Democrat Mark Begich
Leading Off:
• AK-Sen: If it worked for Jon Tester, it may just work for Mark Begich. Nathaniel Herz at the Alaska Dispatch News details how the Democratic senator has been boosting the campaign of Libertarian Mark Fish, "tossing him softball questions" in debates and even running radio ads touting Fish's candidacy alongside his own! The two actually have some libertarian-ish views in common, like opposition to the Patriot Act and NSA wiretapping, and one ad features a narrator saying: "That's Mark Begich and Libertarian Mark Fish. True Alaskans fighting the Dan Sullivan surveillance state."
Astute observers will recall that Tester and his allies, during his 2012 re-election campaign, devoted a great deal of effort to propping up Libertarian Dan Cox, even spending large sums on TV ads to promote him. It was definitely successful. Cox got 6.5 percent of the vote, which was probably the largest vote share of any Libertarian candidate for federal office that year. Tester only won by 19,000 votes, far fewer than the 31,000 Cox got. Begich is running a similar race in a similar state, and he could really use that same kind of help.
And this election may be close enough for this maneuver to work. On Wednesday Sullivan released a survey from Moore Information giving him a 42-38 lead over Begich. Sullivan's internal might look positive for him in a vacuum, but it is not good news at all. For one, it follows a Democratic internal that had the race tied, plus two other polls that gave Begich leads of 8 and 10 points—with the latter coming from a Republican pollster. For another, Sullivan's lead is smaller in his own poll than it was in most of the public polls that preceded this latest pro-Begich batch. Could Begich have really managed to turn things around after his September stumbles? Is his unprecedented ground game making the difference? Who knows, but Alaska is all of a sudden looking very exciting down the stretch.
Senate:
• SD-Sen: D.C. Democrats are following their Republican counterparts and pulling out of South Dakota. The DSCC has just $29,000 in ad buys left before Election Day, after spending $400,000 to date. When the committee first jumped in, they had pledged to put in $1 million, but Republican attacks on Democrat Rick Weiland succeeded in righting Mike Rounds' foundering campaign.
• Polling: It's always Senate o'clock somewhere:
• AK-Sen: Moore Information (R): Dan Sullivan (R): 42, Mark Begich (D-inc): 38 (June: 43-43 tie) (conducted for Sullivan).
• CO-Sen: Strategies 360 (D): Mark Udall (D-inc): 45, Cory Gardner (R): 44
• GA-Sen: Monmouth: David Perdue (R): 49, Michelle Nunn (D): 41, Amanda Swafford (Lib): 3
• IA-Sen: Garin-Hart-Yang (D): Bruce Braley (D): 47, Joni Ernst (R): 47 (conducted for Braley)
• IA-Sen: Quinnipiac: Ernst: 49, Braley: 45 (Oct. 23: 48-46 Ernst)
• KS-Sen: SurveyUSA: Greg Orman (I): 44, Pat Roberts (R-inc): 42 (Oct. 5: 47-42 Orman)
• MI-Sen: Mitchell: Gary Peters (D): 52, Terri Lynn Land (R): 38 (Oct. 19: 51-38 Peters)
• NC-Sen: POS (R): Kay Hagan (D-inc): 44, Thom Tillis (R): 44, Sean Haugh (Lib): 7 (Oct. 7: 44-42-6 Hagan)
• SD-Sen: Rasmussen: Mike Rounds (R): 45, Rick Weiland (D): 31, Larry Pressler (I): 20 (June: 44 Rounds, 29 Weiland, 16 Pressler)
Strategies 360 did something interesting: They deliberately over-sampled Hispanic voters (and conducted interviews in Spanish) in order to more accurately determine Hispanic views on the election. That only shows up in the crosstabs, though, which you can explore at the link; for the overall toplines, Hispanics were weighted to their expected share of the 2014 electorate.
That Monmouth poll of Georgia is pretty darn ugly for Nunn, but after a 10-day period during which she re-emerged from second place to take small leads in several polls, this is now the fifth survey in a row to show her behind or, at best, tied. A January runoff still remains the likeliest outcome according to our Election Outlook model.
Meanwhile, those Iowa and North Carolina internals are almost mirror images: If you release an internal poll showing your race tied, it probably isn't. Braley probably felt the need to put out those numbers to counter Quinnipiac's heartbreaking results; the public polling hasn't been quite as stark for Tillis, but it hasn't been good, either.
And predictably in Kansas, the race keeps tightening, but rather fortunately for Orman, he's still keeping his head above water (and Democrat Paul Davis is doing the same in the governor's race). The question is whether he can stay afloat for the final few days until the election, or whether GOP attacks will submerge him in the end.
And here's one final interesting detail about Senate races in general. According to the Real Clear Politics polling averages, 10 races are within 5 points this year, far more than in prior midterms. In 2010, there were eight such contests and in 2006, only five. Nov. 4 could still be pretty crazy.
Gubernatorial:
• ME-Gov: Eliot Cutler can't even quit right. With his campaign dead in the water, Cutler, running an independent campaign for Maine's governorship, told his supporters at a Wednesday morning press conference that they were free to vote for whomever they thought would win. But he's not dropping out of the race, and he's not endorsing Democrat Mike Michaud, who is the only realistic alternative to GOP Gov. Paul LePage. Moaned Cutler:
"I'm a realist about my chances, but I'll be damned if I will kowtow to party politics."
Okay, great, don't kowtow, but you're still going to lose. The good news is that Sen. Angus King, who had previously endorsed Cutler, has—unlike Cutler—decided
to switch his support to Michaud. The RGA recently started using King's original endorsement in ads designed to push Democratic voters from Michaud to Cutler, which the naïve King complained
was a "trick." Let's see if Republicans stop running those ads, though.
• RI-Gov: Sheesh. After spending $5 million to win a narrow plurality in the Democratic primary, state Treasurer Gina Raimondo had just $32,000 in the bank for the final week of her campaign while Republican Allan Fung had $272,000 on hand. What's most upsetting is that the DGA has been forced to bail her out, spending $710,000 on her behalf to date, while the RGA has only shelled out $550,000 for Fung.
Given that the RGA's fundraising always outstrips the DGA's by huge margins, this amounts to an incredibly costly diversion of funds from major gubernatorial races like those in Florida and Michigan to one in a tiny blue state. And given Raimondo's close ties to Wall Street interests, that makes her financial shortfall all the more inexcusable. At least if your going to cozy up to bankers, make it worth your while!
• WI-Gov: On Wednesday, Marquette Law School gave Democrats some very lousy news. Their new poll gives Republican Gov. Scott Walker a 50-43 lead against Democrat Mary Burke. Two weeks ago, Marquette found the contest deadlocked 47-47.
It's hard to explain why Walker suddenly opened up a lead: Nothing appears to have happened recently to cost Burke the election or give Walker a boost. Burke's favorable numbers have taken a hit in this new poll, going from 40-43 to 38-45, while Walker's have stayed flat. It's also unclear what could have caused her decline. Burke has been on the receiving end of plenty of GOP attack ads for months, and she's held up until now. About a month-and-a-half ago Walker's allies accused Burke of plagiarizing her economic plan (an advisor who helped write it copied the plan from other campaigns he worked on) but she seemed to be weathering the attacks.
Marquette is a very respected pollster, and for good reason. In 2012 Marquette's nailed the results in Walker's recall election, the presidential race, and the U.S. Senate contest. Marquette is also headed by Charles Franklin, who has also earned a reputation as a solid pollster. So does this survey mean all hope is lost for Burke? Not on its own. As we've argued before, no single poll should ever be treated as the absolute truth: Outliers do happen even when a pollster does everything right.
We saw that earlier this month, when the respected Selzer & Associates poll showed a strange 6-point GOP lead in the Iowa Senate race, before moving to a more reasonable 1-point Republican edge two weeks later. It's likely the initial poll was just an outlier and there was no real large swing to the Democrats direction. It's possible this is new Wisconsin poll is just a bad sample, though Democrats shouldn't just automatically dismiss it as wrong without more data. Marquette has a well-deserved reputation for excellence and I certainly won't bet against them being right again; that doesn't mean we should ever let one individual poll change our outlook on a contest. We'll see soon enough if other surveys find Walker up, or if we see the deadlock most polls have been showing for a while.
There's one other interesting detail to point out in this survey: Walker leads among registered voters by only 46-45, down from his 48-45 lead with RVs in their last survey. Taken at face value, this would suggest that Democratic leaning voters are becoming less interested in this election and therefore less likely to turn out. However, several other Marquette polls (including their last) have shown Burke doing better among likely voters than among registered voters.
It's no secret that Democrats have a midterm election turnout problem but this is one of the few races in the country where it may not be an issue: Walker is a remarkably polarizing figure, and he can easily spur just as much excitement from Democrats looking to oust him as from Republicans looking to save him. It's hard to imagine Democrats have somehow lost their enthusiasm in the last two weeks, especially with most polls showing Walker in real danger. We'll know soon enough if Burke is getting the turnout she needs or if Democratic midterm malaise has hit the Badger State.
• Polling: Yes, there are governors. Would you like to elect some?
• CO-Gov: Quinnipiac: Bob Beauprez (R) 45, John Hickenlooper (D-inc) 40 (Oct. 23: 45-44 Hickenlooper)
• CO-Gov: Strategies 360 (D): Hickenlooper (D-inc) 46, Beauprez (R) 43
• CT-Gov: Quinnipiac: Dan Malloy (D-inc) 43, Tom Foley (R) 43, Joe Visconti (I) 7 (Oct. 22: 43-43 Malloy)
• FL-Gov: SEA Polling & Strategic Design (D): Rick Scott (R-inc) 45, Charlie Crist (D) 43
• GA-Gov: Monmouth: Nathan Deal (R-inc) 48, Jason Carter (D) 42, Andrew Hunt (L) 5
• KS-Gov: SurveyUSA: Paul Davis (D) 46, Sam Brownback (R-inc) 43 (Oct. 7: 47-42 Davis)
• MI-Gov: Mitchell: Rick Snyder (R-inc) 48, Mark Schauer (D) 43 (Oct. 21: 48-46 Snyder)
• PA-Gov: Franklin & Marshall: Tom Wolf (D) 50, Tom Corbett (R-inc) 32 (Sept.: 54-33 Wolf)
• PA-Gov: Harper Polling (R): Wolf (D) 50, Corbett (R-inc) 40 (Sept.: 52-41 Wolf)
• WI-Gov: Marquette: Scott Walker (R-inc) 50, Mary Burke (D) 43 (Oct. 15: 47-47 tie
Not the best batch for Dems to say the least, though Tom Corbett remains set for a landslide loss. His fan must be disappointed.
Speaking of a fan, it looks like Fangate did not blow this race open for Crist. This new survey is only the latest to show a tossup in the Sunshine State, and it looks like the contest will indeed come down to the wire. If Crist pulls off a narrow win, anyone and everything—including Fangate—can take credit. That's just what happens when you have a close victory. But it doesn't appear that this was the game changer Democrats wanted it to be. Ah well, we'll always have the memories.
House:
• NH-01, 02: There's one general truism it comes to the University of New Hampshire's polling: If you don't like the results, just wait—the next poll will show the opposite. UNH just released new polls of both of the Granite State's House districts, and for once, they defied the conventional wisdom by showing a stable race in the 1st District. Democratic Rep. Carol Shea-Porter leads Republican Frank Guinta 44-40, not too different from her 42-39 edge in their Oct. 7 poll.
But New Hampshire's 2nd District is another story. According to UNH, Democratic Rep. Annie Kuster is crushing Republican Marilinda Garcia 53-30, a huge reversal from Garcia's 41-37 lead in early October. Since that time, news broke that Garcia lifted other people's work verbatim in at least two speeches she delivered, without any attribution. And yes, she did generate some bad headlines. But enough to cause a 27-point swing in only three weeks? That does not sound remotely plausible.
By comparison, in the 2012 U.S. Senate race in Indiana, Republican Richard Mourdock's comments calling pregnancy from rape "an act of God" took him from what was probably a 2-point lead (give or take) to a 6-point loss. Yes, Indiana is far less swingy than New Hampshire and Democrats are capable of doing much better in the Granite State than in the Hoosier. But even so, Mourdock's comments were far worse than anything Garcia did, and even they produced "only" an 8-point swing to Democrat Joe Donnelly. In an era as polarized as this, it would probably take something along the lines of a murder conviction to cause a 27-point shift in such a short amount of time.
But there's more evidence that the Garcia kerfuffle was almost certainly not responsible for this huge gyration. As Daily Kos Elections' Dreaminonempty visualizes below, UNH has shown crazy swings in NH-02 for months, all without any scandal to blame:
UNH's 2014 NH-02 polling
There's a much more obvious explanation for what happened here: UNH's tiny sample sizes make their House polls all but useless. In a recent post, Dreaminonempty vividly demonstrated how small sample sizes
introduce a ton of noise into polls, creating swings where there are none. UNH's House polls routinely have sample sizes smaller than 300, which is unacceptably small. The simple solution is to poll more people, which would dramatically reduce the amount of turbulence in their polling.
But UNH's polling director Andy Smith has shown no interest in fixing the obvious problems with his polls. Indeed, UNH's House polling issues go back even further than we originally thought. In 2000 two weeks before the election, they found Republican Rep. John Sununu up 53-28; in their final poll just days before the election they found Sununu up 55-44, a 14-point swing to the Democrats in about two weeks. He ended up winning 53-45.
In NH-02 things were much more stable and accurate. However, UNH still was willing to employ small sample sizes, with one of their NH-02 polls only sampling 266 voters. Things were also incredibly volatile in 2002, this time in both districts. And guess who has been in charge of the UNH Polling Center since at least 2000? Andy Smith. That means he's has 14 years to fix this very obvious problem. And it's not like no one's noticed. As far back as the 2006 and 2008 cycles during our days as The Swing State Project, we've highlighted this very issue. Nothing's been done though: In 2012, UNH also showed far too much bouncing in its House polling, featuring plenty more wild, unexplained swings.
So why doesn't Smith care about the low quality of his surveys? It may be because he really has no incentive to fix the bugs. Media outlets, including Manchester's WMUR-TV and Maine's Portland Press-Herald, still keep paying Smith to conduct their polling. And the press will still breathlessly report his numbers no matter how awful they are. In fact, the more absurd the numbers, the more attention they get. For instance, when UNH showed a 10-point swing in the New Hampshire Senate race in just one month over the summer, reporters breathlessly reported "Scott Brown's winning!" despite the firm's notorious history. The simple truth is that reporters like having interesting polls to write about, and they're quite happy to keep giving Smith attention no matter what.
UNH is far from the only pollster to ignore its own problems. As Fladem showed us in a 2012 essay, Gallup routinely produced poor surveys since at least 1996. The company had plenty of evidence that there was a major bug in their system and more than enough time to fix it, but they spent 16 years pretending all was fine. And why wouldn't they: Reporters continually cited Gallup as the gold standard for polling, even though they had none nothing to earn that honor for ages. It was only in 2012, when Gallup became a national punch line for blowing the presidential election, that they finally decided to admit that they had a problem. Unfortunately, UNH, with its more regional focus, is unlikely to ever receive this kind of scrutiny no matter how bad they are.
Smith deserves plenty of blame for producing poor polls and refusing to fix clear flaws that have been present for well over a decade. But ultimately, he really has no reason to change as long as both the media and the experts turn a blind eye to his methods. There is already so little accountability in the world of polling, and the fact that UNH's results are taken at all seriously by people who should know better only means we're going to see more terrible results from them—and from other lousy pollsters.
• UT-04: So strange. After an online-only BYU poll rather implausibly found Democrat Doug Owens leading Republican Mia Love in Utah's dark red 4th District, UtahPolicy.com decided to hold back their own poll that apparently showed something similar. They say they chose to do so because their sample size—probably in the 200s—was too small, but add that they're going back into the field and will release a larger poll on Friday. This is a very good reason to use proper sample sizes in the first place, because it's just too easy to mistrust the numbers otherwise.
• WV-03: Hmm. Seekrit polls in West Virginia don't sound good for Democratic Rep. Nick Rahall. In a roundup of top House races, Politico's Alex Isenstadt doesn't offer any details, but he does say that "[i]nternal polling from both parties shows [Rahall] narrowly trailing Republican Evan Jenkins." Given the overall trends for Democrats nationwide, this is certainly believable.
• DCCC: Last week Jon Ralston made reference to the DCCC jumping in last-minute to help Rep. Steven Horsford in NV-04, and on Wednesday that came true; the DCCC is laying out $360,000 to run an attack ad against Horsford's GOP opponent, Assemblyman Cresent Hardy. It's a light-blue district but one where early voting has gone terribly for the Democrats (given it's 'orphan race' status, with no Senate race and only a half-assed gubernatorial race to drive turnout) and Crossroads, sensing an opening, has spent over $1 million on ads. NV-04 also caused some blue heartburn in 2012 when it was a newly-created open seat, before Horsford won easily in the end, but that was against the backdrop of presidential-level turnout.
There was one other eyebrow-raiser; the DCCC is putting $99,000 into the little-regarded CA-24 in support of Rep. Lois Capps. That's only for radio ads, so that seems like more like insurance than panic, but it shows there was at least something to that sketchy internal from her opponent Chris Mitchum. They also went up with unsurprising re-ups in five other key defensive races: $265,000 in CA-52, $77,000 in GA-12, $280,000 in IL-10, $74,000 in MN-08, and $257,000 in WV-03.
• Polling: Some House stragglers:
• MA-06: Øptimus (R): Richard Tisei (R): 36, Seth Moulton (D): 34, Chris Stockwell (I): 9 (Oct. 19: Tisei 39, Moulton 38, Stockwell not tested)
• MI-06: Hamilton Campaigns (D): Fred Upton (R-inc): 47, Paul Clements: 43 (Oct. 5: Upton 50, Clements 35) (conducted for Clements)
• NY-19: Siena: Chris Gibson (R-inc): 58, Sean Eldridge (D): 35 (August: Gibson 57, Eldridge 33)
No surprises in the MA-06 or NY-19 polls, with little movement in either of those races. The 'whoa' poll among the House races is in MI-06, a race that we have classified as Safe Republican (and where Republican incumbent Fred Upton hasn't seen a close race in ages), but one where Larry Lessig's Mayday PAC has taken an interest and spent a fair amount on ads. If you've ever wondered whether a lot of money in a swing district can essentially will a competitive race into existence, well, apparently it can (see the trendlines from before the ad blitz started). Upton's still a lot closer to 50 than Clements is, though, in this best-case scenario.
Ads & Independent Expenditures:
• AK-Sen: The NRSC continues to go after Democratic Sen. Mark Begich's time as mayor of Anchorage, while Put Alaska First spends $807,000 for Team Blue.
• CO-Sen: We have new expenditures for the Democrats from the League of Conservation Voters and NARAL. NARAL also runs an ad hitting Republican Cory Gardner on climate change and birth control. The narrator tells viewers that if Gardner wins they "better stock up on condoms" and the spot features a (fully clothed) couple in bed reaching for a condom only to find it's just a wrapper: This is definitely much more explicit than most political spots ever get.
• GA-Sen: Patriot Majority against Republican David Perdue.
• IA-Sen: Democratic expenditures from the NEA and NextGen Climate.
• KS-Sen: The U.S. Chamber of Commerce promotes Republican Sen. Pat Roberts as a strong leader in tough times, while Freedom Partners tells voters that a vote for independent Greg Orman is a vote for Obama. The size of the buy for Freedom Partners is $589,000.
On the other side, Mayday PAC features self-described Republicans saying they can't vote for Roberts.
• KY-Sen: GOP expenditures from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and the Kentucky Opportunity Coalition.
• LA-Sen: Crossroads GPS airs another ad tethering Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu to Obama. Ten more and Karl Rove gets a set of stake knives. We also have a $467,000 expenditure from them.
• MN-Sen: Few Democrats are worried about this race, but Alliance for a Better Minnesota spends $546,000 for Democratic Sen. Al Franken.
• NC-Sen: It's been a while since we've seen too many anti-same-sex marriage ads in a general election, even in red states. But the National Organization of Marriage is quickly running out of reasons to exist, so they're hitting Democratic Sen. Kay Hagan for voting to confirm a judge who later struck down the state's ban. The judge was confirmed by the Senate 96 to zero so this is of course a stupid line of attack, but NOM is not exactly the most pragmatic group out there.
Also for the GOP, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce stars Mitt Romney saying some generic nice things about Republican Thom Tillis. The Chamber's last ad here starred country music star Randy Owen but there's no singing from Mitt in this spot, which is probably for the best. We also have GOP expenditures from the Chamber and Crossroads GPS.
• SD-Sen: Mayday PAC features a Republican rancher saying he can't vote for GOP nominee Mike Rounds.
• CT-Gov: The DGA continues to portray Republican Tom Foley as Ebenezer Scrooge Jr.
• HI-Gov: While some recent polls have looked good for Democrat David Ige, the DGA is still running another ad- and given how unpredictable Hawaii polling is, can you blame them?
• KS-Gov: Ah, that's the stuff. Republicans ran a string of ads against Democrat Paul Davis without mentioning Obama, but the RGA is busting out the old hits.
• ME-Gov: The RGA has been running quite a few ads in this tight race, and their latest stars Barbara Bush. The spot continues the GOP's theme of arguing that while Republican Gov. Paul LePage is an asshole, he's Maine's asshole.
• MI-Gov: The RGA lists all the things they say Democrat Mark Schauer voted to tax.
• RI-Gov: With the open seat race in the Ocean State not looking as secure for Team Blue as it once did, the DGA is spending $250,000. They have two new ads (here and here) praising Democrat Gina Raimondo and going after Republican Allan Fung's service as mayor of Cranston.
• CA-07: American Crossroads continues to drop money against Democratic Rep. Ami Bera in this very expensive race.
• CA-52: American Unity PAC casts Democratic Rep. Scott Peters as fiscally irresponsible while praising Republican Carl DeMaio for his work on San Diego's pension crisis.
• GA-12: Patriot Majority contrasts Democratic Rep. John Barrow with Republican Rick Allen, describing Allen as a shady businessman.
• IA-03: Mayday PAC against Republican David Young.
• MA-09: American Unity PAC is the first outside group to run any real ads in this Cape Cod-area seat, where Republican John Chapman is hoping to upset Democratic Rep. Bill Keating. The narrator argues that Keating is a do-nothing partisan, while Chapman is a problem solver.
• MI-06: Mayday PAC throws another $650,000 at Republican Rep. Fred Upton. Their spot promotes Democrat Paul Clements.
• NE-02: The DCCC goes after Republican Rep. Lee Terry's time in Congress, with an obligatory shot at his insensitive comments during the shutdown.
• NY-18: Republican Nan Hayworth features her openly gay son defending her from Democratic attempts to portray her as an extremist.
• NY-24: American Unity PAC stars Rudy Giuliani saying nice things about Republican John Katko.
• American Unity PAC: Pro-GOP expenditures.
• DCCC: Democratic expenditures.
• NRCC: Pro-GOP ads in AZ-01; CA-07; CA-52; FL-02; GA-12; IL-10; IL-12; IA-03; MN-07; and MN-08. None of these targets are at all surprising, and eight of the ten districts are Democratic.
We also have their expenditures.
The Daily Kos Elections Morning Digest is compiled by David Nir, with additional contributions from Jeff Singer, David Jarman, Steve Singiser, Taniel, and Dreaminonempty.
