House and Senate Race Roundup, 8/8/08

NH-Sen:  Reid Wilson suggests that John Sununu's close ties to indicted Alaska Sen. Ted Stevens may prove a serious liability for the junior Senator from New Hampshire (Stevens' campaign committee, it seems, paid for a couple of fishing junkets for Stevens and Sununu).  

Wilson goes so far, in fact, as to compare Stevens to the infamous Jack Abramoff:

In 2006, a number of Republican members of Congress lost their seats because of associations with lobbyist Jack Abramoff. This year's version of Abramoff may be Alaska Senator Ted Stevens, and his close relationships to a few fellow senators is causing fits, none more so than for New Hampshire's John Sununu.

While many senators have donated contributions from Stevens to charity, Sununu was already having trouble with a 2004 fishing trip he took to Alaska with the state's senior senator. The trip to the Kenai River Classic was paid for by a joint campaign account including Stevens' and Senator Lisa Murkowski's campaigns and Stevens' leadership PAC. Also at the event was VECO Corp. president Bill Allen, whose company is at the center of the controversy surrounding Stevens and who was convicted in the probe.

The campaign of Sununu's Democratic opponent, Jeanne Shaheen, will not be inclined to let this slide:

Sununu wasn't the only senator who hit the events -- five others made the trip in 2004 -- but he's the only one facing a tough re-election fight this year. His opponent, former Governor Jeanne Shaheen, has hammered Sununu for his ties to Stevens, and while Stevens has refunded contributions from the Alaskan's various campaign and PAC accounts, Shaheen's campaign now wants the full costs of both trips reimbursed.

MN-Sen: Remember Norm Coleman's housing mini-scandal? The very senior Senator from Minnesota has a nifty basement apartment in a townhouse on Capitol Hill, where he lives when the Senate is in session. Since the townhouse is owned by a friend and business associate, Coleman pays all of $600 in rent, and even that is apparently optional.

As first reported by National Journal, Coleman rents a Capitol Hill apartment in Republican operative Jeff Larson’s million dollar home for a mere $600 a month, and on two occasions he failed to pay any rent until questioned about it by a reporter and on another occasion he paid with used furniture. Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington has filed a complaint with the Senate Ethics Committee alleging that Coleman violated Senate ethics rules. Coleman has still failed to provide documentation of a lease or answer who pays the utilities for the apartment.

Now I know that in New York City, $600 a month will get you a whole pile of nothing, apartment wise. But maybe things are different in DC? New York is very expensive, after all.

Well, it turns out that not only are things not especially different in DC (barring a cozy relationship with your landlord like Normie has), but in Minnesota as well.

Lucky Norm.

MS-Sen: A Mississippi news station notes that Roger Wicker is having a tough time remembering the (intensely negative) contents of his campaign ads...which he approved of course:

Seems to me that Wicker is either lying, or just isn't paying any attention to the kind of ads he's running (and approving, as required by elections law).

Or perhaps both are true. Lies, and failure to do due diligence.

NE-Sen: Scott Kleeb's first TV ad:

Very wholesome, no?

ME-Sen: The latest (60-second) ad from Democratic candidate Tom Allen:

MA-Sen: If you're the kind of person that just HAS to stop and watch a car wreck, or if you're heavily into schadenfreude, check out Rasmussen's latest MA-Sen poll.

House Races

AZ-01: The Cook Political Report sees the race in Arizona's First District (formerly held by the scandal-plagued Rick Renzi) slowly drifting away from the GOP, and has changed their rating of the race to "Leans Democratic" from "Tossup".

Arizona’s congressional primaries will not be held until September 2nd, but the identities of the party nominees in northern Arizona’s sprawling 1st district are fairly clear. EMILY’s List-endorsed Democratic state Rep. Ann Kirkpatrick held over 10 times the cash on hand of her nearest primary opponent, former TV reporter Mary Kim Titla, at the end of June. Similarly, GOP former mining industry official Sydney Hay is all but officially her party’s standard-bearer after Republicans could not convince several of their top choices to run.

The race leans Democratic, it seems, due to a combination of the ethical cloud over Renzi, the Republican Hay's unabashed arch-conservatism and lobbyist background, and Kirkpatrick's own popularity:

McCain’s presence atop the ballot should help Republicans across the board in Arizona, but Democrats may hold the megaphone in this expensive district covered by the Phoenix media market. The lingering taste of the Renzi land deal fiasco may have also soured voters on congressional Republicans here.

Some Republicans privately concede that Kirkpatrick is a good fit for this district and that the GOP may not have the money to help Hay counter a barrage of Democratic ads. But the bottom line may be that Democrats got their top choice to run here and Republicans did not. This seat moves to the Lean Democratic column.

TN-01: Tennessee's First will have a new Representative next year, as Republican Phil Roe upset incumbent David Davis in the GOP primary yesterday, by just over 500 votes.

Rep. David Davis (R-Tenn.) was upset Thursday in a little-noticed Volunteer State primary.

Johnson City Mayor Phil Roe (R), who finished in fourth place in the 2006 GOP primary that Davis won, took this cycle's primary by about 500 votes — or less than 1 percent — according to the Associated Press.

Davis won the 13-way 2006 primary with just 22 percent of the vote. He has established a very low profile on Capitol Hill since coming to Congress.

This has little impact on Democratic hopes -  the district has been Republican-held since 1881, and with a PVI of R+14, it is Tennessee's most Republican district. Nevertheless, it's kind of interesting, especially as Davis becomes the first Congressman from Tennessee to be successfully primaried since 1966.

And as Kagro X noted, it's especially significant that part of the reason Davis lost was because his opponent - his Republican opponent - was successfully able to portray Davis as a tool of Big Oil. From Ben Pershing:  

The heated Democratic primary contest between Rep. Steve Cohen and attorney Nikki Tinker fizzled out at the Memphis polls Thursday, as Cohen easily overcame Tinker's late invocation of race and religion and cruised to a 60-point victory. Instead, a northeastern Tennessee contest that had flew below the radar ended up headlining the day's electoral news, as freshman Rep. David Davis unexpectedly lost narrowly in the GOP primary to Johnson City Mayor Phil Roe in the 1st district.

Davis is the fourth House incumbent to lose in a primary this year, following Utah Rep. Chris Cannon (R) and Maryland Reps. Wayne Gilchrest and Al Wynn (D). Though the district is heavily Republican and will stay in the GOP column in November, Democrats are already highlighting the race as an example of how they believe the politics of energy can play in their favor. Roe focused his campaign on charges that Davis was in the pocket of "Big Oil."

If Democratic positions and talking points on energy can play in a Republican primary in such a conservative district, there's no telling how far they might be able to go in November. We'll have to see how hard the party is actually willing to push back on energy, of course.

NM-01, NM-02, NM-03: Democratic House Caucus Chair (and former DCCC chair) Rahm Emanuel was in New Mexico yesterday, gigging with all three of the state's Democratic House candidates: Martin Heinrich in NM-01, Harry Teague in NM-02, and Ben Ray Lujan in NM-03.

Emanuel spoke about Democratic gains in 2006, made under his stewardship of the DCCC:

Yes, the war was a big factor. But the deteriorating economic condition in the middle class was a big factor in the fact that the Democrats took back the House and the Senate.  And it will again be a contributing factor because people realize that under the Republican Party stewardship, the middle class has been hurt.

Both Heinrich and Teague are on Red to Blue as we speak (Lujan is cruising in a traditionally Democratic district). As a swing state with two top-tier House races, a U.S. Senate race, and the promise of an entirely new slate of federal representation next year (except for Sen. Jeff Bingaman), New Mexico is one of the most exciting - and promising -  states in the country this cycle for political junkies. It's good to see that the national party leadership is conscious of this fact.

KY-03: Very bad news for fans of former GOP Rep. Anne Northup. As she seeks to defeat incumbent Democratic freshman John Yarmuth in a rematch of their 2006 affair, Northup's campaign is apparently sputtering to the extent that she has fired her campaign manager, Scott Will:

"There's not much more to say," Jackson said. "Scott's a great guy and did a great job. But a lot of time, it comes down to personalities and management style."

Jackson said the loss of a campaign manager exactly 13 weeks before the election will not harm Northup's chances against incumbent Democrat John Yarmuth, who won the seat from her in 2006.

"We still believe this is a five-point race," he said.

Frankly, if it really is a five-point race, given Yarmuth's relative popularity, the bad political environment for Republicans, and Northup's high-profile losses in 2006 and in the 2007 governor's race, it's a crime for them to fire Scott Will. If Northup really is in the race to that degree, there's no reason to change horses in midstream.

Perhaps, then, the campaign isn't really going as well as they would like.

(H/T: RandySF).

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