 19%, Marco Rubio (R) 34%, Charlie Crist (I) 36%

• GA-Gov: Roy Barnes (D) 43%, Nathan Deal (R) 49%

• GA-Gov: Roy Barnes (D) 44%, Karen Handel (R) 45%

• ID-Gov: Keith Allred (D) 36%, Butch Otter (R-inc) 53%

• ND-AL: Earl Pomeroy (D-inc) 46%, Rick Berg (R) 49%

• NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo (D) 58%, Rick Lazio (R) 27%

• NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo (D) 58%, Carl Paladino (R) 29%

• RI-Gov: Frank Caprio (D) 30%, John Robitaille (R) 23%, Lincoln Chafee (I) 37%

• RI-Gov: Frank Caprio (D) 33%, Victor Moffitt (R) 18%, Lincoln Chafee (I) 36%

• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 51%, John Raese (R) 35%

• 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%

• AK-Sen: Lisa Murkowski, whose primary challenge from Some Dude got much more interesting when Sarah Palin endorsed said Dude (Joe Miller), won’t be able to count on appointed Gov. Sean Parnell’s explicit backing in the primary. When pressed on the issue at a gubernatorial debate last night, Parnell “visibly squirmed” before saying that he would support whoever wins the primary.

• LA-Sen: I hope your last few days are going better for you than David Vitter’s last few days: yesterday, he had to face a phalanx of reporters interested in the issue of Brent Furer’s continued presence on Vitter’s staff despite his criminal record. Vitter said that was old news, that Furer had been disciplined two years ago, and moreover that Furer hadn’t been assigned to handle women’s issues. Now it’s come out that several legislative guide books, in fact, do list Furer as Vitter’s point man on women’s issues. (TPM’s link has video of Vitter in front of reporters. Think back to the visuals of his post-prostitution-problem press conference, and note again that Vitter is using his wife literally as a human shield.)

• NV-Sen: Ah, Sharron Angle… the gift that just keeps on giving, day after day. Everyone is abuzz that she called the BP oil-spill escrow account a “slush fund,” apparently having learned nothing from Joe Barton getting raked over the coals for saying the same thing (to say nothing of the fact that she threw a dogwhistle reference to Saul Alinsky in there for her ultra-right-wing fans, completely apropos of nothing). After a brief firestorm, Angle is already walking back the “slush fund” comment. And “slush fund” wasn’t even the most outrageous Angle quote that came out today, as it was came out that when she successfully counseled a young girl impregnated after being raped by her father against getting an abortion, she referred to that as turning “a lemon situation into lemonade.” Well, if the GOP was thinking it was OK to let Sharron Angle out of whatever undisclosed bunker they’ve been keeping her in (and Rand Paul and Mark Kirk), it looks like it’s back to the bunker for a few more weeks.

• NY-Sen-B: David Malpass gave some clarification to his comments yesterday that he’d like to be on Carl Paladino’s Taxpayer’s line in November: he won’t seek the line if he isn’t also the GOP nominee, in order to not be a spoiler for the Republican candidate. Bad news for fans of cat fud.

• OH-Sen: Despite Lee Fisher’s fairly consistent if small lead in the polls in this race, there are almost nine million big reasons to be pessimistic about this race, and that’s Rob Portman’s war chest. Portman raised $2.6 million in the second quarter, leaving him with $8.8 million cash on hand.

• PA-Sen: Pat Toomey is out with five (5!) new TV ads, hammering on government spending. His camp says the ads will run “statewide” and for an “indefinite” period of time, but… and you can probably guess what I’m going to say next… no word on the size of the buy.

• GA-Gov: If John Oxendine can pull out a Republican primary victory despite his seeming slide in the polls, his money will have a lot to do with it: he raised $850K in the last two months and is currently sitting on $1.83 million CoH (tops among GOPers, but way behind Dem Roy Barnes’ $4 million). Meanwhile, Nathan Deal, sinking into 3rd place, has been brainstorming about what or who Republican base voters really seem to hate these days, and apparently he’s settled on immigrants, as he’s now loudly touting his plans to duplicate Arizona’s anti-illegal immigrant law in Georgia.

• KY-Gov: PPP takes an advance look at the Kentucky gubernatorial race in 2011, finding that incumbent Dem Steve Beshear (elected easily against hapless Ernie Fletcher in 2007) has a tough re-election fight ahead of him. Beshear (with 38/35 approval) leads Trey Grayson 41-38, but trails Agriculture Comm. Richie Farmer 40-39.

• SC-Gov: The South Carolina Chamber of Commerce is pointedly sticking with its endorsement of Democratic nominee Vincent Sheheen, despite some carping from its internal ranks that they should have endorsed Nikki Haley. The Chamber is framing the issue as that the Governor needs to actually cooperate with the (GOP-controlled) legislature to get things done, something that Mark Sanford didn’t do and that they don’t see Haley changing. The Haley campaign tried playing the TARP card against the Chamber, saying that they’re “a big fan of bailouts and corporate welfare.”

• TX-Gov: Despite increasing evidence of links between the Greens’ petition drive and the Texas GOP’s financial kingpins, the Texas Dems seem to sense they aren’t going to get any further on their efforts to kick the Greens off the ballot (having run into an obstacle in the form of the GOP-owned Texas Supreme Court). They dropped their challenge to the Greens staying on the ballot, which clears the way Green candidate Deb Shafto to appear on the gubernatorial ballot to give the shafto to Bill White. (They’re keeping the case alive at the district court level in an effort to get civil penalties imposed, though.)

• OH-03: I don’t know how many other states do this instead of allowing selection by party bosses, but Ohio is poised to have an unusual “special primary” in the 3rd, on Tuesday, July 13. This was brought about when Mark MacNealy, the Democratic nominee in the 3rd (to go against Republican incumbent Rep. Mike Turner), dropped out of the race post-primary. This race is on absolutely nobody’s radar (although it’s a swing district, so it could be interesting with a top-tier candidate), so I can’t say we’ll be burning the midnight oil liveblogging Tuesday’s contest.

• OH-12: This is a swing district (D+1) with a top-tier Democratic challenger, so the DCCC has been right to tout this as one of our few legitimate offense opportunities. This just may not be the right year, though, if a new internal poll for Rep. Pat Tiberi (from the ubiquitous POS) is to be believed: he leads Dem Franklin Co. Commisioner Paula Brooks by a gaudy 53-28 margin.

• WI-07: With Sean Duffy having reported strong fundraising numbers yesterday, it’s good to see that state Sen. Julie Lassa, who’s trying to hold this seat after David Obey’s late retirement announcement, is raking in the money too. She raised $310K in just six weeks.

• WV-01: After Mike Oliverio walked back his earlier statements from the primary where he was agnostic about voting for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker, it seems like Oliverio and the Democratic leadership have kissed and made up, sensing a good opportunity for a Democratic hold here. Steny Hoyer, Jim Clyburn, and Chris Van Hollen have all cut big checks for Oliverio (although, perhaps pointedly, Pelosi herself has not). Oliverio also announced having raised $300K just during the month of June. Given Alan Mollohan’s seeming allergy to fundraising, we may have given ourselves an electoral upgrade here (though definitely not an ideological one).