Apologies for the one-day absence from the Wrap (don't worry, I brought an excuse note from my mother). Some interesting news welcomes the Wrap back on this Wednesday: a real Honest-to-God vulnerable Republican in the U.S. Senate, a big set of endorsements for a Democrat in a competitive House seat, and what feels like the 283rd Rasmussen poll of the month proclaiming "Good News!" for a Republican candidate...
NC-Sen: Pair of Polls Show GOP's Burr in Potential Deep Trouble
Freshman Republican Richard Burr has long been a sleeper target for the Democratic Party in the 2010 election cycle. He has not made a deep impression with Tar Heel State voters (to this day, over a quarter of voters don't know enough about him to have an opinion), and his approval ratings have been mediocre. This month's incarnation of the PPP poll in North Carolina shows that said disinterest is starting to manifest itself in improving poll numbers for his GOP rivals. After having double-digit leads over the Fall against all Democratic comers, now all three leading Democratic challengers are within single digits of the Republican. NC Secretary of State Elaine Marshall comes the closest, trailing by just five points (42-37). Attorney Ken Lewis and former state legislator Cal Cunningham trail by six and nine points, respectively.
Meanwhile, a new poll from the right-leaning Civitas Institute confirms the findings of PPP. Civitas has Marshall trailing by a slightly larger margin (40-32), but also has a generic ballot question whereupon Democrats actually hold a lead of a single point over Republicans (40-39).
FL-Gov: Rasmussen Gives Republican Lead. Sun To Set In West.
Rasmussen already got some play on Daily Kos earlier today, when they released a poll showing that Marco Rubio had finally caught Governor Charlie Crist in the GOP primary for Florida's open U.S. Senate seat. They get a little more play here, even if the outcome is a little more predictable. They have Republican gubernatorial candidate Bill McCollum leading Democrat Alex Sink by five points (44-39). Keeping with their recent tradition, they had considerably higher favorabilities for McCollum (54-30) than Sink (44-31).
SD-Sen/SD-AL: Democrats Have To Keep One Eye Open In South Dakota
A two-day polling release by the crew over at PPP paints a reasonably bleak picture for Democrats in a heartland state that was actually reasonably close at the presidential level in 2008. Their poll of the House seat occupied by third-term Democrat Stephanie Herseth-Sandlin finds her being closely challenged by GOP Secretary of State Chris Nelson (46-39). This puts her below the 50% threshold of safety for incumbents, and is particularly of concern because despite his history in statewide elections, Nelson is not particularly well-known (three-fifths of voters had no opinion of him).
Meanwhile, over on the Senate side, John Thune does not yet have a prominent Democratic rival. That might be unlikely to change, however, given that Thune has a healthy 56-33 lead over a generic Democratic opponent. PPP reports that only Tom Coburn and Kay Bailey Hutchison had higher approval ratings for an incumbent Senator in the three-dozen Senators polled by the firm in 2009.
AZ-Sen: This Poll Is Good News...For John McCain!
Several weeks back, a poll was released which hinted that longtime Arizona Senator (and 2008 presidential loser) John McCain might be vulnerable to a primary challenge from bombastic former right-wing Congressman J.D. Hayworth. A new Tarrance Poll (albeit one that Emily Swanson at Pollster notes was sponsored by an interest group with ties to McCain supporters) pours some cold water on the Hayworth boomlet. They claim that McCain holds a twenty-point edge (56-36) over Hayworth. No first-tier Democrats have leapt into the race as of yet, and there were no general election trial heats conducted.
IN OTHER NEWS....
- As always, you can find political observations (among other things) at my little patch of grass over on Twitter.
- CA-Sen: Heh...looks like there is some a little internecine violence going on in the Republican Party right here in the Golden State. Right-wing insurgent Senate candidate Chuck DeVore is at war with the Senate campaign arm of the Republican Party (the NRSC).
DeVore's team was apparently chapped about the fact that they were rebuffed in attempts to meet with the NRSC's head man (Senator John Cornyn). When the NRSC tried to placate by scoring DeVore a meeting with their executive director, DeVore refused to take the meeting, and went public with his discontent, stating that as an elected official representing a half-million Californians, he should not be pawned off onto a staffer.
The NRSC, however, did not hestitate to fire a shot right back across DeVore's bow, with their spokesman pointing out that the NRSC had met with 60 Senate candidates already, and also stating that:
"Remarkably, every one of them knew how to set up a meeting with the exception of Chuck DeVore who apparently believed sending a fax to Senator Cornyn's official government office was the most direct route. That alone might demonstrate a lack of seriousness, or at least raise questions of competency, by a statewide Senate campaign," Walsh said in an email.
"[W]hen you compound it with the misinformation his campaign spokesman has deliberately spread through allies in the conservative blogosphere -- suggesting it's the NRSC who has rebuffed his efforts to meet -- it's hard to draw any conclusion other than that this is a campaign that likes to play games," Walsh added. "It's unfortunate, but if and when they'd like to stop this nonsense and work with us on defeating Barbara Boxer next year we look forward to meeting with them."
DeVore does seem to have a valid point, though, as it relates to the charge of favoritism. Indeed, John Cornyn has made it hard for anyone to presume neutrality--he has attended fundraisers for well-heeled GOP establishment pick Carly Fiorina, and has even donated to her campaign.
- KS-Gov: A few weeks after it looked like Kansas Democrats had solved their recruiting failures in the state's open gubernatorial election, it proved to be for naught: Tom Wiggans, a businessman who had declared that he would make the race last month, dropped out of the race today, claiming that his business duties had made him too much of an unknown quantity to Kansas voters and donors. This leaves Dems again without a first-tier challenger for the likely GOP nominee, Senator Sam Brownback, who announced earlier in the year that he would attempt to trade his Senate seat for the governorship.
- KS-03: On the bright side for Kansas Democrats, they are starting to get some potential candidates in the open-seat House race to replace retiring Democratic Rep. Dennis Moore. Former Kansas City (Kansas) Mayor Carol Marinovich is apparently considering the race, as is
businessman current KCK Mayor Joe Reardon. The Kansas City Star notes that there may need to be some coordination afoot somewhere down the line, as they indicated it was unlikely that both individuals would eventually makes the race, so as to avoid an expensive primary.
- KY-Sen: Senate candidate Rand Paul's army of supporters (reminiscent of his father's presidential acolytes) have been busy little bees over the past few days. They managed to raise six figures for their man in a one-day "money bomb." They also managed to freep the living crap out of PPP's weekly poll of their readers to determine the next site of their polling. Ergo, it looks like we will be seeing some polling data out of Kentucky before the year is out. After all, the
Ron Rand Paul Revolution has spoken!
- NC-08: Apparently, Congressman Larry Kissell is one of the first right-of-center Democratic Congressman to be facing some heat for his apostasy. Local Democrats are apparently romancing 2002 nominee Chris Kouri in an effort to get him to mount a primary challenge to Kissell, who was one of 39 votes against HCR last month. In an ominous sign for Kissell, one of the guys talking up a Kouri bid is the chairman of the Mecklenberg County Democratic Party, Joel Ford.
- NH-02: With Katrina Swett still not officially in the Democratic primary to succeed Paul Hodes, Ann McLane Kuster continues racking up support. Today her campaign announced (via email -- she needs to get more stuff on her website, stat) that she has been endorsed by NARAL Pro-Choice America and the National Organization for Women.--Laura Clawson
- NH-Sen: Well, it now looks like the framing of the New Hampshire GOP Senate primary as "establishment vs. teabaggers" might be legit, after all. No less a mouthpiece for the far-right than syndicated radio host Laura Ingraham heaped praise on Senate candidate Ovide Lamontagne, referring to him as "the only true conservative in a very important race." Lamontagne, who was throttled in a 1996 attempt to be elected Governor, is challenging state Attorney General Kelly Ayotte, the darling of establishment Republicans. In an ironic twist, Ayotte was busy schmoozing at a fundraiser hosted by telecom PACs while Lamontagne and Ingraham were obliterating her on Ingraham's radio program.
- PA-12: John Murtha, who was hospitalized over the weekend for pains which were eventually diagnosed as dealing with the 77 year-old Congressman's gall bladder, was released from the hospital earlier today in Bethesda, Maryland. Murtha faces a potentially tough primary with young Democrat Ryan Bucchianieri in 2010, and a likely rematch with free-spending Republican William Russell.
- SC-Gov: It now looks official that Republican Governor Mark Sanford will evade serious punishment for his political and personal meltdown last summer, despite some squandering of state resources that almost certainly rose to the level of an impeachable offense. In light of the decision of the state legislative Judiciary Committee to drop impeachment charges, Democratic State Rep. Todd Rutherford ripped his colleagues, decrying the process with some exquisite flamethrowing:
During a House Judiciary Committee meeting to debate impeachment or censure of Sanford, Rutherford harangued colleagues for more than 15 minutes, calling the panel collectively "the idiots that (Sanford) makes us out to be."
In particular, Rutherford criticized what he felt was a shallow, cursory review by a House panel.
"You idiots can't do any better than to meet four times to talk about something as serious as impeachment," Rutherford said, calling the process a "kangaroo court."
Rutherford, unsurprisingly, was then upbraided by Republican Judiciary Committee chair Jim Harrison, who said that Rutherford's criticism (especially the use of the word "idiots", apparently), "bordered on serious misconduct."
Of course, using state funds to promulgate sexual flings apparently does NOT qualify as serious misconduct, at least not serious enough to warrant impeachment.