• DE-Sen: It’d D-Day for the Republican Party: the “D” could stand for “Delaware,” or maybe for the “dipshits” in the Tea Party who we’ll see tonight whether they’ve fully succeeded in taking over the asylum. At any rate, the state GOP is rolling out a robocall from a former Christine O’Donnell 2008 staffer who’s now supporting Mike Castle; she says O’Donnell isn’t a “true conservative” (although that’s evidenced by her inability to get her own spending under control). O’Donnell’s camp responds saying the disgruntled staffer was fired after a week, rather than leaving on her own. The Beltway CW of today, at least as far as Politico goes, seems to be that Castle has regained some momentum over the last few days what with the increased scrutiny of O’Donnell, pointing to changes in responses to phonebanking in recent days.
• FL-Sen: Here’s an interesting endorsement for Charlie Crist, that may help him with the growing Haitian community in the Miami area. Haitian-American State Rep. Yolly Roberson, who recently lost the FL-17 Democratic primary, gave his backing to Crist instead of Kendrick Meek, whose newly-vacated seat he was vying to occupy.
• NV-Sen, NV-Gov: The first of three (count ’em) polls out in the Nevada Senate race has what just about everyone else has seen in this quickly-getting-overpolled race: Harry Reid leads Sharron Angle in the low single digits. Ipsos/Reuter’s second poll of the race gives Reid a 46-44 lead. (It was 48-44 in favor of Reid in their first poll in early August.) Apparently this wasn’t the respected pollster showing a single-digit gubernatorial race that Jon Ralston was rumbling about, though: their gubernatorial numbers are 60 for Brian Sandoval, and 31 for Rory Reid. (The trendlines were 50-39 for Sandoval, so that’s quite a drop, especially when considering that the Senate race has barely budged.)
• WA-Sen: Republicans hoping for some sort of reconciliation in Washington are out of luck. Clint Didier is still holding out on endorsement for Dino Rossi, popping up briefly yesterday to tell Politico that he won’t do so unless Rossi capitulates to Didier’s three demands regarding action items.
• RI-Gov: Michael Bloomberg parachuted into yet another race with an endorsement, as part of his nebulous goals of advancing some sort of center-left post-partisan zeitgeist. He offered his backing to moderate GOPer-turned-liberal indie Lincoln Chafee, who seems to fit the Bloomberg worldview pretty well.
• NY-St. Sen.: Veteran political reporter Liz Benjamin is out with her handicapping of the New York state Senate races this year (New York elects all Senators every two years, so everybody’s up this year, as always). She points to seven Tossups, four of which are Dems and three of which are GOPers (thanks in large part to open seats). That means that control of the body, currently 32-29 (with 1 previously-GOP vacancy), is truly up for grabs this year. It’s all presented in a nice-looking map format, although the functionality needs some help.
• SSP TV:
• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer’s campaign’s first ad emphasizes veterans, small business, and green jobs
• MO-Sen: The winning ad of the day may just be a little radio ad from Robin Carnahan, which actually uses a jingle (how many political ads do that anymore?); the song goes amusingly negative against Roy Blunt
• KY-Sen: The newest Jack Conway ad works the law & order angle, saying Rand Paul is soft on crime, while the NRSC is out with an ad that seems to be poking fun at Conway’s horse-owning ways as a means of linking him to Barack Obama… or something like that
• CO-Gov: The Colorado trainwreck continues unabated, as Tom Tancredo’s first ad is an anti-Dan Maes hit job, featuring a nice little old lady who says that Maes conned her out of her money without getting into any of the specifics
• FL-Gov: Rick Scott’s back on the air after letting his money have a few weeks off, trying yet again to tie Alex Sink to Barack Obama
• MA-Gov: An anti-Charlie Baker spot from Bay State Future hits Baker on his stewardship of the Big Dig, a 90s public works debacle that turned into a collective scar on the Massachusetts psyche
• CA-03: Ami Bera’s first ad focuses on Dan Lungren’s last minute pay raise that he gave himself as state AG, boosting his pension
• CO-07: Ed Perlmutter’s out with his first ad, a positive spot
• IL-11: Debbie Halvorson’s first ad uses testimonials from the unemployed to hit Adam Kinzinger hard for his support of free trade agreements
• OH-15: Mary Jo Kilroy, similarly endangered, also opts for the negative ad route, hitting Steve Stivers for his work as banking industry lobbyist
• OH-18: Sensing a theme? Zack Space hits Bob Gibbs on his support for free trade agreements too
• PA-07: Bryan Lentz is out with two separate ads, one a basic intro spot, the other making an argument that all Dems should be making: that supporting extension of the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy doesn’t jibe with wanting to reduce the deficit
• PA-08: Patrick Murphy talks to the camera to do some compare & contrast with Mike Fitzpatrick
• SD-AL: Two dueling ads from Stephanie Herseth Sandlin and Kristi Noem: Noem’s first ad is a generic attack on Washington, while Herseth tries to rebut an ad from AFF, saying, no, she’s actually conservative
• Rasmussen:
• CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 46%, Dan Maes (R) 21%, Tom Tancredo (C) 25%
• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 48%, Sharron Angle (R) 48%
• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 41%, Rob Portman (R) 49%
• A Rasmussen By Any Other Name Would Still Smell: When a gigantic slew of polls for Fox News came out, showing, as one might expect from Fox, bad results for Democrats, I wasn’t surprised. Something seemed off, though: I first noticed that this wasn’t Fox’s usual pollster (which is Opinion Dynamics), but someone called Pulse. Then some of the details really made my antennae twitch: these were auto-dialed polls conducted over one day (meaning no callbacks), and the day they chose was not only a Saturday (when young people tend to out, y’know, doing things) but freakin’ 9/11! Then Taegan Goddard helpfully pointed out this, which explains it all: Pulse Research is a subsidiary of Rasmussen. You may recall some discussion earlier in the year of a new Rasmussen venture that would let people pay $600 to poll anything or anyone they wanted… that’s Pulse. So, they’re just going in the Rasmussen containment pool with the “real” Rasmussen polls; for what it’s worth, the numbers are pretty much in line with where Rasmussen sees the races, so at least we know Pulse isn’t doing anything differently.
• CA-Gov: Jerry Brown (D) 43%, Meg Whitman (R) 49%
• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 46%, Carly Fiorina (R) 44%
• FL-Gov: Alex Sink (D) 49%, Rick Scott (R) 41%
• FL-Sen: Kendrick Meek (D) 21%, Marco Rubio (R) 41%, Charlie Crist (I) 27%
• NV-Gov: Rory Reid (D) 38%, Brian Sandoval (R) 56%
• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 44%, Sharron Angle (R) 45%
• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 43%, John Kasich (R) 48%
• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 41%, Rob Portman (R) 48%
• PA-Gov: Dan Onorato (D) 40%, Tom Corbett (R) 50%
• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D) 41%, Pat Toomey (R) 47%