Swing State Project

Rasmussen (10/22, likely voters, 10/2 in parens):

Chris Gregoire (D-inc): 50 (48)

Dino Rossi (Prefers GOP Party): 48 (48)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Ordinarily, there would be no reason to pay much attention to a 2-point shift in a close race, other than as statistical noise. This race, though, has been a game of inches throughout, and has seen very little fluctuation, as most voters seem to have just locked in their preferences following the super-close 2004 election.

This may represent Gregoire being able to finally grab hold of Obama’s coattails for a last-minute boost, small as it may be. (The most recent Elway Poll may confirm this; while the overall spread there seems way too optimistic, it certainly measured movement in her direction.) It may be that Gregoire (or NARAL, on her behalf) finally found an advertising groove that works, hitting Rossi on being pro-life (a fact previously unknown to a surprisingly large number of moderate suburban women voters). Or, as always, it may just be float within the MoE.

Rasmussen (10/22, likely voters, 10/7 in parens):

Jim Martin (D): 45 (44)

Saxby Chambliss (R-inc): 47 (50)

Allen Buckley (L): 1 (2)

(MoE: ±4.5%)

Chambliss’ favorables: 51-43 (down from 57-37). Martin is sitting at 48-43 (from 45-38 in the previous poll).

The DSCC faces a choice here. Remarkably, we now know that a runoff will be required if no one clears 50%, and most SSP readers agree that this would disadvantage Martin (after all, the GOP legislature re-wrote this rule with their own best interests in mind).

The DSCC has been making modest expenditures in this race so far — should they go all-in right now and carpetbomb the state with anti-Chambliss ads, even if the prospect of Martin clearing 50% seems very uncertain (to say the least)? Or do they keep spending at current levels and save their firepower for a runoff?

A new Rasmussen poll has Jim Martin down just two points, 47-45.  Just two weeks ago, Rasmussen had Chambliss ahead 50-44.  Wow.

The U.S. Senate race in Georgia has grown a whole lot closer over the past two weeks. The latest Rasmussen Reports telephone survey in the state finds GOP incumbent Saxby Chambliss leading Democratic challenger Jim Martin by just 47% to 45%.

This is the closest the race has been all year and the highest level of support for Martin, whose campaign has spent roughly half-a-million dollars on attack ads against Chambliss over the past month. Just two weeks ago, Chambliss held a six-point lead.

I wish Rasmussen had a break-down of people who had already voted, because I am convinced Martin would be winning that group by a solid amount.

http://www.rasmussenreports.co…

From The Hill:

The National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) has cancelled its last planned week of ad buys in Michigan’s 9th congressional district, according to the Associated Press.

The NRCC had previously cancelled almost $320,000 in spending on behalf of Rep. Joe Knollenberg (R-Mich.) between October 14-27, while still preserving a planned $314,000 in spending for the last week before the election.

The NRCC has now cancelled that last buy, spokeswoman Karen Hanretty confirmed to the AP, amidst redirections of independent expenditures in districts nationwide.

If you were looking for further evidence of just how disastrous Tom Cole’s reign at the NRCC has been, look no further. If the NRCC had done a better job of keeping pace with the DCCC’s fundraising, they would never have been forced to make the tough choice of cutting loose a veteran incumbent like Knollenberg.

When you have neglected your state, the voters barely remember you, you have a voting record long in support of George W. Bush, and you haven’t done anything for your state in 6 years, there is one path to take to Victory in North Carolina – Homosexual Panic!!!!!!!!!!!!

Sam Graves of Missouri have have run the worst gay bashing campaign thus far for a House seat, but Liddy Dole has just crawled into the mud in hitting Kay Hagan with ties to not only gay people (gasp!) but ATHEISTS as well (horrors!).  The link with visuals of Dole’s fliers below.  

http://pageoneq.com/news/2008/…

Somewhere in Hell, Jesse Helms is smiling.

If anyone reads this diary please drop a mention in the comments of who you believe has run the most homophobic campaign for the Senate and House in 2008.  

Peace.

Grove Insight for DCCC (10/21, likely voters, 10/4-5):

Gary Peters (D): 46 (46)

Joe Knollenberg (R-inc): 36 (37)

Jack Kevorkian (I): 2 (n/a)

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Greenberg Quinlan Rosner for DCCC (10/19-20, likely voters, 9/30-10/1):

Mary Jo Kilroy (D): 44 (44)

Steve Stivers (R): 36 (36)

Don Eckhart (I): 11 (7)

(MoE: ±4.9%)

Two new polls from the DCCC show Democratic candidates in midwestern swing district races maintaining their sizable leads from last time. In the open seat in the Columbus-based 15th, the head-to-head numbers stay exactly the same; the only movement, unfortunately for Stivers, seems to be to pro-life independent Don Eckhart. (At the presidential level, Obama leads McCain 51-39 in OH-15.)

MI-09 continues to be a big surprise, as Gary Peters puts up a bigger margin against incumbent Joe Knollenberg than in the open seat in OH-15. This one just seems like a perfect storm: the Detroit area was already suffering economically more than any other part of the country, it’s suffering even more with the financial crisis and subsequent free fall in the auto industry, and we have an old incumbent who hasn’t faced a top-tier challenge before.

Larry Sabato, professor of Political Science at the University of Virginia and director of the Center for Politics has updated his U.S. House predictions.  

Overall, it is very good news for as.  More over the flip.

Here are today’s changes:

AL-02 OPEN Leans R to Toss-up

AZ-03 Shadegg Likely R to Leans R

CA-04 OPEN Likely R to Toss-up

CA-50 Bilbray Likely R to Leans R

CT-04 Shays Leans R to Leans D

FL-08 Keller Toss-up to Leans D

FL-16 Mahoney Leans R to Likely R

FL-24 Feeney Toss-up to Leans D

FL-25 M. Diaz-Balart Leans R to Toss-up

ID-01 Sali Likely R to Leans R

IL-10 Kirk Leans R to Toss-up

IN-03 Souder Safe R to Leans R

KS-02 Boyda Leans D to Toss-up

KY-02 OPEN Leans R to Toss-up

LA-06 Cazayoux Toss-up to Leans D

MD-01 OPEN Leans R to Toss-up

MI-07 Walberg Toss-up to Leans D

MI-09 Knollenberg Leans R to Toss-up

MN-03 OPEN Toss-up to Leans D

MN-06 Bachmann Safe R to Toss-up

MO-06 Graves Likely R to Leans R

NE-02 Terry Likely R to Leans R

NJ-05 Garrett Likely R to Leans R

NM-01 OPEN Toss-up to Leans D

NM-02 OPEN Toss-up to Leans D

NY-26 OPEN Leans R to Toss-up

NC-08 Hayes Toss-up to Leans D

OH-16 OPEN Toss-up to Leans D

PA-03 English Leans R to Toss-up

SC-01 Brown Safe R to Likely R

TX-07 Culberson Likely R to Leans R

WV-02 Capito Likely R to Leans R

WY-AL OPEN Leans R to Toss-up

Things are looking for good for us.  With today’s changes, Sabato is now predicting us to pick off 17 Republican seats.  And that doesn’t include toss ups and upsets from the “likely Republican” and “leans Republican” columns.  Nine Republican seats have moved to “leans Democratic” today alone.

Another eleven Republican seats have been moved to tossup status.  In all, 30 Republican seats were moved in our direction.  Addtionally, Don Cazayoux’s race has been upgraded to “leans Democratic.”

The only sour notes for us is that Tim Mahoney’s race was further downgraded to “likely Republican” and Nancy Boyda is now a tossup.

SurveyUSA for Roll Call (10/20-21, likely voters):

Debbie Halvorson (D): 50

Marty Ozinga (R): 37

Jason Wallace (G): 9

(MoE: ±4%)

Two Democratic polls (Bennett Petts & Normington and Anzalone Liszt) have pegged this race in the 50-30 range for Halvorson, and while this poll isn’t quite that rosy, this is excellent news all around.

The DCCC has been hammering Ozinga since August with cable buys and targeted mail (and shows no signs of relenting, having just taken out a hefty broadcast buy), and the money has taken a big toll on the King of Concrete — his favorable rating is just 29-37, a brutal level for anyone. And despite relentless efforts to tie Halvorson to widely disliked Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich, she retains a 41-27 rating.

Bonus finding: Obama leads McCain by 49-44 in this district, which is even more optimistic than Halvorson’s own internals.

Survey USA (10/20-21, likely voters, 9/7-9 in parens):

Darcy Burner (D): 50 (44)

Dave Reichert (R-inc): 46 (54)

(MoE: ±4%)

This race has spent most of this cycle at the top of the races-to-watch list for the blogosphere, after Darcy Burner captivated the netroots in 2006 en route to losing to one-term incumbent Dave Reichert in this D+2 district by a few points, and then continued running for 2008 without missing a beat. However, a lot of blogospherians (including us at SSP) started worrying a bit in the immediate wake of the financial crisis, when other netroots-backe rematch candidates in swing districts (Larry Kissell, Eric Massa, Dan Seals) suddenly started to climb into the lead but Darcy Burner continued to languish (trailing not just in a Research 2000 poll but a Democratic internal as well).

However, two subsequent internal polls showed Burner with a lead, and then Burner posted titanic fundraising numbers for the third quarter; the one thing she didn’t have in her arsenal was a public poll having shown her ahead. Well, finally, we’ve got one; she’s up 4 in the latest KING5-sponsored SurveyUSA poll, a sharp reversal of fortune from her 10-point deficit last time, taken during the afterglow of the GOP convention. With that in mind, Swing State Project is returning this race to “Tossup” status.

It’s unclear whether this race was moving at the same speed as the other similarly-situated races and R2K just happened to miss that, or if this race truly did take longer to surge because, as I’ve speculated before, the tech-heavy WA-08 is better insulated from the financial crisis (up to the point where people open their 401(k) statements). Either way, though, we’re starting to look pretty good in this race. (And if the NRCC’s decision to dump $454,000 into this race, the largest component of their multi-million dollar ad buy today, is any indication, the GOP knows it too.)

One other developing happening in this race: there’s a kerfuffle, helped along by the Seattle Times (the more conservative of Seattle’s two papers), over Burner’s degree from Harvard. Nobody’s disputing that she graduated, just parsing whether or not she double-majored in computer science and economics. (Short answer, apparently they don’t even have ‘majors’ at Harvard.) I suspect this will have the same effect as the Reichert-cheating-at-media-buying scandal that came a few days before: it’ll rile up the partisans but whoosh right past the few remaining undecideds.