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Leading Off:
• IN-Sen: Look out! Dem Rep. Joe Donnelly's own internal pollster, Global Strategy Group, confirms the movement in his direction that the DSCC's firm, Anzalone Liszt, hinted at last week, in the wake of Richard Mourdock's instantly infamous comments about rape and God's will. Donnelly is now beating Mourdock 43-36, while Libertarian Andrew Horning is at 9, up from 40-38-8 a week ago. In a two-way matchup, Donnelly is ahead 47-38. (Anzalone had Donnelly leading 47-40 in the three-way.)
Mourdock tried to pre-empt this news with another internal of his own (from McLaughlin) that has him ahead 45-44-4, little changed from his 44-44-6 numbers a week ago. As has regularly been the case, though, his sample skews very old, and he also has Obama down 18 points (57-39). That's not impossible, I suppose, but that would nevertheless be quite a steep drop for the POTUS, all the way down to John Kerry levels.
There was also a third poll out of rarely-surveyed Indiana on Wednesday, on behalf of the DGA and Democrat John Gregg's gubernatorial campaign. In IN-Gov, Clarity Campaign Labs has Gregg trailing GOP Rep. Mike Pence by a surprisingly tiny 47-44 margin (much closer than any other poll has seen it). But Clarity's memo also says that Donnelly is ahead 49-42, similar to what both GSG and Anzalone have seen.
Pence, by the way, decided to respond with his own internal (from the oddly named "the polling company, inc./WomanTrend"), which has him up 46-37—quite a bit weaker than I'd have expected for a powerful Republican running in a red state with a ton of money. But here's the most telling thing: Unlike Gregg, Pence didn't release Mourdock numbers. Pence surely tested the Senate race—Mourdock's big mouth has definitely made Indiana politics go topsy-turvy, and a good pollster wants to get a holistic snapshot of the entire picture. So that almost certainly means Pence got bad numbers back for his fellow Republican. And that speaks volumes.
Senate:
• AZ-Sen: We've mentioned some of this spending in recent days, but Roll Call's Abby Livingston has a more complete breakdown of all the money that's sloshing around in the Arizona Senate race during the final week. Republicans are pouring in a monster $4.8 million in a desperate effort to defend this seat for their team, while Democrats are spending much less, just $2.6 million. Livingston has exact group-by-group breakdowns at the link.
• MO-Sen: Pretty half-hearted and late in the game, but GOP Rep. Todd Akin is finally getting some half-hearted help from the very pesky Now or Never PAC. They're spending $800K on his behalf, and the messaging is pretty amusing: "You don't have to agree with everything he says, but you can be sure in the Senate that Akin will vote for Romney's policies to get Americans working again." So basically: We know Todd Akin sucks, but please vote for him to give President Romney a Republican Senate. Also amusing: Now or Never sprung into being specifically to help Sarah Steelman win the state's GOP primary over Akin. Heh.
• MT-Sen: Heh. Mitt Romney's now cut his second down-ballot endorsement ad of the cycle, this time for Rep. Denny Rehberg. Of course, the last guy he did this for was Richard Mourdock.... I also have to wonder about the wisdom of this move on its own merits. Rehberg is obviously running behind Romney, who is set to win Montana's electoral votes. But do the kind of people Rehberg is having trouble winning over to seal the deal really find Romney that appealing? In any event, it's a positive sign for Sen. Jon Tester, because Rehberg wouldn't have asked for this help if he didn't need it.
• Polls:
•
FL-Sen (Quinnipiac): Bill Nelson (D-inc): 52 (53), Connie Mack (R): 39 (39); Obama 48-47 (53-44).
• MI-Sen (Glengariff): Debbie Stabenow (D-inc): 52 (50), Pete Hoekstra (R): 38 (38); Obama 48-45 (49-42).
• NV-Sen (SurveyUSA): Shelley Berkley (D): 40 (40), Dean Heller (R-inc): 46 (46).
• OH-Sen (Quinnipiac): Sherrod Brown (D-inc): 51 (51), Josh Mandel (R): 42 (42); Obama 50-45 (50-45).
• OH-Sen: Sherrod Brown (D-inc): 50 (48), Josh Mandel (R): 48 (44); Romney 50-48 (48-48).
• OH-Sen (Univ. of Cincinnati): Sherrod Brown (D-inc): 49, Josh Mandel (R): 44; Obama 48-46. I'm not sure which trendlines to cite here: The University of Cincinnati fields its own in-house "Ohio Poll" every so often, but it also conducts separate polling for a consortium of local Ohio papers as well—and in fact, one such poll came out just the other day. That one had Brown up 51-47 and Obama and Romney tied at 49. The last "Ohio Poll" was taken all the way back in August and had Brown ahead 48-47 and Obama leading 49-46.
• PA-Sen (F&M): Bob Casey (D-inc): 48 (48), Tom Smith (R): 39 (38); Obama 49-45 (52-43).
• VA-Sen (Quinnipiac): Tim Kaine (D): 50 (51), George Allen (R): 46 (44); Obama 49-47 (51-46).
• WI-Sen (Marquette): Tammy Baldwin (D): 47 (45), Tommy Thompson (R): 43 (46); Obama 51-43 (49-48).
• WI-Sen (Feldman for Baldwin): Tammy Baldwin (D): 48 (47), Tommy Thompson (R): 44 (45).
House:
• CA-36 (Lake for Ruiz): Raul Ruiz (D): 48 (46), Mary Bono Mack (R-inc): 42 (43). Exact presidential toplines are not provided, but the memo says that Obama leads Romney "by 7 points." That's an optimistic sample for Ruiz, since Obama only won here by three in 2008, but it's not out of the realm of possibility that the president might do better here this time, especially because of the growing Latino vote.
• CA-44: Jeez. Laura Richardson can't lose soon enough.
• FL-10: NYC Mayor Mike Bloomberg might be quite busy at the moment, but his super PAC's shown no hesitation to jump into a bunch of races across the country late in the game, with some very big ad buys. Among the most notable: Independence USA (of course that's its name) is spending a monster $1.1 million in ads attacking GOP Rep. Daniel Webster, who faces a challenge from Democrat Val Demings. Bloomberg's main national issue is gun control, and I'd never gotten any sense that Webster was any worse on that front than any other random Republican, but the linked article notes that Demings (a former Orlando police chief) has an "F" rating from the NRA and supports some gun control measures.
• FL-18: It's a little late in the game and not likely to move a lot of votes, but it's always noteworthy when you're a Democrat and your Republican opponent's primary challenger decides to endorse you. And that's what we have here: Martin County Sheriff Bob Crowder, who tried to unseat Rep. Allen West in the GOP primary from, improbably, the left, has given his backing to Patrick Murphy. Based on the kinds of things he said in his campaign against West, though, Crowder sounds like he'd be more comfortable as a Democrat just in general. Happy to welcome you—but wait until after the election!
• IA-04: Steve King can get fucked:
"I want to get them the resources that are necessary to lift them out of this water and the sand and the ashes and the death that's over there in the East Coast and especially in the Northeast," King said during a Tuesday evening debate in Mason City, Iowa.
"But not one big shot to just open up the checkbook, because they spent it on Gucci bags and massage parlors and everything you can think of in addition to what was necessary," he said later, referring to Hurricane Katrina.
•
RI-01 (Fleming): David Cicilline (D-inc): 43 (44), Brendan Doherty (R): 42 (38). Note that Fleming, as always, is using very small samples: 300 this time, and just 250 last time (September).
• WA-01: Awesome:
John Koster, Republican nominee in Washington's First Congressional District, was captured on tape over the weekend explaining why he is opposed to abortion in the case of incest and rape. Incest he said, was "so rare." Then he turned to rape.
"On the rape thing, it's like, how does putting more violence onto a woman's body and taking the life of an innocent child that's the consequence of this crime, how does that make it better?" Koster said. "You know what I mean?"
Other Races:
• Honolulu Mayor: While San Diego probably has the biggest mayoral race that's up for grabs on Nov. 6, one other big city-level contest (that we've mentioned occasionally in the past) is in Honolulu, where former Acting Mayor Kirk Caldwell and ex-Gov. Ben Cayetano are vying for the top job. Both are Democrats, and they squeezed out the current mayor, Peter Carlisle, in the city's nominally non-partisan primary in August. Cayetano's campaign has been centered around opposition to a new rail project, but Caldwell and Carlisle are both in favor of it, and Caldwell, who was subsequently endorsed by Carlisle, appears to have consolidated Carlisle's supporters. At least, that's what a new poll from (I'm presuming) Ward Research seems to indicate, as it has Caldwell ahead 53-42.
Grab Bag:
• DCCC: The D-Trip just filed another big report, for $5.4 million in 25 congressional districts. The most notable, as Greg Giroux observes, is TX-14, where the DCCC is spending on behalf of ex-Rep. Nick Lampson for the first time (small, though—$93K). The other seats which stand out to me: GA-12, FL-02, IA-03, NV-03, NY-19, and UT-04 in the "they must think we still have a shot" sense, and NY-01 and RI-01 in the "yoipes!" sense. (Speaking of UT-04, House Majority PAC is a also sneaking in a final ad there.)
• HMP: Another place Bloomberg's PAC is playing big (see FL-10 item above) is CT-05, where His Bloominess is spending $575K to boost Republican Andrew Roraback. House Majority PAC is countering by adding $100K to its existing buys there, as well as tacking on some final spending in a whole bunch of other races. The full list (including size of the buys) is at the link; most interesting I'd say are IA-04 (I guess Democrat Christie Vilsack still has a chance and OH-16 (GOP Rep. Jim Renacci apparently isn't dead, despite going off the air).
• Majority PAC: The Dem-aligned Majority PAC has announced its final-week ads, all of which are at the link. Unfortunately, the size of each buy isn't provided, but they're airing new spots in Senate races in Montana, Wisconsin, Indiana, North Dakota, Virginia, Connecticut, and Florida.
• Maps: Google has a very helpful interactive map of power outages in the northeast and mid-Atlantic regions of the country, but what's most interesting is that Google in turn links to much more detailed, granular maps provided by local power companies, like this one from Atlantic City Electric in New Jersey. It's also fascinating to see how amazingly gerrymandered (for lack of a better term) some of these utility grids are. Take a look at National Grid's map for upstate New York and Massachusetts. While their may be explanations for the bizarre shapes and non-contiguous coverage areas, they certainly aren't readily apparent to the eye.
• North Carolina: PPP has their usual "poll of everything" in North Carolina, including presidential numbers, which still have the race tied (at 49 apiece). Pretty much ever other statewide contest is available at the link as well. The governor's race is just as hopeless as ever for Democrats, but other offices offer better opportunities.