House and Senate Race Roundup, 8/15

AK-Sen: As mcjoan wrote earlier, there is bad news, bad news and bad news for indicted Republican incumbent Sen. Ted Stevens.

First of all, Stevens was outraised badly last month by Democratic challenger Mark Begich. Begich brought in over $412,000 in the span of five weeks, while Stevens came in at $269,000.

Second (worse luck), the feds have uncovered new evidence in their case against Stevens:

New information filed late Thursday by federal prosecutors says Sen. Ted Stevens made more than $100,000 in profit off a Florida real estate deal after a friend secretly loaned him $31,000 interest-free to buy a condominium.

The condo deal came to light in a motion describing what sort of evidence federal prosecutors plan to introduce in their case against him.

Stevens, 84, was charged last month with failing to disclose more than $250,000 in gifts from the former Alaska-based oil services company, Veco Corp. The trial is scheduled for September.

Stevens failed to report the personal loan in the condo deal when he filed his 2001 Senate financial disclosure forms, prosecutors said in their motion.

Finally, a new poll is out from Ivan Moore Research, giving Begich a 17-point lead over his Republican opponent:

Begich (D) 56 (56)
Stevens (R) 39 (35)

All in all, a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day for the Senator.

CO-Sen: Meanwhile, a CBS4/Rocky Poll has Democratic candidate Mark Udall up by six in Colorado:

Udall (D) 44
Schaffer (R) 38

Pollster's average reflects a six-point margin as well. This race seems to have settled into something of a holding pattern.

Schaffer and Udall debated last night, and Schaffer provided the comic highlight of the debate, as might be expected:

Schaffer, who carries a piece of solar film around with him on the campaign to tout his support for renewable energy, was asked if he had solar-powered energy installed at home. "We have windows at our house," he said.

NC-Sen: The DSCC's "Road to Victory" series has a new web video out, a followup to their excellent "Rocking Chairs" TV ad from earlier this week:

ME-Sen: Disappointing poll from Rasmussen:

Collins (R) 53 (49)
Allen (D) 38 (42)

Tom Allen had been making steady progress for months against Susan "Gossip Girl" Collins, so this is a dispiriting step back.

With the general election set to begin in earnest, Allen still has an opportunity to close this gap, but Collins has proven to be a formidable opponent.

House Races

MI-07: Apparently, Republican freshman Tim Walberg is still repeating talking points from 2003. From a press release from Walberg's Democratic opponent, Mark Schauer:

BATTLE CREEK—Today Congressman Tim Walberg appeared on the Gregg O'Connor Show on WKHM, Jackson. During the interview, the following exchange took place:

Greg O'Connor: Tim, give me a little history lesson because somebody asked me this question earlier in the week. What's the difference – Russia invading Georgia and us invading Iraq?

Tim Walberg: Well, the difference is that there was clear connections in Iraq to Saddam Hussein to what went on on 9/11.

Apparently, if you keep repeating the same nonsense over and over again, it becomes fact.

NY-26: The newest tactic from Jack Davis' ridiculous campaign; they're going after Orange to Blue candidate Jack Davis because he once got a $25 ticket.

The Davis campaign produced documents showing that Powers, a graduate of John Carroll University in Cleveland, was cited by a Cleveland Heights, Ohio, police officer on Oct. 23, 2004, for disorderly conduct. In his citation, the officer accused Powers of directing obscene comments at him.

"People need to know this is the real Jon Powers," Davis spokesman Luke Vaughn said. "He flagrantly disrespects a police officer, is found guilty of disorderly conduct and never tells anyone. After 10 years of scandal and embarrassing headlines, we don’t need more of the same — we deserve a congressman who will tell the truth."

But Powers spokeswoman Victoria Dillon saw the incident differently. She said Powers was with college friends and fellow veterans in the area, and denied at the time and denies now that he ever used obscene language in addressing the officer. She also offered to produce witnesses to back up Powers.

"At a time when he’s under investigation and running from revelations of election fraud and bribery, the Davis campaign is practicing the lowest form of politics by distorting simple facts," Dillon said. "Jon was written a ticket for jaywalking, never arrested and never showed any disrespect to law enforcement."

The Davis campaign is really scraping the bottom of the barrel for dirt, if the best they can find is a $25 ticket, four years ago, which may or may not have been for jaywalking.

AK-AL: Ivan Moore Research has polled the AK-AL primary, and general election matchups. With July numbers in parentheses:

GOP Primary

Young (R-inc) 46 (46)
Parnell (R) 40 (38)
LeDoux (R) 7 (6)

Democratic Primary

Berkowitz (D) 58 (54)
Benson (D) 24 (25)
Wright (D) 5 (3)

General Election

Berkowitz (D) 51 (52)
Young (R-inc) 41 (37)
Wright (I) 4 (7)

Parnell (R) 46 (43)
Berkowitz (D) 42 (40)
Wright (I) 3 (5)

Young maintains a slim lead in the GOP primary, though the Club for Growth is throwing gobs of money towards Young's defeat. He also trails Parnell badly in the fundraising race.

This will be a competitive race with any GOP nominee, but it certainly would not be awful for Democrats if Young wins his primary.