• AZ-Sen: J.D. Hayworth is still trying to spin away his shilling for free-grant-money seminars, saying that, in his defense, those grants really do exist. No, they don’t, say the folks at Grants.gov, who would be the ones to know. Meanwhile, the Hayworth camp is attacking John McCain for his association with Republican bundler and convicted Ponzi schemer Scott Rothstein, a guy McCain has claimed not to know. The Hayworth camp unveiled video of McCain and Rothstein together at a fundraiser, while the McCain camp answers that he can’t be responsible for remembering every single donor he met over the course of a presidential bid.
• KS-Sen: Here’s an interesting split in the endorsements of the various right-wingers jetting around the country playing kingmaker. You might recall that Sarah Palin recently added Todd Tiahrt to her list of Mama Grizzlies in the Kansas GOP Senate primary; today comes news that Jim DeMint will be stumping on behalf of rival Jerry Moran.
• LA-Sen: Charlie Melancon seems to finally realize he’s been handed a prime opportunity to go on the offensive, in David Vitter’s hiring and later defending of his repeatedly in-trouble-with-the-law aide Brent Furer. Melancon is now publicly asking why he “protected” Furer for two years.
• NH-Sen: You’ve gotta wonder about the sanity of a candidate, lagging in the polls and trying to capture Tea Party support, who looks at Dale Peterson and Rick Barber’s viral video notoriety and thinks “Hey, that could be me!” Jim Bender, the distant fourth-wheel in the New Hampshire GOP primary, is out with a bizarre new ad that involves a crazed-looking, frosting-covered Uncle Sam actor devouring cake slices decorated like banks and cars.
• MA-Gov: Tim Cahill, currently lying in the middle of the street with RGA tire tracks all over his back, is trying to get back up on his feet. He’s out with a second TV ad (his first one was back in January), a positive spot focusing on his time as state Treasurer.
• MD-Gov (pdf): Republican pollster Magellan just keeps churning out gubernatorial polls; while most of them have seemed right on the mark, this one’s a little surprising. They find Republican Bob Ehrlich leading Dem incumbent Martin O’Malley 46-43. While O’Malley’s approvals are plausible for a current incumbent (41/45), the fact that they have Ehrlich, who got bounced out of office in 2006, at 51/32, is perplexing. O’Malley did get one piece of welcome news today, though: you might remember that he was facing a quixotic but not entirely trivial primary challenge from the right from former state Del. George Owings. Owings dropped out of the race today, citing health problems.
• NE-Gov: Via press release, we’ve just learned that businessman Mark Lakers, the Democratic nominee, is dropping out of the gubernatorial race. He cites fundraising woes and family unhappiness in his decision. Apparently, there’s a replacement candidate ready to be substituted by the state Dems (the uneventful primary was held May 11), although no word yet on who that is. We’ll update with a link once we know more.
• NM-Gov: Fundraising numbers in New Mexico are out, courtesy of Heath Haussamen. It was a strong reporting period for GOPer Susana Martinez, who raised $611K, compared with Democratic Lt. Gov. Diane Denish, who banked $188K. You might think the disparity has to do with Martinez facing a major primary while Denish was uncontested, but Denish actually spent more than Martinez in that same period. Denish still has a huge cash on hand disparity: $2.2 million, compared with $300K for Martinez. (Expect to see a whole lotta RGA money flowing Martinez’s way, though.)
• WI-Gov: Here’s a surprising endorsement for Milwaukee mayor and Democratic candidate Tom Barrett: he got the backing of NYC mayor and well-known independent Michael Bloomberg. Apparently the two know each other from the big-city mayors community, and Bloomberg is a fan of Barrett’s attempts to stop gun violence.
• TN-08: The state GOP chairman had to step in, weary-parent-style, to the squabble between Stephen Fincher and Ron Kirkland, saying that he loves them an equal amount. Actually, Chris Devaney said that they’re both, as far as he knows, bona fide Republicans. (No mention of the primary field’s red-headed step-child, George Flinn?) Today the battle between Fincher and Kirkland has already moved on to TARP, each trying to hang it around each other’s necks despite neither one having voted for it. For fans who want more of this decidedly drama-filled primary, Reid Wilson had a thorough history of the race yesterday, focusing on why the NRCC has buddied up with Fincher so much.
• MI-St. Sen.: We always like to see state-based bloggers handicapping their state legislative races, as that’s too far down in the weeds for even us know-it-alls at SSP to make educated guesses. Michigan Liberal’s pbratt looks at the Michigan Senate – one of the few places where we’re on the offensive this cycle, thanks to a whole lot of open seats – and foresees Dems falling just short, with 20-18 Republican control of the chamber after November.
• DGA: Also via press release, we’ve just gotten fundraising numbers from the DGA. While they aren’t in the same league as the RGA (who’ve doubled up on the DGA in terms of both this quarter and cash on hand), it shows they’re revving up for a huge gubernatorial year, too, with $9.1 million in the second quarter and $22 million CoH.
As a sometimes poster at SSP (and a huge fan of all the work done here), I’m glad that folks are following the MI State House and Senate analysis.
I too am disappointed that the Dems haven’t done better since my last look at the State Senate in February. Two strong Democratic candidates have dropped out-Marc Corriveau in the 7th State Senate District and Joel Sheltrown dropped out of the 36th State Senate race to run for Bart Stupak’s congressional seat (and then dropped out of that as well). These were two seats that the Dems could have certainly challenged, and I would have considered both candidates to be front runners.
Stupak’s resignation also cost the Democrats a shot at the 37th State Senate District. Gary McDowell was going to run for the Democrats until Stupak dropped out, and while it would have been an uphill climb in this Republican-leaning seat, if anyone could have won this race it would have been McDowell. Now the Dems have a sacrificial lamb in Bob Carr.
While all these three candidates were not slam dunks to win, I would have picked Corriveau and Sheltrown to win their races, making the margin in the Senate 20-18 Democratic. We’ll see what happens.
Am I the only one who finds it odd for a man to be included? Shouldn’t he be a “Papa Grizzly”?
On a somewhat more serious note, what are the chances for both Republican candidates to be sufficiently damaged for Glassman to actually win the Arizona Senate seat?
on criminal misogynist Furer and also on his hypocritical immoral behavior.
Again I’m ashamed that teh Senate did not expel Vitter for his repeated solicitation of prostitutes.
from major donors who stopped giving to the RNC out of disgust for Steele’s leadership. It worries me that they are going to be able to give their candidates so much more help than the DGA, although the DGA hasn’t done badly.
the Culver campaign published after going through state archives from Terry Branstad’s four terms in office. They posted about 400 pages documenting Branstad’s record of abusing power, using staff resources to do campaign work for himself and other Republicans. Unbelievable. Excerpt from the Culver campaign memo:
There are approximately 1,000 boxes in the Branstad files, and I’m sure Culver wouldn’t release all the best stuff before the 4th of July. Looking forward to learning more about how Branstad ran this state.
Obama’s favorable/unfavorable rating in Washington state is 39/39 among registered voters.
SurveyUSA asks the favorable/unfavorable in the same way that CBS/NY Times asks the question (it gives you a neutral and undecided option).
Still, SurveyUSA and Mason-Dixon are completely inconsistent with the media pollsters. If obama is even in Washington in terms of favorability, he’d be a net
7-10 at least nationally.We’ll see who’s right this November.
Pretty depressing day for Team Blue. The job growth actually wasn’t THAT bad, as the private sector numbers, sans census jobs, are all that matter, and in that regard May was the disaster rather than the June numbers released today. But today’s numbers, including so many people leaving the workforce (which is why the decline in the official unemployment rate is bad news), reinforces the point that we’re in either a very slow recovery or outright stagnation.
The recent Battleground poll and NBC/WSJ poll also leave me as blue as I am Blue.
I’m thinking now we do, indeed, lose the House. I think the tide of a bad economy will be too strong. The following comment-&-response from a Marc Ambinder blog post perfectly says very concisely what’s going on out there:
The only silver lining is that stunningly I still see a net loss of just 5 in the Senate. That’s because of the weakness of some of the GOP candidates, plus the “pickup” of Florida with Crist likely winning and caucusing with Democrats. I’m still thinking Harry Reid survives thanks to Angle being a bridge too far even against the unpopular Reid. And I think Mark Kirk is proving too weak in a Blue state like Illinois where favorite son Obama remains popular. And I’m counting on wins by Feingold and Murray thanks to personal ability and being well-liked enough, and in Murray’s case it’s a Blue state. Boxer I’m counting as a win because California ultimately is too liberal these days for someone as conservative as Fiorina to beat her. And that’s not giving Dems very many of the potential tossups, as I’m throwing in the towel on pickups in MO; OH; KY; and NH; as well as in 6 seats I’m conceding in DE; PA; IN; AR; ND; and CO. The fact that we actually have 5 legit pickup opportunities including FL with Crist as “ours” will actually help us in Dem-held seats I predict we’ll hold, in that the NRSC and other 3rd-party groups will have to help defend there at the opportunity cost of playing offense with those resources.
For two straight months of good jobs reports people whined that it was “just” the census. Well, then isn’t the latest report “just” the census making it look worse than it is? Slow recovery yes, but certainly a recovery IMO.