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• KS-Sen, Gov, SoS: The newest SurveyUSA poll out of Kansas shows that Republicans are on the ropes in all three marquee statewide races. First up in the Senate contest, which has been on everyone's lips since Democrat Chad Taylor's dramatic decision to drop out of the race last week. In a blatantly partisan move, Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach has refused to remove Taylor's name the ballot, but news of his decision has already reached most voters (thanks to an assist from the pollster), as you can see from the numbers below (SurveyUSA's August results are in parentheses):
Greg Orman (I): 37 (20)
Pat Roberts (R): 36 (37)
Chad Taylor (D): 10 (32)
Randall Batson (Lib): 6 (4)
Undecided: 11 (6)
This is great news for Democrats, who've united around independent Greg Orman, because it shows that Orman can still win even if Taylor isn't successful in challenging Kobach's shenanigans. While there aren't many comparable examples, Taylor's vote share is
only likely to sink further as Orman and his allies make it clear he's not an actual candidate. And if he
does get his name taken off the ballot, that should benefit Orman further.
Other news Monday was no more inspiring for Roberts supporters. According to The Hill (which was tipped by the pro-Democratic research group American Bridge), on 27 separate occasions this cycle when Roberts and his wife were reimbursed by his campaign (totaling $2,342), their home in Alexandria, Virginia was given as their residence. And in a recent debate, Roberts declared—with bizarre pride—that he'd been "home" to Dodge City, Kansas all of seven times this year. If I'd only been home seven times all year, someone would have filed a missing persons report by now.
The bottom line is that Pat Roberts is in a tremendous amount of danger. And so is his ticket-mate, Gov. Sam Brownback. Head below the fold to see how Brownback (and Kobach) are both faring.
Paul Davis (D): 47 (48)
Sam Brownback (R): 40 (40)
Keen Umbehr (Lib): 5 (5)
Undecided: 7 (6)
Even though Republicans have stepped up their attacks on Davis—
spending close to $2 million (if not more) to call him an Obama-loving liberal—the race remains unchanged over the last couple of weeks. That's desperately bad news for Brownback, who's trailed in
almost all the polls ever conducted in this race. He needs to turn things around, and a flailing Roberts can't help matters.
Finally, there's Kobach, a Republican hack and extremist xenophobe who's already earned brickbats for inserting himself into the Senate race in a rank effort to help out his own team. For a guy who's received endless criticism for his mismanagement of the secretary of state's office, such blatant hackery can't help his image—and it hasn't:
Jean Schodorf (D): 46 (46)
Kris Kobach (R): 43 (46)
Undecided: 11 (8)
SurveyUSA is notorious for jumpy trendlines, but their Kansas polling has been remarkably consistent all year—and the big shift in the Senate race is only to be expected. While we'll need to wait for other polling to confirm this data, there's simply no good news here for Republicans. And for Kansas, that's just amazing.
Senate:
• Polling: In addition to Kansas, Monday brought us a bunch of new polling in several other Senate races. Here's a quick roundup of the numbers:
• AR-Sen: Marist: Tom Cotton (R): 45, Mark Pryor (D): 40 (May: 51-40 Pryor).
• CO-Sen: Marist: Mark Udall (D-inc): 48, Cory Gardner (R): 42 (July: 48-41 Udall).
• IA-Sen: Loras College: Bruce Braley (D): 45, Joni Ernst (R): 41 (June: 48-42 Ernst).
• KY-Sen: Marist: Mitch McConnell (R-inc): 47, Alison Grimes (D): 39, David Patterons (Lib): 8 (May: 46-45 McConnell).
• ME-Sen: Rasmussen: Susan Collins (R-inc): 59, Shenna Bellows (D): 31 (April: 60-24 Collins).
• NC-Sen: Public Opinion Strategies (R): Kay Hagan (D-inc): 44, Thom Tillis (R): 44, Sean Haugh (Lib): 7 (May: 44-41-8 Hagan). (Note: Poll conducted for Tillis and the NRSC.)
• NH-Sen: Kiley & Company (D): Jeanne Shaheen (D-inc): 50, Scott Brown (R): 42. (Note: Poll conducted for the DSCC.)
Note that Marist switched from a registered voter screen to a likely voter screen, a move that has, predictably, hurt Democrats. For instance, among RVs, Pryor and Cotton are tied at 41 apiece. That's still a big drop from Pryor's 11-point lead in May, but it's very similar to the phenomenon we saw last week
with CNN, which had Pryor down 2 among LVs but up 9 with RVs.
The story is somewhat similar in Kentucky, though Grimes, who trailed by just 1 among RVs in May, is now doing poorly with them, too, down 45-38. But while you'd expect Republican voters to come home to McConnell, that's not what's happened; rather, it's Grimes who's slipped, apparently because at least some anti-McConnell voters would rather pull the lever for a Libertarian than a Democrat. (Patterson wasn't included last time.) By contrast, in Colorado, Democrats aren't facing much of a gap: Udall has a 48-40 lead with RVs, little different than his LV lead.
One other big methodological change also produced a big change in outcome in Iowa. Previously, Loras College had only sampled people who voted in 2010, a decision that would undoubtedly yield up a Republican-friendly sample. Now they've switched to polling folks who voted in 2012 and say they are either "extremely" or "very" likely to vote this fall. That's helped boost Braley, though it may also be that the spike in negative ads hitting Ernst has finally started working.
Overall, the numbers are positive for Democrats in Iowa and Colorado, negative in Kentucky and Arkansas, and pretty steady-state in New Hampshire and North Carolina. As always, keep the Daily Kos Elections Poll Explorer bookmarked so that you can view all the data in context, and check out our bi-weekly Polling Wrap for all the latest polling news.
Gubernatorial:
• NE-Gov: Nebraska's last lieutenant governor, Rick Sheehy, resigned in disgrace last year after the Omaha World-Herald revealed he'd made thousands of calls on a state-issued cell phone to women other than his wife over a four-year period. Now his replacement, Lavon Heidemann, is in trouble, too. A judge just granted a domestic abuse protection order against him at the request of his sister, who alleges that Heidemann became violent with her in an incident at their elderly mother's home last month.
Heidemann is also the running mate of Republican gubernatorial nominee Pete Ricketts, so this story has the potential to cause issues for their joint campaign. Ricketts and Heidemann should be heavily favored in dark red Nebraska, but what little polling there's been hasn't made the GOP ticket look particularly dominant. What's more, the RGA has already invested in a few attack ads here, suggesting that they don't think this race is entirely in the bag—and Heidemann certainly isn't helping things.
• RI-Gov: In a last-second move, retiring Gov. Lincoln Chafee unexpectedly endorsed attorney Clay Pell in Tuesday's gubernatorial primary. It's not clear why Chafee sided with Pell, though Chafee's father, Sen. John Chafee, and Pell's grandfather, Sen. Claiborne Pell, served together in the Senate for 20 years. (Amusingly, Chafee actually lost to Pell in his first Senate bid in 1972.) Chafee's very unpopular, though—it's why he chose not to seek re-election—so it's hard to see this helping, especially since we're at the zero hour.
• Polling: We also have several new sets of gubernatorial numbers as well:
• AR-Gov: Marist: Asa Hutchinson (R): 48, Mike Ross (D): 39 (May: 49-42 Hutchinson).
• CO-Gov: Marist: John Hickenlooper (D-inc): 43, Bob Beauprez (R): 39, Matthew Hess (Lib): 5, Harry Hempy (Green): 4 (July: 49-43 Hickenlooper).
• CO-Gov: Rasmussen: Bob Beauprez (R): 45, John Hickenlooper (D-inc): 44 (July: 44-44 tie).
• FL-Gov: Mason-Dixon: Rick Scott (R-inc): 43, Charlie Crist (D): 41, Adrian Wylie (Lib): 4 (April: 42-42 tie).
• OR-Gov: Rasmussen: John Kitzhaber (D-inc): 48, Dennis Richardson (R): 38.
• SC-Gov: American Research Group: Nikki Haley (R-inc): 43, Vincent Sheheen (D): 33, Tom Ervin (I): 18
As you can see, Marist tacked on the governor's races in a couple of states, with Colorado the most concerning for Democrats. Because Marist switched from registered voters to likely voters, the numbers listed above aren't directly comparable. However, the RV numbers for the current poll show compared drops for
both candidates: Hickenlooper led 49-43 in July and is up 43-36 now. It's quite unusual for major-party contenders to see their vote shares shrink as we get closer to Election Day, but one key difference between the polls is that Marist is now testing two third-party alternatives.
That means that despite the narrowing margin, Beauprez doesn't have a ton of undecideds he can reach out to—just 9 percent of the electorate hasn't made up its mind yet. And in purplish Colorado, he can't bank on those voters to lean his way. (In fact, 65 percent of the undecideds self-identify as independents, while the rest are split between Democrats and Republicans.) And to the extent that folks who say they're going for the Libertarian will actually wind up voting for Beauprez in the end, supports of the almost perfectly named Harry Hempy are just as likely to come home for Hickenlooper.
There's also one name on the roster here that we've scarcely seen all cycle: Mason-Dixon. According to Steve Singiser's 2012 pollster report card, Mason-Dixon was the third-worst firm overall, getting beaten out only by the execrable ARG and UNH, but somehow performing more poorly than even Gravis and Rasmussen! They also missed the winner in more races (six) than anyone else. That horrific track record seems to have shredded M-D's client list: The only other poll we've seen from them this cycle was also in the Florida governor's race. At least their numbers aren't totally cockamamie.
And speak of the devil, mateys! ARG has sailed to the southern seas and docked in the Palmetto State, where they find Haley just 43 percent of the vote. But why's the mizzen-mast so low? Because Republican-cum-independent Tom Ervin is taking a monster 18 percent of the vote. Suffice it to say that no other pollster has seen numbers like this for Ervin, though few have even asked about him. Well, that's ARG for ya!
House:
• MA-06: Two final polls of the Democratic primary in Massachusetts' 6th Congressional District find a very close race between Rep. John Tierney and Iraq vet Seth Moulton just ahead of the election. A survey from PPP, taken on behalf of the pro-Moulton group Forward Massachusetts, has him up 47-45, while Republican pollster Remington Research finds Tierney ahead 43-42.
Note, though, that PPP's poll didn't include the other minor candidates in the race, while Remington gratingly asked how voters would cast their ballots in the "Democrat primary." (Sheez, guys.) Either way, though, the numbers are very similar to those the Emerson College Polling Society released last week, which had Tierney on top 47-44.
Other Races:
• Special Elections: Johnny Longtorso takes us down to Texas:
Texas SD-28: This is an open Republican seat stretching from San Angelo to the Amarillo area. Six candidates are facing off here: Democrat Greg Wortham; Republicans Jodey Arrington, E.M. Garza, Delwin Jones, and Charles Perry; and Libertarian Kerry McKennon. There's a bit of a grudge match going on here: Jones (who is 90 years old) served in the Texas House, but was defeated 58-42 in the 2010 primary by Perry. He tried to come back in 2012 and got shellacked, losing 71-29.
As for the rest of the candidates, Wortham is the ex-mayor of Sweetwater, Arrington is a former adviser to George W. Bush, Garza ran against the prior Senate incumbent in 2012 and lost 85-15 in the primary, and McKennon is also on the ballot in November for the Texas House. The likely result is a runoff between two of the Republicans, as this is a heavily Republican district that went 74-25 Romney in 2012.
Grab Bag:
• Baseball: If you're a Mets fan like me, this is the time of year you look forward to known as "football season" (at least, until the Jets break your heart again). For supporters of less hapless franchises, though, there are pennant races and playoffs—and interestingly enough, what happens on the diamond could have an impact on the ballot box. No, we're not talking about ridiculous correlations like, "If the National League wins the World Series, then the Democrats will win the White House" or anything silly like that.
Rather, Abby Livingston points out that sporting events represent desirable advertising opportunities because fans tend to watch them live and aren't likely to fast-forward through ads. That gives campaigns a chance to reach more voters than they otherwise would, so with that in mind, Livingston catalogs all the important statewide contests and House races where local teams might contend for the crown in October. One example is Virginia's 10th District, a competitive open seat in the D.C. media market, where the Washington Nationals, the top team in the N.L., could make a deep playoff run.
• Primaries: Tuesday brings us our last primary night of the cycle, with races is Massachusetts, New Hampshire, New York, and Rhode Island. You can check out our primary preview here.
There will be a lot to watch. One of the biggest races of the night will be in Massachusetts' 6th Congressional District, where Democratic Rep. John Tierney will try and avoid becoming the last primary casualty of the year. We also have an open gubernatorial race in Rhode Island, an expensive Republican primary in NH-01, four critical primaries in the New York State Senate—plus the fate of Andrew Cuomo and his hand-picked choice for lieutenant governor, Kathy Hochul. So be sure to check back in at Daily Kos Elections for our liveblog!
• President-by-LD: Today we visit Maine and Nebraska, and we'll see if we can find a way for anyone to peel off one of those two quirky states' electoral votes while we're there. (Maine and Nebraska are the only states that don't give out their EVs on a winner-take-all basis.) As always, you can find our master list of data here.
Major thanks go out to Daily Kos Elections community member ProudNewEnglander for help in sorting out the odds and ends of Maine. This one was a true bear to wrestle to the ground, but we now have 2012 statewide results calculated by congressional district and by legislative district for both the state Senate and state House.
Per tradition, the Pine Tree State redrew its legislative districts in 2013 (rather than 2011) and will use the new lines for the first time in the 2014 elections. As a result, we don't have any legislators assigned to the new districts—the district numbers didn't stay consistent between maps. Because Maine requires two-thirds of both chambers to agree on a redistricting plan, neither party was able to draw the lines to their advantage.
Democrats have traditionally controlled the state House of Representatives. The GOP took its first majority in recent memory in the 2010 wave, but quickly lost it again in 2012. Barack Obama carried Maine 56-41, and we calculate that he took 129 of the 151 House districts. Democrats currently hold a smaller 88-57 majority in the chamber, with four independents and two vacancies.
The Maine Senate has usually been more evenly divided than the lower house. Obama took 31 of the 35 seats but Democrats currently hold a small 20-15 edge there, with independent Richard Woodbury sitting in the Democratic caucus. Republicans won the chamber in 2010 and lost it in 2012, and have made some moves to try and retake it this year.
We also have the 2012 results calculated for the three-way U.S. Senate race. Independent Angus King defeated Republican Charlie Summers 53-31. King emerged as the de facto Democratic candidate, and Democrat Cynthia Dill was left with only 13 percent of the vote. (Note that because of this unusual situation, we do not include the Senate results in our Combined Average Performance metric.)
King took 141 of the 151 House seats, all 35 Senate seats, and both congressional districts. Some of these seats were incredibly close: We conclude that King carried Penobscot County's SD-10 by five votes, for instance. Dill's best district was HD-150 in Aroostook County: She lost to King 50-28 there, with Summers taking 20 percent (Obama won 72-26 here).
We took a look at the results for Question 1, a ballot measure that Maine voters passed by a 53-47 margin to legalize same-sex marriage. The "yes" side (pro-same-sex marriage) won the Portland-area 1st Congressional District 59-41, enough to offset its 55-45 loss in the 2nd District. "Yes" won 83 of the 151 House seats and 20 of the 35 Senate seats.
We also have Nebraska's 2012 statewide results calculated for the legislature and by congressional district. Nebraska has only one state legislative chamber, often referred to as "the Unicameral," where all the members are officially independents. However, 48 of the 49 Senators identify with one major party or the other, and we've assigned their party affiliation accordingly.
Mitt Romney carried Nebraska 60-38, taking 39 seats to Obama's 10. However, the state's non-partisan elections seem to give Democrats a chance to compete in some conservative areas: Team Red holds a smaller 30 to 19 edge, with the lone independent sitting with the Democratic caucus. Democrats hold 10 Romney seats: The reddest Democratic-held seat is the rural SD-41, which went for Romney 75-24. Republicans hold one Obama district, Lincoln's SD-27 (Obama 53-46). Ernie Chambers, the one independent senator, sits in Obama's best seat: The president won Omaha's SD-11 91-8.
We also have the results for the U.S. Senate race, where Republican Deb Fischer defeated Democrat Bob Kerrey 58-42. Fischer took 37 Senate districts to Kerrey's 12, and also won all three congressional seats. The Omaha-area 2nd District was close, with Fischer only winning it by 339 votes. Not surprisingly, Democrats are targeting Republican Rep. Lee Terry in NE-02 this year.
• YouGov: On behalf of the New York Times and CBS News, YouGov once again polled every Senate race in the nation. You can find all of the results at the link, but note that the polls were in the field an incredibly long time—from Aug. 18 through Sept. 2 (a period that includes Labor Day weekend). And in a truly unacceptable flub, YouGov failed to include Greg Orman's name in their Kansas poll, despite the fact that he was easily the most prominent independent running for Senate even before Democrat Chad Taylor dropped out last week.
But perhaps the best way to digest these new numbers is via the Daily Kos Elections Poll Explorer, which has already been updated to take in all this new data. David Jarman explores the impact YouGov has had on our model; though the overall shift is not huge, Republicans are now the slight favorites to retake the Senate.
Ads & Independent Expenditures:
• AK-Sen: Democratic Sen. Mark Begich recently ran a spot where he attacked Republican Dan Sullivan for allegedly allowing sex offender Jerry Active to get out of jail early, before Active murdered a couple. The family of the victims did not take kindly to the ad, and Begich pulled it amid heavy criticism.
Begich's new spot still uses a similar theme, and criticizes Sullivan for "allowing violent criminals off with light sentences" when Sullivan was state attorney general. The new ad doesn't mention any specific cases and hits Sullivan on a pension fraud case. Still, it's interesting that Begich is going back to this issue after what happened last time.
• CO-Sen: Republican Rep. Cory Gardner recently tried some jujitsu in his race against Democratic Sen. Mark Udall. The socially conservative Gardner ran a spot depicting himself as the candidate who wants to allow women to have easy access to the pill while portraying Udall as the guy who wants to make such access more difficult. NARAL and MoveOn didn't waste much time calling bullshit on this: In a joint ad, they mention Gardner's very recent support for a fetal personhood bill (which Gardner still co-sponsors) that would outlaw many forms of birth control.
Also on the Democratic side, the DSCC also hits a similar theme, accusing Gardner of wanting to make abortion a crime. Fair Share Action also spends $226,000 for Udall. For his part, Gardner's new spot continues to tie Udall to Obama.
• IA-Sen: Senate Majority PAC spends another $298,000 against Republican Joni Ernst.
• KY-Sen: Senate Majority PAC spends $410,000 against Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell. The United Food and Commercial Workers International Union also spends $154,000 on the Democratic side.
• MI-Sen: Republican Terri Lynn Land pushes back on attacks tying her to big polluters. She accuses Democratic Rep. Gary Peters of having $19,000 invested in a company that causes pollution.
Crossroads GPS joins in and spends $800,000 attacking Peters for opposing the Keystone Pipeline. Ending Spending also accuses Peters of being a hypocrite, with a $320,000 buy. On the Democratic side, Senate Majority PAC spends $136,000 here, while NextGen Climate unloads $253,000.
• NH-Sen: The DSCC spends $193,000 against Republican Scott Brown.
• WV-Sen: Republican Rep. Shelly Moore Capito runs against Obamacare, not mentioning her Democratic foe Natalie Tennant. Tennant pledges to make healthcare reform better but pledges she won't go back to the days when insurance companies could deny coverage to children. Tennant highlights her own daughter's heart condition to make her case.
• Chamber: Expenditures from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce in several races.
• NRSC: Various expenditures.
• AZ-Gov: The RGA again goes after Democrat Fred DuVal on college tuition.
• CT-Gov: Republican Tom Foley portrays Democratic Gov. Dan Malloy as an angry, failed governor. The RGA and labor groups have also made new investments here.
• FL-Gov: Democrat Charlie Crist once again hits Republican Gov. Rick Scott on education cuts. Crist also has a Spanish-language spot narrated by his running mate Annette Taddeo.
• IL-Gov: Republican Bruce Rauner features former Chicago Bears coach Mike Ditka for his new spot. (Fun fact: Ditka thought about running for U.S. Senate in 2004, before deciding that losing to Barack Obama wouldn't be so fun). Unlike a lot of ads featuring celebrities staring at the camera and saying nice things about the candidate, Ditka and Rauner actually appear together here.
But it's a strange ad nevertheless. The two are hanging out together in a bar, where Ditka tells Rauner how awesome he is for standing up to special interests. Rauner then weirdly starts to wonder if maybe he's been too hard on those guys. Eight seconds of silence follows as Ditka stares at him in shock, until Rauner laughingly admits he didn't know what he was thinking. Ditka then implores him to stick to the game plan.
I'm not sure what they're going for here. Are they suggesting that while Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn takes orders from special interests, Rauner takes orders from Mike Ditka? I'll say one thing for Ditka though: He comes off a lot better in this spot than the very wooden Rauner.
• ME-Gov: Republican Gov. Paul LePage has several people who are supposedly Democrats stiffly reading scripts proclaiming how great their governor is. One guy is labeled a "Democrat primary voter," so yeah, highly believable.
• MI-Gov: The RGA again ties Democrat Mark Schauer to former Gov. Jennifer Granholm.
• AR-02: Republican French Hill highlights how he helped a church get started when no one else would assist.
• AZ-02: Americans for Prosperity goes after Democratic Rep. Ron Barber on spending. The DCCC hits Republican Martha McSally on taxes.
• CO-06: Democrat Andrew Romanoff goes after Republican Rep. Mike Coffman on abortion.
• FL-02: House Majority PAC spends $162,000 against Republican Rep. Steve Southerland. They recently aired this spot against him.
• IL-13: Democrat Ann Callis goes after Republican Rep. Rodney Davis for embracing the perks of Congress while voting against the middle class.
• ME-02: Republican Bruce Poliquin goes biographical.
• NE-02: Democrat Brad Ashford goes after Republican Rep. Lee Terry on veterans' issues.
• NV-03: Democrat Erin Bilbray is positive in her first spot.
• NY-11: Democrat Domenic Recchia has been running positive spots in his race against indicted Republican Rep. Mike Grimm, but he this time he goes right at Grimm's ethics. The spot features people stating each of the federal charges against Grimm, until the ad notes they don't have time to list them all.
• NY-18: Democratic Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney talks about fighting for the middle class.
• NY-24: Democratic Rep. Dan Maffei hasn't been seen as especially vulnerable, but he goes after Republican John Katko on equal pay. Maffei was a surprise victim of the 2010 GOP wave, and it looks like he's making sure he won't be caught off-guard.
• WV-02: Republican Alex Mooney goes after Obamacare.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, with additional contributions from Jeff Singer, David Jarman, and Steve Singiser.
