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Leading Off:
• VA-Gov: It's been a little while since we've had fresh data on the Virginia governor's race, but Quinnipiac has answered the call with their first poll of likely voters for this fall's election. Democrat Terry McAuliffe runs ahead of Republican Ken Cuccinelli 48-42, his biggest-ever lead, though the pollster cautions that these results are "not comparable" to their earlier surveys of registered voters. (For what it's worth, though, T-Mac was up 43-39 a month ago.)
Attack ads have been flying back and forth for some time, but it seems like Cuccinelli has suffered a bit more. His favorability rating stands at 35-41, versus 34-33 for McAuliffe; under Quinnipiac's older RV polls, both candidates' scores had always been in positive territory. The current poll's sample appears to be a bit more Dem-leaning than you'd expect for the November electorate, but it's been many months since a reputable pollster found Cuccinelli ahead—and he hasn't seen fit to release contradictory internal data of his own.
Senate:
• KY-Sen: EMILY's List endorsed Secretary of State Alison Lundergan Grimes on Wednesday, in her race to unseat Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell. EMILY only backs women candidates it judges to be pro-choice, so presumably Grimes passes muster on reproductive rights, something you might not necessarily expect for a candidate running in Kentucky.
• MN-Sen: A fourth Republican has entered the race to take on freshman Sen. Al Franken, St. Louis County Commissioner Chris Dahlberg. He joins state Rep. Jim Abeler, state Sen. Julianne Ortman, and businessman Mike McFadden. Dahlberg starts off with at least one high-powered backer in his corner, media mogul Stanley Hubbard, who is a major donor to mostly Republican causes. (Geographical side-note: St. Louis County, home of Duluth, is the second-largest county by land area east of the Mississippi, and the largest if you include water.)
Gubernatorial:
• LA-Gov: As part of their new Louisiana poll, PPP also polled a couple of hypothetical head-to-heads for the 2015 governor's race. New Orleans Mayor (and brother of Mary) Mitch Landrieu leads both GOP candidates tested, Sen. David Vitter (by a 45-42 margin) and Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne (45-35), thanks in part to his strong 44-24 favorability rating. But several other big name Republicans are also considering, like Public Service Commissioner Scott Angelle, state Treasurer John Kennedy, and even soon-to-be-ex-Rep. Rodney Alexander, and they'd all appear together on a single ballot.
Meanwhile, incumbent Gov. Bobby Jindal, who is term-limited, has seen his approvals plummet in stunning fashion. As Tom Jensen notes, two years ago, he was the most popular governor in the country, with a 58-34 job approval rating. Now he's at 28-59, thanks in part to years of feuding with fellow Republicans in the legislature, who have derailed some of his signature initiatives. Pretty hard to launch a presidential campaign when your stature at home has suffered so badly.
• NJ-Gov: Gov. Chris Christie's lead over Democrat Barbara Buono has shrunk in the last two months, according to Monmouth (PDF), but it's gone from 30 points (61-31) to 20 (56-36). What's happening is that Democratic support for Christie has finally begun to wane, but he still has more than enough to remain in a dominant position.
• PA-Gov: Rep. Allyson Schwartz has just released some internal polling—two separate polls, in fact—of both the Democratic primary for governor and the general election. In August, Benenson Strategy Group found her beating Republican Gov. Tom Corbett 49-41. That's almost unchanged from the 50-42 edge she sported in a Benenson poll for the DGA from January.
Meanwhile, a mid-July survey had her leading the primary with 34 percent, compared to 15 for former state environmental department head Kathleen McGinty, 11 for businessman Tom Wolf, and 10 for state Treasurer Rob McCord. It's possible that Schwartz is putting these numbers out there now to deter former state Auditor Jack Wagner, who is reportedly considering a bid, from getting into the race.
House:
• IA-01: After announcing plans to explore the race last month, state Rep. Anesa Kajtazovic has officially joined the Democratic primary to fill Rep. Bruce Braley's open House seat. Already running are state Rep. Pat Murphy, ex-state Sen. Swati Dandekar, Cedar Rapids City Councilwoman Monica Vernon, and attorney Dave O'Brien.
• LA-05: Filing has now closed for the special election to replace departing Republican Rep. Rodney Alexander, and boy, this is one crowded clown car. Here's the scorecard (in alphabetical order):
Republicans
- Clyde Holloway (R): Ex-congressman from Louisiana's long-defunct 8th District (1987-1993) and current Public Service Commissioner
- Vance McAllister (R): Some Dude
- Jay Morris (R): State Representative and tea-flavored Bobby Jindal foe
- Neil Riser (R): State Senator and presumed front-runner
- Blake Weatherly (R): Some Dude
Democrats
- Marcus Hunter (D): State Representative
- Robert Johnson (D): State Representative
- Jamie Mayo (D): Mayor of Monroe
- Weldon Russell (D): Some Dude
Miscellaneous
- Eliot Barron (Green): Some Green Dude
- Tom Gibbs (Other): Some Dude
- Henry Herford Jr. (Libertarian): Paulist disciple and former Republican, best known for being physically confronted by police during the 2012 state Republican convention
- Peter Williams (Other): Tree Farmer
- Samir Zaitoon (Libertarian): Baton Rouge resident, who filed without realizing that he lived outside the district
Sadly, with four Democrats in this race, the odds of pulling a reverse CA-31 here (where two Democrats could "sneak through" a jungle primary crowded with Republicans) are nil. (James L)
• PA-13: Ex-Rep. Marjorie Margolies is touting a new internal poll of the Democratic primary from Global Strategy Group that gives her a wide lead over the field. The survey puts MM at 43, with state Rep. Brendan Boyle 15, state Sen. Daylin Leach at 7, and physician Valerie Arkoosh at 2. However, I'm finding it a little hard to believe that a one-term congresswoman who served twenty years ago in a district that was mostly different from the present incarnation could somehow be so well-known.
And while name recognition numbers were not included in the memo, they've been circulating, prompting a Leach advisor to made a good point: Margolies's favorables are a touch higher (52-8) than that of longtime Rep. Bob Brady (50-8), a dominant local figure who represents the adjacent 1st District. Strange.
Other Races:
• Detroit Mayor: The Detroit Free Press offers the clearest explanation of the likely reason of why the vote totals from this month's mayoral primary have gone so haywire. Immediately after the election, Mike Duggan led fellow Democrat Benny Napoleon 46-30, but a revised count released this weak put Napoleon up 41-34. (Either way, both will advance to the November general.) Poll workers are supposed to tally up individual votes using hash marks for each one, then add them up and record them in a final column using ordinary numerals. As this graphic shows, though, it's possible to skip the hash marks and just write in the numeric totals.
The Duggan campaign says that local board of elections decided to ignore any votes record in that manner (i.e., without hash marks). That means that properly cast ballots—20,000 in all—simply weren't counted, due to poll worker "error." That's a pretty insane state of affairs, and now the state elections board will meet to decide how to handle this massive disenfranchisement. They're required to certify the results one way or the other within 10 days; if they can't or won't, the matter may wind up in court.
• IN Ballot: On Wednesday, a heavyweight coalition of businesses and activist groups announced the formation of a new umbrella group called Freedom Indiana to combat an effort to add a same-sex marriage ban to the state constitution. The organization includes civil rights groups like the Human Rights Campaign, as well as companies like the pharmaceutical giant Eli Lilly, which is based in Indianapolis and calls the proposed amendment "bad for business." (Lilly kicked things off with a $100,000 donation.)
Organizers will attempt to stop the legislature from placing the amendment on the ballot next year, but given the Republican hammerlock on state politics, that's unlikely. That means Freedom Indiana will probably wind up devoting most of its efforts to ensuring that the amendment fails when it goes before voters. While Indiana is a conservative place, same-sex marriage is already prohibited under state law. That's not a happy state of affairs, of course, but it does give opponents of the amendment a broader message to take to voters who may not be comfortable with marriage equality but are also reluctant to change the constitution.
Grab Bag:
• Fundraising: Here are the July fundraising numbers for the six major party committees (June's are here):
DCCC |
$4,360,914 |
$2,955,045 |
$14,590,536 |
$1,405,869 |
$0 |
NRCC |
$4,444,467 |
$3,648,220 |
$12,065,016 |
$796,246 |
$750,000 |
DSCC |
$3,400,000 |
|
$9,631,678 |
|
$11,250,000 |
NRSC |
$2,600,000 |
|
$7,041,340 |
|
$6,500,000 |
DNC |
$3,858,625 |
$5,386,438 |
$4,143,852 |
($1,527,813) |
$18,466,369 |
RNC |
$5,859,144 |
$6,330,364 |
$12,267,525 |
($471,220) |
$0 |
Total Dem |
$11,619,539 |
$8,341,483 |
$28,366,065 |
($121,944) |
$29,716,369 |
Total GOP |
$12,903,611 |
$9,978,584 |
$31,373,881 |
$325,026 |
$7,250,000 |
Note that the DSCC/NRSC cash and debt figures are from June, since the dinosaur-age Senate refuses to require electronic filing of fundraising reports.
• Redistricting: Here's another little redistricting game, from Slate. You're given a blank state outline map, with all of the state's congressional districts randomly laid around the border like puzzle pieces. It's up to you to put them all back together, jigsaw-style. Some states are easier than others, of course. Iowa is a nice set of children's building blocks, while a vivisected North Carolina looks like the aftermath of a paintball match between Hermann Rorschach and Jackson Pollack.
• VRA: You may remember that when the Supreme Court rendered useless Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act in the Shelby County case, knowledgeable commenters said that the real impact of this case wouldn't come at the congressional redistricting level, but much further down in the weeds. In other words, at the municipal level, where things don't usually wind up on the national media's radar, but where voter suppression can have a proportionately bigger impact on minorities.
And now—out of Texas (of course)—comes one of the first significant examples of this. Pasadena is a large blue-collar suburb to the east of Houston that has become majority Hispanic in the last decade, though Latino voter participation remains very low. (Pasadena is in TX-29, the congressional district with perhaps the lowest turnout in the nation.)
The city has eight council seats that are elected by district, but the Pasadena's white mayor is pushing for a popular vote to change two of those seats into at-large districts elected citywide. Turning districted seats into at-large seats (especially in cities where non-whites tend to be geographically clustered rather than distributed equally throughout) has traditionally been a technique used to discriminatory ends. With Section 5 in force, preclearance might have put this to a stop to this before it went anywhere; now, it'll have to be implemented first and then, only if plaintiffs succeed, get taken down by a Section 2 lawsuit. (David Jarman)