Want the scoop on hot races around the country? Get the digest emailed to you each weekday morning.
Sign up here.
Leading Off:
• MA-Sen (PDF): In case you haven't seen it yet, a new Princeton Survey Research poll for UMass-Lowell and the Boston Herald has Elizabeth Warren leading Scott Brown by seven points, 49-42. That's up from a 41-38 Brown lead in late September—which must be causing serious gnashing of teeth at the conservative Herald. But there's a note of caution here: The barrage of negative ads targeting Warren (see the MA-Sen item on Crossroads GPS below) seem to be having an effect. Her negatives increased twice as fast as her positives, going from a 30-18 favorability rating to 34-27. But Brown's seen some erosion, too, moving from 52-29 to 48-35.
Senate:
• HI-Sen, CT-Sen, NM-Sen: Hawaii's Ed Case is staying true to form: In the wake of DSCC chair Patty Murray's personal endorsement of Rep. Mazie Hirono, Case is whinging about his opponent "selling her candidacy to the DC insiders." I think whining about "DC insiders" is part of the loser-speak trifecta, along with, "The only poll that matters is the one on election day" and "Our supporters don't care how much money we raise."
You won't be surprised to see who else is kvetching about "DC insiders": Yep, it's former Connecticut SoS Susan Bysiewicz, who was also snubbed at Murray's recent briefing for reporters in favor of Rep. Chris Murphy. Bysiewicz has long been running on this theme, and now adds: "My opponent is the favorite of K Street, and my supporters are on Main Street." If this is so, then why does Murphy have so many more small donors?
And while we're still on the topic, Murray also had kind words for Rep. Martin Heinrich, who also faces a contested primary for the Democratic Senate nomination in New Mexico. The trickier thing here is that Heinrich's opponent, Hector Balderas, has "close ties to Hispanics" (as the Albuquerque Journal puts it—a group that Murray and the DSCC obviously don't want to antagonize by big-footing this race. If I were in Murray's shoes, I think I'd just stay quiet and let this particular contest play out.
• IN-Sen: I guess Bob Thomas probably already has a sweet clown car all picked out, since he is, after all, an auto dealer by trade. The wealthy Republican, whose name first emerged as a possible Senate candidate back in November, now says he "will be a yes, based on everything I know." As I noted at the time (and as the Hotline's Sean Sullivan concurs), this is good news for Sen. Dick Lugar, since Thomas would join Treasurer Richard Mourdock in the GOP primary and should help split the anti-incumbent vote.
• MA-, MO-, MT-, NE-Sen: Another big blast from Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS, which says it's spending a million bucks attacking Dem Sens. Claire McCaskill (MO), Jon Tester (MT), Ben Nelson (NE), and Democratic hopeful Elizabeth Warren (MA). Fully half of the buy is devoted to the Warren spot, which is about as deceitful as you can get in that classic Rovian way. It conflates Warren's role in auditing TARP with actually handing out bailouts to big banks, an attempt to turn the number one consumer protection advocate into some kind of crony capitalist. Watch:
However, I'm permanently skeptical of the figures Crossroads claims to be shelling out. When they ran an anti-Warren ad in November, their press release said they were spending $600K on the flight. But
a Hotline report put the actual number at only $240K, and Crossroads never disputed it. I'm sure they're spending real money, but it may be less than they're promising.
• ME-Sen: Former SoS Matt Dunlap, who formed an exploratory committee in November, will officially kick off his campaign for Senate this weekend. He'll join state Rep. Jon Hinck in seeking the Democratic nod to take on Sen. Olympia Snowe next year.
• PA-Sen: Former coal company owner Tom Smith will be the first Republican to go on the air, with a decent-sized buy of $160K backing a mostly positive bio spot. (He'd previously seeded his campaign with a $750K personal loan.) You can watch the ad here or below:
House:
• CT-05: Foreign policy analyst Mike Williams, who dropped out of the Democratic primary in late October after failing to get much fundraising traction, just endorsed one of his former rivals, former state Rep. Elizabeth Esty.
• MA-04: To date, no one on the long list of possible Democratic replacements for Rep. Barney Frank has formally entered the race, and Roll Call's Joshua Miller offers a reason why: Prosecutor Joseph P. Kennedy III is still considering the race, and his powerful family name could have an outsized effect on the contest if he enters it. But despite his pedigree, Kennedy is only 31 years old and doesn't actually live in the redrawn 4th District, so even if he does get in, I think he'd face some (probably serious) opposition. Even Teddy Kennedy didn't have a completely smooth ride to fill his brother Jack's Senate seat back in 1962.
• MD-06: Milad Pooran, a 34-year-old physician who served as a combat medic in Iraq as part of his service in the Air National Guard reserve, is joining the Democratic primary field in the 6th CD. Already in the race are two much bigger names: state Sen. Robert Garagiola and former Montgomery County Council member Duchy Trachtenberg.
• OR-01: The DCCC has now posted their new attack ad hitting Republican Rob Cornilles, who probably really regrets saying on camera last year that he was "the original Tea Party candidate". Watch at the link or below:
A source tells Jess Taylor that the D-Trip is
spending very heavily on the buy: some $440K, across both broadcast and cable TV. Meanwhile, Cornilles is out with a
spot of his own (his first of the general election), touting his record on job creation:
•
TX-06: Uh, wow. That is a
lot of money. David Alameel, described as a "Dallas dentist and horse racing advocate," says he'll run against 14-term Republican Rep. Joe Barton. Either he's yanked a lot of teeth or done really well with the ponies, because Alameel says he's seeding his campaign kitty with $2
million. That oughta put a pretty good fright into Barton, who just saw his district get turned from a 60-40 McCain seat to one that McCain only won by a 54-45 margin.
The hat-tip on this one goes to trowaman, who also points out that Alameel has a very mixed record on campaign donations. Early last decade, he mostly gave to Democrats, then gave heavily to Republicans in 2006 & 2008, but apparently took last cycle off before turning the spigot back on for Dems this year.
Meanwhile, on the GOP side, we somehow ran across Joe Chow's fugly website back in August and were a bit mystified as to why this former mayor of Addison, TX was challenging Rep. Joe Barton in the GOP primary—not least of all because Addison isn't even in the 6th District. Well, the court-drawn interim map didn't change that fact, but Chow has now gone ahead and formally filed to run in the 6th. With news that Democrats now plan to seriously contest this seat (see TX-06 item above), it'd be great if Chow dinged up Barton a bit… or somehow pulled off a very unlikely upset.
Redistricting Roundup:
• NM Redistricting: The trial over New Mexico's congressional map has concluded, and the judge hearing the case says he hopes to make a decision by Dec. 21. After that, of course, appeals are still possible.
• NV Redistricting: Nevada just became the second state to finalize a court-drawn congressional map, hot on the heels of Colorado. As expected, a Wednesday deadline passed without any challenges being filed to the maps drawn by a trio of special masters and adopted by District Judge James Russell in late October. (This actually goes for both the legislative and congressional plans.) To stay current on the status of redistricting in all 50 states, bookmark our handy Redistricting Tracker.
• NY Redistricting: Hmm. Liz Benjamin of Capitol Tonight reported that the legislature's redistricting commission, known as LATFOR, would publish proposed maps on Dec. 19… but then said a different source told her that "there's no timetable" for releasing any plans. So, mark that date on your calendars, but in pencil.