Markos has the Daily Kos polling firehose open at full blast. Here’s a quick roundup of this final set of R2K polls:
Lunsford (D): 44 (42)
McConnell (R-inc): 47 (46)
Franken (D): 40 (41)
Coleman (R-inc): 43 (39)
Barkley (I): 15 (18)
Musgrove (D): 44 (46)
Wicker (R-inc): 51 (47)
Merkley (D): 48 (47)
Smith (R-inc): 42 (41)
Bonus MN-Sen poll: An MPR/UMN poll (PDF) shows Franken leading 41-37-17. At the start of October, it was 36F-38C-14B.
(DavidNYC and Crisitunity contributed to the writing of this post.)
We made these changes on Wednesday, but haven’t had the chance to post our write-ups until now. Look for more write-ups on last night’s moves (as well as more ratings changes) to follow shortly.
You have to reach back a long time to find a publicly-released poll where GOP Rep. Marilyn Musgrave had a lead over Democrat Betsy Markey. In fact, the last and only such poll was a Musgrave internal from March. While it’s tempting to keep an R+8 district like this in the tossup column, Musgrave has been getting utterly pasted both by the DCCC and the Defenders of Wildlife, while the NRCC has canceled most of its media buys for this race. A recent Musgrave TV ad claiming that Markey was headed for jail struck us, and other observers, as a desperate move. At this point, with Colorado on the verge of turning blue and faced with a well-funded and relentless campaign against her, we would consider a Musgrave victory to be something of a surprise. (James)
It’s a testament to just how bad this year is for Republicans that we can no longer give them a clear edge in this R+10 open seat race. Every publicly-released poll since September has shown this race to be within the margin of error, and Democrat Frank Kratovil has deftly run a campaign playing up his Eastern Shore roots (in contrast to Harris’s base in the western edge of the district). The DCCC has spent over $1.8 million on this race, putting Harris at a net cash disadvantage. While a Kratovil win here would still be a remarkable feat, we can no longer comfortably give Harris a clear edge. (J)
Nowhere is the Republicans’ collapse more pronounced than Michigan, where the McCain camp, great poker players that they are, publicly threw in the towel, leaving the local GOP to flail around on their own. Even before the economic collapse (and the McCain collapse), this Dem-trending D+0 district in the Detroit suburbs looked to present a challenge for Joe Knollenberg, who almost lost a surprisingly close race to a low-profile candidate in 2006 and now faced his biggest challenge yet in former state senator and lottery commissioner Gary Peters. Post-collapse, Peters has reeled off one unanswered internal poll victory after another, culminating in a 10-point lead last week. (Crisitunity)
What does Randy Kuhl have going for him? Not the polls: he’s been down by 7 points to Democratic challenger Eric Massa in both the public polls of this race. Not likeability: his favorables clock in at 33-44. Certainly not fundraising: he’s lagged Massa in both 1Q and 3Q and ended 3Q with less CoH than Massa. I suppose he can rely on the district’s R+5 lean… except those two polls both showed Obama leading in this rural upstate New York district. Throw in nagging retirement rumors and now a big gaffe (Suffer-gate), and the math just doesn’t add up for Kuhl. (C)
Public and private polls both show Democratic attorney Tom Perriello closing in on Virgil Goode in this tough R+6 district, and the DCCC has stepped up with over $700,000 in late-breaking expenditures on his behalf.
Goode has taken to the airwaves to hit Perriello over social wedge issues and his time spent outside the district, and that might carry some weight, but probably not as much as it would have in past years. Sensing danger, the NRCC has responded with its own attacks against Perriello. While Goode still has to be considered favored here, it will likely be his closest race in quite some time — and an upset itself cannot be ruled out. (J)
Democrat Gary Trauner’s done everything right in this R+19 district (formerly Dick Cheney’s seat) – run an aggressive campaign, raised a lot of money, won over the right people (including an endorsement from the notoriously non-partisan Dem Gov. Dave Freudenthal). The problem is that with the departure of Barbara Cubin (a western Jean Schmidt), all that may not be enough. Several polls have showed a tied race here, but we’ve got to believe that the bulk of those undecideds will come home for the Republican, Cynthia Lummis. Still, the DCCC has spent heavily here (over $800K, a ton in this super-cheap media market), and Trauner has a shot here. (David)
There was no question Obama suffered from an “Appalachia problem” in the primaries, a key factor which led SSP to conclude that Democrat Anne Barth would face a seriously uphill climb in this district. And that’s on top of everything else staring Barth down in WV-02: A pretty popular long-term incumbent (with a famous name), a conservative lean to the region, and a late start. (Barth was a last-minute replacement.)
But now, Obama is polling far better here than we originally imagined he might, suggesting that WV still believes in its ancestral Democratic roots. He almost certainly won’t win the state, but his Pollster average is on par with Kerry’s take, and many individual polls have shown the race here closer. And Barth, who has raised pretty well herself, has seen a late infusion of about half a mil from the DCCC. Shelley Moore Capito only got 57% against an underfunded challenger in 2006; she’s still the favorite to hang on, but she could very well lose this time. (D)
This is starting to get a bit nuts. To recap:
1) Way back when, New York’s Working Families Party gave its ballot line to Jon Powers for the NY-26 congressional race.
2) Powers lost the Democratic primary to Alice Kryzan, but due to election laws had to remain on the WFP line unless he died, was nominated for a judgeship, or moved out of state. He accepted employment in DC and moved there, thus theoretically freeing up his line.
3) However, the state GOP sued, and a trial court-level state judge agreed that Powers had to stay on the line.
4) Dems appealed, and New York’s intermediate appellate court reversed the first judge, saying that Powers’s name should be removed from the WFP line and that Kryzan’s could be added.
5) Republicans then sought to take the case to NY’s highest-level appellate court, the Court of Appeals, but Chief Judge Judith Kaye declined to hear the matter.
6) So in a desperate last-second move, the GOP sued in federal court, seeking a restraining order to prevent Kryzan from getting on the WFP line. The judge granted the order late last night.
Kyrzan’s people say they plan on appealing this decision to the Second Circuit Court of Appeals. With the election just days away, hopefully this newest decision will also be overturned. Stay tuned.
Big story in today’s Buffalo News:
Congressional candidate Chris Lee acknowledged Friday that he was fired from Ingram Micro years ago because he “made a mistake.” Sources familiar with the mistake say he hacked into a company computer for personal gain.
Lee was a young salesman with Ingram Micro, a computer products distributor that in 1989 was known as Ingram Micro D and operated from offices on Elmwood Avenue.
Lee, according to his co-workers at the time, somehow obtained a company credit manager’s password. Then, with that password, he raised the credit limits for some of his customers and the customers of other sales people, the employees said.
That way Lee could sell the customers more of the company’s products, on credit, before the billing system would flag their accounts for payment and halt further purchases.
It might have helped with sales, but it also put the company at greater risk if those customers failed to pay. A few others knew of the scheme, according to one of the former employees, who asked to remain unidentified fearing retaliation from Lee or Republican Party forces.
The irony is almost too great to bear. Chris Lee broke his own company’s rules to extend credit to people who didn’t deserve it, thereby putting his firm at risk. I could not imagine a more perfect echo of today’s credit meltdown. This sordid story might be just enough to make voters in the 26th CD take a second – and unflattering – look at Lee and go with Alice Kryzan instead.
Mason-Dixon (10/28-29, likely voters, 10/8-9 in parens):
Jill Derby (D): 37 (38)
Dean Heller (R-inc): 50 (51)
(MoE: ±5%)
Mason-Dixon (10/28-29, likely voters, 10/8-9 in parens):
Dina Titus (D): 44 (40)
Jon Porter (R-inc): 44 (43)
Other: 3 (4)
(MoE: ±5%)
Recent polling by Research 2000 points to a much closer race in the 2nd District (although its sample seems a bit suspect), and the DCCC is up on the air with a new ad in support of Derby in the closing days. This one will be tough, but it’s possible that we could see an upset special here.
On the other hand, the 3rd District polling is much more in line with R2K’s work (they had Titus up by two). I’ve heard some general grumbling about Porter having a superior ad campaign in this race, but the changing nature of this district (namely, there are nearly 37,000 more registered Dems living there today than there were in 2006) may doom Porter, anyway. Any incumbent running in the mid-40s in a year like this is not in great shape.
SurveyUSA (10/29-30, likely voters, 10/25-26 in parens):
Jeff Merkley (D): 49 (49)
Gordon Smith (R-inc): 42 (42)
Dave Brownlow (C): 5 (5)
(MoE: ±3.8%)
Last summer, I had an informal phone conversation with someone fairly high up on the food chain over at the DSCC (which, I assure you, is not something I do everyday). At the time, Democrats still hadn’t recruited a top-tier candidate to run against Gordon Smith, and some folks in left blogistan (myself included) were worried that this opportunity was slipping away. The DSCC staffer, at that early time, seemed more enthusiastic about this race than any of the other Senate races on the table (remember, Virginia and New Mexico weren’t yet open seats at that time). I admit that I didn’t quite buy it.
But here we are, almost 18 months later, and Gordon Smith is going to lose:
Nobody could remember it ever being this crowded:
http://www.tondeestavern.com/…
Morning wait was about 45 minutes; afternoon 1.5 to 2 hours.
More pictures through the link.
Research 2000 for Daily Kos (10/27-29, likely voters, 10/14-16):
Gary Trauner (D): 45 (44)
Cynthia Lummis (R): 49 (43)
(MoE: ±4.5%)
This is a race that looks great on paper: Gary Trauner (who almost beat Barbara Cubin last time, helping prompt her retirement this year) is a known quantity in Wyoming, who’s been running mostly even in the polls with Cynthia Lummis, and now he’s getting a good amount of DCCC IEs to go with his netroots money, enough to recently boost this race to Lean Republican. However, we might be seeing a bit of what we’ve been worried about here at SSP: previously high numbers of undecided Republicans, who seem to be coming home to the GOP in the closing moments of the campaign. If 2006 is any indication, though, Trauner is good at overperforming the polls.
McCain is up 61-36 in Wyoming. There are two senate races, both safe GOP: Barasso leads Carter 60-35 and Enzi leads Rothfuss 62-35.
The Swing State Project is changing its ratings on the following races:
We have also moved PA-18 back onto our “Races to Watch” list. Look for write-ups to follow shortly. Our full House chart is available here.
Here’s one last topic that we haven’t paid much attention to in the last few months at SSP, but is of great importance in terms of shaping policy at the state level: major ballot initiatives and referenda. The use of the initiative is in some places, especially in the blue states of the West Coast where Democrats firmly control the legislatures but self-declared initiative kingpins have well-entrenched operations, the right wing’s last means of access to the levers of power. So vigilance is required… and unfortunately, this tends to be one of the few areas where we’re playing defense these days.
The Ballot Initiative Strategy Center reports that there are 153 measures, including 61 initiatives, on the ballot in 35 different states this year. This is actually down from 2004, when there were 162 measures (including 55 initiatives), a year where, in the opinion of some (but certainly not all), the initiatives made all the difference (via the inclusion of anti-gay initiatives in a variety of key swing states to motivate conservative GOTV). Rather than plow through all 153 of them, over the flip let’s focus on some of the ones getting the most attention…
One striking difference from 2004 is that fear of teh gays just doesn’t seem to be cutting it anymore, popping up only in a few states. The big initiative on this front, and probably the biggest of all initiatives this year in terms of media exposure and money spent, is California Proposition 8. This proposes to rewrite the state constitution to prohibit same-sex marriage (which is currently legal in California, thanks to a May state supreme court decision striking down an older anti-gay marriage initiative). Polling has bounced around all over the place as a blitz of advertising funded by primarily out-of-state money has pushed ‘yes’ (in favor of the ban on same-sex marriage) into the lead in some recent polls. The most recent Field Poll (from today) showed ‘no’ in the lead 49-44, down from a 17-point advantage in September. Troublingly, the majority of those who have already voted or absentee early have voted ‘yes’ (not necessarily what you’d expect, given the large Democratic margins among early votes in many other states, but perhaps explained that many early/absentee voters are older).
The gay marriage issue also makes an appearance in Florida Amendment 2, which seeks to preemptively amend the constitution to ban gay marriage and domestic partnership. This may be a case of overreach in Florida, where many elderly heterosexual couples would benefit from formation of domestic partnerships rather than remarrying, to avoid losing benefits. A South Florida Sun-Sentinel poll today shows 53% support for the measure; however, that’s not enough, as an amendment like this needs 60% support to pass.
Reproductive freedom issues show up in several states. For instance, California Proposition 4 tries once again to impose parental notification limits on abortion access. This measure proposes a ‘judicial bypass’ allowing girls from abusive households to seek judicial permission, but such measures have failed twice before.
South Dakota Measure 11 seeks to resurrect the strict abortion ban that was imposed by the legislature but struck down by citizen initiative in 2006. The replacement for it pretends to be less onerous, with exemptions for rape, incest, and the mother’s health, although exercising any of those involves jumping through multiple bureaucratic hoops. This one will be close: Research 2000 (for Daily Kos) sees ‘no’ (against the ban) winning 44-42, while the Argus-Leader sees a 42-42 tie.
Colorado Amendment 48 paves the way for who-knows-what, by going much further by declaring the ‘personhood’ begins at the moment of conception. This one is turning into a bit of a Waterloo for the anti-abortion forces, as it’s down in the polls by a whopping 68-27 margin. Part of the problem is that many anti-abortion groups like Focus on the Family haven’t gotten behind this, fearing that it goes so far it will be easily struck down by the US Supreme Court and set precedents even more difficult to overcome.
Also at issue is Colorado Amendment 46, one of only a few anti-affirmative action measures pushed by initiative kingpin Ward Connerly that actually made it onto the ballot this year. Connerly’s success at pushing initiatives like this may be dwindling, as establishment figures from governor Bill Ritter to the Denver Chamber of Commerce have piled on against this measure.
On the education front, it’s conservatives vs. the teachers’ unions on a number of fronts; a key example is Oregon Measure 60, an attempt by local initiative entrepreneur Bill Sizemore to impose merit pay on teachers based on classroom performance. A similar measure was rejected by 65% of voters in 2000, however. Oregon Measure 58, also from Sizemore, seeks to impose ‘English only’ requirements and eliminate bilingual education.
Well, it isn’t all bad; there are a few progressive measures here and there. California Proposition 7 is a good example. This measure requires all utilities (not just private electrical companies, who are all subject to this requirement) to generate 20% of their power from renewables by 2010 (and up to 50% by 2025). Unfortunately, this is another race where heavy spending (by state private utilities) seems to be driving numbers the wrong way; while it had 63% in a July Field Poll, the most recent Field Poll sees it failing 39-43. (UPDATE: Several commenters point out that a number of environmental groups are opposed to Prop 7 for being written in a way that excludes small-scale energy producers; see the Calitics explanation. Opposition from the left may explain its sudden decline in popularity.)
The most heated ballot measure in the Evergreen State is Washington Initiative 1000, which proposes to bring physician-assisted suicide (currently legal only in Oregon) to the state. Polls have shown fairly widespread support for this measure, such as SurveyUSA recently giving it 49-32 support.
Montana Initiative 155 is an ambitious plan to provide health care coverage to the state’s uninsured children. Montana has one of the highest rates of uninsured children and big gaps in its SCHIP coverage; this measure proposes to extend coverage to 30,000 kids, partly through an insurance premium tax. Despite the state’s Republican lean, this radical redistributionist initiative is one of the most popular measures anywhere, with recent polling giving it 73% support.
Whew! This barely scratches the surface, but these are 10 of the biggest measures out there. Undoubtedly I’ve left out some measures with some passionate supporters or detractors here, so please feel free to chip in in the comments with what’s big in your state and how the odds of passage are looking.