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Senate:
• UT-Sen: I think it would have been far bigger news had Mitt Romney not returned the favor, but regardless, he did go ahead and endorse fellow Republican Sen. Orrin Hatch… six months after Hatch endorsed him. I don't know how much these things matter, because it's not as though Romney can really spare anything other than words for Hatch, but he is still pretty popular among Utah Republicans.
Gubernatorial:
• KY-Gov: The air war in Kentucky is turning decidedly negative, with Dem Gov. Steve Beshear launching his first attack ad against David Williams. It's actually a "compare-and-contrast" spot, with the first half devoted to Beshear's fiscal stewardship and the second to criticizing Williams for his apparently free-spending ways when it came to the state legislature's budget. The salvo comes in response to a Williams ad which goes after Beshear for job losses in the state and invokes Barack Obama with about as dark-toned and grainy an image as possible.
• KY-Gov: Man, this poll already has two weeks' worth of dust collected on it, but it slipped through the couch cushions and only just surfaced now. (I know you're asking how something stuck under the couch cushions could possibly gather dust, but trust me, it did.) Anyhow, cn|2, via their usual pals Braun Research, tested all the statewide races in Kentucky and found numbers very similar to PPP's… for the gubernatorial race. They have Democrat Steve Beshear leading Republican David Williams and oddball Gatewood Galbraith 54-25-7, much like PPP's 55-28-10. But Braun's numbers for all the other races are much more favorable toward Democrats than the PPP results. Click through the first link to see all the details.
• NC-Gov: Republican pollster Magellan has what looks like the most positive numbers for Dem Gov. Bev Perdue we've seen all year. Their newest poll has Republican Pat McCrory leading her by just 44-43. That comes on the heels of Public Policy Polling's latest survey showing McCrory up just 45-41, also the tightest margin PPP's had this cycle. Still, can Perdue claw her way up to 50 from the low 40s?
• WA-Gov: Did you know that gubernatorial candidates in Washington have to report their fundraising totals every month? Yay for transparency! Boo for obsessive-compulsive campaign chroniclers who really don't want to write up new numbers every four weeks. Sigh. Anyhow, Dem Rep. Jay Inslee had another impressive haul — $500K — in August, all the more impressive since it doesn't appear to include any big transfers from the state Democratic Party. No word on Republican AG Rob McKenna's take yet.
House:
• CT-05: The regional branch of the United Auto Workers just endorsed state House Speaker Chris Donovan for the Democratic nomination, giving him his second union "get." Though you might not expect it given that we're talking about Connecticut, the UAW actually represents a pretty sizable 10,000 workers in the state. Anyhow, the UAW is only the third union to endorse overall: The Connecticut Laborers previously went for Donovan, while a local chapter of the Communications Workers of America is supporting public relations exec Dan Roberti, whose father Vincent, a former state rep., also happens to be a lobbyist for AT&T.
• GA-12: State Rep. Lee Anderson just announced that he'd challenge Dem Rep. John Barrow in the redrawn 12th, which I believe makes him the first Republican to do so. The linked article adds that businessman Rick Allen also plans to seek the GOP nod, and that ex-Rep. Max Burns (who held this seat for a single term from 2003 to 2005) is a rumored candidate as well. We'll have full calculations soon, but it looks like Obama lost the new 12th by 12 points. That's a huge swing from the current incarnation, which he won by nine.
• NV-02: PPP polled Tuesday's other congressional special election as well and finds, as you'd expect, Mark Amodei on the path to a handy win. The Republican currently leads Kate Marshall by a daunting 50-37 margin. Click the link for the full post at Daily Kos Elections.
• NY-09: It's a week old, but I think this piece by Dana Rubinstein in the publication Capital offers a very good, nuanced look at the Jewish demographics of the 9th CD, for those interested in learning more.
Other Races:
• LA-St. Sen.: Only 19 of Louisiana's 39 state Senate districts (which are all up for re-election this fall) will be contested this fall, and only 10 of those 19 feature Dem-vs.-GOP matchups. Bucktown Pirate at The Daily Kingfish has a rundown on the five most interesting. Democrats controlled the Senate as recently as last year, but the GOP now has a 22-17 edge, thanks to special elections and party switchers.
• LA-SoS: I guess I should also point out that Democrat Caroline Fayard decided not to run for Secretary of State, an office she was toying with for a good chunk of this year.
• NJ-St. Sen.: As expected, Democrat Carl Lewis has appealed the district court ruling keeping him off the ballot to the Third Circuit Court of Appeals in Philadelphia. It sounds like the case is on an expedited schedule, since oral arguments are today.
• NY-AD-54: Hah, man. Not sure I've ever seen anything quite like this before. In Tuesday's special election in this Brooklyn-based Assembly seat (essential background here), Rafael Espinal couldn't score any newspaper endorsements so he literally made up a newspaper of his own. You've gotta click through the first link to see this brazen act of chutzpah. The Daily News has more on Espinal's chicanery in general — remember, this guy scored the endorsement of the Democratic and Republican and Conservative Parties — in the context of their endorsement of Jesus Gonzalez, who is running on the Working Families Party line. (Gonzales is a Democrat and community organizer who was passed over as the Democratic nominee by the corrupt old Brooklyn machine.)
Grab Bag:
• NY Election Law: Remember that crazy New York state law I told you about, which requires campaigns that make public use of polls to file detailed information with the Board of Elections? Well, I was just informed by that same board (pursuant to a Freedom of Information request) that they discard any polls that are more than a cycle old! I can't believe it! And they have nothing currently on file from the most recent cycle. That seems like a travesty to me.
• South Carolina: I have absolutely nothing to say about PPP's second batch of South Carolina miscellany, but hey, props to them for polling the fuck out of everything they poll.
Redistricting Roundup:
• CA Redistricting: Delicious cat fud: Roll Call's Jonathan Strong reports that California Republicans are "at war" regarding a proposed ballot measure that would overturn the state's new congressional map. Funny enough, the GOPers who got screwed by redistricting are raring to push the referendum (David Dreier, Elton Gallegly, Ed Royce, and Gary Miller), while those who made out nicely are in no hurry to do so (Kevin McCarthy, John Campbell, Dana Rohrabacher, and Buck McKeon). Whoda thunk it! The crazy thing, though, is that if the commission's plan is upended, the courts will wind up drawing a new map, and there's really no way any such map could be much better for the Republican Party as a whole. So it seems like just a second roll of the dice.
• OH Redistricting: While it's still sort of at rumor level, Dem Rep. Marcy Kaptur's office says they've received information about what the GOP's proposed new map will look like, and provide this capsule summary:
Kaptur spokesman Steve Fought said friendly Republicans in Washington and Columbus have fed Kaptur's office a torrent of tips that indicate her district will be extended east along Lake Erie to include Rep. Dennis Kucinich's longtime political base on the West Side of Cleveland. Two GOP congressmen who represent the area around Dayton – Mike Turner and Steve Austria – would also be drawn in together. […]
According to Fought, the rumored legislative map has Kaptur continuing to represent Toledo, but losing Republican leaning parts of western Lucas County to GOP Rep. Bob Latta of Bowling Green. He said his boss "would not relish" a primary battle against Kucinich, but he would not rule one out.
Under the scenario, Rep. Marcia Fudge would continue to represent Cleveland's East Side. Several months ago, Ohio House Speaker Bill Batchelder told a Cleveland gathering of black political, civic and religious leaders that her district may be extended south, into predominantly black sections of Akron, to ensure that Ohio continues to have a congressional district that's mostly composed of minorities.
At the same time, a separate story (also in the Cleveland Plain-Dealer) paints a more complex picture. (This is also why I rarely delve into these kinds of stories before we see actual maps, because they tend to be such a moving target.) It confirms Kaptur's claims that she'll be drawn into a district with Kucinich, and that Republicans Turner and Austria will get mashed up, but it also adds this bit of detail:
Republican and Democratic sources say that in Northeast Ohio, the plan will shift Copley Democrat Betty Sutton into a largely Republican district that's being constructed to favor the re-election of freshman GOP Rep. Jim Renacci of Wadsworth. […]
To enhance the re-election prospects of Columbus-area GOP incumbents Patrick Tiberi and Steve Stivers, both their districts will be redrawn to allow creation of a new Democratic seat in Franklin County.
Sources say that Tiberi's district will stretch into Richland and Marion counties, and include all of Licking, Delaware and Morrow counties. Stivers will have a peculiarly shaped district that includes Union, Madison and some of Clark counties.
Meanwhile, the Columbus Dispatch says that Sutton will be drawn into a district with Ryan. Really, though, I just want to see the maps, which supposedly will be out this week.