House and Senate Roundup, 5/12

NE-Sen: Congratulations to the dKos community for rising to the challenge, and raising well over $20,000 for Scott Kleeb last week. You did a remarkable job, and hopefully we'll see the fruits of your labor on primary day.

Here's Kleeb's last ad as he heads into his primary against self-funding opportunist Tony Raimondo:

NC-Sen: Public Pollicy Polling is now the third pollster in a row to show a tight race in North Carolina. PPP's latest has Sen. Elizabeth Dole leading Democrat Kay Hagan by just five points, 48-43. This is on the heels of a Rasmussen poll which showed Hagan leading by a point, 48-47, and a Research 2000 poll for Daily Kos which had Dole leading 47-41.

Hagan has looked very good over the past month or so; her paid media blitz vaulted her not only to an impressive victory in the Democratic primary, but has apparently made her a serious contender to win a U.S. Senate seat in a red state, over a Republican incumbent senator who was once touted as a potential presidential candidate.

OR-Sen: More good polling news; Gordon Smith is starting to show his own signs of weakness as we draw closer to the Democratic primary. mcjoan reported Saturday on a Rasmussen poll which shows Smith leading his closest Democratic rival, House Speaker Jeff Merkley, by just three points, 45-42. Smith's lead over Democrat Steve Novick is barely larger at six points (47-41). With both Novick and Merkley holding him under 50% several months before election day, Smith cannot be feeling too confident.

NH-Sen: John Sununu doesn't care about polling data, he's sanguine about his chances this fall.

Sununu is nothing if not battle-tested. So why are Republicans in the Senate and at home privately so nervous about his campaign?

Probably because most publicly released polls show him down double digits to his challenger, former Gov. Jeanne Shaheen (D), in a state where the Democratic wave hit particularly hard in 2006. Both Congressional seats, the state House and the state Senate all flipped to the Democrats two years ago, and the Democratic governor won re-election by 48 points.

But it also may have something to do with the fact that Sununu only recently put a full campaign team together, despite the fact that he is one of the most vulnerable Senate incumbents in the country this cycle.

In an interview late last week, however, Sununu expressed confidence in his re-election prospects. "I was outspent 3-1 and I won the primary" in 2002, he said. "In the general election, I was outspent 2-1, and I won. It was arguably the highest-profile race in the country that year. I know what it is to run and win a tough campaign."

Fair enough. I suppose it has not occurred to Sununu that it isn't 2002 anymore, but you can't have everything.

If Sununu isn't worried, he isn't paying attention. He isn't just trailing in the polls; he is consistently down several points, in the low 40s, with Shaheen frequently over 50%.

House Races

MS-01: Tomorrow is the big day! It's been a mad, whirlwind ride in Mississippi's First District, with the district's fourth election in just a few months scheduled for tomorrow. Finally, the First District will have a Congressman again, and we're pulling hard for Democrat Travis Childers, who nearly won the election outright on April 22nd.

Several blogs have done a terrific job covering this election, including (but not limited to) the venerable Swing State Project, and Mississippi's Cotton Mouth Blog, Will Bardwell, and The Thorn Papers.

Despite what you'd expect for an R+10 district, this has become one of the most expensive special elections in recent years. The NRCC has dumped over $1.3 million into the race and the DCCC has countered with over $1.8 million (which sort of flies in the face of the theory that they won't commit to red districts or states).

Childers sports an impressive array of endorsements, while his Republican opponent has...well, Dick Cheney, I guess. Although some are not pleased that Cheney apparently thinks he's campaigning in Tennessee:

Q: Monday you are going to be here -- on Monday -- in the state of Mississippi, and Greg Davis will be there, and you'll be in Senatobia, Hernando, and that area?

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Yes, I think we are going to be. I'm not sure exactly. It's going to be someplace in the First District. I'm not sure exactly what part of it. South Memphis or --

Q: Don't worry about it.

THE VICE PRESIDENT: Southaven, in Southaven.

Memphis already has a Rep, quite a good guy, name of Steve Cohen. Perhaps the First District of Mississippi oughta get one too?

LA-06, MS-01: Stuart Rothenberg comments on the GOP's latest round of scarecrowery, now starring Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi, with an occasional dash of Hillary Clinton just to keep things interesting. As the man said, perhaps it's too early to judge, but their same old "Fear the Big Bad Liberal" nonsense sure didn't seem to work in Louisiana.

Fortunately, should the scarecrowery fail, John Boehner has a better idea. He'll recast the GOP as...the party of change!

In following weeks, GOPers will roll out their visions for other issues:

• Health care — "Affordable, high-quality health care for every American by giving families greater choice and control, not through a massive expansion of government health care controlled by bureaucrats."

• The economy — "A stronger economy by stopping the largest tax increase in American history, cutting wasteful Washington spending, balancing the budget by 2012, passing serious entitlement reform and strengthening our housing sector."

• Security — "From threats our families face both at home and abroad by securing our borders once and for all, taking on the rising criminal threats in our communities and giving terrorists plotting new attacks no place to hide."

He'll run on issues like the economy! And health care! It'll work great!

Democrats have been doing this for 15 years, of course, and we have the advantage of actually being the party of change.

So that leaves security. They're going to run on national security. Doesn't that sound like a healthy, happy change from 2002? And 2004? And 2006?

-The Cook Political Report has released their weekly House race ratings, and this week there is a great deal of movement in several races. It is one of the biggest single weeks we've seen so far this cycle.

Most of the action is positive for Democrats, with a few exceptions (CA-11, OH-02 and KS-02, most notably).

AK-AL Young: Lean Republican to Toss Up
CA-11 McNerney: Lean Democratic to Toss Up
CT-02 Courtney: Likely Democratic to Solid Democratic
FL-21 Diaz-Balart, L.: Solid Republican to Likely Republican
FL-24 Feeney: Likely Republican to Lean Republican
KS-02 Boyda: Lean Democratic to Toss Up
KY-03 Yarmuth: Likely Democratic to Lean Democratic
IN-02 Donnelly: Likely Democratic to Solid Democratic
IN-07 Carson: Likely Democratic to Solid Democratic
MI-07 Walberg: Lean Republican to Toss Up
MI-09 Knollenberg: Likely Republican to Lean Republican
MO-06 Graves: Likely Republican to Lean Republican
NY-13 Fossella: Likely Republican to Toss Up
NC-11 Shuler: Likely Democratic to Solid Democratic
OH-02 Schmidt: Lean Republican to Likely Republican
OH-14 LaTourette: Likely Republican to Solid Republican

I generally agree with these; here are the ones I found surprising.

CA-11: I was mildly surprised by this rating. McNerney's district is certainly Republican-leaning (Cook gives it a PVI of R+3.0), and McNerney has a respectable opponent in Republican Dean Andal. Still, McNerney has almost double the cash on hand that Andal has, McNerney has the advantage of incumbency, and the district isn't ridiculously Republican. I would think that McNerney would still be slightly favored.

OH-02: Schmidt has survived yet another primary challenge, and I guess she deserves the reputation of a survivor now (although if she wasn't so ridiculous, OH-02 wouldn't have been competitive to begin with). Still, Wulsin has more money on hand than Schmidt does, which is quite impressive for a challenger, and she is coming across the most impressive performance by a Democrat in the district since the early 1970s.

I can see the argument that OH-02, given its strong Republican bent, should have been Likely R to begin with. In fact, I'd probably agree with that. But since the only real news of late is that Wulsin is outraising Schmidt, I'm not sure why it would be moved now.