• CT-Sen: I hope Joe Lieberman has a nice lobbying firm picked out for a job starting in 2013. PPP threw in some Lieberman-related questions in their Connecticut sample, and he generates genuine bipartisan support in terms of the desire to replace him with someone else (72% of Dems, 63% of indies, and 61% of GOPers say "someone new"). He has 31/57 approval, including 20/69 among Dems. In a three-way with Dem Chris Murphy and GOPer Jodi Rell, Lieberman finishes 3rd, with Murphy winning 37-29-17. Substitute Peter Schiff for Rell and it's about the same: 39-25-19. If Lieberman goes the full GOP, he still loses a head-to-head with Murphy, 47-33.
• IL-Sen: Barack Obama's coming to town today, on behalf of Alexi Giannoulias. No stumping though, just two fundraisers. (On a related note, though, Obama will be in Oregon on Oct. 20 to appear with gubernatorial candidate John Kitzhaber.)
• NH-Sen, NH-Gov: American Research Group (10/3-5, likely voters, 9/9-14 in parens):
Paul Hodes (D): 42 (32)
Kelly Ayotte (R): 47 (46)
Undecided: 7 (20)
John Lynch (D-inc): 51 (42)
John Stephen (R): 41 (40)
Undecided: 6 (14)
(MoE: ±4%)
Wow! Wild fluctuation in an ARG poll! I'm sure that's never happened before! Well, at any rate, if all undecideds are rapidly breaking toward the Dems, I guess we can call that good news.
• PA-Sen, PA-Gov: Muhlenberg for Allentown Morning Call (9/28-10/4, likely voters, 9/18-23 in parens):
Joe Sestak (D): 38 (39)
Pat Toomey (R): 45 (46)
Dan Onorato (D): 36 (37)
Tom Corbett (R): 47 (46)
(MoE: ±4%)
These races just don't seem to budge. Muhlenberg's newest numbers are just where they were a few weeks earlier, and they're pretty much at the median for all pollsters' averages in these races.
• VA-Sen: More looking ahead to 2012: George Allen is probably figuring that 'macaca' has faded into the mists of time, and he's starting to publicly let it be know that he's interested in a rematch with the man who beat him, Jim Webb. No formal preparatory activities, but it seems like he's engaging in some pre-emptive GOP field-clearing.
• WA-Sen: Here's something we haven't seen in a while: a poll with a lead for Dino Rossi. Of course, it's a Republican poll (from Fabrizio & Associates, on behalf of American Action Forum (that's AAF, not AFF)), so take it with some salt, but it's a reminder that this race is far from a done deal and that things may have tightened since that polling bulge for Patty Murray a few weeks ago. Rossi leads Murray 48-42 in a 9/26-27 sample.
• WV-Sen: You've probably already heard about this story: the NRSC has pulled an ad that it had started running in West Virginia featuring stereotypically blue-collar guy sitting around a diner grousing. Well, if they seem a little stereotypical, it's because they were intended to be, if you read the details from the NRSC's casting call for the ad that was shot in Philadelphia, asking for a "'hicky' blue collar look" and listing the various blue-collar clothing items that they should wear, including "John Deer [sic] hats (not brand new, preferably beat up)."" Somehow, I'm not hopeful this flap will become a game-changer in the race, but maybe it'll help West Virginians see what Beltway Republicans really think of them. The NRSC is in fact distancing itself from the ad, throwing the talent agency under the bus.
Meanwhile, this seems like a richer vein to mine: the ongoing and seemingly growing controversy of John Raese's residence. He owns a Florida mansion, where his wife and kids spent most of their time. But Dems are trying to raise questions about whether Raese is a West Virginia resident at all, and are asking whether he's filed West Virginia income taxes (Florida, as you might know, doesn't impose income taxes).
• NM-Gov: Can a race have too much internal poll leaking? There seems to be more tit-for-tat in this race than any. In response to yesterday's Diane Denish internal showing a 3-point race, today Susana Martinez brandishes a POS internal from 10/3-5 giving her a 51-42 lead over Denish.
• NY-Gov: Quinnipiac (10/1-5, likely voters, 9/16-20 in parens):
Andrew Cuomo (D): 55 (49)
Carl Paladino (R): 37 (43)
Undecided: 6 (7)
(MoE: ±2.9%)
Either Carl Paladino had a huge primary bounce that quickly faded, people who hadn't been paying close attention a few weeks ago suddenly found out that Paladino is a sputtering rage volcano who'd be a huge liability in office, or Quinnipiac put up a big stinky outlier a few weeks ago. (Probably a little of all three.)
• WI-Gov: Marist for McClatchy (9/26-28, likely voters, no trendlines):
Tom Barrett (D): 43
Scott Walker (R): 51
Undecided: 6
(MoE: ±4.5%)
Ooops, we missed that there was a gubernatorial half to that Marist poll from a few days ago.
• AL-02: I don't know which is a bigger story here: that Bobby Bright is the first Democratic incumbent to announce, pre-election, that he won't vote for Nancy Pelosi for Speaker, or that he's trailing in a Martha Roby internal after having, for most of the cycle, seemed safer than a lot of other incumbents in less hostile districts... although the announcement seems pretty clearly motivated by the polling trends here. He says he certainly won't vote for John Boehner, though, saying he wants to vote for a centrist "more like me." Roby's poll comes from POS, giving her a 45-43 lead (with the memo saying their July poll gave Bright a 49-41 lead). Bright still overperforms the generic ballot by a wide margin, which is 51-32 for the GOP in this R+16 district.
• CT-01: Merriman River Group (who put up a surprising poll finding Chris Murphy trailing in CT-05 yesterday) are out with another poll that should give some pause: they find John Larson only ahead by 7 against no-namer Ann Brinkley, 52-45, in what's Connecticut's bluest (D+13) congressional district. For what it's worth, this district is eleven points bluer than D+2 CT-05, so the spread (Murphy was down 5) is consistent... but also remember that Merriman was about five points to the right of where everybody else was seeing the statewide races in that big pile of CT polls from the last couple days, so feel free to adjust accordingly.
• IL-17: Yep, we've definitely got a real race here this time, after Phil Hare got away unopposed in 2008. He's up only slightly over Bobby Schilling in a POS internal (which I assume is on behalf of the Schilling camp, as the NRCC has been using Tarrance in this district), leading 38-37 in a 9/26-27 sample.
• IN-02: EPIC-MRA for WSBT (10/1-3, likely voters, no trendlines):
Joe Donnelly (D): 48
Jackie Walorski (R): 39
Mike Vogel (I): 6
Undecided: 7
(MoE: ±4.9%)
These numbers (which include leaners) look pretty good for Donnelly, in the first public poll of the race (although he's seemed to fare OK in partisan polls of the race, compared with many other vulnerable Dems, leading in both AFF and Susan B. Anthony List polls). Donnelly has 47/32 faves, while Walorski is at 32/35.
• NY-23: Here's one more Republican internal, that was taken before Doug Hoffman officially pulled the plug on his Conservative Party bid, but suggesting that he wasn't having much of an effect this year anyway. In the POS poll taken for the NRCC 9/22-23, Matt Doheny leads Dem incumbent Bill Owens 51-37. (Somehow they didn't leak what percentage Hoffman was getting... obviously it couldn't be more than 12%... but they do tell us 68% of Hoffman supporters would, in the alternate, support Doheny.)
• PA-07: Monmouth (10/4-6, likely voters, no trendlines):
Believe it or not, this is the first public poll of this race, and it's definitely better than the conventional wisdom on this race would dictate: although Bryan Lentz is still losing, it's by a 4-point margin. It's a seat that leans Dem-enough that even with a strong GOP candidate and a strong GOP tailwind it looks like it'll still be at least close. (That conventional wisdom seems founded largely on a June Meehan internal giving him a 21-point lead.) One other interesting tidbit: Joe Sestak, the district's current Rep., is leading Pat Toomey 49-46 within the district in the Senate race. He'd need to be cleaning up by a much wider margin than that, here, to be competitive statewide.
• WA-08: Let's throw in a Democratic internal poll to break up the monotony. It's from one of the few Dem challengers who seem to be keeping things within striking distance, Suzan DelBene. She trails GOP incumbent Dave Reichert by only 48-44 in a Fairbank Maslin poll taken 10/4-5 (where they gave Reichert a 9-point lead in August). That coincides, perhaps not coincidentally, with Dave Reichert finally having to come out and say "no, I don't have brain damage." Reichert, you may remember, had to have emergency surgery after getting hit in the head by a tree branch in March. Reichert's fitness had been the subject of increasing whispers and question marks in recent months, some of which may have rubbed off on his poll numbers.
• Early voting: Fun fact of the day: early voting is up 50% over this point in time over the 2006 midterm, with nearly 6 million votes already having been cast. This, of course, is in large part because states have, in the intervening years, made it easier to vote early. (Nearly 30% of votes were cast early in 2008; officials don't expect this year's numbers to reach that peak, though.) At any rate, it looks like early voting is increasingly here to stay, and campaigns will have to adjust their strategies accordingly. (I.e. planning for the "September Surprise" instead?)
• Demographics: Now these are some interesting numbers: a chart breaking down the "voting-eligible" (not just "voting age") population by percentage in each state, eliminating non-citizens as well as prisoners and ineligible felons. And here's an interesting statistic: despite the fact that we haven't completed the dang fence, the percentage of non-citizens in the U.S. has actually dropped from 2006 (8.6%) to 2010 (8.3%), partly because the government has processed a backlog in citizenship cases and partly because the lousier economy has made the U.S. a less attractive destination.
• SSP TV:
• AR-Sen: Blanche Lincoln uses Bill Clinton as surrogate to talk about John Boozman's privatization mania
• PA-Sen: The Club for Growth does some stimulus act cherry-picking to portray Joe Sestak as a sockpuppet for the sockpuppet lobby
• WV-Sen: The DSCC hits John Raese on outsourcing
• ND-AL: The NRCC attacks Earl Pomeroy for taking money from the insurance industry
• SD-AL: Stephanie Herseth Sandlin's newest ad focuses on her work on parochial issues, while Kristin Noem's ad says Sandlin's gone Washington
IL-Sen: My god, Mark Kirk is an asshole. The excellent ArchPundit catches Kirk bragging about funding "the largest voter protection" operation in 15 years in "key vulnerable precincts" where "the other side might be tempted to jigger the numbers somewhat." And pray tell which precincts are those? Says Kirk: "South and West Side of Chicago, Metro East, Rockford." Those aren't just Dem strongholds - they happen to be the places where almost all of the African Americans in Illinois live. What a fucker. "Jigger," huh.
KY-Sen: Clinton Alert! The Big Dog is coming to Kentucky to campaign for Jack Conway on Monday.
OH-Sen: Quinnipiac (9/29-10/3, likely voters, 9/9-14 in parens):
Lee Fisher (D): 36 (35)
Rob Portman (R): 55 (55)
Undecided: 8 (9)
(MoE: ±3.1%)
OH-Gov: Quinnipiac (9/29-10/3, likely voters, 9/9-14 in parens):
IL-Gov: Biden alert! The VPOTUS is joining Gov. Pat Quinn for a rally in Chicago on October 12th at the Chicago Journeymen Plumbers Local 130 Hall.
NY-Gov: Carl Paladino, international man of mystery? The noted scuzzball is apparently buying time on all the networks for 5 p.m. today to make a "major announcement." Sounds pretty stunty to me.
SC-Gov (PDF): Hamilton Campaigns (D) for Vincent Sheheen (10/1-4, likely voters, 9/24-28 in parens):
IL-14: A Randy Hultgren internal from the Tarrance Group shows him leading Dem Rep. Bill Foster 44-38, with 4 points going to Green Party candidate Daniel Kairis.
MD-01: Clinton Alert 2.0! The Big Dog is holding a fundraiser in Washington, D.C. this Sunday for Rep. Frank Kratovil. Man, after all the work he's done this cycle, I hope Clinton has a phat vacation planned for after election day.
SC-02: Rob Miller says he won't vote to retain Nancy Pelosi as Speaker of the House. He also said that he plans to draft Joe DiMaggio in his fantasy baseball league next year and that he's getting his wife a jetpack for Christmas.
Fundraising:
FL-Sen: Marco Rubio, $5 million raised (a new record)
MA-Gov: Deval Patrick hits Charlie Baker for raising premiums as a healthcare CEO (while noting that he capped them as governor)
FL-Gov: Rick Scott tries to paint Alex Sink as a hypocrite on various financial goings-on during her tenure as state CFO
FL-08: A new spot from Alan Grayson hits Webster on women's issues
MA-04: Republican Sean Bielat is out with two ads (apparently cable only): the first attacks Barney Frank on the bailout (and features someone calling Bielat "a reasonable guy" - such praise!); the second is basically the same low production values, faux man-on-the-street shtick, and also has a dude saying, "If you don't like the new guy, get rid of him in two years!"
Crossroads GPS: CO-Sen: $780K on media against Michael Bennet (D); FL-Sen: $350K on media for Marco Rubio (R); IL-Sen: $1 mil on media against Alexi Giannoulias (D); KY-Sen: $100K on media against Jack Conway
EMILY's List: CO-04: $160K on TV against Cory Gardner (R); WI-07: $20K on mail against Sean Duffy (R)
NEA: OH-13: $550K on TV against Tom Ganley (R); AZ-05: $650K on TV against David Schweikert (R)
NRCC: $111K on various media expenditures (they look radio-sized) in AZ-08, MA-10 & MO-04
NRSC: $1.3 million on various media expenditures (these look more TV-sized) in CO-Sen, KY-Sen, WA-Sen & WV-Sen
Interestingly, Harry Reid's lead actually increased among registered voters -- from 42-34 in September to 43-32 today. Without Ashjian on the ballot, Angle still leads by the same margin among LVs, 47-45.
NY-Sen-B, NY-Gov:
Kirsten Gillibrand (D-inc): 55
Joe DioGuardi (R): 41
Andrew Cuomo (D): 55
Carl Paladino (R): 41
(MoE: ±4%)
Again, turnout is a factor here. Among RVs, Gillibrand leads DioGuardi by 60-33, and Cuomo stomps the repulsively vile Carl Paladino by 65-31. This poll also tested Chuck Schumer's re-election, and finds him up by 57-41 over Jay Townsend.
Richard Blumenthal (D): 53 (60)
Linda McMahon (R): 41 (28)
Undecided: 7 (12)
Dan Malloy (D): 50 (37)
Tom Foley (R): 40 (27)
Undecided: 10 (36)
(MoE: ±3.4%)
There's probably some wrestling term for having seven knockout blows (if you count today's Rasmussen and yesterday's "Fox") landed on you in one flurry, but rather than look it up, I'm just going to quote Nate Silver's most recent tweet instead of having a long, thoughtful writeup:
Can. We. Please. Stop. Pretending. That. Connecticut. Is. A. Toss. Up.
Opinion Research for CNN/Time (10/1-5, likely voters, no trendlines):
Richard Blumenthal (D): 54
Linda McMahon (R): 41
Undecided: 2
Dan Malloy (D): 50
Tom Foley (R): 42
Undecided: 2
(MoE: ±3.5%)
CNN/Time offers registered voter numbers too, and Dems are even more dominant there: Blumenthal leads 56-37, and Malloy leads 52-39. LVs approve of Obama 46-49 (compared with RVs approving 52-42).
Richard Blumenthal (D): 52
Linda McMahon (R): 45
Undecided: 3
Dan Malloy (D): 48
Tom Foley (R): 45
Undecided: 8
(MoE: ±2.4%)
This poll from Merriman is the weakest link among the public polls, but even it's not too weak. As if all that weren't enough, we have two different internal polls of the Senate race out, from both the Blumenthal campaign and from the DSCC (who just poured $1.5 million more into this race to make sure it's a done deal... though that might be overkill, given these numbers).
In case there's any doubt what a bullet we dodged here, FDU runs the hypothetical on a Chris Coons/Mike Castle election, and finds Castle would've won 50-36. They also find that Christine O'Donnell is better known than Coons (97% know her), but she has horrifying 30/48 favorables. (Uh, maybe that "I am not a crook witch" ad didn't have its intended effect? I can't imagine that the decision to put her in a black dress in front of a purple velvet curtain and arching a mysterious eyebrow toward the camera had anything to do with that. I mean, c'mon, she might as well have had some gargoyle candle holders behind her.)
The University of Delaware is also out with poll numbers here; they have an unusually long time frame, almost going back to the conclusion of the primary. Still, they come up with a pretty similar spread (19 pts), if with slightly more undecideds. Perhaps not a surprise, Coons fares better among Republicans (77-20 for O'Donnell) than O'Donnell fares among Dems (92-7 for Coons). They also look at the open seat House race, which is looking like almost as much of a layup (I'd say slam dunk, but nothing's a slam dunk this year): Dem John Carney leads by 17, again thanks to the GOP rabble's decapitation of the alleged moderate in the primary. (We reported on FDU's DE-AL numbers yesterday, with Carney leading 51-36.)
• CA-Gov: Another few weeks go by, and Meg Whitman keeps smashing the barriers on over-the-top self-funding: she's spent $140 million out of pocket over the entire cycle now. Here's the number that's gotta suck for her, though: Jerry Brown, having spent all of $10 million so far this cycle, is sitting on $22 million in reserves for the remaining month, allowing him to compete on perhaps an even financial footing for the last month. Whitman's cash reserves are $9 million, but even if she cuts herself the biggest check of all to re-up, there's only a finite amount of TV time left for her to buy. Truly the story of the ant and the grasshopper.
• NM-Gov: The Diane Denish camp keeps up the onslaught of internal polls showing her behind but within arm's length of Susana Martinez. This time, the poll is from Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, and gives Martinez a 49-46 lead. That still feels kind of "meh" to me, but there's an interesting kernel in the fine print: Martinez has fallen into net negative favorables for the first time (39/42, down from 42/31 in August), suggesting the ad war is having its effect.
• OH-Gov: I'm going to wait until I start seeing these kind of numbers in public polls before I start getting too optimistic about whether Ted Strickland's comeback really has legs, but here's another strong internal from his camp. The Feldman Group poll taken 10/3-5 gives Strickland a 46-42 lead over John Kasich, and finds Strickland with 47/40 favorables.
• CA-03: Ami Bera continues to be a fundraising force among Democratic challengers (not that he has much high-profile competition on that front); he raised $550K in 3Q, and $2.1 million raised over the cycle. He beat incumbent Dan Lungren yet again, who raised $480K for a $1.7 mil total.
• FL-02: We still haven't seen any public polling of this race, but here's a second GOP poll for challenger Steve Southerland giving him a double digit lead over Allen Boyd (the first one was an NRCC poll from the Tarrance Group way back in May, giving Southerland a 52-37 lead). This one's from National Research (presumably on Southerland's behalf?), taken 9/29-30, giving Southerland a 46-30 lead.
• VA-05: The US Chamber of Commerce gave its backing to Robert Hurt, not much of a surprise as he's the kind of non-threatening establishment conservative that wing of the GOP tends to like. Tom Perriello picked that up and is using it as a cudgel that seems to combine various elements that have apparently polled well for Dems (outsourcing and Citizens United), saying that the endorsement means "foreign money" is pouring into the race now, citing companies in Bahrain, Russia, and China that give money to the US Chamber.
• DCCC: Here's some more detail on the various ways in which the DCCC is, um, advancing in other directions (we told you about their pullout in AZ-08 last night, which probably has to do with Gabby Giffords having enough money to pull her own weight). They've also reduced buys for one week in a few other districts: a mix of ones where they seem genuinely hosed (CO-04, TX-17, FL-24, and the KS-03 and IN-08 open seats), one that seems a true tossup but where our guy has money (Harry Teague in NM-02), and one that's looking like a pickup (LA-02). The DCCC will be using at least some of that money putting out a new brushfire that popped up in NY-23, where Doug Hoffman's ceasing and desisting makes the race a tossup, and where they're spending $500K.
• NRCC: Speaking of CO-04 and being hosed, here's some additional evidence: the NRCC is taking $700K out of the 4th, and moving it next door to another race that's looking decidedly tossup-ish: John Salazar's CO-03.
• Redistricting: This may be the single best use of money anywhere by Dems this cycle: they're finally putting some money into Florida's redistricting amendments that purport to make the process less subject to gerrymandering. Over $1 million has flowed from Democratic groups to Fair Districts Florida, who are behind the measures. Fair Districts is ostensibly nonpartisan, but obviously the net effect of a less partisan map would be to dismantle one of the most effective Republican gerrymanders anywhere.
• Polltopia: With dramatically different results (especially in the generic ballot tests, but also in head-to-head polls) popping up that often seem to have very different definitions of "likely voter," Mark Blumenthal looks at the various ways pollsters cobble together their LV models. There's a marked difference between the way academic pollsters and partisan pollsters do it, revealing major disparities. If you haven't seen it already, this should be required reading.
• Independent expenditures: The folks at Zata|3 have put together a very useful table, adding up and comparing DCCC and NRCC independent expenditures in all the districts where they've weighed in. (The NRCC has spent a lot more so far, despite their cash shortfall vs. the DCCC. The D-Trip seems to be saving up for a massive blast in the final weeks. Or maybe just saving up for 2012.) They also have charts for the DCCC and NRCC that break down each district's expenditures by category (media buys, production, internet, etc.).
• SSP TV:
• CO-Sen: The DSCC hits Ken Buck for his enthusiasm for privatizing everything he can get his hands on
• CT-Sen: The Chamber of Commerce has a fairly boilerplate ad against Richard Blumenthal for being too anti-(big) business
• KY-Sen: There are six different ads embedded in this Inquirer article, several of which you've already seen (including the DSCC ad on Medicare deductibles), but including a new Rand Paul campaign ad on the "Conway = Obama" theme; separately, the NRSC has a new ad here on Conway waffling on extending Bush tax cuts
• MO-Sen: The DSCC has yet another ad about Roy Blunt and his lobbyist friends
• NY-Sen-B: Kirsten Gillibrand's out with a second bio ad that seems specifically aimed at the upstate market, pointing out her roots in that part of the state
• PA-Sen: Joe Sestak's new ad points to what we junkies have long known, that Pat Toomey's free market fundamentalism has given him aggregator ratings even more conservative than Rick Santorum
• WI-Sen: A second cookie-cutter ad from the Chamber of Commerce, this one targeting Russ Feingold
• KS-Gov: Tom Holland's out with his first ad of the cycle, a comparison spot that's half negative against Sam Brownback, half positive intro of Holland
• TX-Gov: Bill White's newest ad rebuts some of Rick Perry's claims about his mayoral leadership and lists his various commendations
• AZ-05: The National Education Association gets into the ad war in a big way, hitting David Schweikert for being anti-public education (this buy is part of a $15 million initiative on the NEA's part, also including TV in OH-13 and mailers in NC-08)
• CO-04: EMILY's List is still sticking around in the 4th, bolstering Betsy Markey with an anti-Cory Gardener spot that's a mother of a child with autism addressing Gardener not wanting to require insurers to cover that
• Rasmussen:
• AZ-Gov: Terry Goddard (D) 39%, Jan Brewer (R-inc) 55%
• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal (D) 54%, Linda McMahon (R) 43%
• IL-Gov: Pat Quinn (D-inc) 38%, Bill Brady (R) 46%, Rich Whitney (G) 4%
• IL-Sen: Alexi Giannoulias (D) 41%, Mark Kirk (R) 45%, LeAlan Jones (G) 4%
• MD-Gov: Martin O'Malley (D-inc) 49%, Bob Ehrlich (R) 41%
• RI-Gov: Frank Caprio (D) 30%, John Robitaille (R) 22%, Lincoln Chafee (I) 33%
• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 44%, John Raese (R) 50%
KY-Sen: Jack Conway has succeeded in getting a false and misleading ad by the "First Amendment Alliance" pulled off at least one television station, Louisville's Fox 41.
WI-Sen: On the other side of the equation, Russ Feingold is being forced by the NFL to alter an ad which featured some footage of embarrassing end zone victory dances, including Randy Moss taunting Green Bay Packer fans. Could this really have been a mindless goof by Feingold's media team? The Hotline's Tim Alberta had the same thought I did: This sure was a good way to get plenty of free media coverage for this ad. (Judging by the number of Twitter mentions, at least, this ploy worked - if it was indeed the plan.)
AZ-08: The Smart Media Group is reporting that the DCCC has cancelled all of their ad buys in Tucson except for the final week of October. I suppose there are three ways you can interpret this news. The first is that Gabby Giffords is cruising and doesn't need much help. The second I'll call "panzers reconsolidating": She's basically doomed. And the third lies between the two: The D-Trip is performing triage, figuring that Giffords is strong enough to have a chance on her own, while other more fragile campaigns are in greater need of help. Choose your own adventure!
NY-24: Mike Arcuri is a lucky man. As you may recall, he created a new third party just so that he could have an extra ballot line to run on (and perhaps draw in a few votes from people who like him personally but can't stomach the thought of pulling the lever for a Democrat). The problem: He called it the "New York Moderates" party, but state law forbids any party name from including the words "American," 'United States," "National," "New York State," "Empire State," or any abbreviation of those. Fortunately, a court ruled that he was able to retain the line by renaming it just the "Moderates" party.
Fundraising:
MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan: $2.1 million raised, "on par with" Roy Blunt
PA-Sen: Joe Sestak (D): $3.2 million raised, Pat Toomey (R): $3.8 million raised
CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D): $361K raised from 9/16-29, Dan Maes (R): $28K raised, Tom Tancredo (ACP): $149K
OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D): $1.6 million raised from 9/3-10/4
CT-Sen: Sources tell Aaron Blake that the DSCC has added $1.2 million to its buy here
OH-01: The Campaign for Working Families throws down $125K for ads to help Steve Chabot (R)
OR-05: CULAC the PAC chips in $34K for mail on behalf of Rep. Kurt Schrader (D)
SSP TV:
NV-Sen: Harry Reid's latest is actually half-positive/half-negative, and concludes by calling Sharron Angle "a foreign worker's best friend"; Angle's newest is a race-baity spot that - jeez - features footage of scary brown people sneaking through a fence (wish I were kidding)
PA-Sen: The DSCC also has an ad out that's fairly race-baity, talking about Pat Toomey's support for sending jobs to China - complete with Asian-style gong noises that were embarrassing even when John Hughes brought us Long Duk Dong more than a quarter-century ago
GA-Gov: In a reversal of the usual roles, Republican Nathan Deal paints himself as the friend of teachers (and education in general) in his first attack ad
NY-Gov: Andrew Cuomo continues to sound like an anodyne Republican in his ads (cut wasteful government, blah blah), and says that Carl Paladino's "anger is not a governing strategy"
AL-05: Steve Raby goes back to his mailbox to criticize Mo Brooks for being a DC tool (and then litters)
CA-45: In this Steve Pougnet ad, little kids singing bowdlerized versions of the "Miss Mary Mack" (Mary Bono Mack, get it?) schoolyard rhyme are annoying
CO-07: In an ad with weak production values, Ryan Frazier attacks Ed Perlmutter for supporting the stimulus and cap-and-trade
FL-12: Dennis Ross recites some conservative pabulum
FL-25: In a minute-long spot, Joe Garcia uses news coverage to revisit the David Rivera ramming-a-delivery-truck-carrying-his-opponents-flyers incident
ID-01: Walt Minnick can't resist hitting the illegal immigration theme again - and he, too, features footage of Hispanic-looking people. Just uck
MN-06: A Tarryl Clark ad with really low production values stands out only because the otherwise serious-sounding female announcer declares: "Michele Bachmann: Not doing [bleep] for the people of the sixth district" (yes, there's an actual bleep sound) [UPDATE: Gah, it's just a fucking web ad.]
NC-02: Bob Etheridge hits one of my favorite attack ad topics: Renee Ellmers' support of a 23% national sales tax
NV-03: As she did in her last ad, Dina Titus compares Joe Heck to Sharron Angle, this time attacking his record on education
NY-13: Big fucking surprise: Despite voting against healthcare reform, Mike McMahon is getting attacked on it anyway - for not supporting repeal, and for just generally siding with Pelosi & Obama. Will Democrats never learn? Don't answer that
NY-20: Chris Gibson attacks Scott Murphy for supporting the stimulus. Man, it was a damn long time ago, but remember how much traction Murphy got last year by attacking Jim Tedisco (lol) for opposing the stimulus? (Not surprised to see the ad in that link has since been removed)
OH-18: Oh man. Clearly polls must be showing Dems that attacks on Republicans for wanting to send jobs overseas must be especially potent, 'cause here's another one, from Zack Space. No gong in this one, though - instead, he features a prototypical Chinese dragon, and then even has the announcer say a mock "thank you" in Chinese! I really can't wait for this election to be over
The open seat in Delaware, graciously left behind by Mike Castle, has always seemed like one of the Dems' two best pickup opportunities... and if this poll and yesterday's PPP poll of LA-02 are to be believed, this one probably takes the lead. Not only does ex-Lt. Gov. John Carney lead by a 56-32 margin in New Castle County, he's also running even in Sussex and Kent Counties (the rural parts of the state, where a GOPer would have to completely dominate in order to win statewide).
Chris Carney (D-inc): 43
Tom Marino (R): 40
Undecided: 16
(MoE: ±5.1%)
It looks less likely that two-term Dem incumbent Chris Carney will be in the Carney Caucus next year, although he's still holding his own fairly well against former US Attorney Tom Marino. On the one hand, he's in an R+8 district and should be especially vulnerable this year, but on the other hand, he's still pretty personally popular (over 50% favorable) and is up against a guy with a boatload of sketchy connections.
Martin Heinrich (D-inc): 48 (47)
Jon Barela (R): 41 (41)
Undecided: 11 (12)
Harry Teague (D-inc): 45 (45)
Steve Pearce (R): 46 (42)
Undecided: 9 (13)
(MoE: ±5%)
Here's another state where things are staying pretty consistent over the last month. Over the course of September, Susana Martinez's lead over Diane Denish has remained at 7, as they've both made gains from undecided, but Martinez is getting dangerously close to 50. (The basic story of this election is: what sounds better on your resume, "district attorney" or "Bill Richardson's #2?")
Likewise, things barely budged in the 1st, where Martin Heinrich added one point to his already decent-but-not-decisive lead. (It's looking more and more like that SurveyUSA poll that gave a lead to Jon Barela a few months ago was quite the outlier.) The needle moved only a little more in the 2nd, where the polls have shown a true tossup... but the movement was enough to drop Dem incumbent Harry Teague from a surprising 3-point lead to a 1-point deficit (exactly where he was in a PPP poll a few weeks ago, too).
SurveyUSA finds very little movement on the polling front, with Barbara Boxer losing a few points to "undecided," and Jerry Brown gaining a smidgen of ground. (This poll was in the field after the Meg Whitman housekeeper story had broken, although it continued to evolve; unlike Rasmussen, they seem to find it barely affecting the numbers with everyone pretty much already having made up their minds.) SurveyUSA has some other odds and ends, as per usual: they find Gavin Newsom still leading Abel Maldonado in the Lt. Governor race, 42-37, and Proposition 19 for the legalization of marijuana still passing, 48-41.
Ipsos for Reuters (10/3-4, likely voters, 6/25-27 (using RVs) in parentheses):
Jerry Brown (D): 50 (45)
Meg Whitman (R): 43 (39)
Undecided: 7 (14)
Ipsos's trendlines also suggest that nothing much has changed, although it has because they've been out of the California picture for four months and they entirely missed Meg Whitman's August spike and subsequent swoon. (This poll was also taken after housekeeper-gate, but 72% say that has no effect on their vote.) Reuters finds little enthusiasm gap in California, with 75% of Dems reporting they're certain to vote, and on top of that, Brown and Boxer both lead among independents. Among RVs, Boxer and Brown both lead by an identical 48-42. Interestingly, that's two polls in one day finding Brown polling better than Boxer, which we've rarely seen all cycle.
Ipsos finds 53-43 support for Prop 19 (pot), 37-49 support for suspending the state's greenhouse gases law, and support a simple majority for budget passage by 58-29.
GOP operative Mike Murphy is also tweeting that the Meg Whitman camp has an internal showing her within two points, 43-41. It also has Gloria Allred (representing Meg Whitman's former worker) with an unfavorable of 68%!!!1! (Uh, too bad Gloria Allred isn't running for anything.)
• AK-Sen: It's never a dull moment with Joe Miller in the race. Hot on the heels of the news that he believes that federal unemployment insurance is unconstitutional, today comes the news that his wife went on unemployment after leaving a job in 2004, and that Miller did not disown his wife for betraying the Founding Fathers. But wait, it just gets more interesting: the job Miller's wife left was working for... Miller himself. He hired his wife as a part-time clerk when he was working for several years as a magistrate judge for the federal district court (y'know, for the federal government he just hates so much). Local gadfly (and Lisa Murkowski ally) Andrew Halcro is, in fact, suggesting that Miller was forced to fire his wife because the blatant nepotism may have been a violation of court policies. (Of course, Miller's response was that Murkowski's not one to talk about nepotism.)
And on top of that, now it's come out that Miller is a full-on Seventeenther. In other words, part of the new crop of right-wingers who want you to vote for him so he can take away your rights to vote for him in the future.
• HI-Sen: Term-limited GOP Gov. Linda Lingle is saying she'll "take a look" at a Senate bid in 2012. That seat's current occupant, Dan Akaka, is 86 years old, so it's not clear whether he'll run for another term or not. Lingle is probably the only Republican on the bench in Hawaii with enough juice to make a Senate race, especially an open seat one, competitive.
• IL-Sen, IL-Gov: Mark Kirk is out with an internal poll (from Fulcrum), giving him a much larger lead than, well, anyone else, considering that most pollsters have seen this within a point or two either way. His poll says he leads Alexi Giannoulias 42-33, with 2 for the Green Party's LeAlan Jones. (The same poll also shows Bill Brady leading Pat Quinn 39-27 in the Governor's race.) Sitting on a big cash advantage, Kirk has reserved most of his entire kitty ($5.2 million) on ad buys for the remaining month.
• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold seems determined to follow Nancy Boyda down the path of integrity/obscurity. He's telling the DSCC (who haven't advertised yet on his behalf) to back off and let him fight the election himself. Says Feingold: "I consider it to be outside help of a kind that is uncontrolled and tends to believe in a philosophy of slash-and-burn politics. That's frankly not who I am. I don't want to win that way."
• NH-Gov: Univ. of New Hampshire (9/23-29, likely voters, July in parentheses):
John Lynch (D-inc): 51 (54)
John Stephen (R): 34 (29)
(MoE: ±4.3%)
Considering that UNH's sample had Paul Hodes down by 15 and Carol Shea-Porter losing too, it's pleasantly surprising to see John Lynch hanging in there with little trouble (in contrast to several other recent polls, such as UNH's in-state rival for weird results, ARG).
• WV-Gov: I guess the 2010 election is over already? Because the conversation today already seems to be changing to 2012. Republican state Sen. Clark Barnes (whom you might remember for briefly getting in and then getting out of the field in WV-01 last year) says he'll run for governor two years from now.
• NY-20: Finding himself on the very wrong end of both a Siena poll and a Scott Murphy internal, Chris Gibson offers up a POS internal of his own, taken 9/27-28, showing that he's still within striking distance. He says he trails Murphy 42-38.
• VA-05: Here's one more Dem poll from the 5th that shows Tom Perriello is narrowly trailing, but not officially dead yet. Rob Hurt leads Perriello 44-43 in a poll sponsored by the League of Conservation Voters and the SEIU (no word on who the pollster is, though). (UPDATE: The pollster is David Dougherty, and the memo is here. The sample was taken 9/20-23 with a 4.4% MoE.)
• American Crossroads: Remember back when we all laughed at American Crossroads for not raising any money, apparently because they were waiting for the million-dollar checks from their half-a-dozen billionaire donors to clear? Ha ha, boy, those were simpler times. Anyway, Democracy 21 and the Campaign Legal Center are going to the IRS to ask for an investigation of Crossroads GPS, one tentacle of the group that's organized as a non-profit "social welfare organization" or 501(c)(4). The larger Crossroads is a PAC, but GPS itself isn't supposed to participate in campaigns. Rather than take it up with the FEC, which has fallen into chaotic uselessness because of empty seats on the commission, they're going straight to the IRS, alleging tax law violations instead.
• Fundraising:
• MO-Sen: Roy Blunt raised $2 million in 3Q, no CoH given
• PA-07: Pat Meehan raised $725K, giving him $1.5 million CoH
• SSP TV:
• AK-Sen: Two different ads, one a coordinated spot between the Joe Miller camp and the NRSC that's a bio spot for Miller, the other a Tea Party Express one-minute extravaganza that calls Lisa Murkowski a liar, a fraud, and various other things
• IN-Sen: Here's a link to that Brad Ellsworth ad we mentioned yesterday, where he literally calls Dan Coats a sellout over that all-covers album he released outsourcing
• KY-Sen: The DSCC rolls out an ad hitting Rand Paul on his proposed $2,000 Medicare deductible, while Paul's newest ad returns to the Jack Conway=Obama theme
• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan goes back to the theme of Roy Blunt's cozy DC insider relationships
• NY-Sen-B: Joe DioGuardi's first ad is an intro spot, as well as bemoaning the dwindling American Dream
• WA-Sen: The DSCC revisits Dino Rossi's days as a state Senator, including support for cutting unemployment benefits and the minimum wage
• WI-Sen: Russ Feingold takes the GOP to task for prematurely celebrating short of the end zone
• WV-Sen: John Raese follows the NRSC's lead with his own ad doing the Joe Manchin=Obama thing
• FL-Gov: The DGA's out with a Florida ad with various law enforcement officials bashing Rick Scott's Medicare fraud
• NH-Gov: Here's the ad of the day: John Lynch leaps out of the gate and punches John Stephen in the nose over scandals at New Hampshire's HHS Dept.
• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland, bedecked in camo, reminds the state's hunters who got the NRA's backing
• PA-Gov: Well, at least Tom Corbett isn't saying Dan Onorato = Obama, but he is saying Onorato = Ed Rendell
• RI-Gov: The DGA hits Lincoln Chafee from the right? Their new ad says that vulnerable Rhode Islanders can't afford all the new taxes Chafee wants
• FL-24: Suzanne Kosmas hits Sandy Adams over the Paul Ryan roadmap
• PA-04: Oh, good... more kids complaining about how their allowance isn't big enough to cover all the debt they're going to have to pay off, courtesy of Keith Rothfus
• Rasmussen:
• AZ-Sen: Rodney Glassman (D) 33%, John McCain (R-inc) 54%
• CA-Sen: Barbara Boxer (D-inc) 49%, Carly Fiorina (R) 45%
• CO-Gov: John Hickenlooper (D) 43%, Dan Maes (R) 16%, Tom Tancredo (C) 35%
• CO-Sen: Michael Bennet (D-inc) 45%, Ken Buck (R) 50%
• Rasmussen (appearing as Fox/Pulse):
• CT-Gov: Dan Malloy (D) 47%, Tom Foley (R) 41%
• CT-Sen: Richard Blumenthal (D) 52%, Linda McMahon (R) 42%
• MO-Sen: Robin Carnahan (D) 42%, Roy Blunt (R) 50%
• NV-Sen: Harry Reid (D-inc) 46%, Sharron Angle (R) 49%
• OH-Gov: Ted Strickland (D-inc) 43%, John Kasich (R) 49%
• OH-Sen: Lee Fisher (D) 37%, Rob Portman (R) 53%
• WV-Sen: Joe Manchin (D) 43%, John Raese (R) 48%
It looks like Charles Djou and Colleen Hanabusa are in a game of jump ball here, which is a better result than I had been expecting for Team Blue here. If turnout were at 2008 levels, as Jed L. says, Hanabusa would be leading by 54-40.
Bonus finding: In the gubernatorial race portion of this poll, Duke Aiona and Neil Abercrombie are tied at 48-48. Considering this is Abercrombie's old district, this could mean that the Governor's race is a lot closer than previous polls indicated.
