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12:04 PM PT: CT-Sen (Gotham Research for Murphy): Chris Murphy (D): 47, Linda McMahon (R): 41.
12:11 PM PT: IN-Gov: Democrat John Gregg has a new internal from Benenson showing his gap with Republican Mike Pence tightening by four points... but the bad news is that he's still down 46-40 with less than two weeks to go. In September, Gregg's previously unreleased internals had him trailing 50-40 (and 53-35 in July), but it's pretty hard to feel like there's any reason for optimism here.
12:25 PM PT (David Jarman): NC-Gov: No doubt your attention, concerning the new PPP poll of North Carolina, is on the presidential numbers, which find a 48-48 tie in the supposedly-locked-down state, with a 57-42 Barack Obama lead among those who've already voted. Nevertheless, it's a full pollapalooza of the statewide offices, too. The top slot is bad news, though no surprise (GOPer Pat McCrory leads Dem Walter Dalton 50-37, though Dalton leads 49-44 among those who've already voted). Better news for the Dems is that their incumbents are winning all the tested Council of State races, including SoS Elaine Marshall (up 43-38), Sup't of Public Instruction June Atkinson (42-40), Insurance Comm. Wayne Goodwin (45-36), and Auditor Beth Wood (45-38). (GOP incumbent Labor Comm. Cherie Berry is also winning her race; oddly, the open seat Lt. Governor's race doesn't seem to have been polled.) The Dems also lead the generic legislative ballot 46-42.
12:53 PM PT: MI-11: I'm not sure quite what to make of pollster FMW/B—their latest presidential poll in Michigan, for instance, has the race tied at 47 apiece, which sounds basically impossible. But here they are with the first survey of the bizarre vacant-seat race in MI-11, finding Republican Kerry Bentivolio up 47-39 over Democrat Syed Taj. The survey contains a lot of things I wouldn't include in a normal public poll (like negative message tests!), and even asks about ex-Rep. Thad McCotter's "petition signature scandal" before getting to the horserace question, so I'm not sold on any of this. Oh, and there are no presidential toplines... but I wouldn't be inclined to trust those anyway.
1:15 PM PT: Oh, you dumb fucker:
Also asked if campaign gained votes after the abortion comment, Mourdock replied: "I know we did."
1:39 PM PT: WI-Sen: In the previous digest, I said I thought Tommy Thompson would regret opening up the door on 9/11 with his grotesque ad attacking Democrat Tammy Baldwin. Now I know he is. The IAFF and the Professional Fire Fighters of Wisconsin are now out with a spot of their own just hammering the Republican. "Tommy Thompson is using 9/11 for his political gain," says the narrator. "As firefighters, we have to ask: Have you no sense of decency, sir?" Damn.
1:50 PM PT: NV-03: SurveyUSA, on behalf of the Las Vegas Review-Journal and 8NewsNow, finds GOP Rep. Joe Heck leading Democrat John Oceguera 50-40, their first poll of the race. There are no presidential toplines, but here's a big red flag: Hispanics are supporting Heck by a 53-36 margin. They only make up 10% of respondents, so this sub-sample is very small (~50), but this is a problem SUSA's had in prior Nevada polling.
1:55 PM PT: And here we go: The DSCC just launched a new anti-Mourdock ad that of course features his "God intended that to happen" remarks. The narrator then says that "Even Mitt Romney and Mike Pence believe Richard Mourdock goes too far."
2:08 PM PT: MA-06: Does Dem Rep. John Tierney still have a shot? Even though he apparently went dark a couple of weeks ago, and even though his campaign never responded to a devastating internal poll for Republican Richard Tisei that had him trailing by 17, the House Majority PAC is out with a new ad running on Boston TV that's "part of a $320,000 buy" on Tierney's behalf.
2:12 PM PT: DCCC: I wouldn't try looking for tea leaves in this move—it's really just standard operating procedure. The Washington Post reports that the DCCC just borrowed $17 million to support its efforts in the final stretch run—a move the committee has made pretty much every cycle for many years. So given how common such loans are, I don't think you can say that this signals either optimism or desperation. If anything, I suspect that this borrowing was planned long ago as part of the D-Trip's expected 2012 budget.
2:29 PM PT: CA-10: You know how they say in politics, when you're explaining, you're losing? Well, I think when you're suing, you're losing to. Republican Rep. Jeff Denham is howling about a new DCCC ad that claims: "With a government shutdown looming in Washington, Denham voted against a measure to guarantee our troops would still receive their pay." Denham's threatening to sue the D-Trip to get them to stop airing the ad—but that just means that local television stations are ignoring his requests to do so. (Or, weirdly, he's just trying to make a fuss in the press without even bothering to issue takedown demands.) Not a winning move, either way.
2:35 PM PT: CT-Sen: It looks like outside Democratic groups will be staying on the air through election day in Connecticut, with the DSCC spending $1.1 million for the final two weeks and Majority PAC chipping in $900K. That would be $6.5 million in total Nutmeg State outlays between the two groups—an unfortunate but understandable expense, given Republican Linda McMahon's bottomless personal wealth.
Speaking of McMahon, this is hilarious—I love the lede:
Only Donald Trump can seemingly turn an act of charity into the plague.
The single largest contributor to the Donald J. Trump Foundation — as listed on 990 forms filed with the Internal Revenue Service — is denying it gave $5 million to the coiffed one.
World Wrestling Entertainment, which now just goes by the WWE, distanced itself Wednesday from Trump, amid The Donald's promise to pay $5 million to the charity of President Obama's choice if the commander-in-chief releases all of his college and passport records.
2:40 PM PT: Sen. Al Franken, who now occupies the same seat Wellstone once held and was a great friend of the deceased, has an especially moving memoriam to the late senator.
2:44 PM PT: AAN/CLF: The two-headed cyborg known as the American Action Network and the Congressional Leadership Fund are unleashing another $4.5 million in TV advertising spread across 13 districts. The Fix has the full list (as well as the breakdowns for each buy) at the link.
2:50 PM PT: NRSC: And finally, here's the NRSC with its own hefty $4.5 million report.
3:45 PM PT (David Jarman): PA-Sen: Although the Pennsylvania Senate race has tightened in the closing weeks, that's mostly been a factor of Republican Tom Smith's endless self-funding on adds -- not quite at Linda McMahonesque levels, but in the eight digits -- rather than via the intervention of outside groups. So the entry of a GOP Super PAC into the air wars here is noteworthy; the "Fight for the Dream PAC" (whose first exposure to the sunlight was the release of an internal poll earlier this week) is out with a new anti-Bob Casey ad. The backstory on the PAC is interesting, though: they're closely Smith-linked, anyway. Of the $380K they reported having on hand, $240K of its contributions came from Rosebud Mining, the firm that purchased Smith's coal mine holdings in 2010.