Take it with a grain of salt but it's still encouraging:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/...
A Harper Polling survey released Monday found Democratic candidate Rick Weiland (pictured) trailing former Republican Gov. Mike Rounds, 33 percent to 37 percent. The independent candidate, former GOP Sen. Larry Pressler, whom both sides are attacking, takes 23 percent.
Three-way races are notoriously difficult to predict, but recent polling has showed Rounds struggling to pull away in what was thought to be an assured GOP pick-up with Sen. Tim Johnson (D-SD) retiring. A SurveyUSA poll from last week put Rounds at 35 percent, followed by Pressler at 32 percent and Weiland at 28 percent.
The Harper Polling poll, conducted Oct. 9 to 11, surveyed 630 likely voters. Its margin of error is 3.9 points. - TPM, 10/13/14
Here are the results:
http://harperpolling.com/...
Here's why this race is tightening:
http://www.argusleader.com/...
But there were warnings that not all was right with the campaign. Privately, national Republicans worried that Rounds was not taking the steps he should have to put the race away. Even last spring, national Republicans were growing increasingly alarmed by Rounds' anemic fundraising. He ended the last quarter with about $750,000 on hand after raising about $625,000.
To put that in perspective, consider how two other Republicans fared at the end of the last quarter, two Republicans who, like Rounds, were running to replace retiring Democrats in states viewed as likely Republican pick-ups.
In West Virginia, Shelley Capito raised more than $1.1 million that quarter — almost double what Rounds raised — and finished with $4.9 million in the bank. Montana's Steve Daines raised almost $300,000 more than Rounds and had $1 million more than Rounds in the bank.
Rounds failed to raise the resources necessary to defend himself in the cutthroat world of U.S. Senate campaigns, where millions of dollars can be beamed into a race with the flip of a switch. Rounds woke up last week to find $3 million of hostile money sitting outside his comfy campaign headquarters in Pierre. And there's nothing he can do about it.
It wasn't just the fundraising that worried national Republicans. Rounds reassembled a campaign team from his days as governor. The team was adequate for a governor's race. The problem is, nobody outside of South Dakota cares who is governor of the state. Senate races are fought on an entirely different level — the difference between high school football and pro football. GOP leaders were concerned that Rounds and his team didn't grasp this reality. As it turns out, justifiably so.
Consider Rounds' television ads: Through June, the campaign had paid the advertising firm Lawrence & Schiller $1.3 million for a campaign that at best was unremarkable and at worst tone deaf to the realities of the race. Rounds has invoked his father — his father! — in one ad to deflect criticism of his handling of the EB-5 immigrant investor program. Seriously, it's come down to, "My daddy is going to beat up your daddy," in a U.S. Senate race. - Argus Leader, 10/13/14
Now it's just a matter of getting voters to dump Larry Pressler (I. SD) and come over to Weiland which looks possible:
http://www.salon.com/...
Politico wrote up some opposition research on Pressler late last week that showed Pressler’s principle residence is in Washington, D.C. One of the things we’ve learned from races like, say, Kansas Senate, is that revelations about candidates not actually living in the states where they’re running can be damaging. You could argue that these attacks are Very Silly — you don’t need to sit on the recliner in some house in Kansas or South Dakota all the time in order to know how to represent a state’s interests in Washington D.C. — but they do work.
Suppose this news hurts Pressler. Then that offers Weiland a chance to grow. If Weiland were to become the predominant challenger to Rounds, that would make things easier for the Democratic party — instead of hoping that some independent (who was a Republican until like five seconds ago) wins and chooses to caucus with the Democrats, a real-life Democrat could be the one to save Tim Johnson’s seat.
The other great thing about a Rick Weiland possibly emerging as Rounds’ main rival is that Rick Weiland is THE MAN. Just check out this platform!
But in a telephone interview, Weiland insisted the skeptics were wrong, and that there remains a path to victory for him. And he laid out a strikingly progressive platform as the vehicle to get there: An option of Medicare for all, otherwise known as a new public option; expanding Social Security; aggressive opposition to the Keystone pipeline; and a Constitutional amendment overturning Citizens United. - Salon, 10/13/14
Plus there's this:
http://www.msnbc.com/...
A member of the “Fix the Debt” commission—an outside group of fiscal hawks that received funding from prominent business leaders—Pressler supports the Affordable Care Act because he believes it will help curb health care spending by helping to control drug costs and applies means-testing. (Subsidies for insurance purchased on the health-care exchanges are income-based.)
He believes Congress needs to pass similar regulations to control drug costs as well as means-testing to control Medicare costs as well. “All those things need to be applied to Medicare. Medicare can learn from the Affordable Care Act,” Pressler said.
Liberals may be delighted at the prospect of Pressler snatching a Senate seat away from Republicans, but they aren’t likely to be happy with his focus on the deficit and entitlement reform. He wants to raise the retirement age gradually for Social Security (though not Medicare), though he denied wanting to “balance the budget” by paring back the program. He also wants to amend Obamacare to include tort reform and said he’d consider trying to overturn Roe vs. Wade.
But Pressler says he’s also willing to challenge the Republican orthodoxy on tax cuts as well, calling the party “poisonously locked” into its position on the issue. He wants a surtax on incomes above $1 million, as well as eliminating the mortgage interest deduction on second homes and certain corporate tax deductions. - MSNBC, 10/9/14
The Daily Kos, DFA and the DSCC are taking this race seriously so we have a real shot here. Click here to donate and get involved with Weiland's campaign:
http://rickweiland.com/