Here's your regular Orange to Blue race news.
Speaker Pelosi Project:
FL-26: Benenson Strategy Group polled the district for the DCCC, and yes, Joe Garcia still leads haplessly inept criminal Rep. David Rivera, 46-35.
When asked unprompted what they have heard or read about Rivera, 38% mention something about the ethics charges swirling around Rivera. Specifically, 20% say that he is dishonest or corrupt, 10% say that he is under investigation by the FBI, 4% mention that he has been involved with questionable campaign contributions, and 4% say that he paid a candidate to run against Garcia.
The ethical issues are becoming well known and threatening Rivera’s re-election. Rivera’s corruption has helped give Garcia an 11% lead, despite the fact that Republicans have a registration advantage and President Obama only leads Romney by 1%.
IL-13: David Gill had a
good quarter, raising $430,000 with three-quarters of it coming from individual donations averaging about $60. Unfortunately,
But seven separate so-called "super PACs" have entered the race against Gill, spending about $2 million that is separate from the money spent by the Davis campaign. Gill said another $1.5 million to $2 million in television advertising has been reserved for negative ads against him in the last three weeks of the race.
MN-06: Jim Graves had a
good quarter in his effort to unseat Michele Bachmann, raising $669,000 and loaning his campaign another $270,000 for a cool million for the period.
Graves received more in donations than every other U.S. House incumbent in Minnesota aside from Bachmann, who raised $4.5 million in the most recent quarter.
In mixed news, the only independent poll in the race in weeks, from SUSA, has
Bachmann leading, 50-41. However, Bachmann is almost underwater on her approval rating, 40 percent disapprove and 40 percent approve; the two evenly split independent voters; and there are still a lot of undecided voters in the race. Moreover, another
internal poll, by the respected Greenberg Quinlan Rosner, for Graves done the first week of October shows the race right where it was in June and August, with a two-point lead for Bachmann, 47-45. This poll has Graves up with independents 53-36.
NH-01, NH-02: Politico provides potential motivation for helping out Carol Shea-Porter and Annie Kuster:
If Democrats Carol Shea-Porter and Ann McLane Kuster prevail—they’re both waging comebacks after losing two years ago—it would be a show of buyer’s remorse and cast doubts on Boehner’s ability to forge a lasting, and robust GOP majority.
WI-07 Score one for
Pat Kreitlow and the fact checkers,
who say Rep. Sean Duffy's latest ad that asserts "Pat Kreitlow supports bailing out Wall Street again. Kreitlow's plan props up reckless big banks with taxpayer dollars" is full of it. Well, actually they say misleading, but it amounts to the same thing.
Upgrade the Senate:
CT-Sen: Linda McMahon's emergency rape comments in last night's debate were just the latest debacle for her in debates. Chris Murphy won another one, and as for McMahon, here's one local pundit's assessment.
I think Linda McMahon might have done better at Monday night's Senate debate with Chris Murphy if she had simply taken out a cigarette lighter and set hundred-dollar bills on fire.
At least that's how I have seen McMahon's performance in the last three debates of the race; there goes a lot more of the McMahon fortune down the drain.
NM-Sen: Republican Heather Wilson is trying to peel Democrats away from
Martin Heinrich by appealing to women particularly with a new ad. She's
got to try something.
Here's the underlying issue: Democrats substantially outnumber Republicans in New Mexico, so in a statewide race a Republican needs to pick up Democratic and independent voters. The newAlbuquerque Journal poll shows Wilson actually losing ground among both key groups of voters.
OH-Sen: Josh Mandel is really bad at winning friends and influencing people in his bid to unseat Sherrod Brown. Case in point, telling Ohio voters in yesterday's campaign that all of the state's auto jobs shouldn't have been saved, and the auto bailout was wrong.
Daily Kos for Marriage Equality:
Maine: The Portland City Council has unanimously endorsed the marriage equality proposal on Maine's ballot in a resolution passed Monday night.
Maryland: Marylanders for Marriage Equality, the main committee backing marriage equality in the state, released their first ad to run in the Washington, D.C. market on Monday. The ad features Julan Bond, NAACP chairman emeritus.
Minnesota: Here's a shock. Minnesota Republican strategist Michael Brodkorb, who lost his job in the legislature after a sex scandal, is coming clean on the gay marriage ban amendment his party put on the ballot.
“It provided a turnout opportunity for Republicans,” he said. [...]
Top GOP leaders thought they couldn’t beat incumbent Democratic Senator Amy Klobuchar, and Republicans would stay home.
“The belief was, the United States senate race was not going to be close, and that Republicans needed and social conservatives needed a reason to get to the polls in November,” he said.
Nothing personal, gay people. We just need to boost turnout in this election, so your civil rights have to go.