Want the scoop on hot races around the country? Get the digest emailed to you each weekday morning.
Sign up here.
Leading Off:
• MO-Sen: Okay, so this is old news to you by now:
"First of all, from what I understand from doctors [pregnancy from rape] is really rare," [Republican Rep. Todd] Akin told KTVI-TV in an interview posted Sunday. "If it's a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down."
Akin said that even in the worst-case scenario—when the supposed natural protections against unwanted pregnancy fail—abortion should still not be a legal option for the rape victim.
"Let's assume that maybe that didn't work, or something," Akin said. "I think there should be some punishment, but the punishment ought to be on the rapist and not attacking the child."
With these remarks, Rep. Todd Akin went supernova and made himself the third most-famous Republican running for office this year, much to the chagrin of his own party. All day Monday, high-powered Republicans furiously tried to pry Akin loose from the race, with endless anonymous remarks flying about the Internet claiming the congressman was on the verge of dropping out. Thing is, if anyone had any leverage over Akin, he'd already be gone, and there'd be no need to publicly issue the kind of threats that have been made. (Perhaps the most over-the-top came from Crossroads GPS, which said it was
cancelling an ad run this week on Akin's behalf, explaining that the "act speaks for itself"—but it was later reported that Crossroads left a much larger fall buy
intact.)
I don't claim any ability to predict the future, but the fact is, Akin's 65 years old, he had to give up his seat in the House to run for Senate, and won a pretty serious primary upset. This is the capstone of his career, and there really isn't any inducement anyone can offer him to step aside—hence the threats. He may still prefer to quit, in the end, but I seriously doubt that national Republicans would write off this race entirely if he refuses to step aside. So the bluff is his to call, and indeed, he's made multiple statements that he intends to forge ahead, and has even started running online ads saying he "staying in." Of course, you can still find tea leaves that augur in the other direction, like the fact that he abruptly cancelled a Monday night interview with CNN's Piers Morgan at the last moment.
So what happens next? A lot of people, including Akin himself, seem to think that Tuesday at the close of business is the deadline for him bail. But based on my read of section 115.359 of Missouri election law, even if Akin misses today's cutoff, he can still get off the ballot by "the sixth Tuesday before the election" (Sept. 25) as long as he gets a court order (which is to be "freely given" unless election officials can show "good cause" to deny it), and he agrees to pay any ballot reprinting costs. In other words, he still has plenty of time to get out, and if he does, a party committee would pick a replacement.
But Akin may be acting canny here: If he convinces the establishment that Tuesday is the drop-dead date, then he only has to endure one more day of intense pressure. Still, the NRSC's lawyers aren't going to be fooled, and we may be treated to quite a bit more pleading, cajoling, and threatening yet. But if Akin does call their bluff, then the GOP will eventually have to lay off and make their peace with the man. After all, he's theirs—legitimately.
P.S. In the "funny timing" department, the DSCC just threw on another $402K for ads attacking Akin, in an IE report filed on Monday but referencing an expenditure made on Friday. I wonder if they'll delay their latest assault for a little bit, though, to give Akin time to shore up his standing.
Senate:
• WI-Sen: Seriously, is this a joke? Newly nominated GOP Senate hopeful Tommy Thompson, who has been a total jerkface about releasing his tax returns, now has this to say:
"I pay 31 percent of my gross revenue into taxes. That's much more than Congresswoman Baldwin is," Thompson said on "Upfront with Mike Gousha" on WISN-TV (Channel 12) in Milwaukee.
"That is what I pay. That's what I paid this year, that's what I paid last year and that's a higher percentage than Barack Obama, Mitt Romney, Paul Ryan and Congresswoman Baldwin. I'm the highest and I think that's enough. I can put it out there and show everybody that I paid 31 percent of my gross income to taxes. That's a lot of money."
Thompson did not provide proof of the 31 percent and repeated he would not release his returns.
Um, dude, you don't get to make this claim and still refuse to release your tax records.
Gubernatorial:
• NH-Gov: In addition to her "pledge zombies" ad, Democrat Jackie Cilley is also out with a more traditional introductory spot, offering a bit of bio and background on her priorities when she served in the legislature ("good jobs" via "better schools, good roads, and good bridges"). But she also hits the pledge theme again, once again saying she "won't play pledge politics" because "jobs have to come first."
House:
• CO-07: Here's another one of those "does anyone believe this crap?" kind of polls. Republican Joe Coors is pushing month-old numbers from OnMessage that purport to give him a 45-36 lead over Dem Rep. Ed Perlmutter. Obviously there are no Obama-Romney numbers here, but I'm just not buying this survey.
• FL-10: Democrat Val Demings is out with her first ad, an introductory spot in which she references her humble upbringing and describes her rise to chief of police for the city of Orlando. Demings has a terrific biography, and it seems to me that this is exactly what she should be leading with as she introduces herself to voters. She's looking to unseat freshman GOPer Daniel Webster.
• IL-17: Back in May, when GOP freshman Bobby Schilling released an internal poll from Public Opinion Strategies showing him up 51-35 over Democrat Cheri Bustos, I was skeptical of the results because the same survey showed Barack Obama beating Mitt Romney by just 10 points, in a district where Obama defeated McCain by 22. But Bustos never released contradictory numbers, and now Schilling is out with a second survey that still has him up 50-37. In response to this latest poll, Bustos amazingly pointed to a February internal from GBA Strategies that had Schilling up "only" 44-35!
Now, the air wars haven't really begun here, and POS didn't bother to provide Obama-Romney toplines this time, so who knows what kind of sample they turned up. But we're finding the Bustos pushback (or really, lack thereof) pretty concerning. We originally filed this race as "Lean D" thanks in large part to the district's demographics, but it now looks like it'll be a tougher battle for Democrats than we expected. Therefore, we're changing our rating on this race to Tossup.
• KS-03: If you want a break from Akin-mania, this story is damn funny:
The FBI probed a late-night swim in the Sea of Galilee that involved drinking, numerous GOP freshmen lawmakers, top leadership staff—and one nude member of Congress, according to more than a dozen sources, including eyewitnesses.
During a fact-finding congressional trip to the Holy Land last summer, Rep. Kevin Yoder (R-Kan.) took off his clothes and jumped into the sea, joining a number of members, their families and GOP staff during a night out in Israel, the sources told POLITICO. Other participants, including the daughter of another congressman, swam fully clothed, while some lawmakers partially disrobed. More than 20 people took part in the late-night dip in the sea, according to sources who were participants in the trip. [...]
These GOP sources confirmed the following freshmen lawmakers also went swimming that night: Rep. Steve Southerland (R-Fla.) and his daughter; Rep. Tom Reed (R-N.Y.) and his wife; Reps. Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.), Jeff Denham (R-Calif.) and Michael Grimm (R-N.Y.). Many of the lawmakers who ventured into the lake said they did so because of the religious significance of the waters. Others said they were simply cooling off after a long day. Several privately admitted that alcohol may have played a role in why some of those present decided to jump in.
I love that last line. More at the link, including reports that Eric Cantor (the lone Jewish Republican in Congress) flipped out at his charges after these hijinks. A lot of press releases hit my in-box throughout the day on Monday about this story—in total, something like 30 GOP congressmembers were on the trip (not just those listed above), so pretty much everyone is busy issuing denials or CYA statements about what they did or didn't do at Animal House on the Galilee. There is one unfortunate detail, though: Yoder, a freshman, doesn't even have a Democratic opponent this year—even though his seat was held by a Democrat as recently as last cycle, and his seat is the bluest in Kansas. I can't believe he'll swim free on this one.
• NV-04: I presume that Republican Danny Tarkanian has leaked his latest internal poll to reassure donors that despite a disastrous week—in which he accused his black opponent of "pretending to be black" and then also told a judge he'd have to file bankruptcy if he's forced to pay a $17 million judgment against him—he's still in the game. His new numbers, from Public Opinion Strategies, have him up 46-35 over Democrat Steven Horsford. That's basically unchanged from a December poll (also from POS), which gave Tarkanian a 47-36 edge—and a static race makes sense, since the air wars have only just begun. (A late June poll from a different outfit, the Tarrance Group, had Tark on top 47-41.)
But I don't think these results are as good for Tark as you might think: Horsford is still largely unknown, while the Tarkanian name is famous in Nevada, and Tark has run several races before. Indeed, POS notes that Horsford is currently only earning the vote of 65% of self-identified Democrats, but they seem to think this is a positive sign for their client. It isn't: Tark doesn't have much crossover appeal, and Horsford should not have much trouble consolidating the Democratic vote, especially with Obama at the top of the ticket. Speaking of which, this polling memo didn't bother to include the presidential toplines, which is my latest hobby-horse: If you aren't showing us that data, how are we supposed to trust your poll?
• NY-11: Here's another Republican (along with Kansas's Kevin Yoder and basically any member of Congress who participated in that "Animal House on the Galilee" junket to Israel) who's surely grateful for Todd Akin going nova: freshman Rep. Mike Grimm, who just saw one of his top fundraisers, Ofer Biton, arrested by the FBI. Biton, an Israeli citizen—perhaps not coincidentally—is charged with immigration fraud, in particular for "deceiv[ing] the government in June 2010 about the source of $500,000 that he claimed to have put into a new business that was to make him eligible for a permanent visa."
As the New York Times explains, the criminal complaint filed against Biton "strongly hints that the money was raised through more coercive means, like extortion." Not at all coincidentally, Biton also was reportedly responsible for raising about half a million for Grimm's first election campaign in 2009-10, and a previous NYT report indicated that the money came from congregants of an Orthodox rabbi, whom Biton is accused of embezzling millions from. Grimm has spent a lot of time fantasizing that the media is out to get him over this story; is the FBI in on it, too?
• NY-27 (PDF): Here's that expected Siena poll of the race in New York's revised 27th Congressional District. They have Dem Rep. Kathy Hochul trailing former Erie County exec Chris Collins, 47-45. That's a damn sight closer than that survey from Republican pollster National Research last week which put Collins up by an impossible-to-believe 47-34 spread. And unlike that NR poll, we actually have presidential numbers here: Mitt Romney leads Barack Obama 53-41, a very plausible result since John McCain carried the reconfigured district with a 54-44 margin in 2008.
Still, this poll, if accurate, shows that Hochul has a tough road to re-election ahead of her—something I don't think anyone disagrees with. To that end, she's out with her first ad, in which she touts her votes for a balanced budget amendment and for cutting aid to Pakistan as evidence of her willingness to make "tough choices." No word on the size of the buy.
Grab Bag:
• DCCC/NRCC: The one good thing about TV ad spending by campaign committees is that, thanks to independent expenditure reporting requirements, you always get to find out the size of the buy ("SOTB"). And here we have IE reports for both the DCCC's and NRCC's first set of ads. For the Dems, they spent just $28K in MI-01 and only $21K in NC-07. The GOP shelled out a lot more, though since the NRCC didn't separate out production costs from their media buys, it's a little hard to tell exactly (though a decent rule of thumb is that creating an ad should cost around $10-20K). In GA-12, they're forking out $154K; KY-06, $105K; NC-07, $103K; and PA-12, $159K.