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• MS-Sen: We have our first two polls of the GOP Senate runoff in Mississippi, one from Chism Strategies (a Democratic firm) and one from Strategic National (a Republican pollster). The former finds state Sen. Chris McDaniel leading Sen. Thad Cochran 51-48, while the latter has McDaniel up by a wider 52-46 spread. (Both surveys were apparently not conducted for anyone involved in the race.) Strategic National wasn't active during the primary, but Chism's pre-election poll put McDaniel up 46-44, making it pretty much the most accurate of the bunch.
But while one early report suggested Cochran's allies were ready to give up, at least some groups are sticking with him. One is the National Association of Realtors, which spent $400,000 on the primary and is reportedly set to go up with an ad on his behalf. So far, the size of the buy looks minimal, but full details aren't yet known. McDaniel, meanwhile, just secured the endorsement of Ron Paul, but it doesn't sound like Goldbug No. 1 is actually doing anything beyond issuing fiat press releases.
Senate:
• CO-Sen: Republican Rep. Cory Gardner is up with his first ad of the race, a $495,000 statewide buy. The spot features Gardner and his 10 year-old-daughter and is set in Gardner's hometown of Yuma. It's mostly a pretty standard affair, with Gardner declaring that Washington should get along like people in small towns, and making the usual list of conservative pledges.
Gardner ends by calling for "a new generation—one that's accountable to the next generation," which seems like a subtle shot at Democratic Sen. Mark Udall's age (Udall is 63, 24 years older than Gardner). Either that or Gardner is really trying to channel his inner JFK. (Jeff Singer)
• IA-Sen: It sure would be nice to get a reliable poll out of Iowa some day soon. So far, all we've had is the execrable Rasmussen, the untested Loras, and now the sketchy Vox Populi, which, like the others, finds GOP state Sen. Joni Ernst beating Democratic Rep. Bruce Braley, this time by a 49-44 margin. Until this trio of surveys, timed to capture Ernst's post-primary bounce, Braley had led in all the polling. If he's got some numbers that show otherwise, now would be a good time to share them—unless he's just waiting (and hoping) for Ernst's primary glow to fade.
• SD-Sen: Rasmussen: Mike Rounds (R): 44, Rick Weiland (D): 29, Larry Pressler (I): 18.
Gubernatorial:
• FL-Gov: Bendixen & Amandi, a Miami-based pollster that specializes in surveying Hispanic populations, is out with an unusual poll on behalf of the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald of just Miami-Dade County. The gubernatorial toplines at first glance look like good news for Charlie Crist, as he leads GOP incumbent Rick Scott 47-35 in the state's most populous county.
However, that's actually bad news. Barack Obama won Miami-Dade 62-38 in 2012 while winning the state of Florida pretty narrowly, so Crist is off his benchmarks for winning statewide, unless a) Crist is poised to vacuum up most of the undecideds, or b) the statewide polls so far are also right, and Crist is overperforming in other parts of the state (like the Tampa area, where he's from) to compensate for his underperformance in Miami.
The crosstabs are quite interesting, though, since they pull out separate numbers for the sample's large Cuban-American population. There's a big difference between Cuban-born voters, who very much support Scott, 61-25, and U.S.-born Cubans, who divide their support 49-49. In one of those head-desk moments, a plurality of Cuban voters say that if Charlie Crist, as planned, visits Cuba, it would make them less likely to vote for him ... at the same time as majorities also favor unrestricted travel by all Americans to Cuba. (David Jarman)
• IA-Gov: Vox also has numbers for the gubernatorial race, where GOP Gov. Terry Branstad leads Democratic state Sen. Jack Hatch 51-40. That's a big turnaround from late April, when Branstad had just a 45-43 edge.
• MA-Gov: Holy crap did Suffolk ever ask an insane number of questions before getting to the horserace matchups in their latest poll. Here's a sampling:
15. Overall, do you feel that the Affordable Care Act, sometimes called Obamacare, is generally good for Massachusetts or generally bad?
19. Do you think it makes sense to locate a Greater Boston casino in Revere, Everett, or neither?
21. Both political parties have a 15% rule at their state conventions meaning that if a candidate does not receive 15%, he or she will not qualify for the ballot. {ROTATE Some/Other} Some people say the rule is fair because candidates must make their case directly to party activists who can determine whether a candidate is serious and values the party platform. Others say the rule is not fair because it gives too much power to party activists who can knock a candidate off the ballot even if that candidate receives the required certified signatures. Which is closer to your view—the 15% rule is fair or not fair?
Seriously? Finally, at question 26, they get around to asking about the Democratic primary, where state Attorney General Martha Coakley leads state Treasurer Steve Grossman 44-12, with three minor candidates in low single digits and 32 percent undecided. Then, even further down (question 32), they managed to ask about Coakley versus likely Republican nominee Charlie Baker, whom she leads 36-29. Baker leads Grossman 27-24, continuing the tradition of Massachusetts polls with enormous numbers of undecideds. But maybe these results wouldn't be so whack without this soul-crushing battery of questions coming first.
• MD-Gov: Maryland's Democratic primary for governor has gotten very ugly, but so far, the basic calculus remains the same. A new OpinionWorks survey for the Baltimore Sun finds Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown with a 41-20 lead over state Attorney General Doug Gansler, while Del. Heather Mizeur takes 15. Back in February, the spread was almost identical, with Brown at 35, Gansler at 14, and Mizeur at 10. There are only two weeks to go before Election Day, so unless Gansler can really take a piece out of Brown's hide (or Mizeur can somehow emerge as the untainted alternative), it looks like this is Brown's race to lose.
On the GOP side, meanwhile, businessman Larry Hogan is in first with the support of 27 percent of primary voters, while Harford County Executive David Craig and businessman Charles Lollar are at 12 apiece. The poll didn't include general election matchups, but whoever wins the Democratic nomination will be heavily favored in November.
House:
• NH-02: Congressional filing deadlines have passed in all but half a dozen states, but candidates in New Hampshire still have until Friday to get on the ballot. Late though it is, state Rep. Jim Lawrence says he'll join the GOP primary for the right to challenge Democratic Rep. Annie Kuster, making him the first-ever African American to run for Congress in New Hampshire. Lawrence is extremely conservative, with a 98 percent rating from the legislature's House Republican Alliance, putting him even further to the right than state Rep. Marilinda Garcia, who earned a 96. Also in the race is former state Sen. Gary Lambert. The primary is not until Sept. 9.
• NY-13: With just a couple of weeks to go before the Democratic primary, New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio has decided not to endorse Rep. Charlie Rangel for re-election. De Blasio isn't supporting Rangel's main challenger, state Sen. Adriano Espaillat, either, but Rangel and de Blasio have a long relationship, and de Blasio even worked for Rangel in the 1990s, so the mayor's decision to stay out of the race is a much bigger blow to the incumbent.
• VA-07: So the Daily Caller commissioned a poll of Tuesday's GOP primary in Eric Cantor's district from Vox Populi, finding Cantor leading Some Dude Dave Brat 52-39 when including leaners. Predictably, the Daily Caller described Cantor as "struggling." Cantor, who's been running ads for a while, released his own internal in response, showing him up 62-28. However, the survey is from McLaughlin & Associates, one of the worst in the business.
Other Races:
• OR Ballot: Ugh. A couple of rich businessmen in Oregon are trying to get a measure on the ballot this year that would move the state to a top-two primary, just like their neighbors to the north and south. As last week's California primaries reminded us, top-two is an awful system that takes real choices away from voters, like those in the state's 25th Congressional District, where two Republicans will square off in November in a district that went for Mitt Romney by just a 50-48 margin. Fortunately, a similar effort was crushed 66-34 back in 2008, and with any luck, the same thing will happen again—if the measure even makes the ballot in the first place.
• VA State Senate: Scarcely half a year after Democrats retook Virginia's state Senate, one of their number is handing the chamber back to Republicans. State Sen Phil Puckett has resigned his seat, giving the GOP a 20-19 edge just as budget negotiations were getting underway, including efforts to expand Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
Republicans induced Puckett to give up his seat by offering him a spot on the state's tobacco commission, which they run. After a firestorm of criticism, though, Puckett reportedly declined the job. (Did he seriously think these shenanigans would go unnoticed?)
However, his resignation from the Senate is still effective, and indeed, Puckett also reportedly quit to ensure that his daughter would get re-appointed to a judgeship she currently holds on an interim basis; TriCities.com explains that there's a "tradition against awarding bench appointments to family members of sitting legislators." So he may still get something out of this.
As for Puckett's seat, fuggedaboutit. Puckett's the last Demosaur in the legislature, representing an extremely conservative district in southwest Virginia that went for Mitt Romney by a punishing 67-31 margin. Democrats were going to lose this seat just as soon as Puckett retired, so they knew this day would come eventually. What no one expected was that he'd screw his party so hard by quitting at the most inopportune moment—and do so to inure personal benefits to himself and his family.
Grab Bag:
• Ads:
• AR-Sen: The Arkansas Democratic Party attacks Republican Rep. Tom Cotton
on disaster relief. The ad features scenes of Arkansas towns devastated by tornadoes, with the narrator hitting Cotton for voting against disaster relief five times. The
spot is described as a "significant six-figure ad buy."
• MT-Sen: Republican Rep. Steve Daines continues to portray Democratic Sen. John Walsh as an unethical guy who misuses tax payer funds.
• OR-Sen: Democratic Sen. Jeff Merkley airs his first negative spot of the race, tying Republican nominee Monica Wehby to the national Republican agenda.
• MD-Gov: Democratic Attorney General Doug Gansler's new spot goes positive. It features a man Gansler mentored in school praising Gansler as a father figure.
• NY-01: Former Republican Gov. George Pataki defends George Demos from "personal attacks against a decent person." Rudy Giuliani did the same thing in another Demos ad a few weeks back.
• WV-03: A constituent praises Republican state Sen. Evan Jenkins for helping her autistic son secure health insurance and "going up against the big insurance companies." It sounds pretty much exactly like the kind of ad you'd expect a Democrat to run.
(Jeff Singer)
• California: Here's a look at the races that are still uncalled about a week after California's June 5 top-two primary:
• CA Controller: The race for second place remains up in the air. For the first time since election night, Board of Equalization Member Betty Yee is in the critical number two spot, leading fellow Democrat and former Assembly Speaker John Perez by 351 votes. Republican David Evans is in fourth, trailing Perez by 10,764 votes. Whoever eventually emerges from this will take on Fresno Mayor Ashley Swearengin, a Republican, in November.
• CA-15: Republican Hugh Bussell leads Democratic state Sen. Ellen Corbett by 721 votes, a bit larger than the 610 vote lead he had Friday. The winner will face Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell in this safely blue seat.
• CA-24: Chris Mitchum has a 498 vote lead over Justin Fareed, a bit of a drop from the 914 vote edge he sported on Friday. The winner will face Democratic Rep. Lois Capps, who would prefer to go up against the very conservative and underfunded Mitchum (and may have tried to help bring about that outcome).
• CA-31: Democratic Redlands Mayor Pete Aguilar holds a 181 lead over Republican Lesli Gooch, unchanged from Friday's count. As we noted then, about 1,300 provisional and emergency ballots are left to be counted in the district, and Gooch would need to carry them by 14 points over Aguilar to pull ahead. Aguilar has declared victory but Gooch has refused to concede. The winner will face Republican Paul Chabot.
(Jeff Singer)
• Minimum Wage: Democrats are hoping that ballot measures to increase the minimum wage in various states will help boost turnout this fall, particularly for Senate races, and efforts have already qualified in Alaska and South Dakota. The Ballot Initiative Strategy Center has a helpful map showing the status of other attempts to get similar measures on the ballot elsewhere, including in Arkansas and Michigan (which also have competitive Senate races), as well as Nebraska and Massachusetts. Ballotpedia has further details on each of these.
• Primaries: Tuesday brings us primary fights in Maine, Nevada, South Carolina, and Virginia. We have our preview of what to watch here. We'll be liveblogging the results Tuesday evening at Daily Kos Elections starting at 7 PM ET. (Jeff Singer)
• President-by-LD: Stephen Wolf brings us another set of interactive maps visualizing the results of the 2012 presidential election by state legislative district, this time for Florida and Utah. There are a lot of interesting things to see especially in Florida, a swing state where the GOP holds commanding majorities in both legislative chambers. Stephen's earlier maps are all collected here. (Jeff Singer)
