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• NRSC: Talk about Republicans in disarray. The NRSC has warned Republican advertising firm Jamestown Associates that they won't get any more business from the committee because of the work it's done on behalf of the Senate Conservatives Fund, which has targeted Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell in Kentucky's GOP primary. What's more, the NRSC is also asking other campaigns and party organizations to boycott Jamestown as well, accusing the company of engaging in "purity for profit."
Not only is it hilarious to see Republicans attacking other Republicans for wanting to make money, but predictably, at least one conservative has leapt to Jamestown's defense: Rep. Mark Sanford. (Too good, right?) SCF, of course, isn't backing down, and even if Jamestown were to cave, someone else will take their money. You really should click through for some of the delicious, juicy quotes, though, like SCF calling McConnell "a power-hungry bully who isn't getting his way" and McConnell's camp firing back that the SCF "has been wandering around the country destroying the Republican Party like a drunk who tears up every bar they walk into." Good times!
Senate:
• MT-Sen: Republican Rep. Steve Daines will hold a "special event" in his hometown of Bozeman on Wednesday, and according to The Hill's unnamed sources, he'll announce his long-awaited bid for Montana's open Senate seat. Considering how long Daines has dragged things out, though—not to mention the fact that he recently said he wouldn't declare his plans until next year—I'm gonna wait to see this one before I believe it.
• NE-Sen: Former state Treasurer Shane Osborn has released an internal from Public Opinion Strategies showing him with a wide lead in the Republican primary for Nebraska's open Senate seat. Osborn takes 39 percent of the vote, while Midland University President Ben Sasse and wealthy banker Sid Dinsdale are both at 7. Attorney Bart McLeay brings up the rear with just 1 percent.
• NH-Sen (?): Well, Scott Brown's PAC just donated $10,000 to the New Hampshire Republican Party. Read into it whatever you like.
• NJ-Sen: For what it's worth, Republican ex-Sen. Jeff Chiesa, Gov. Chris Christie's temporary replacement for the late Frank Lautenberg, says he won't run next year against the man who just succeeded him in the Senate, Cory Booker. Chiesa did say he might run for office in the future, when his kids are older, but I can't see him having any success with a statewide bid. House, maybe.
Gubernatorial:
• FL-Gov: Well, it's what I would do if I were him. Republican Gov. Rick Scott, whose poll numbers have shown him extremely vulnerable next year, will launch a reported $525,000 ad buy attacking his likely opponent, ex-Gov. Charlie Crist, timed to coincide with Crist's expected campaign kickoff on Monday.
Scott's spot lacerates Crist with supposed quotes from a range of his now-fellow Democrats, from Alex Sink ("He failed to lay out a business plan to get Florida out of its worst recession") to Al Gore ("It's a little unusual to have somebody flip-flop and then flop-flip"). While they're portrayed as such, though, the Sink remarks are not a direct quote; they come from this 2010 Tampa Bay Times article, in which the only words directly attributed to Sink are "business plan."
Regardless, there's probably no shortage of similar barbs for Scott to deploy, which I suspect he's using in the hopes of diminishing Democratic enthusiasm for their newly-minted standard bearer. (Crist, of course, was elected as a Republican, became an independent in 2010 when it grew clear he couldn't win the GOP primary for Senate against Marco Rubio, and only joined the Democratic Party late last year.) Crist will have to remind those voters of the good he did as governor, even when he was still a Republican, like the restoration of voting rights to ex-felons.
• NJ-Gov: He's dead, Jim. But if you're interested, here are all of GOP Gov. Chris Christie's closing ads, courtesy Adam B.
More interesting: these excerpts from Mark Halperin and John Heilemann's new book on the 2012 elections, which include revelations that Christie failed to submit sufficient information about his personal health and his business dealings to Mitt Romney's vetters when they were considering him for veep. What could Christie be hiding? As Jed Lewison says, if he runs for president, we're going to find out—soon.
• PA-Gov: State Treasurer Rob McCord hasn't caught fire in the polls of the Democratic gubernatorial primary yet, but he is building the union-based groundwork for a surge later. On Friday, McCord score the backing of one of Pennsylvania's largest unions, AFSCME, which has 65,000 members statewide. It was McCord's third union endorsement in a week (following backing from the Philadelphia-area UFCW and the Pittsburgh-area IBEW locals).
The polling frontrunner, Rep. Allyson Schwartz, didn't emerge totally empty-handed, though. She won the endorsement of the Philadelphia Democratic Committee, though that shouldn't be a surprise, as she already got the personal endorsement of the city's party boss, Rep. Bob Brady, a while ago. (David Jarman)
• RI-Gov: Third quarter fundraising totals are now available for the Rhode Island gubernatorial race. Democratic state Treasurer Gina Raimondo continues to lead the field, even though she hasn't officially entered the contest yet.
• VA-Gov: Christopher Newport University's final poll shows Democrat Terry McAuliffe maintaining his 7-point lead. McAuliffe's at 45, while Republican Ken Cuccinelli is at 38 and Libertarian Robert Sarvis at 10. Last month, CNU had the race at an almost identical 46-39-11. In the LG contest, Democrat Ralph Northam is beating Republican E.W. Jackson by a punishing 51-35 margin, while Republican Mark Obenshain edges Democrat Mark Herring 45-43 in the battle for AG.
It's that last race that's been the hardest to get a read on, as some pollsters have found Obenshain ahead and some have seen Herring leading. That tightness and uncertainty helps explain why Republicans are treating the AG post as their firewall, their one real hope to avoid a sweep on Tuesday. But if McAuliffe and Northam are busy crushing their opponents on election night, I'd rather be Herring than Obenshain, simply based on the notion that my ticket-mates could drag me over the proverbial finish line.
Meanwhile, the student-run Emerson College Polling Society has put its (limited) credibility on the line in a big way: Their final poll predicts McAuliffe to win by just 2 points, 42-40. Considering that Roanoke has McAuliffe ahead 15, and a bunch of different pollsters all have other numbers in between these extremes, someone's going to be right, and a lot of people are going to be very wrong.
House:
• AL-05: Parker Griffith can lose—again! If Griffith's name is somehow unfamiliar to you, just let it be known that he's about the stupidest man to get elected to Congress in the last decade. (And yeah, we're even counting Louie Gohmert.) Griffith won an open-seat race in 2008 as a Democrat, then had the genius idea to switch parties a year later, thinking he'd have a better shot at winning re-election in his red district that way.
Only Republican voters, it turned out, weren't that interested in supporting a guy who had donated to Howard Dean and voted for Nancy Pelosi as speaker. (Surprise!) So he got his ass turfed, very badly, in the 2010 GOP primary, as Mo Brooks beat him 51-33. Hilariously, Griffith tried to come back the following cycle but got absolutely pounded by Brooks a second time, 71-29, despite spending half a million of his own money on the race.
Now Griffith, who clearly can't let go, is reportedly circulating petitions for one more bid—this time as an independent. Alabama makes it very tough for indies to get on the ballot, but if Griffith somehow succeeds, it'll be fun to watch him lose a third time.
• FL-13: Bill Young II, son of the late Rep. Bill Young, says he won't seek his father's seat in next year's special election.
• IL-11: Yet another Republican candidate is reportedly eyeing a bid in IL-11, even though the field is already quite crowded, and even though Dem Rep. Bill Foster looks to be in strong shape for re-election. The latest name belongs to businessman Bert Miller, who would join state Rep. Darlene Senger, Grundy County Board member Chris Balkema, radio host Ian Bayne, and Afghanistan vet Craig Robbins in the GOP primary.
Other Races:
• Boston Mayor: Suffolk University returns to the field and they have good news for state Rep. Marty Walsh. They find him leading City Councilor (and fellow Democrat) John Connolly 46-43, a big change from the 41-34 Connolly advantage in early October. This compares to Wednesday's UMass Amherst poll that showed Walsh up by a wider 47-40 spread.
But wait! There's a Democrats for Education Reform poll (DERP?) that says their man, Connolly, is up. The survey, from Anzalone Liszt Grove, has Connolly ahead Walsh 43-36. One campaign is leaking its own numbers contradicting this wide Connolly lead, but surprisingly it's not Walsh's. In a radio interview Connolly claimed his own numbers show the race tied 42 all (though no accompanying memo was released).
It's rarely a good sign for a campaign when it's claiming its numbers are showing a tight race after a month of leads. This race remains murky but Connolly's own actions as well as the recent independent polls suggest that Walsh has edge in the last days of the race. (Darth Jeff)
Grab Bag:
• Predictions: You asked for babka? Yer gettin' babka! Click here for the Daily Kos Elections 2013 election predictions contest! You can submit your guesses until polls close at 6 PM ET on Tuesday.
• Redistricting: Gerrymandering is a bit like pornography: You know it when you see it, in the immortal words of Potter Stewart. There are some quantitative approaches to truly knowing when you see it, though, and GIS analysis firm Azavea has released an interesting study that synthesizes other analysts' various methods for determining "least compact" districts. (As Azavea rightly points out, though, "gerrymandering" doesn't necessarily equal a map full of non-compact districts.)
So, what's the least compact district in the country, under the new maps? There are four different methods of assessing "least compact," but by averaging them out, NC-12 (the black-majority worm that undulates from Charlotte to Winston-Salem) is worst. (It's no. 1 on only one of the four methods, but no. 2 on the other three.) The two other districts that lay claim to at least one no. 1 ranking are the Baltimore-area paint splatter of MD-03 and the Cleveland-to-Toledo lakefront landing strip of OH-09.
If you look at which states, in general, have the least compact districts on average, the winner (or loser) is Maryland, which is tops according to three of the methods. The other no. 1, bafflingly, is New Hampshire, probably a consequence of the long, skinny shape of the entire state. North Carolina and Louisiana follow in second and third place.
The study also finds that, under all four methods, legislatively-drawn states have less compactness than those drawn by courts or independent commissions. Also, states drawn by Democrats have less compactness than those drawn by Republicans (though there are fewer Democratic-drawn states, and Maryland may throw off the curve). Azavea also looked specifically at Florida and California—both of which were redrawn this decade under supposedly fairer conditions—and find significant improvements on the compactness front in both of those states, compared with the previous maps. (David Jarman)
