If Cain doesn't implode soon, the levity's bound to stop.
Well, if past is precedent, then the hourglass on Herman Cain's status as the GOP's flavor of the month has a little over a week before it expires. Having said that, of course, the pizza man-turned-legit GOP contender had another good week in the polls, and could reasonably be defined as the betting favorite for the nomination if the primary season were to commence today.
Of course, it doesn't commence today, and there is a growing roster of has-beens and never-will-bes that have been in the exact same position that Cain presently enjoys.
And given that Cain crapped the bed a little bit in the Tuesday debates, and then really soiled it with the GOP base with his equivocations on abortion, Cain's status as frontrunner or co-frontrunner has to be viewed as a temporary one.
It is tempting to start thinking ahead and mulling over the names of the next anti-Romney. Could Rick Perry be up for round two? Does Newt Gingrich or Rick Santorum get a round one?
As we consider those lovely alternatives, there is quite the smorgasboard of data and campaign news to peruse in this week's edition of the Weekend Digest.
THE RACE FOR THE WHITE HOUSE
NATIONAL POLLS: The moods of the Republican primary electorate might be ever-changing, but for the moment it is safe to define the GOP primary as a two-man race. That was the verdict from multiple polls this week, polls which put Mitt Romney in his accustomed spot in the front of the field, but added Herman Cain as a clear co-favorite for the time being.
CNN opened the week with new primary numbers that showed Romney (26 percent) and Cain (25 percent) quite clearly at the head of the class. Rick Perry was still in third place at 13 percent, which proved that quite a bit of real estate had opened up between the co-favorites and the next in line.
Those numbers were confirmed midweek by the AP/GfK poll, which found nearly identical numbers. In the AP poll, Romney opened a little edge on Cain (30-26), with Perry once again languishing back in the early teens (13 percent).
On the general election front, this week's new numbers from the AP/GfK poll has to be considered at least moderately good news for the President. Even with underwater approval numbers (46/52), he nonetheless kept a lead over all three leading contenders on the Republican side. Romney came the closest (48-45), with the president stretching out his edge a little bit when paired with Cain (49-43) and Perry (51-42).
The House of Ras, as always going against the grain, took two general election trial heats this week and concluded that Herman Cain was the more electable Republican. The difference, however, was a modest one. The Rassies had Cain leading by two over Obama (43-41), while they had Obama ahead of Romney by a single point (43-42)
Unlike The House of Ras and AP (and many others) who have now added trial heats with Perry and even Cain into the mix, the crew at Democracy Corps this week elected to stick to strictly checking on an Obama-Romney matchup. This time around, they have the race completely deadlocked, with both men knotted up at 45 percent of the vote.
IN THE STATES: If you are a Barack Obama fan, you would probably be best served by focusing on this weeks polls conducted by Marist, as they provided nearly all of the highlights for the president at the statewide level.
Consider, for example, the polls that Marist provided this week for NBC News in the key states of Florida and South Carolina. The pollster had Barack Obama with leads over the trio of GOP frontrunners in Florida, with margins ranging from 2-8 points over the Republican field. What might have been more noticeable, however, was the fact that normally red South Carolina was actually reasonably close. Mitt Romney had the largest advantage in the Palmetto State, but that was just a six-point lead. When paired with Cain or Perry, Obama actually moved into a toss-up with either man.
Meanwhile, Siena got into the "collegiate pollster" game as well this week, as they posted new numbers out of the blue state of New York. Barack Obama is in no danger of losing the Empire State, as the Siena poll affirmed. His lead over Mitt Romney stood at a reasonably stout 18 points (55-37), and moved into pure landslide territory when Obama was paired with Rick Perry (58-31) or Herman Cain (58-32).
Not all of the numbers this week, however, are nearly as positive for the president. Probably the most pessimistic poll of the week emanated from Ohio, where PPP had Obama locked in a dead heat with Mitt Romney (46-46). A cautionary note was also struck in the fact that while Obama led the rest of the GOP contenders by margins of 8-9 points, Herman Cain has actually emerged for the moment as an "electable" alternative. His disadvantage when paired with the president was a scant three points (48-45).
In another possible sign of Cain's general election legitimacy, a GOP pollster claims that Cain would have a modest lead over Barack Obama in the (narrowly) blue '08 state of North Carolina. The poll, released late in the week by the Civitas Institute from data culled by National Research, gave Cain a 46-41 lead over Obama in the Tar Heel State. As a sign, perhaps, of Tom Jensen's long held theory that undecideds are not Obama friendly, the president actually held the lead by a couple points among firmly committed voters. When leaners were tossed into the mix, however, Cain forged a small advantage.
Cain wasn't polled in a new survey out of the state of Virginia, but the new numbers from Christopher Newport University there hinted that Cain would, at a minimum, be competitive there. That's because the president performed pretty meekly against either Mitt Romney (a pairing where Obama trailed by a 46-42 margin) or Rick Perry (who forged a 43-43 tie with the president). The rather wacky primary numbers in this poll (see below) do give skeptics at least one data point upon which to cast doubt on the veracity of the whole shebang here.
Even two states that were among the brightest lights for the president in 2008 look at least a little bit dimmer when set up for 2012. In Illinois, the home state for the president, a new poll from Southern Illinois University shows the support for Obama has flagged notably since his 25-point landslide win over John McCain in 2008. SIU had Obama leading Romney by just a 46-39 margin. Obama's margins when paired with Cain (46-34) and Ron Paul (49-30) were more comfortable, but still well behind his 2008 pace. The same was true in Hawaii, though (a) he is still going to win in a drubbing and (b) no one expected him to drop another 70+ percent vote total there like he did in 2008. Obama still dominated his GOP rivals in the state of his birth, according to a new PPP poll. But the margins were slightly muted: Obama led Romney by a 59-32 margin. Against the rest of the GOP contenders and pretenders, however, the margins stretched out to between 33-37 points. While still below his 46-point margin of victory in '08, one suspects that Obama won't be losing too much sleep about it.
And if you ever wondered how the president would stack up against Republican Jesus in a critical state like Pennsylvania, we now have that answer from yet another GOP pollster. Late in the week came word from Susquehanna Research that Barack Obama would trail a generic Republican by seven points (45-38), according to the sometime-GOP pollster (point of personal pique---why is it that PPP is always identified in media reports as a Dem pollster, but NO GOP pollsters are ever similarly identified? It's freaking annoying). While the poll did have some interesting tidbits (they had his job approval tanking in the key vote-rich Philly suburbs, for example), it seems to me that we are getting to the point that the "generic challenger" thing for a presidential race is losing its value. These guys aren't total unknowns anymore--hell, they've debated on national television roughly 284 times at this point, haven't they?
At the GOP primary level, the Cain ascendancy that we see in national polling is also clear, and it presented itself in multiple ways this week. The aforementioned NBC News/Marist polls in Florida and South Carolina showed Cain with a three-point lead over Romney in South Carolina, while only trailing Romney in Florida by a single point. In a sign that (for the moment) GOP voters see this as a two-man race, they combined for at least 59 percent of the vote in both races, while the next best alternative came in at just 10 percent of the vote.
That "two-man" configuration could be seen virtually everywhere else this week, as evidenced by this handy little chart of the primary results from other locales this week:
Florida: Romney 33, Cain 30, Gingrich 12 (Insider Advantage)
Hawaii: Cain 36, Romney 24, Perry/Gingrich 8 (PPP)
Illinois: Cain 23, Romney 21, Gingrich 8 (Southern Illinois U.)
Iowa: Cain 26, Romney 18, Gingrich 12 (Insider Advantage)
Iowa: Cain 37, Romney 27, Paul 12 (Univ. of Iowa)
Iowa: Cain 28, Romney 21, Paul 10 (Rasmussen)
New Hampshire: Romney 39, Cain 24, Paul 11 (Insider Advantage)
Ohio: Cain 34, Romney 19, Gingrich 14 (PPP)
South Carolina: Cain 32, Romney 16, Perry 12 (Insider Advantage)
Virginia: Romney 44, Cain 12, Perry 10 (Christopher Newport University)
THE RACE FOR THE U.S. SENATE
AT THE POLLS: The pair of Senate polls that dropped this week, both courtesy of the team over at PPP, would likely be viewed as somewhat negative data points for the Democrats, on balance. After all, both polls come from seats currently occupied by the Democrats, and both of them are in slightly more precarious positions than when previously polled by PPP. But both have some mitigating evidence that make them less nerve-inducing than they might appear at first blush.
Take, for example, the seat held by Sherrod Brown in Ohio. It is true that Brown has held consistent double-digit leads throughout the cycle when paired either against state treasurer Josh Mandel or state legislator Kevin Coughlin. It is also true that those margins were markedly reduced in this month's polling by PPP. Mandel has now whittled Brown's lead down to just eight points (48-40), while Coughlin has narrowed the gap down to eleven points (48-37). But that tightening was largely the product of undecideds coming off the fence in favor of the GOP contenders. Sure, they could continue to snap up 100 percent of the undecideds, but there is little to no historical precedence for that.
A similar theme (that of the Republicans tightening a once solidly Democratic race) has developed in the open seat race in Hawaii. This one, however, has an even more readily identifiable explanation. In this case, the announcement by former GOP Gov. Linda Lingle has probably given her a little bit of an ephemeral "announcement bounce." As a result, she has made the race a bit of a coin flip at the moment when paired either with current Democratic Rep. Mazie Hirono or former Democratic Rep. Ed Case. Once a double-digit underdog to either Democrat, she now leads Case by two (45-43) and trails Hirono by six (48-42). The only good news in this poll, and this is pretty thin to qualify as "good news", is that this poll blows to Hell the meme that Case has been furiously flogging--that his relative goodwill with Republicans would make him the more "electable" Democrat in November of 2012.
There was better news for the Democrats in a new poll out of Virginia conducted by Christopher Newport University. The CNU poll gave Democrat Tim Kaine an edge of two points (44-42) in his highly anticipated showdown with former Republican Sen. George Allen. Most polls have had this as a coinflip, and the president's decidedly "meh" numbers in the presidential component of this poll (see above) make it hard for Republicans to classify this one as a "Democrat"-leaning poll.
Finally, the DSCC has been flogging this poll from Anzalone Liszt in Utah quite a bit on Twitter this week. The slightly dusty poll (from last month) had Democratic Rep. Jim Matheson within striking distance, but still trailing, Republican veteran Sen. Orrin Hatch (48-42). I'm having a bit of a hard time seeing how a Democrat snatches up 70 percent of the undecided voters in Utah, but Matheson certainly has lots of options right now, seeing how the GOP ginsu-ed his congressional district (more on this later).
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL:
- Let's kick off with an object lesson in shoddy journalism, with relevance to the Senate race in Massachusetts. This AP story was built around the meme that Democratic challenger Elizabeth Warren's massive fundraising quarter was the result of her national profile (aided by liberal blogs like ... well ... this one). Meanwhile, poor little GOP Sen. Scott Brown has to rely on local donors to keep up. Their evidence: 70 percent of her cash came from out-of-state, while 37 percent of Brown's did. The problem with that analysis: it focuses on donations, and NOT donors. Brown's biggest supporters maxed out to him long ago, while this is Warren's first fundraising go-round. Ergo, the better analysis would be to look at number of donors. And Warren had more donors from Massachusetts (well over 10,000) than Brown had total. So, to conclude that Brown was the "locally supported" candidate in the race was, to put it mildly, a stretch.
- In Wisconsin, that rumbling sound you hear is Democratic leaders running to put their arms around the clear frontrunner for the Senate nomination: Rep. Tammy Baldwin. Former Sen. Russ Feingold offered his endorsement earlier in the week, and his endorsement was echoed by Rep. Gwen Moore at the end of the week.
- Finally, he may not be up for re-election for another five years, but Florida Senator Marco Rubio gets a lot of 2012 pub as it relates to the Veepstakes. The GOP may have to slow their roll on that front, with the revelation that Rubio most definitely messed the bed as it relates to the salient details of his personal and campaign narrative. Rubio has long defined himself as the child of exiles, who fled Castro's ironhanded rule. The flaw in that narrative: his family left well before Castro came to power. Ruh roh. It's probably survivable (and some are already rushing to his defense), but it does tarnish his completely flawless halo a little bit, and it does make you wonder how Rubio survived one of the most high-profile Senate races in America last year without the press doing even minimal fact-checking on the most basic ingredient of his campaign narrative.
THE RACE FOR THE U.S. HOUSE
AT THE POLLS: The next election at the House level, and one that is flying way under the radar, is the race to replace the recently resigned Democratic Rep. David Wu in OR-01. Primary ballots have to be in the mails by early November, and a new SurveyUSA poll in the district implied that both races, quite surprisingly, will be blowouts. This isn't a surprise on the GOP side, where 2010 nominee Rob Cornilles was viewed from the beginning as a lock. Nothing in this poll (where he draws 66 percent to the combined 14 percent support of the rest of the GOP field) changed that perception. But the Democratic side had three legitimate contenders. But it is state senator Suzanne Bonamici who is lapping the field thus far. The SUSA poll gave her 52 percent of the vote, well ahead of state labor commissioner Brad Avakian (14 percent) and state Rep. Brad Witt (9 percent). Horserace nerd postscript: this poll is (I believe) the first one to allow cell phone respondents to essentially "text" their responses to the survey on their smart phones. An intriguing innovation from the SUSA crew, to be sure.
In 2012 polling news, a handful of races saw internal numbers designed to drive some narratives. In CA-47, Democratic state senator Alan Lowenthal dropped an internal showing him with more support (40 percent) than the combined totals of the two Republicans running against him (former Rep. Steve Kuykendall and businessman Gary DeLong). It also showed a possible new Democratic entrant (former state senator Joe Dunn) doing incrementally worse when paired with the GOP contenders.
Also on the Cali primary beat, a new poll from Fairbank Maslin gave state legislator Jared Huffman the jump in the open seat battle to replace Lynn Woolsey in the newly-christened CA-02 (formerly CA-06). But, a big caveat: undecided remained the big winner in this poll, as an even 50 percent of respondents had no opinion. Huffman led with 20 percent, and the lone Republican in the mix (Dan Roberts) came in second with 18 percent. The other two Democrats in the mix (activist Norman Solomon and county supervisor Susan Adams) were back in single digits, according to Huffman's numbers.
If anyone cares deeply in these parts about the GOP primary in uber-red GA-09, well ... we got new numbers there, too. Right-wing radio yakker Martha Zoller claims a 32-20 lead over Doug Collins, who I am presuming is not the former coach of the Chicago Bulls, but rather a local state legislator.
If you think favorability numbers count for much when it is time to mark the ballots, the Democrats might have an opening in New Hampshire. Both Frank Guinta (NH-01) and Charlie Bass (NH-02) had crappy nums in the new UNH poll, with Guinta right at breakeven at 30/30, and Bass underwater at 29/36. If there was any solace for Republicans in these stats, it is that they actually marked a slight improvement from this summer, when both men were deeper in the ditch.
On the "generic ballot" front, new numbers out this week from Democracy Corps had it dead even, with both the Democrats and the GOP pulling support from 46 percent of voters. Rasmussen, whose numbers on the generic front have consistently been more favorable to the GOP than all other pollsters looking at the same questions, gave the Republicans a three-point edge (42-39) over the Democrats in their weekly snapshot of the generic ballot.
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL:
- The news this week out of CA-16 came as absolutely no surprise, though it did invite a couple of moronic folks around the political internets to write another round of "Dems fleeing in terror!" crap. Democratic Rep. Dennis Cardoza, a five-term veteran in the House, announced his retirement. Cardoza's decision to head to the sidelines was already universally anticipated, as he and his bestest pal (Rep. Jim Costa) were essentially drawn into the same Central Valley district by the new independent redistricting process in the Golden State. Cardoza sends another blue dog to the curb, but it is little consolation--Cardoza, if anything, was incrementally more likely to stay in the Democratic fold than Costa. If you are wondering who might be next, Roll Call's Kyle Trygstad looked at 3Q fundraising numbers to try to predict who might be the next incumbent to sprint for the exits.
- Quite a bit of news this week on the redistricting front. After looking for a moment like the process was going to be derailed, Maryland became the latest state to complete its redistricting process, with a new map designed to end the career of longtime GOP Rep. Roscoe Bartlett. Bartlett, for his part, is claiming that he will run for re-election (he will be 86 on Election Day). Meanwhile, we now have a pretty good understanding of just how hard the GOP attempted to screw Democrat Jim Matheson in Utah. No more than 39 percent of his old district was held together, as pieces of his district were sprinkled into all four new districts. Roll Call ran the numbers there, and found that all four districts gave George W. Bush at least 66 percent of the vote in 2004. Matheson could conceivably run statewide, or in three of the four House districts (though a run against Jason Chaffetz in the new and uber-red UT-03 would be a likely suicide mission). Meanwhile, Roll Call also ran the numbers of the new maps in Nevada, and found that the current 2-1 GOP configuration there could easily be 3-1 Dem by 2013. As it is now, the 1st district is a lock (65 percent Obama in 2008). The newly-created 4th district is also looking good for Dems (56 percent Obama in 2008). The linchpin might be newly elected Republican Rep. Joe Heck's 3rd district. It was 54 percent Obama in 2008, which is actually one point less Democratic than the current 3rd. But remember: Heck won by just one point in a historically good Republican year last year.
- Meanwhile, in Ohio, the state that has had perhaps the most interesting redistricting fight saw a lot of news this week. At the end of the week, the state senate voted to split the state's primaries next year into two parts, with the state legislative primaries popping off in March, and the U.S. House and presidential primaries pushed back to June. The relevance here is that the latter need House maps, which might be in legal danger given that courts have now determined that the new maps can be subject to a referendum (a referendum that a new PPP poll showed might not go the way the GOP hopes). To try to prevent that referendum, the GOP is lobbying African-American legislative Dems furiously, in hopes they can snare a few votes from the caucus and hit the 2/3 threshold that would make the new maps immune to a popular referendum. Stay tuned to this one.
THE RACE FOR THE STATE HOUSE
AT THE POLLS: David Williams is rapidly developing into the Democrats' best friend in the state of Kentucky. Williams, the GOP's nominee for Governor, has run such a moribund candidacy that it is now threatening to become an undertow that could usher in a Democratic sweep of all the statewide offices. Such was the verdict from a late-week poll from Braun Research, which had the GOP standard bearer getting wiped out (54-26) by Democrat Steve Beshear in the gubernatorial race in the Bluegrass State. Gadfly Indie candidate Gatewood Galbraith drew 8 percent in the survey. The key point of the poll, however, laid in the fact that all the Dems running for statewide office led their GOP rivals, by margins ranging from 9-29 points.
In non-gubernatorial statewide 2011 election news, PPP offered potentially gratifying news out of Ohio, where a repudiation of the Republican attempt to shatter unions in Ohio looked very likely in their latest poll in the Buckeye State. After some earlier tightening, opposition to the union-busting SB5 has solidified, with 56 percent now standing in opposition versus just 36 percent in support.
In 2012 polling news, the Democrats might be able to hold onto nominally Red Montana, if a new poll sponsored by the DGA and Project New West is to be believed. The poll, conducted by Keating Research, gives Democratic state attorney general Steve Bullock a narrow lead (42-38) over the presumed GOP frontrunner, former Rep. Rick Hill. Hill had retained little recognition from his days a decade ago as a member of Congress, according to the poll, and what little memory remained of him was not necessarily good (his favs/unfavs were underwater).
ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL:
- Speaking of that trainwreck of a gubernatorial race in Kentucky, GOPer David Williams was battered again this week with another pretty embarrassing (and damned funny) revelation. You might recall that the GOP group "Restoring America" had curiously elected to drop a shitload of money into this race, prompting questions like (a) who is this group? and (b) why the hell are you dropping fat cash on this lost cause? Well, now we now the answers to both questions: after a judge had halted ads by the group until they complied with donor disclosure requirements, the "group" unmasked, showing that the primary (well, make that only) donor to the group was none other than Williams' father-in-law, Terry Stephens. You might recall that Stephens also dumped seven figures on the Republican Governors' Association this summer, which seemed pretty damned curious at the time, given that his daughter's hubby was running for governor of Kentucky.
- Speaking of trainwrecks, the whispers grew ever louder this week that we may not have scandal-battered Republican contender Peter Kinder to kick around much longer in Missouri. The GOP's Lt. Governor, who seemed to be fumbling away a winnable race against Democratic Gov. Jay Nixon with his penchant for high living and seedy sources of entertainment (bars with "pantsless" parties, anyone?), is apparently on the outs with his party, who is now actively seeking out an alternative to Kinder. Names being bandied about include 2010 Congressional contender Ed Martin (currently planning a bid in MO-02) and businessman Dave Spence.
- As the effort to recall Gov. Scott Walker starts rolling in Wisconsin, we might be seeing our first indications of the Democratic field to try to replace him. Recently retired Rep. David Obey, who served in the House for over three decades, indicated some interest this week, though he pointedly deferred to retiring Sen. Herb Kohl and Milwaukee Mayor Tom Barrett. Kohl is already a clear "no", but Barrett has not closed the door on it as of yet. In other news on the Wisconsin front this week, it was determined by elections officials that the state senate recalls next year, should they happen, will happen under the old maps. This does negate any benefit the GOP might have attained from their ability to gerrymander the future maps in the Badger State.