SSP Daily Digest: 10/5

AZ-Sen: It’s been a rumor all year, but it just won’t die: ex-Rep. J.D. Hayworth is reportedly still interested in challenging John McCain in the GOP primary next year. McCain already has a primary challenge from the fringey right, in the form of former Minutemen leader Chris Simcox.

FL-Sen: Although Rep. Corrine Brown doesn’t seem to be taking any steps to get into the Dem field, it looks like Rep. Kendrick Meek still may not get the primary all to himself: former Miami mayor Maurice Ferre is signaling his interest in the race. Ferre is 74; he was the first Hispanic (he’s Puerto Rican) to be elected Miami mayor. Meanwhile, Meek is the beneficiary of yet another Bill Clinton fundraiser; this is the Big Dog’s fourth on behalf of Meek, a prominent Hillary Clinton endorser in 2008. Finally, Karl Rove is weighing in on the Florida senate primary, albeit just with a $1,000 donation and no loud public pronouncement: he’s backing Marco Rubio.

IL-Sen: Rep. Mark Kirk says he’s raised $1.6 million for the 3rd quarter, leaving him with $2.3 million cash on hand. State Treasurer Alexi Giannoulias hasn’t made any report yet, but ended the 2nd quarter with $1.65 million on hand.

NV-Sen: The heat is getting turned up on John Ensign; Barbara Boxer confirmed today that the Senate Ethics Committee will be taking up the little matter of getting a lobbying job for cuckolded ex-staffer Doug Hampton and then steering him clients as a parting gift. Meanwhile, the GOP’s new candidate in the 2010 Senate race, Sue Lowden, is still clinging to Ensign, standing by earlier pro-Ensign comments at an Elko appearance on Friday, saying that she hopes to have Ensign campaigning on behalf of Republican candidates (including, presumably, herself) next year.

WI-Sen: Russ Feingold seems to be sitting pretty, with high favorables and little in the way of GOP opposition. His likeliest opponent is Madison real estate developer Terrence Wall, but Wisconsin’s Blogging Blue makes a nice catch about Wall: he loves doing business in Wisconsin so much that all 16 of his business entities are incorporated in Delaware.

AZ-Gov: Another minor GOP player is jumping into the gubernatorial primary against appointed incumbent Jan Brewer. Former state GOP chair (during the early 1980s) and former member of the university system Board of Regents John Munger is in the race. He joins Brewer and Paradise Valley mayor Vernon Parker, with state Treasurer Dean Martin and some other higher-profile figures considering it too.

CA-Gov: Maybe this explains why alleged Republican Meg Whitman is running for governor and not for senate: turns out she endorsed Barbara Boxer in 2004 as part of Technology Leaders for Boxer, and gave her $4,000. No word yet on whether Whitman actually got around to voting for her, though.

MN-Gov: A straw poll at the Minnesota GOP convention sees former state House minority leader Marty Seifert in pole position; he pulled in 37% of the vote among nine candidates. Little-known state Rep. Tom Emmer finished second at 23%, and former state Auditor Pat Anderson was third with 14%. Norm Coleman was also seen mingling with convention-goers (he got a few write-in votes although his name wasn’t on the ballot); he says he hasn’t fully ruled out running, saying he’ll make a decision early next year.

SC-Gov: Republican AG Henry McMaster, who’s running to succeed Mark Sanford as governor, has run into his own little ethical snafu. He’s having to return $32,500 in illegal contributions that came from five attorneys after he had hired them to work on cases for the state.

SD-Gov: Republican Lt. Gov. Dennis Daugaard officially kicked off his campaign for the 2010 gubernatorial race. In an apparently all-Scandinavian-American rumble, he’ll face off against state Senate majority leader Dave Knudson in the GOP primary, and the winner will face Democratic state Senate minority leader Scott Heidepriem.

VA-Gov: The money keeps pouring into the Virginia governor’s race. The DNC is throwing another $1 million into Creigh Deeds’ kitty. Also, the RGA is going on the air with a huge ad buy in the DC market with an ad featuring a testy post-debate Deeds interview.

WI-Gov (pdf): The Univ. of Wisconsin and Wisconsin Policy Research Institute poll the Wisconsin governor’s race, but primary fields only. Unknowns rule the day: on the Dem side, Milwaukee mayor and ex-Rep. Tom Barrett (who hasn’t confirmed his interest) beats Lt. Gov. Barbara Lawton, 38-16. On the GOP side, Milwaukee Co. Exec Scott Walker beats ex-Rep. Mark Neumann 39-14, with 4% to Tim Michels. (Barrett is the best known of all the candidates, with a 36/12 favorable.) Current Gov. Jim Doyle heads out of office in net negative territory, with a 43/52 approval, although that still beats a lot of other governors right now.

WY-Gov: Most of the major players seem to be standing around and waiting to see whether current Gov. Dave Freudenthal challenges the state’s term limit laws in court in order to grab a third term. One Republican isn’t waiting though, becoming the first announced big-ticket opponent: rancher Ron Micheli. He was a state Representative for 16 years and state Agriculture Director under Republican Gov. Jim Geringer.

NV-03: It looks like the GOP may successfully trade up in the 3rd District. With banker John Guedry bailing out of the race for personal reasons, now it looks like they’ve coaxed former state Sen. Joe Heck out of the gubernatorial primary (where he initially looked like he had a shot at taking out unpopular incumbent Jim Gibbons, but turned into a long shot with the likely inclusion of ex-AG, ex-judge Brian Sandoval in the primary) and into the race against Dem freshman Rep. Dina Titus instead. Heck is still officially mum, but will have an announcement later this week.

PA-11: Democratic Lackawanna County Commissioner Corey O’Brien had been a long-rumored primary challenger to long-time Rep. Paul Kanjorski in the 11th, and he made it official over the weekend. O’Brien is clearly emphasizing what a young go-getter he is (compared with the aging Kanjorski), kicking things off with 30 straight hours of campaigning.) Kanjo remains undeterred though, reiterating that he’s running for re-election and looking forward to the debate.

Generic Ballot: PPP fires up another warning flare about 2010, looking at some of the generic ballot crosstabs. Among voters who don’t like either party, they opt for the GOP 50-14. But there’s a disparity by party line among unhappy voters. The unhappy Republicans will still vote GOP, 66-18, but the unhappy Democrats say they’ll cross over to the GOP, 48-26. On the plus side, there aren’t as many unhappy Democrats as there are unhappy Republicans (20% instead of 33%).

House: Biden Alert! The VP has been working overtime in the last month appearing at fundraisers for vulnerable House members, helping nearly a dozen members haul more than a collective $1 million. He’s also been assisting with recruiting efforts, most notably with the successful score of Bethlehem mayor John Callahan in PA-15.

65 thoughts on “SSP Daily Digest: 10/5”

  1. …seriously, Meg Whitman’s campaign skidded off the tracks the moment the moment it left the station. I’d like to see some new favorability ratings on her among registered Republicans.

    Oh, and on FL-Sen, it feels a tad late for anyone new to be getting into the Dem Primary against Meek; he seems to have locked down a great deal of the state’s establishment. If I recall correctly, Corrine Brown set a deadline by which she’d need to raise a certain amount of $$$, but of course, I don’t remember the exact date or sum of cash. I imagine the only way she gets in, however, is if internals show she can beat Charlie Crist. I suspect that’s highly unlikely. Plus, she’s building up a decent amount of Seniority.

  2. From Liz Benjamin

    Jacob Gershman’s trial balloon:

    Rangel, who is very close to Paterson’s father, Basil, (they accounted for two of Harlem’s storied Gang of Four, the others being former Manhattan BP Percy Sutton and former Mayor David Dinkins), would step down, enabling Paterson to call a special election.

    Next, Manhattan’s Democratic leaders, led by new Chairman Keith Wright, would tap Paterson to run for Rangel’s seat, clearing the way for AG Andrew Cuomo to run for governor and causing Democrats from Montauk to Buffalo to breathe a big sigh of relief.

    Read more: http://www.nydailynews.com/blo

  3. I wish they would’ve shown a geographic breakdown. I suspect I’m correct but it would be nice to get affirmation, about a third of primary voters will be from Milwaukee and the near by suburbs and Barrett will dominate among this group. So I’d like to see if this is where Barrett’s lead comes from.

  4. Those are very small subsets from a poll which had the GOP ahead in the generic ballot by four points. Not surprising since they only found 1% more Dems in their sample. Even Rasmussen puts the ID lead at least at +5.

  5. In PA-11 we have a younger Democrat who will hold the district for years to come. In PA-15 we have a top-tier challenger. In PA-06 we have a likely pickup.

    With extremist Pat Toomey on top of the ticket, hurting downballot Republicans in liberal areas, 2010 will be a good year for the Democrats in PA. Especially if the Republican candidate for Governor is also too far right.

  6. He is my state representative before I moved from college.  He’s from Wright County, his district voted 20% for McCain so Emmer is heavily conservative and is also an assistant minority leader or something.

    Also, as a Republican leadership member, he went to one of the “Over Ride SIx’s” GOP endorsement to campaign against one of the incumbents who voted override Pawlenty’s veto of the DFL’s massive transportation tax and raise and revenues, so he’s really popular with the hardcore crowd.

    This is similar to Christ losing straw polls in Florida.

  7. The growing confidence among national Democrats that New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine (D) will win his race with Chris Christie (R) despite trailing in polls all year is based on recent private polls.

    Political Wire now hears that a public poll coming tomorrow will actually show Corzine taking the lead.

    http://politicalwire.com/archi

  8. I’m not sure that attacking a guy for incorporating in Delaware is a good hit.  Most corporations incorporate there.  It has nothing to do with where you actually do business.  

  9. Deeds might of had a Kay Hagan type surge in the fall, but I’m loosing the faith. It appears that Thesis gate has run its course and people are gravitating back to McDonnell. It’s a testimate to McDonnell was able to ride out the storm. That and outspending your opponent 2 to 1 on TV helps also.  

  10. Former Bibb County (Macon) Republican Chair Paul Rish will challenge Marshall next year: http://www.macon.com/local/sto

    Rish is not the first Republican to challenge Marshall, however.  Kenneth Ray DeLoach has filed with the FEC (can’t find any info on him).  Angela Hicks has announced on her campaign site that she’s running.  And Diane Vann is said to be running a low-tech, grassroots campaign.

  11. Paul Kanjorski seems to be “dead meat” at least w/r/t these factors

    1) He’s been around over 20 years

    2) He won 52-48, in a district w/PVI +4

    3) President Obama won’t be atop the ballot in 2010

    While I haven’t looked at the overall data lately, I make the following premise:

    Incumbents who win narrowly in a Presidential year in their favor have trouble in the following election.

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