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6:17 AM PT (James L): FL-10: House Majority PAC and the SEIU have ponied up $215K apiece on an ad buy slamming GOP Rep. Daniel Webster on Medicare. Coming on top of $160K spent by EMILY's List on this race, that adds up to around $600K spent in total by Democratic-affiliated groups in this district, with no commensurate Republican response. While it may have looked like Webster would escape a serious threat after the redistricting process gifted him with a more favorable district (one that Obama lost by 5% in 2008), it seems that Democrats are still high on the candidacy of former Orlando Police Chief Val Demings. This is definitely a race to keep on your watch list.
8:23 AM PT: VA-02: This is rough stuff for pushback, but whatcha gonna do? In response to a Thursday internal from GOP Rep. Scott Rigell that had him up 54-32, Democrat Paul Hirschbiel is offering up his own poll (from Benenson) that has him losing by "only" 49-40. Seeing as Hirschbiel's poll was actually taken a couple of weeks before Rigell's, he presumably realized they weren't the kind of numbers you want to share—until Rigell made it absolutely necessary to do so. Hirschbiel says that a previously unreleased poll from June had him losing 51-31, so sure, he's improved his standing somewhat. But when your opponent is at 49 even in your own poll, that's not an optimistic sign.
8:35 AM PT: IL-08: I guess we should be glad they picked such a pointless target: Now or Never PAC, the conservative outfit that was once singularly devoted to winning the Missouri GOP Senate nomination for Sarah Steelman, has of late turned to helping Joe Walsh, of all people, in his nearly hopeless re-election race against Democrat Tammy Duckworth. And they've now spent a monster $1.75 million on that endeavor—something I'm sure Duckworth doesn't appreciate in the least, but polling still shows her set to win handily, and I'll bet the DCCC is breathing a sigh of relief that Now or Never has chosen to target this race rather than one more marginal for Team Blue. And it hasn't been smooth sailing for the super PAC, which had to go back and re-do its most recent ad after it got yanked off the air for containing falsehoods.
8:52 AM PT: Polltopia: Remember The Onion story "Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades"—and then Gillette actually went out and made a razor with five blades? That's Tom Jensen for you, my friends, who's now saying, "Fuck it! Let's do SIX polls a week!" So in addition to Minnesota, Nevada, Virginia, and Wisconsin, PPP will also go into the field in Massachusetts and Montana. And they're looking for question suggestions in all six states. So head on over there, damn the torpedoes, and help make it happen!
9:25 AM PT: FL-02: Hel-lo! Here's the poll we've been looking for: As the DCCC started unexpectedly advertising in FL-02 and then the NRCC followed suit, we wondered if this was a head-fake or if something was actually stirring here. Well, according to the D-Trip's new internal from Lester & Associates, we may have a legit race on our hands. They show GOP freshman Steve Southerland tied at just 43 with Democrat Al Lawson—a pretty good place for Lawson to be and a rather bad spot for Southerland. The presidential toplines are very believable, with Romney leading Obama 47-46 (McCain won 52-47). Interestingly, the poll was taken mid-September, which suggests that the DCCC may have wanted to sneak on to the air before making it clear just how competitive this race is. We'll just have to see how Republicans respond.
10:22 AM PT (David Jarman): HI-01, HI-02: The race in HI-01, where GOP accidental half-term Rep. Charles Djou is running a rematch against Democratic Rep. Colleen Hanabusa, has been easily the cycle's sleepiest member-vs.-ex-member race, but it's suddenly on people's minds today, thanks to a Civil Beat poll from Merriman River Group. It finds Hanabusa leading Djou only 49-44. Considering that Merriman River Group has had a Hawaii track record can politely called "erratic," though, and also the fact that the national committees haven't shown a peep of interest here, this poll kind of smells like a misfire. More support for that theory... Merriman River Group's director effectively agrees:
"I think Djou's numbers are artificially inflated," said Matt Fitch, executive director of Merriman River Group, which partners with Civil Beat on its polls. "It wouldn't surprise me to see Hanabusa win by a very comfortable margin."
Meanwhile, the open seat race over in HI-02 (which you might expect, given that it's open, to be more competitive) looks like a total blowout. Dem Tulsi Gabbard is leading GOPer Kawika Crowley by a 70-18 margin. Given the indifference with which Hawaiians seem to treat the borders between their two districts, you've gotta wonder if Djou -- who this poll suggests still has some goodwill left over -- might have been better off pursuing the open seat here instead of seeking vengeance against Hanabusa.
10:30 AM PT: Race Ratings: We're making a number of changes this week, to all three of our charts: Senate, House, and Governor. First up are four Senate shifts, all of which favor Democrats:
• AZ-Sen (Lean R to Tossup): It's hard to believe we're here, but we are: Arizona's open Senate race is in tossup territory. A run of polls has shown Democrat Rich Carmona neck-and-neck with Rep. Jeff Flake, who is running well behind his fellow Republican at the top of the ticket, Mitt Romney. Now, both the DSCC and NRSC are advertising here, the ultimate hallmark of a competitive race. Arizona's demographics probably still point to a slight edge for the GOP, but this seat is very much up-for-grabs.
• FL-Sen (Lean D to Likely D): It's funny how savior candidates work out sometimes: After Rep. Connie Mack unexpectedly bailed on a Senate run, the GOP was left with a field of third-tier hacks—so weak, in fact, that the establishment prevailed on Mack to change his mind (again) and run after all. Only Mack didn't prove to be much better than the existing options, with his weak fundraising and Animal House pedigree. National Republicans have largely given up any hope of beating Dem Sen. Bill Nelson, who's held very comfortable leads in all recent polling.
• MI-Sen (Lean D to Likely D): Yeah, once upon a time, a few conservative pundits conned themselves into believing ex-Rep. Pete Hoekstra was a top-tier recruit. But after he shot both of his own feet off with his unforgettably disastrous "Debbie Spend-it-now" Super Bowl ad, only the most obstinate analysts could fail to realize Republicans had a serious problem on their hands. Hoekstra, as ever, remained a poor fundraiser and a lousy candidate, and Dem Sen. Debbie Stabenow's poll numbers have been strong. Mitt Romney's inability to compete in Michigan ("Let Detroit Go Bankrupt") hasn't helped matters for the GOP, either.
• WA-Sen (Likely D to Safe D): Republicans don't have much of a bench in Washington, but they came up particularly light on the Senate recruitment front this cycle. State Sen. Michael Baumgartner's raised bupkes, polls show Dem Sen. Maria Cantwell totally dominant, and the national GOP has never so much as hinted they think there's anything doing here.
10:30 AM PT (David Jarman): VA-Sen: Even the Razmanian Devil is finding that Democratic ex-Gov. Tim Kaine is gaining some momentum in the Virginia Senate race, starting to outpace Barack Obama considerably. In the same Oct. 4 sample that had Obama trailing Mitt Romney by 1, they also find Kaine leading George Allen 52-45. (A month ago they had it at Kaine 47, Allen 45.)
10:39 AM PT (David Jarman): FL-18: Being a Republican seems like it's always an adventure in cognitive dissonance, and today finds them pivoting from substituting an alternate polling reality to an alternate jobs-calculating reality. (Rather than calling them "jobs truthers" or some such, we're just going to call them Welchers.) At any rate, if you were to guess that Allen West would be the first elected Republican to jump on that train... well, that would be completely predictable, so you don't win anything.
10:49 AM PT (David Jarman): IL-12: On the one hand, We Ask America (the polling arm of the Illinois Manufacturers' Association) made their bones with some prescient polling of Illinois House races in the 2010 cycle. On the other hand, they've been stinking up the joint with some R-leaning swing state polls this year. With that in mind, I'll leave it to you to decide how much weight to give their new poll of the open 12th, where they find Republican Jason Plummer leading Dem Bill Enyart 44-40. (That contrasts with a poll for House Majority PAC that had Enyart up 8... and another sketchily-reported Democratic poll from last week that apparently has Enyart up 3.)
10:55 AM PT (David Jarman): NM-Sen: Environmental groups seem to have put a particular premium on the New Mexico Senate race there, and we have yet another poll of the race funded by a coalition of enviro groups and taken by PPP. This race is just remarkably consistent (with the exception of that stray "I'm not dead yet" internal from Heather Wilson last week), almost always producing an 8-10 pt. lead for Dem Martin Heinrich in recent months; this poll is no exception, with Heinrich up 51-41. Top of the ticket, Barack Obama leads Mitt Romney 52-43.
11:04 AM PT (David Jarman): MA-06: I'd expect that the National Education Association has a few civics teachers among its members, so maybe they explained to their leadership how that whole majority-rules thing works in the House. At any rate, the NEA is finally putting some money behind an actual Democrat (and even in a race where the opposition is one of those smiley-faced, non-insane Republicans). They're putting down $500K on Dem John Tierney's behalf, with an ad buy against Richard Tisei.
11:28 AM PT: Race Ratings:
• IN-Gov (Likely R to Safe R): Democrats did a good job recruiting former state House Speaker John Gregg for this open seat, but GOP Rep. Mike Pence is himself a very strong candidate who has raised scads of money. Just as importantly, Indiana's red hue has reasserted itself, and despite winning the state four years ago, Barack Obama isn't spending money here this time. And while the Senate race is unusually promising for Team Blue, but Republicans nominated a very damaged and very flawed Richard Mourdock. They aren't suffering from the same problems in the governor's race, and national groups haven't shown any interest in coming in to help out Gregg.
• NC-Gov (Lean R to Likely R): We tried to give Lt. Gov. Walter Dalton every benefit of the doubt, based largely on some polls taken after he won the Democratic nomination that showed him closing the gap with Republican Pat McCrory. But more recent polling has shown the Democrat consistently down double digits. The DGA (and the RGA, too) have been on the air here recently, but it's just about impossible to see a path to victory for Dalton. Fairly or not, he seems to be weighed down by the albatross that is Bev Perdue, North Carolina's very unpopular outgoing governor. "Likely R" almost seems generous at this point.
• WA-Gov (Tossup to Lean D): After a spring and early summer where it looked like Democrat Jay Inslee was never going to break out of trailing by mid-single-digits, the tables have completely turned in the last few months, and now Inslee routinely leads the polls by mid-single-digits instead. And that includes the most important "poll" of all, August's top-two primary, which functions as a kind of super-poll with a sample size over one million and an "actual voter" screen; Inslee won that round over Rob McKenna 47-43. It seems like the affable Inslee finally broke through the clutter at right around the same time that people started realizing that, smart as he may seem, McKenna just isn't that likeable. (David Jarman)
12:57 PM PT: The Live Digest continues here.