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9:02 AM PT: AK-Gov: Now there's a lawsuit about Alaska's funky ballot situation, too. As you'll recall, Democrat Byron Mallot dropped his bid for governor a few weeks ago and joined an independent ticket with ex-Republican Bill Walker, with Walker running for governor and Mallot for lieutenant governor. That means that Democrats aren't fielding a gubernatorial candidate of their own, a move that seriously endangers GOP Gov. Sean Parnell.
Unsurprisingly, Republicans are quite unhappy about this turn of events, so a local party chair has sued to block the move, saying that election officials improperly allowed Mallot and Walker's original running mates to withdraw from the race. But the challenge faces some serious obstacles. For one, over 2,300 ballots have already gone out to overseas voters. For another, the state Division of Elections allowed an independent candidate for governor to replace his running mate in 2006 after his original selection withdrew after the primary.
Republicans are howling that that the Walker-Mallot agreement was carried out as part of an untoward "political arrangement" orchestrated by the AFL-CIO and not the result of any true "emergency," but that seems like a very weak reason for undoing it. However, we'll know soon, as the judge hearing the case has scheduled oral arguments for Sept. 26 and has promised a decision later that same day.
10:48 AM PT (Jeff Singer): President-by-LD: Today we head to Indiana and Missouri, two states that are reliably Republican but nevertheless are willing to vote Democratic downballot. Utilizing newly released data from Daily Kos Elections and new interactive maps by Stephen Wolf, Jeff Singer takes a look at both states in a new post. As always, you can find our master set of data here.
For both states, we have the results of the 2012 statewide contests calculated by each state House, state Senate, and congressional districts (that's 12 total contests for 364 different districts). My favorite statistic: In his disastrous 16 point statewide loss for the Senate, Republican Todd Akin carried 35 percent of the Missouri House, 32 percent of the Senate, and two of the state's eight Congressional districts.
10:58 AM PT (Jeff Singer): IA-Sen: Rasmussen: Bruce Braley (D): 43, Joni Ernst (R), 43 (Aug: 43-43 tie).
11:09 AM PT (Jeff Singer): NH-Sen, Gov: Vox Populi, the new Republican pollster on the block, weighs in on both Granite State contests and finds the worst numbers for Team Blue anyone's found in either contests. In the Senate race, they give Republican Scott Brown a 47-43 lead over Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen. Magellan Strategies, another GOP pollster, gave Brown a 2-point edge about a week ago, but no one else has found Brown ahead in a long, long time (though CNN's likely voters poll found a tie).
In the gubernatorial contest Vox Populi gives Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan a 47-43 lead over Republican Walt Havenstein. A National Research poll for the RGA found a five-point Hassan lead but everyone else has shown the incumbent up by double-digits. The RGA has begun airing ads on Havenstein's behalf so maybe they believe Vox Populi's numbers. Given how frequently polled New Hampshire is, it's a good bet we'll either see some confirmation that this race is close or find that Vox Populi is on their own here.
11:32 AM PT (Jeff Singer): NY-04, 18: Sienna continues their tour of New York's congressional districts, and they find good numbers for the Democrats in two seats. In the open Long Island 4th District, Democrat Kathleen Rice posts a humongous 55-37 lead over Republican Bruce Blakeman. The GOP had some hope that they could make a play at this seat when Democratic Rep. Carolyn McCarthy announced her retirement, but they haven't shown much of an appetite for competing in this very expensive 56-43 Obama seat.
Over in the Hudson Valley's 18th District, Sienna gives freshman Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney a 50-42 lead over Republican Nan Hayworth, whom he unseated in 2012. This is a race the GOP has been a bit more optimistic about, though anonymous Republicans badmouthed Hayworth's chances at the beginning of the year. A July Gravis poll found a very different result, giving Hayworth a 44-40 lead.
As we've pointed out in the past, Siena does not have a particularly good track record, and even gave us the worst poll we've ever seen. However, national Republicans haven't been in a hurry to help out Hayworth or especially Blakeman so it's quite possible the NRCC and pals are looking at similar numbers. If the Republicans do have more optimistic polls, now's the time for them to show their cards.
11:36 AM PT (Jeff Singer): GA-Gov: Rasmussen: Nathan Deal (R-inc) 45, Jason Carter (D) 44 (July: Carter 45-44).
11:52 AM PT (Jeff Singer): MA-Gov: Now that the primary is over, Social Sphere has resumed its weekly tracking poll on behalf of the Boston Globe. They find Democrat Martha Coakley with a 39-36 lead over Republican Charlie Baker, with 19 percent undecided: In early September, they gave Baker a 38-37 lead. While Massachusetts is a very blue state it has been willing to elect Republican governors in the not-to-distant past, so this margin isn't insane on its face.
Since the primary wrapped up on Sept. 9 only MassInc has released general election numbers, and they found Coakley up 44-35. With so little data it's hard to know who to trust, but it's pretty hard to believe that so many voters are undecided this late in the game like SocialSphere suggests. SocialSphere also badly blew the primary, overestimating Coakely's margin of victory by a whopping 16 points. Of course, MassInc did 2 points worse so it's not clear that they have a better read on the electorate.
On the other hand, there's one good reason to think that SocialSphere is correct that this is winnable for the GOP. National Republicans are spending big to boost Baker, investing millions in the RGA front-group Commonwealth Future PAC. National Democrats have yet to respond in similar numbers: If both parties start to commit real money in this very expensive state, we'll know we have a race.
12:07 PM PT (Jeff Singer): WI-Gov: Fresh off of busting Oregon Republican Senate candidate Monica Wehby for cutting and pasting her economic and health care plans from other Republicans and passing them off as her own material, Buzz Feed finds another campaign committing a similar offense. This time it's Democratic nominee Mary Burke: Her jobs plan was found to be copied from three past Democrat campaigns.
Burke's campaign very quickly provided an explanation, arguing that an economic consultant on their campaign also worked on those plans. The Burke camp also says that the consultant, Eric Schnurer, is no longer with them. The GOP is jumping on this, but we'll see if it has legs. If the Burke campaign is right and this is an just Schnurer copying his own work, Burke's probably fine. If there's more to this though, there could be trouble here.
12:13 PM PT (David Jarman): WA-04: The Washington Farm Bureau endorsed Dan Newhouse over Clint Didier in the all-Republican race to succeed the retiring Doc Hastings in the agriculture-heavy 4th district. Probably not a surprise, since the Farm Bureau is an establishment Republican group and Newhouse is very much the establishmentarian in this race (also, he was the former state Agriculture Director, an appointed position), though Didier is a farmer by trade too.
12:32 PM PT (David Jarman): KY-06: One race where I wouldn't have expected to see leaked internal polls is Kentucky's 6th, which was a 42% Obama district in 2012 (though one with a Democratic Representative until '12 as well), and a race that we've always had a Safe GOP. But Elisabeth Jensen, the Democratic candidate here, is out with a poll from Lake Research Partners showing her trailing GOP incumbent Andy Barr 45-36. (A previously unreleased poll from March had her down by 48-32.) Considering how difficult her path to those last 14 percent would be, it's a little surprising that Barr would be bothered to respond, but he issued his own poll from POS, putting him up 55-36.
12:38 PM PT (Jeff Singer): WATN: Any politician can go to prison, but it takes a certain amount of skill to get released, and then go back to the big house for a different crime. On Friday, former Connecticut Republican Gov. John Rowland was found guilty for being part of a scheme to secretly collect pay checks from state congressional candidates. The Associated Press describes Rowland's technique:
The government accused Rowland of drafting a phony contract with Mark Greenberg's 2010 campaign for Congress in the state's 5th District. Rowland was accused of trying to conceal his role by asking Greenberg to pay him through a nonprofit animal shelter. Greenberg rejected the offer – in part because Rowland wanted nearly $800,000 over more than two years.
Two years later, when [Lisa] Wilson-Foley ran for the same seat, Foley testified that he offered Rowland a similar deal for $35,000. Rowland would be paid as a nursing home consultant while working for the Wilson-Foley campaign.
Rowland got out of jail in 2006, and will likely soon be heading back.
1:54 PM PT (Steve Singiser): MI-Sen: When you are a major-party nominee for the U.S. Senate, and there are whispers that your campaign is circling the drain a little bit (ahem...Terri Land!), stories like this one are not going to be very helpful. With that in mind, this Christina Wilkie piece is worth reading in full.
The brief synopsis: in an effort to deflect criticism that Land was a richy-rich real estate developer with no touch for the common folk, Land defended herself by pointing to the millions in charitable donations her family had offered over the years. The problem? One of the chief beneficiaries is a rather odd evangelical charity (World Mission) that appears to be...well...a subsidiary of the Land family business. There is plenty of bizarro here, including the chief mission of the charity: not food, or medicine, or shelter, but providing the "unreached" with talking Bibles. Read the whole thing. It's hard to see a way that this story helps Land, who already trails (unless your pollster is YouGov) Democrat Gary Peters.
2:11 PM PT (Steve Singiser): GA-Sen: Daily Kos' own Laura Clawson has taken a look at a particularly brutal ad by GOP Senate candidate David Perdue essentially branding Democrat Michelle Nunn as an accessory to terrorism. The charge is based on her tenure at the Points of Light Foundation, an organization founded by Former President George H.W. Bush and once led by Nunn. Among the many charities listed by PoL as a potential recipient for donations was a group called Islamic Relief USA. You might recall that, in July, that a leaked strategy memo from Nunn's campaign expressed concerns that the connection between PoL and that charity might be demagogued by the Perdue camp. And, now, of course, it has.
Never mind for the moment that even the federal government lists I.R. USA as a charity that employees can offer their donations, too. It has the word Islamic in it, so that was enough for Perdue, apparently. But it earned him the enmity of a surprising source: Neil Bush, the son of G.H.W. Bush, the chair of Points of Light, and normally no big fan of Democrats. Bush has hammered Perdue for the ad. Perdue, somewhat ironically, announced the elder Bush's endorsement earlier in the week.
2:37 PM PT (Jeff Singer): Ads & Independent Expenditures:
• AK-Sen: Democratic Sen. Mark Begich features his mom and wife debating if he's frugal or cheap. Also on the Democratic side, Put Alaska First hits Republican Dan Sullivan for not respecting women's privacy when it comes to their health decisions.
• IA-Sen: Democrat Bruce Braley responds to Republican attacks on his attendance record in the House, arguing that he's shown up for important meetings while Republican Joni Ernst is the one who didn't show up for work in the legislature.
It's a very good bet Ernst or her allies will push back, saying that she was serving in the military so she couldn't vote in the legislature. That's because this matter came up in the GOP primary: However, we found out back in April that only 12 of the 117 votes Ernst missed were during her service in the Army National Guard. The issue didn't hurt her back then, but we'll see if it makes a difference this time around.
• KY-Sen: Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell features an elderly couple praising the senator for helping them with Medicare. The National Association of Realtors also pitches in $1,776,000 to help McConnell.
• MI-Sen: Republican Terri Lynn Land talks about protecting jobs.
• NC-Sen: Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan talks to the camera and talks about her agenda. Hagan addresses what she calls false attack ads the way most candidates should.
Without repeating the attacks, she says she wants to create jobs, stands up for veterans, and protects Medicare and Social Security. Too many candidates instead repeat negative charges while trying to debunk them, giving the original attacks oxygen: Think how much better "I protect Medicare" sounds compared to, "I never voted to cut Medicare," for instance. For a look at how not to respond to negative ads, see the SD-Sen item.
Republican Thom Tillis also talks to the camera, decrying Hagan's attacks and tying her to Obama. To his credit, Tillis also does a good job pushing back on Democratic charges that he cut school funding and teacher pay.
• NH-Sen: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce goes after Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen on Obamacare.
• SD-Sen: Either Republican Mike Rounds is a firm believer in rapid response, or he's worried about Democratic attacks on him. A few days ago, Every Voice Action accused Rounds of awarding EB-5 immigration visa cards to his corrupt allies in a $200,000 spot. Rounds has quickly struck back with a new ad. The narrator spends half the time decrying how outside groups are attacking Rounds, before pushing back. The narrator lays out what he says are the facts, arguing that EB-5 doesn't sell citizenship and no federal money was missing.
It's not the most effective push back. For one thing, it's pretty hard to get voters to care about outside groups. Democrats spent much of 2010 going on about how rich anonymous groups were trying to buy the election, for all the good it did. Voters said they were bothered by the idea of wealthy groups airing attack ads, but they didn't care enough to change their votes over it. For another thing, the response to the charges themselves is weak. By repeating the original attacks, Rounds is almost certainly helping keep them in circulation rather than debunking them. It's rarely a good idea to take someone's accusation against you and just add an "I did not" in front of them, and hope that they go away.
This isn't the first time Rounds has quickly and somewhat clumsily pushed back on EB-5. In early September, Democratic opponent Rick Weiland also accused Rounds of being part of a corrupt scheme to sell EB-5s to the highest bidder: Rounds' very defense sounding response indicated that he was legitimately worried about the attack. Now, Rounds is doing it all over again. EB-5 may not be Rounds' Achilles Heal, but he's sure acting like it is.
• AZ-Gov: Democrat Fred DuVal hits Republican Doug Ducey on education cuts.
• CT-Gov: The RGA-backed Grow Connecticut has two Spanish spots (here and here) against Democratic Gov. Dan Malloy.
• FL-Gov: Democrat Charlie Crist portrays Republican Gov. Rick Scott as a dishonest fraudster.
• IL-Gov: Holy crap, a positive ad?! It's true: Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn talks about the state's economic recovery. Quinn also has a Spanish spot against Republican Bruce Rauner.
• KS-Gov: Kansas Values hits Republican Sam Brownback for the condition of the state economy.
• SC-Gov: Democrat Vincent Sheheen decries Republican Gov. Nikki Haley's education policies.
• AZ-02: Republican Martha McSally has former Democratic voters praising her.
• FL-26: Both candidates go negative here. Democratic Rep. Joe Garcia accuses GOP rival Carlos Curbelo of being a tea party ally. Curbelo portrays Garcia as corrupt, briefly citing a scandal involving the congressman's former chief-of-staff.
• IL-12: The DCCC again portrays Republican Mike Bost as an unhinged lunatic while attacking his record.
• MN-08: The NRCC throws a lot at Democratic Rep. Rock Nolan, accusing him of cutting funding to fight Al Qaeda, and voting against VA funding and work requirements.
• NY-24: The NRCC hits Democratic Rep. Dan Maffei on immigration and terrorism.
• VA-10: For the most part, Republican Barbara Comstock does what most candidates do: decries how desperate and negative her opponent is, then talks about how great she is. But while Comstock calls Democrat John Foust's attacks sexist among other things, without even hinting at what he supposedly said.
What Comstock is referring to is Foust questioning if she has “even had a real job. To voters watching the ad who haven't heard about that incident (or don't agree its sexist), it may look like Comstock is the one who's desperate and negative.
3:13 PM PT (Jeff Singer): KS-Sen: Events are moving quickly in the Sunflower State. On Thursday, the Kansas Supreme Court sided with Democratic nominee Chad Taylor, and took him off the ballot. Taylor had dropped out of the race in early September, but his presence on the ballot would have likely taken some left-leaning voters away from independent Greg Orman. Orman is locked in a very competitive battle with Republican Sen. Pat Roberts, and Democratic leaders are perfectly happy to not field a candidate.
However, Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach is continuing to insist that Democrats must nominate someone by Sept. 26. David Orel, a registered Democrat, is also suing the state party to make them pick a candidate. Orel is arguing that as a Democrat he should be able to vote for a candidate from his party in November. But it sounds like Orel isn't being driven by civics: His son works on Republican Gov. Sam Brownback's campaign. For their part, the supreme court did not rule whether or not Democrats needed a nominee.
The problem for Kobach and Orel is that under federal law, overseas military ballots need to go out no later than 45 days before the election, which in this case is Sept. 20. Kobach is trying to have his cake and eat it to by sending out the 500 ballots he needs to send out without a Democrat, but with the note that they may need to vote again later. It's anyone's guess how this will all go down but it looks all but certain that this is going back to court.
3:32 PM PT (Jeff Singer): KS-Sen: The ballots Kobach is mailing out Saturday do not have a Democratic candidate on them, only Roberts, Orman, and the Libertarian nominee.