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Leading Off:
• FL-Gov: As clevelandpacha puts it, maybe Quinnipiac's new poll will be enough for Bill Nelson to realize that Charlie Crist's not "in trouble." Crist leads Republican Gov. Rick Scott 47-40, down a touch from his 47-37 edge in June, and given the Democratic Party's misfortunes of late, that's pretty darn good. It's also in spite of a huge drop in Crist's favorables, from 48-31 to 41-39. (Scott's have stayed essentially flat, at 39-42.) I'd also point out that Crist has led in every single public poll—ever. For a challenger, that's a rather nice place to be. It's long past time for Nelson to get on board.
Senate:
• LA-Sen: A new poll from Republican pollster Southern Media & Opinion Research (on whose behalf it's unclear) finds Democratic Sen. Mary Landrieu down at 41 percent, with GOP Rep. Bill Cassidy at 34. But before you decide that this represents doomsday for Landrieu, note that another Republican, Air Force vet Rob Maness, was also included in the matchup, because in Louisiana, all candidates from all parties run together in a so-called "jungle" primary. Maness takes 10 percent, which means that even with these tough numbers, Landrieu would make the runoff, where she's had success twice before.
• MI-Sen: Denno Research also had some Senate numbers, finding Dem Rep. Gary Peters edging Republican former SoS Terri Lynn Land 37-36. In July, they were tied at 39 apiece.
• SC-Sen-A/B: It's a commonplace these days in the GOP that senators in good standing with the conservative base will simply eschew endorsing their wobblier counterparts when they're up for re-election, but man, that's really not a good place for your party to be in, right? We've seen this behavior from the likes of Ted Cruz, so I guess it's not really news that Sen. Tim Scott has declined to back fellow Sen. Lindsey Graham. Both men must go before voters next year, but only Graham faces a competitive primary, so the cost to Scott would be minimal—yet he's still unwilling to help out. If I were a facile headline writer, I'd be reaching for "Republicans in Disarray."
• WY-Sen: Here's a surprisingly interesting piece from Politico on Liz Cheney's awful relationship with the Wyoming press—a relationship she sabotaged right from the start, making an unwise move in a state with a very strong newspaper tradition. (Why is that? Thinly populated but far-flung Wyoming has "a weak television broadcast network, allowing local papers to thrive.) After an early negative story about her, Cheney declared: "Newspapers are dying, and that's not a bad thing." Things have been bad for her with the media ever since.
Gubernatorial:
• ID-Gov: State Sen. Russ Fulcher looks like he's about to kick off his primary challenge to GOP Gov. Butch Otter this Saturday. (Annoyingly, he won't say for sure whether he's running, but he's doing one of those multi-stop announcements, which you don't do if you're not running.) Fulcher is ticked that Otter pushed the state of Idaho to create is own health insurance exchange under the Affordable Care Act. Otter has been gearing up to run for a third term but hasn't formally launched his own campaign yet.
House:
• AZ-02: A little while back, Stuart Rothenberg and company dinged Republican Martha McSally for her refusal to answer questions about her views on important legislation pending before Congress, and now local media is trying to pin her down, too. But McSally remains as wriggly as ever, and boy does she sound bad here:
In an interview with the Weekly earlier this month, McSally explained that she generally doesn't know enough about the details of legislation to make a good decision about how she would vote on it.
"I'm not in Congress, I don't have a staff, I don't have the briefings," McSally said. "I'm not going to spend all of my time making comments on legislation I haven't studied or been briefed on or have the same sort of opportunities that a member of Congress has. I'd be spending literally day and night if I'm going to comment on every single piece of legislation that comes up, and I'm not going to just willy-nilly go, 'Yeah, I would have voted for that or I wouldn't have voted for that' if I haven't really studied it."
McSally said sharing her general principles ought to be enough for voters, and that Southern Arizonans were not interested in how she would vote on legislation this year.
"The only people who are pushing me on this are the media," McSally said. "Not constituents. Not voters. Voters want to know what my philosophies are."
That's just not going to cut it.
• CA-15: I'm not sure this is the kind of help you actually want. Ex-Rep. Pete Stark, whose obnoxious behavior and bizarre lies led to his defeat last year by fellow Democrat Eric Swalwell, has pledged to aid state Senate Majority Leader Ellen Corbett in her efforts to unseat Swalwell in 2014. Corbett's run a very weird campaign: She never seemed to formally kick off her bid, and she's raised very little money for someone as well-connected as she ought to be. So if Stark, who says he'll put his considerable personal wealth to work, winds up as a top Corbett benefactor, that would just be one more strange development in an already odd race.
• FL-19: In case you missed it, GOP Rep. Trey Radel, at his late-night press conference on Wednesday, announced that he'd be taking a leave of absence from Congress to enter an in-patient drug treatment facility following his guilty plea to charges of cocaine possession. He did not say how long he might be gone, but in the meantime, other Republicans will have the chance to gear up for a challenge to Radel in the primary.
And one of them. businessman Brian Owens, who self-funded in the low six figures last year before dropping out of the GOP primary, says he might try running again if Radel resigns and prompts a special election. He sounds less interesting in challenging the incumbent, though he did call Radel a "scuzzbag."
• NRCC: The NRCC has launched the first round of its multi-tiered "Young Guns" program, highlighting 36 candidates on its lowest-level "On the Radar" list. None of the inclusions are particularly surprising; rather, it's the exclusions that are more notable. In some races, the committee has picked multiple candidates running in the same primary, while in others, it's clearly playing favorites. A few examples of the latter include AR-02 (where the NRCC is backing businessman French Hill, but not state Rep. Ann Clemmer), AZ-01 (state House Speaker Andy Tobin, but not state Rep. Adam Kwasman or businessman Gary Kiehne), and IL-11 (state Rep. Darlene Senger, but dissing a whole host of others).
There are also some noteworthy outright absences, with no candidates touted in four key swing districts: FL-18, NJ-03, TX-23, and FL-13, where a special election is on tap in March.
Other Races:
• NJ State Assembly: We're headed to recounts in two close New Jersey legislative races. In the 2nd District, Republican Assemblyman John Amodeo is contesting Democrat Vincent Mazzeo's 38-vote lead, while in the 38th, Republican Joseph Scarpa will seek to undo Democratic Assemblyman Tim Eustace's 54-vote advantage. Schedules for the two recounts have not yet been set.
• UT-AG: Republican state Attorney General John Swallow, who was first elected last year but has been engulfed in scandal since the moment he took office, is resigning his post, reportedly as part of a deal to avoid criminal charges. The allegations against Swallow include bribery and campaign finance violations. Gov. Gary Herbert will appoint a replacement, and a special election will be held for the final two years of Swallows' term in 2014. Weirdly, the Republican State Leadership Committee shelled out $250,000 last year to help elect Swallow. Money well spent.
Grab Bag:
• AFP/LCV: Two big outside spenders, one on the right and one on the left, are launching major new ad campaigns. The Koch brothers' Americans for Prosperity is running $4 million worth of commercials attacking six vulnerable Democrats with various women narrators complaining about Obamacare. Their list: Sens. Mark Begich (AK), Mary Landrieu (LA) and Kay Hagan (NC), and Reps. Ron Barber (AZ-02), Patrick Murphy (FL-18), and Joe Garcia (FL-26). Begich shot back that the ad targeting him features an actress from Maryland, not, you know, a constituent from Alaska.
Meanwhile, the League of Conservation Voters is spending $1 million on ads praising five different Democrats for leadership on various environmental issues. For instance, they commend Hagan for fighting against mercury pollution. They're also helping Reps. Pete Gallego (TX-23) and Scott Peters (CA-52), who have competitive races against Republicans, and Sen. Brian Schatz (HI), who faces a primary challenge from Rep. Colleen Hanabusa. LCV is also fluffing Nevada Sen. Harry Reid, who doesn't go before voters again until 2016.
• Site News: There won't be a Live Digest on Friday, which in turn means no Morning Digest on Monday. We'll resume our normal schedule next week, though we'll be taking off for Thanksgiving as well.