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9:14 AM PT: IA-Sen: At a GOP debate Thursday night, Joni Ernst was asked about the appropriateness of her campaign ad in which she repeatedly fires a pistol while a narrator describes her as "unloading" on Obamacare, in light of the recent mass shooting at UC Santa Barbara. Ernst's response was just wow:
"I would not—no. This unfortunate accident happened after the ad, but it does highlight that I want to get rid of, repeal, and replace Bruce Braley's Obamacare," Ernst replied, referring to a Democratic Senate candidate. "And it also shows that I am a strong supporter of the Second Amendment. That is a fundamental right."
Ernst didn't seem to do herself
too many favors in general:
The state senator said she would have voted against the farm bill, named the Clean Water Act as one of the most damaging laws for business and embraced private accounts for young workers paying into Social Security.
It's not just that she expressed support for Social Security privatization, which is damaging enough. It's that none of her staffers and consultants had the sense to steer her away from this dangerous landmine—or maybe they thought she had to drive right over it in a GOP debate. Either way, she owns it now.
9:17 AM PT: KY-Sen: Rasmussen: Mitch McConnell (R-inc): 48, Alison Grimes (D): 41 (Jan.: 42-42).
9:20 AM PT: AR-Gov: Rasmussen: Asa Hutchinson (R): 48, Mike Ross (D): 41 (Feb.: 44-41 Ross).
9:42 AM PT: NY-Gov: Well, it's actually happening. Fordham Law professor Zephyr Rain Teachout officially launched her campaign for governor on Friday, calling herself a "Working Families Democrat" on her website. Education historian Diane Ravitch, meanwhile, says she won't pursue a bid against Gov. Andrew Cuomo on the Working Families Party line, so unless some kind of deal is worked out, it's either Zephyr or bust for the WFP.
The critical deadline for some kind of deal is this weekend, when the WFP will formally nominate a gubernatorial candidate at its convention. However, because Teachout is an attorney, she could be removed from the ballot at a later date by accepting a nomination for a judgeship. That gives the WFP an escape hatch in case they can negotiate something with Cuomo at a later point, whether it's for campaign finance reform or assurances that he'll help wrest the state Senate from GOP control.
But if no deal is forthcoming, could Teachout's candidacy actually complicate progressive plans to retake the Senate? For one, the WFP will have to devote sufficient resources to make sure that she earns at least 50,000 votes in November, so that the party can retain its ballot line. For another, as Mark West wonders, what will Democratic candidates in competitive Senate races say when they're asked which candidate for governor they support? It's a very awkward question, and either answer offers downsides.
9:56 AM PT (Darth Jeff): IA-Sen: Meanwhile, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce continues to go all-in for Ernst ahead of Tuesday's primary. Mitt Romney stars in a new ad saying what essentially every single other pro-Ernst ad has said: she's a mother, soldier, and conservative.
10:24 AM PT (Darth Jeff): MD-Gov: Maryland's June 24 primary is drawing ever closer and each of the three credible Democratic candidates has a new ad out. Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown, the primary frontrunner, attacks Attorney General Doug Gansler for saying that pre-kindergarden education can't be expanded to every child and for calling for reducing corporate taxes.
Gansler's spot hits Brown for skipping a recent debate. As ominous music sounds and images of the debate play out, the text of the ad (there is no narration) criticizes Brown and asks, “If Anthony Brown won’t even show up in Baltimore to debate, how can we trust him to stand up for us as governor?” Attacking your opponent for ducking debates is a time honored tradition, but it's often pretty hard to get voters to care about this kind of thing. As the Washington Post points out, this is the first time either Brown or Gansler have directly attacked one another in their ads.
Del. Heather Mizeur has largely been an afterthought in this contest, but she's hoping to change that with her first ad. It starts with Mizeur telling the viewer, “Standing up for what you believe in takes courage. Walking a picket line with my dad when I was 9 years old, I learned the importance of fighting for what’s right.” The narrator goes on to tout his accomplishments in the legislature before going back to Mizeur at the end. With the Brown-Gansler fight getting nasty, Mizeur seems to be hoping she can present herself as a fresh alternative in the last month of the race.
10:31 AM PT: MS-Sen: A last-minute survey of Tuesday's GOP primary from Republican pollster Harper Polling finds Sen. Thad Cochran with a 45-40 edge on state Sen. Chris McDaniel, a big change from early April when Cochran was up 52-35. A couple of recent polls from groups that have endorsed McDaniel have given him small leads, so it's hard to say where this race really stands with just a few days to go.
10:47 AM PT: NC-Sen: Conservative think tank Civitas has a new poll of the North Carolina Senate race from National Research, but as Stephen Wolf notes, the survey included a terribly leading question just before the horserace matchup:
And if the election for U.S. Senate and Congress were being held today, would you rather…
Elect a Republican who will be a check and balance to President Obama's policies and programs [or]
Elect a Democrat who will support President Obama's programs and policies.
Come on. Thom Tillis and the Kochs are obviously trying to tie Sen. Kay Hagan to Obama at every opportunity, but she, of course, is seeking to carve out her own independent identity. This branding struggle will be key to the outcome of this race, but Civitas clomps a fist down on the scale in favor of the GOP by framing the battle as already lost by Hagan.
Even so, Tillis only manages a 39-36 lead on Hagan, with Libertarian Sean Haugh pulling 8 percent of the vote and 15 percent saying they're undecided; in a two-way race, Tillis is up 46-41. By contrast, though, PPP had Hagan on top 38-36, with 11 percent for Haugh, and a 41-all tie between just Hagan and Tillis. But there really is just no good reason for Civitas to ask such an axe-grindy, tilted question, and as long they insist on doing so, it'll be hard to take their polling seriously.
10:57 AM PT (Darth Jeff): One other interesting detail about Mizeur's ad: The narrator notes that her plan for jobs and schools will be "paid for with revenue from the responsible regulation of marijuana." That's not a pledge you see very often in ads, even Democratic ones.
11:21 AM PT: CA-17: The only recent poll we've seen of California's 17th District indicated that Republican physician Vanila Singh was too far behind Ro Khanna to have a shot at squeezing into second place in Tuesday's top-two primary, but hey, that was just one poll. It's possible the race is closer, which would explain why the labor-backed Working for Us PAC is meddling on Singh's behalf, with $67,000 in mailers explaining that Singh is "the right choice for Republicans."
11:40 AM PT: GA-Sen: Is Georgia's political establishment rallying around Rep. Jack Kingston in the runoff? Just a few days after Karen Handel, who finished third in the GOP primary, endorsed Kingston, Rep. Tom Price is also joining the Kingston bandwagon. Price, the vice chair of the powerful House Budget Committee, is an influential figure, and he was also much-discussed as a potential Senate candidate himself long ago, so his decision may serve as a signal to others.
12:13 PM PT: TN Ballot: Rather remarkably, in a 2000 decision, Tennessee's Supreme Court ruled that a "woman's right to terminate her pregnancy is a vital part of the right to privacy guaranteed by the Tennessee Constitution," finding a right to an abortion even stronger than what the U.S. Supreme Court described in Roe v. Wade. This ruling his since blocked most attempts by state lawmakers to restrict reproductive freedoms, but now anti-choice activists are seeking to override it by amending the state constitution.
The amendment will appear on the ballot this fall, but its fate is unclear. New polling from Vanderbilt University offers a very stark demonstration in how question framing can radically affect outcomes. When asked if they support "giving the state Legislature the constitutional authority to regulate abortions," only 23 percent of respondents said yes while 71 percent said no. But when asked if they're "pro-choice" or "pro-life," 50 percent identified as the former and 47 percent as the latter.
Ballot measures are often hard to poll, but this one will likely be more difficult than most. However, the pro-amendment forces are better-funded, and in conservative Tennessee, it's hard to be optimistic. (Hat-tip: Carolyn Fiddler.)
12:16 PM PT: MS-Sen: Meanwhile, a poll from conservative website Red Racing Horses gives Cochran an even narrower 42-41 edge. If no candidate takes 50 percent, the race will proceed to a June 24 runoff.
12:52 PM PT (Darth Jeff): MS-Sen: Citizen's United shells out about $100,000 for an ad starring Rick Santorum praising McDaniel. Santorum did well in the state's 2012 presidential primary so maybe his endorsement carries some weight here.
1:24 PM PT: NC-Sen: Here's another big reservation from the DSCC, for $5.5 million in TV ad time from Sept. 16 through the election in North Carolina. We're going to try to keep track of ad reservations in this new spreadsheet (there are separate tabs for House and Senate), so if you learn of any that we're missing, please let us know.
1:35 PM PT: PA-06: A Tarrance Group internal for Republican Ryan Costello, chair of the Chester County Board of Commissioners, finds him leading Democratic physician Manan Trivedi 49-36. There are few other details available, beyond the fact that Barack Obama has a 54 percent disapproval rating among likely voters in the district.
1:39 PM PT: PA-Gov: Republican Gov. Tom Corbett actually managed to secure a union endorsement, from the 15,000-strong Laborers’ District Council of Western Pennsylvania. However, construction and building trades unions have, for a variety of reasons, traditionally aligned with the GOP, so this isn't too surprising. An AFSCME official, meanwhile, says he expects his union to support Democrat Tom Wolf, so the world hasn't gone crazy.
1:57 PM PT (Darth Jeff): Senate: The Concerned Veterans for America, a member of the Koch political empire, is going on the air with a six-state six-figure ad campaign focusing on the troubles at the VA. The Washington Post has a copy of the Arkansas version of the spot: It describes the problems at the VA and accuses Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor of putting his loyalty to Obama ahead of veterans. The ads are also going up in Louisiana, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Virginia, and weirdly Nevada (perhaps so they can argue that they're trying to pressure Harry Reid to enact change rather than just trying to help the Republicans).
2:04 PM PT (Darth Jeff): AZ-Gov: A group called Veterans for a Strong America is going after Republican candidate Christine Jones in a pretty odd ad. Their spot spends most of the time rehashing the conservative narrative about Bengazi and hitting Hillary Clinton. It ties Jones in at the end because she said some nice things about Clinton. It's like a weird game of Six Degrees of Separation: Bengazi Edition. The group is connected to an ally of Treasurer Doug Ducey, who is also running in this crowded primary.