Independent Larry Pressler
Leading Off:
• SD-Sen: After the DSCC announced it would spend $1 million in support of Democrat Rick Weiland on Wednesday, we've waited to see what the GOP would do in response. David Drucker of the Washington Examiner takes the Republicans' temperature in a must-read article. There are a number of interesting details. Republican Mike Rounds' polls, conducted by Glen Bolger, consistently show him leading by 11-14 points and his party isn't panicking yet. Still, there are definitely fears that the race is getting tighter, and there's a good deal of frustration with Rounds for taking race for granted for far too long.
Former Sen. Larry Pressler's independent campaign is also a potential headache for Rounds. Many Republican voters have fond memories of Pressler's time as a Republican senator and plan to vote for him over Rounds despite Pressler's past support for Obama. The GOP does have one potential option: use ads to remind conservative voters that Pressler isn't who they think he is. Pressler is also soaking up left-leaning votes that Weiland needs, and Weiland's allies are already planning to run commercials to highlight Pressler's conservative history. Pressler doesn't have much money to defend himself with and he may have a hard time holding onto his supporters if he's being attacked from both sides.
For his part, Pressler may have just made the Republicans' job a little easier. On Thursday when asked which party he would caucus with Pressler didn't give a definitive answer, but he did declare he would be a "friend of Obama" in the Senate. If the GOP does end up running anti-Pressler ads, expect them to lead with this.
3Q Fundraising:
• CO-Sen: Mark Udall (D-inc): $4 million raised
• NH-Sen: Jeanne Shaheen (D-inc): $3.5 million raised, $3.5 million cash-on-hand; Scott Brown: $3.6 million raised
• OR-Sen: Jeff Merkley (D-inc): $2.15 million raised, $1.38 million cash-on-hand
• WV-Sen: Shelley Moore Capito (R): $1.6 million raised, $3.4 million cash-on-hand; Natalie Tennant (D): $1 million raised, $1.1 million cash-on-hand
• NH-02: Annie Kuster (D-inc): $840,000 raised, $1 million cash-on-hand
Senate:
• KY-Sen: Man, this is pathetic. Alison Grimes, in an interview with the Louisville Courier-Journal editorial board, refused four times—four painful times—to say whether she'd voted for Barack Obama. Come on! Everyone already assumes she did, and if she'd said she didn't no one would have believed her. But this is just the worst of all possible worlds, since she looks terrible, evasive, and on the defensive. The fact that Grimes wasn't prepared for this kind of question in October of 2014 is just beyond shabby.
• LA-Sen: There's really just no way a major staff shakeup in October can ever be good news for a campaign, but unfortunately, that's exactly what's going on over at Team Landrieu right now. Sen. Mary Landrieu's sacked her campaign manager and brought in Ryan Berni, who ran New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu's re-election campaign earlier this year. (That's Mary's brother.) A number of other staffing changes have also taken place, and while Berni has a good reputation, this is some tough business.
There is one historical detail to note, though. In 2002, after Landrieu was forced into a runoff and Karl Rove prepared to wipe her off the map with his "Operation Icing on the Cake," a band of very hardy souls who had just helped Democratic Sen. Tim Johnson win an extraordinary 532-vote victory in South Dakota re-deployed to the Bayou State to bust their asses on Landrieu's behalf for another month. It's hard to believe that after such an intense and draining campaign that anyone would willingly sign on for even more brutal work, especially when Landrieu's odds looked so long.
But somehow, folks like Jen O'Malley Dillon, Mitch Stewart, Jackie Lee and others saddled up for one more battle—and in spite of everything, they won. So if lighting strikes again, perhaps another retooling can save Landrieu one final time.
• FOX: Fox News has released another batch of polling, once again relying on the tandem of Anderson Robbins Research, a Democratic firm, and Shaw & Company Research, a Republican outfit. So what does the Fox say?
• AK-Sen: Dan Sullivan (R): 44, Mark Begich (D-inc): 40
• AK-Gov: Sean Parnell (R-inc): 42, Bill Walker (I): 37
• AR-Sen: Tom Cotton (R): 46, Mark Pryor (D-inc): 39
• AR-Gov: Asa Hutchinson (R): 46, Mike Ross (D): 37
• CO-Sen: Cory Gardner (R) 43, Mark Udall (D-inc): 37
• CO-Gov: Bob Beauprez (R): 42, John Hickenlooper (D-inc): 42
• KS-Sen: Pat Roberts (R-inc): 44, Greg Orman (I): 39, Randall Batson (Lib): 3 (Sept.: 48-42-2 Orman)
• KS-Gov: Sam Brownback (R-inc): 46, Paul Davis (D): 40, Keen Umbehr: 2 (Sept.: 45-41-4 Davis)
• KY-Sen: Mitch McConnell (R-inc): 45, Alison Grimes (D): 41, David Patterson (Lib): 3
Wa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pa-pow! Republicans lead in every single race except for Colorado governor, where they're tied. You can't simply blame this on Fox being Fox, though, because it's not like they're relying on Rasmussen—they've got a Democratic pollster in the mix. For another, their
last round of surveys, conducted last month, all seemed to make sense.
But here's how each of their newest polls stand in relation to the Huffington Post Pollster averages, with Fox not included. Negative numbers represent margins in favor of Republicans, positive in favor of Democrats or independents:
Race Fox HuffPo Dif.
KS-Sen -5 7 -12
KS-Gov -6 5 -11
AK-Gov -5 2 -7
CO-Sen -6 0 -6
AR-Sen -7 -2 -5
AR-Gov -9 -4 -5
AK-Sen -4 -3 -1
CO-Gov 0 0 0
KY-Sen -4 -5 1
Individually, none of these polls—except for those from Kansas—would seem so out-of-whack as to be crazy. But when you take a read on nine different races in five different states and most of your polls come back appreciably redder or bluer than average, then maybe there's an issue afoot.
Sure, it's possible that Anderson Robbins and Shaw are ahead of the curve, but in Kansas, the real sore thumbs, we actually have trendlines, and in both cases, Fox is showing double-digit movement to Republicans in the span of a month, at a time when no one else is seeing anything like that. So feel free to exercise as much skepticism as you like when it comes to these results.
• Polling: Senate polling time, kids!
• AK-Sen: CNN/ORC: Dan Sullivan (R): 50, Mark Begich (D): 44
• IA-Sen: Morey Group (R): Bruce Braley (D): 39, Joni Ernst (R): 38
• MN-Sen: POS (R): Al Franken (D-inc): 46, Mike McFadden (R): 39 (conducted for MN GOP)
• NC-Sen: Morey Group (R): Kay Hagan (D-inc): 40, Thom Tillis (R): 38 (conducted for Susan B. Anthony List)
• NC-Sen: POS (R): Hagan: 44, Tillis: 42 (conducted for Tillis)
• NH-Sen: NEC: Jeanne Shaheen (D-inc): 49, Scott Brown (R): 46 (Sept.: 47-47 tie)
• NH-Sen: UNH: Shaheen: 47, Brown: 41 (Aug.: 46-44 Shaheen)
• VA-Sen: UMW: Mark Warner (D-inc): 47, Ed Gillespie (R): 37, Robert Sarvis (Lib): 6
Gubernatorial:
• FL-Gov, FL State House: Here's a poll that's interesting in several ways. One, it's one of those beasts rarely seen in public: a poll of a key state legislative race. The poll by SEA Polling & Strategic Decision finds Democratic incumbent Amanda Murphy leading Chris Gregg 50-38 in the Pasco County-based HD-36. You might remember that Murphy narrowly picked this seat, which Obama won with 52 percent in 2012, in a closely watched special election last year. Given that this could be a tricky hold, those numbers are heartening.
But what's important here is that there are also gubernatorial numbers, and they find Democrat Charlie Crist leading Republican Gov. Rick Scott 45-37 in the district, after trailing Scott 43-38 in an unreleased August poll. Given how much of a bellwether for all of Florida this little district is, that's enough to impress the always-level-headed Adam Smith of the Tampa Bay Times, who'd previously been skeptical of Crist's chances, that Crist's apparent mini-surge of the last few weeks is for real.
• Polling: Gubernatorial edition:
• AK-Gov: CNN/ORC: Bill Walker (I): 51, Sean Parnell (R-inc): 45
• FL-Gov: UNF: Charlie Crist (D): 43, Rick Scott (R-inc): 38, Adrian Wyllie (Lib): 10 (March: 34-33 Crist)
• ME-Gov: GQR (D): Mike Michaud (D): 43, Paul LePage (R-inc): 39, Eliot Cutler (I): 15 (Sept.: 44-38-15 Michaud) (conducted for Maine Forward)
• ME-Gov: Pan Atlantic SMS: LePage: 39, Michaud: 34, Cutler: 20 (April: 39-37-20 LePage)
• NH-Gov: NEC: Maggie Hassan (D-inc): 51, Walt Havenstein (R): 41 (Sept.: 48-44 Hassan)
Obviously the serious outlier here is that Pan Atlantic poll showing LePage with a 5-point lead, but they've always shown much more pro-LePage results
than anyone else. In fact, aside from YouGov, Pan Atlantic is the only pollster this year to find LePage ahead. What's more, they also offer the most optimistic results for Cutler. Indeed, the last firm to find him breaking out of the teens was ... Pan Atlantic.
But the race just hasn't trended in that direction:
Cutler's spiraled downward all cycle according to everyone else—except his own internal poll. And GQR, polling on behalf of the DGA-backed Maine Forward, finds him settling in at a distant 15 percent in each of their last three polls, all conducted in the last month. That might not seem like a big difference, but with Cutler pulling votes largely from Michaud, it matters a lot. GQR may have skin in the game here, but overall, their polls have made a lot more sense than Pan Atlantic's.
House:
• CA-52: We often talk about the proverbial dog that didn't bark, which in the campaign world means failing to provide poll data that contradicts your opponent's internals. But here's an even stranger case: The San Diego County Republican Party dropped a poll of California's 52nd District that's entirely about Barack Obama (he's unpopular, shock) but doesn't even mention the highly competitive House race taking place in that very district next month.
It's particularly odd to render your own polling pooch mute, but even more so given that SurveyUSA just put out numbers showing Republican Carl DeMaio with a 48-45 lead on Democratic Rep. Scott Peters. Why make it look like you don't believe that good news by refusing to release good news of your own? Weird little mutt indeed.
• MI-06: Can money will a competitive race into being? We're about to find out. Larry Lessig's Mayday PAC is spending a whooping $1.5 million against Republican Rep. Fred Upton. The group's ad accuses Upton of being in the pocket of special interests and voting against the middle class. Until now, no outside group spent any real money in support of Upton or his Democratic foe Paul Clements. On paper Upton's 50-49 Romney seat is very competitive, but he's never won any less than 55 percent in a general election (though 2012 was his low water mark). We'll see if Mayday can move the dial but this race remains a serious longshot for Team Blue.
• VA-10, CA-07: The DCCC seems to have chucked one of its better offensive opportunities overboard, with a triage decision in VA-10; they canceled buys in the DC market worth a whopping $2.8 million. Since John Foust's race against Republican Barbara Comstock was on the cusp of competitive and in one of the nation's most expensive markets, it's not entirely surprising, but what's a little more surprising and potentially worrisome is that a full $2 million of that money is being redirected to the Sacramento-area CA-07. Democratic freshman Ami Bera has been on the receiving end of nearly $3 million in attacks from Crossroads, Congressional Leadership Fund, and American Action Network, so the DCCC seems to feel it needs to play catch up there.
• Polling: Thursday gave us a rare dose of six House polls:
• IA-03: GQR: Staci Appel (D): 49, David Young (R): 42 (Sept.: 47-44 Appel) (conducted for the DCCC)
• LA-05: Glascock: Vance McAllister (R-inc): 24, Ralph Abraham (R): 20, Jamie Mayo (D): 18, Zach Dasher (R): 11
• NH-01: NEC: Carol Shea-Porter (D-inc): 47, Frank Guinta (R): 44 (Sept.: 51-41 Guinta)
• NH-02: NEC: Annie Kuster (D-inc): 50, Marilinda Garcia (R): 38 (Sept.: 50-39 Kuster)
• UT-04: FM3: Mia Love (R): 47, Doug Owens (D): 44 (July: 50-41 Love) (conducted for Owens)
• UT-04: Y2 Analytics: Love: 47, Owens: 28 (conducted for Love)
Utah's 4th District has been a bit confounding. By all rights, it should be a dead-simple demolition job for the GOP, but Owens' first internal showed Love looking solid but less-than-dominant. Then an independent poll showed up from UtahPolicy.com that had her up just 44-32. However, Owens' latest poll didn't include third-party candidates, so it might be misleadingly close. Still, Love at just 47 in her own poll in a district this red is pretty surprising.
Meanwhile, one of the only bright spots on the offensive front for House Democrats just got a bit brighter, with Appel moving out to a 7-point lead. It's not inconceivable that Republicans will triage this race, though given Democratic struggles at the top of the ticket (cough Bruce Braley), the GOP can still hold out hope.
Grab Bag:
• Demographics: You're probably already familiar with the maps showing how the Class II Senate seats are a much steeper hill for the Democrats to climb than, say, the presidential race or the other Senate classes. Well, here's a much more fine-grained approach to that question from Dante Chinni of the American Communities Project. If you aren't familiar with the ACP, it's something of a successor to the Patchwork Nation project, which tries to break all the nation's counties down into 15 different cultural archetypes using a mix of Census and political data; even if you aren't interested in their small-scale conclusions here, their interactive map of the nation is fascinating to mouse around.
What they're doing here focuses specifically on the county types that are prevalent in the 13 states that make up the Senate battleground this year, versus the county types in the 11 presidential swing states from 2012. In 2012, 20 percent of the population in the battleground states lived in "Urban Suburbs" and 16 percent lived in "Big Cities," the two most Dem-friendly categories. In 2014, only 10 percent of the battleground states population lives in "Urban Suburbs" and 12 percent live in "Big Cities."
Instead, the most prevalent type in 2014 is "Exurbs," where 15 percent of the battleground state population lives this year, compared with 10 percent of the population of the battleground states in 2012. The lone bit of good news for Dems here is that in 2012, 4 percent of the population in battleground states lived in primarily rural, but usually blue, "African-American South" counties; in 2014, 12 percent of the population in battleground states live in that category, which underscores the importance of pushing the (usually low) turnout in those counties.
• Media Markets: If there's one thing that's worse than being subject to a bunch of political ads on TV, it's being subject to political ads for races that you can't even vote in. With that in mind, digital firm Targeted Victory posed a terrific question: what are the worst places in the U.S., from the standpoint of constantly seeing ads for candidates outside your jurisdiction? (You can see why they'd be interested; they're more concerned about inefficiently spending dollars on wasted eyeballs than about the poor people watching the wrong ads.)
From a pure dollar perspective, it's the people of southern New Jersey who have it worst, enduring constant barrages of PA-Gov ads as they watch Philly TV. From a percentage perspective, though Boston gets it the worst; 82 percent of all dollars spent to air NH-Sen ads in the Boston market get wasted. Other places making the top 10 list include the Indiana portion of the Chicago market, the north Jersey part of the NYC market, and even the South Carolina portion of the Charlotte market.
• Polling: The University of New Hampshire is out with another set of surveys, showing two 7 point swings in NH-01 and NH-02, but in different directions. This is far from the first time UNH has shown this: In fact, it's pretty remarkable when their House polls don't show at least one wild swing.
Are New Hampshire voters simply the most indecisive people on earth? Nope: UNH is using very small sample sizes that make their polls prone to a lot of volatility. In a new post, by Dreaminonempty finds that random error alone explains these weird results. With only about 250 respondents per district, these polls are all but useless. The best thing to do would be to survey more people to bring down the margin of error. Of course, as we've shown in the past, UNH has shown wild swings in their statewide polls even when they have a sufficient number of respondents, so their problems may not be so easy to solve.
Ads & Independent Expenditures:
• AR-Sen: Citizens United (yes, that Citizens United) spends $220,000 against Democratic Sen. Mark Pryor.
• CO-Sen: The SEIU spends $145,000 against Republican Cory Gardner, while the U.S Chamber of Commerce spends $501,000 against Democratic Sen. Mark Udall.
• GA-Sen: Ending Spending reserves another $2 million in support of Republican David Perdue.
• IA-Sen: Priorities for Iowa portrays Republican Joni Ernst as honest, while arguing Democrat Bruce Braley is lying about his support for equal pay for women.
• KS-Sen: Republican outside groups have been reluctant to support Sen. Pat Roberts, but one organization is coming to his aid. Ironically that group's name is Ending Spending, but whatever: They're dishing out $1 million to help him against independent Greg Orman. Orman is also getting some help from The Committee to Elect an Independent Senate, but their spot is only running for $17,000 so far.
• KY-Sen: Republican Sen. Mitch McConnell has another Obamacare horror story.
• ME-Sen: Democrat Shenna Bellows' spot stars none other than Stephen King, who criticizes Republican Sen. Susan Collins' conservative votes. I'm told that while King was filming the ad, he had time to write an entire novel.
• MN-Sen: Hometown Freedom Action Network spends $346,000 against Democratic Sen. Al Franken.
• NC-Sen: The DSCC ties Republican Thom Tillis to the Koch brothers and other groups that outsource jobs. Tillis himself continues to attack Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan for missing Armed Services Committee meetings as ISIS grew.
• NH-Sen: The DSCC ties Republican Scott Brown to outsourcers.
• DSCC: Various pro-Democratic expenditures.
• Freedom Partners: Pro-GOP expenditures in CO-Sen, IA-Sen, KS-Sen, and FL-02.
• CT-Gov: Democratic Gov. Dan Malloy continues to portray Republican Tom Foley as a heartless rich guy.
• FL-Gov: NextGen Climate has a Spanish spot against Republican Gov. Rick Scott.
• ID-Gov: Democrat A.J. Balukoff portrays himself as a job creator in one of those mock-action movie trailer type of ads.
• IL-Gov: Democratic Gov. Pat Quinn paints Republican Bruce Rauner as corrupt.
• MA-Gov: Republican Charlie Baker has a positive Spanish spot, though a little weirdly it has various people speaking English when they declare they're voting for Baker.
• RI-Gov: Republican Allan Fung takes a page from the recent Democratic primary, and portrays Gina Raimondo as a shady Wall Street ally.
• SC-Gov: Republican Gov. Nikki Haley talks about her jobs record.
• WI-Gov: The League of Conservation Voters argues that Republican Gov. Scott Walker is allowing a mining company to pollute drinking water.
• Americans for Responsible Solutions: Various expenditures: All are pro-Democratic with the exception of ME-Sen.
• Independence USA: This group has pledged to spend $25 million on the midterms and given that they're bankrolled by Michael Bloomberg, you better believe they're good for it.
Despite the fact that Bloomberg is a frequent Republican punching bag, he's still supporting candidates from both parties. Independence USA will start by spending $2.3 million for Michigan Republican Gov. Rick Snyder. The group is also backing the GOP in MA-Gov, CA-52, IL-10, and PA-08. Bloomberg is getting involved on the Democratic side in MI-Sen, PA-Gov, RI-Gov, CA-31, and MA-06. He is also supporting a gun control referendum in Washington and a ballot measure that would introduce the top-two primary to Oregon.
• VoteVets: Pro-Democratic expenditures in AR-Sen, MI-Sen, and HI-01. The group recently went up with spots (which you can find here, here, and here).
• AZ-02: Americans for Responsible Solutions' new spot stars its founder, Gabby Giffords. Giffords spends most of the minute-long ad praising southern Arizona, before describing her successor and former staffer Democratic Rep. Ron Barber as someone who will fight for the area. This is the first time Giffords has appeared in an ad for Barber during this race. Giffords, who survived an assassination attempt in 2011, remains a popular figure in this Tucson-area seat.
On the GOP side, Martha McSally has a positive Spanish ad on education. YG Network also spends $234,000 for Team Red: They recently ran this spot.
• CA-17: Californians for Innovation spends $101,000 for Ro Khanna, who is in a general election with fellow Democrat and incumbent Mike Honda.
• CA-52: Democratic Rep. Scott Peters contrasts himself with Republican Carl DeMaio, accusing DeMaio of making millions off taxpayer-funded contracts but refusing to take a pay cut during the recession.
• CO-06: Republican Rep. Mike Coffman complains that Democrat Andrew Romanoff is running false ads, before hitting him will what I'm sure is a 100 percent true attack on Obamacare.
• CT-05: Democratic Rep. Elizabeth Esty features her family praising her record.
• FL-02: The Congressional Leadership Fund reserves $600,000 to help Republican Rep. Steve Southerland.
• FL-26: Democratic Rep. Joe Garcia has three new spots (here, here, and here). The first two portray Republican rival Carlos Curbelo as a tea party extremist, making good use of a Curbelo gaffe where he called Social Security a Ponzi Scheme. The third ad is positive.
• MN-07: Democratic Rep. Collin Peterson promotes his work on the Farm Bill.
• MN-08: The NRA spends $750,000 against Democratic Rep. Rick Nolan.
• NY-23: The National Association of Realtors spends $258,000 for Republican Rep. Tom Reed.
• Chamber: Various pro-Republican expenditures from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
• DCCC: Various pro-Democratic expenditures.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, with additional contributions from Jeff Singer, David Jarman, Steve Singiser, and Taniel.
